The Atomic Bomb, the Redemption of Harry Truman and the Tyranny of George W. Bush

[Time for change]

The atomic bomb, the most horrendous weapon known to humanity, has been used twice in the history of the world – both times on the orders of Harry S. Truman, President of the United States in 1945. On August 6, 1945, it was used on Hiroshima, Japan, resulting in 120,000 to 150,000 civilian deaths, and three days later it was used on Nagasaki, resulting in 70,000 to 80,000 civilian deaths, culminating in the surrender of Japan and the end of World War II.

Today for the first time in over four decades, with the ascension of the Bush/Cheney presidential administration, it looks like there is a good possibility that the atomic bomb may be used again. For that reason, it is crucially important that Americans – and their elected representatives in Congress – give a great deal of thought to this possibility. More specifically, it is important that we consider the events surrounding our initial use of the atomic bomb, the decision to use it, the effects of its use, the reasons why it hasn’t been used since 1945, the implications of its use today, and what can be done to stop its use by U.S. “leaders” who have repeatedly proven that they do not have the character to be trusted with such decisions.

I should acknowledge that there are few things in my life that have caused me as much cognitive dissonance as Harry Truman’s ordering of our atomic attacks on Japan. I have read several books that deal with Truman and his decision to use the atomic bomb – some very much approving of that decision and some very much disapproving of it, but none neutral on the subject. I have to say that there is now little or no doubt in my mind that Truman’s decision to use the bomb was a grave mistake. Yet I feel that Harry Truman was basically a good man. As a U.S. Senator from Missouri, he courageously led investigations that uncovered a great deal of corruption in high levels of government. On becoming President of the United States, he expressed a degree of humility rarely seen in high level politicians in our country when he said, upon receiving the news that he was now President of the United States, that he “felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me”. As President of the United States, he courageously racially integrated our armed forces, against intense opposition. And he was the first U.S. President who attempted to provide Americans with comprehensive health insurance. Yet, he is ultimately responsible for perhaps the single most barbaric act in the history of the world. That’s why I have felt so much cognitive dissonance regarding him.


Why the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan was a grave mistake

The most thorough and definitive account I have read on the subject of Truman’s use of the atomic bomb, in my opinion, was written by James Carroll in “House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power”.

The primary justification used to defend the decision to drop atomic bombs on the two populous Japanese cities was that the only alternative was an American invasion of Japan that would have cost up to a half a millions American lives, not to mention a large number of Japanese lives as well. Carroll devotes several pages to explaining why, by August, 1945, the war could have been easily ended without an invasion of Japan or additional fighting. The crux of the matter was summed up by General Eisenhower, who later expressed:

my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our nation should avoid shocking world opinion by use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory to save American lives.

Carroll goes on:

At that point, almost none of Truman’s inner circle thought that an invasion of Japan would be necessary to end the war. Stimson (Secretary of Defense) knew in July that diplomacy was competing with war as a way to bring hostilities to a conclusion. More explicitly, he knew that Japanese leaders had been sending out peace feelers since April…

Then why did Truman order the atomic attacks on the two Japanese cities? The gist of the matter is that there were a number of war hawks in the Truman administration who aggressively lobbied Truman for its use. Foremost among their motives was that they believed that use of the bomb would intimidate the Soviet Union into being more submissive, but they probably had other motives as well, including sadly misplaced revenge.


The human effects of our nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The initial bomb blast caused a flash of light and heat that vaporized the eyes of many who saw it, followed by the bursting out of flames as far as 4,000 yards from the epicenter, with temperatures as high as 1800 degrees Celsius, and then a shock wave. Within two weeks, probably more than 200 thousand people died in the two cities, of the initial bomb blast, thermal injuries or radiation sickness. Survivors were plagued by the effects of their initial injuries, an excess cancer risk lasting for years, an excess risk of leukemia lasting to this day, survivor’s guilt, and mental impairment for those who were exposed to radiation in utero.

A Japanese Catholic priest whose eyes were not vaporized by the light from the explosion wrote this eye witness account of the bombing of Hiroshima:

It had been there just a few minutes before, but is was absolutely gone. There was fire everywhere. It was all so unreal. For a moment I didn’t know if I was alive or if I had died and gone to hell. Then I felt pain and knew that I must be alive… Then I saw people streaming by. They were fleeing to the riverbank, all horribly burned and in extreme pain. They came from the city center and seemed extremely thirsty, for I saw them slide down the embankment right into the water, where they tried to drink. Their hands were too burned to scoop up the water, so they put their heads into the water and tried to swallow. But the tide was just coming in, and the salt water burned their faces and their lips. Many just slumped in the water and lost consciousness and were covered by the tide. Others jumped in and drowned. Soon the river was filled with hundreds of bodies floating out to sea.

And here is a description of one of the hundreds of thousands of survivors:

Yamaoka's 15-year-old face was destroyed in an instant. Even today, after over two dozen operations and under heavy make-up, it looks mottled and lumpy, like it has been reconstructed from burnt clay. She rarely looks at interviewers directly… It was her mother who helped pull her from the wreckage; face swollen like a balloon, skin hanging from her arms in ribbons. "I lost all my hair and there was blood when I went to the toilet. My face was so awful I hid for a long time. If I had been alone I probably would have killed myself but my mother was there every day taking care of me, even though she was sick herself. I stayed alive for her. She told me to live." Her mother died in 1979; when they cremated her body they found shards of glass in the ashes, still embedded deep in her body from the force of the bomb.

Why has an atomic attack not been perpetrated on the world since 1945?

On November 24th, 1950, China entered the Korean War, sending hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers against General MacArthur’s forces, resulting in a retreat which looked like it may turn into the worst military defeat in U.S. history.

Truman’s initial response to this was to take “whatever steps are necessary” to stem the tide of defeat. When asked by a reporter at a press conference on November 30th whether that included the use of atomic weapons, Truman deferred that decision to the military.

But then, Harry Truman began to exhibit heroic actions and decisions that George W. Bush will never be remotely capable of: He recognized that he had committed a terrible mistake and began to take corrective action; he recognized that so-called “victory” is not worth the costs of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives; and he recognized that the use of atomic weapons should be undertaken only under the gravest of circumstances – if at all; in short, he exhibited one of the most remarkable and influential individual transformations in the history of the world.

At the very same press conference where he deferred the use of atomic weapons to the U.S. military, Truman demonstrated his second thoughts about the atomic bomb by saying “It is a terrible weapon and it should not be used on innocent men, women, and children who have nothing whatever to do with this military aggression. That happens when it is used.” He soon issued a “clarifying” statement which made clear that the use of the atomic bomb remained under the President’s sole authority, and that he had made no decision to use it.

MacArthur put great pressure on Truman to order the use of the bomb, saying that we faced imminent defeat (see 3rd paragraph) without it. In the following weeks Truman faced repeated pressure from his closest advisors to use the bomb against China, and he repeatedly refused to do so.

Later, he described the reasons for his steadfast decision not to use the bomb: “I could not bring myself to order the slaughter of 25,000,000 noncombatants… I just could not make the order for a Third World War.”

Carroll describes the monumental importance of Truman’s transformation, and how it relates to the present day:

The point is that, just as Truman changed the course of history by deciding to use the bomb in 1945, he changed the course of history again by deciding not to use it in 1950… Truman’s decision here put in place three pillars on which the rest of U.S. policy in the Cold War stood. Two of those pillars still thankfully undergird the fragile world. First, in a century defined by total war, Truman established the precedent of limited war. Some things are not worth the cost of victory. Second, Truman, having first loosed the atomic bomb, now established a taboo against its use ever again. American leaders, including Truman himself later in the war, might threaten nuclear use, but they would again and again stop short of ordering it. If Truman had allowed his commanders any use of atomic weapons whatsoever, even if as an act of successful prevention …. there is no doubt that subsequent presidents and other leaders of nuclear powers would have followed suit…

The third pillar of U.S. policy put in place here stood until the administration of George W. Bush. In vetoing an expansion of the Korean conflict into a preemption of the Soviet Union, Truman rejected the then much touted idea of preventive war – the idea that, as one of his advisers put it, America should become an “aggressor for peace”… And the notion of preventive war is back in the center of American geopolitical orthodoxy.

Implications of use of atomic weapons by the United States today

Well, Carroll’s comparison of the policies of Truman with those of George W. Bush are right on the money, except for one omission, which could be explained by the fact that Carroll’s book was copyrighted some time in 2006: It is not only the 3rd pillar of American policies of military restraint that George W. Bush has destroyed. He appears to be set to destroy the other two as well.

With the deployment of US aircraft-carriers to the Persian Gulf and George W. Bush’s continuing bellicose statements against Iran in his January State of the Union address, it appears highly likely that he intends to start a war against Iran. Furthermore, there are strong indications, such as military exercises involving the use of nuclear weapons, that Bush intends to use nuclear weapons against Iran, in an attempt to destroy their alleged nuclear capabilities. As recently noted by John Pilger:

For the first time since the most dangerous years of the cold war, the use of what were then called "limited" nuclear weapons is being discussed openly in Washington. What they are debating is the prospect of other Hiroshimas and of radioactive fallout across the Middle East and central Asia. Seymour Hersh disclosed in the New Yorker last year that American bombers "have been flying simulated nuclear weapons delivery missions . . . since last summer"… The well-informed Arab Times in Kuwait says that Bush will attack Iran before the end of April.

But the concept of “limited” nuclear weapons, sometimes referred to as “mini-nukes”, is highly misleading. As described in the Journal of the Federation of American Scientists:

The use of any nuclear weapon capable of destroying a buried target that is otherwise immune to conventional attack will necessarily produce enormous numbers of civilian casualties. No earth-burrowing missile can penetrate deep enough into the earth to contain an explosion with a nuclear yield even as small as 1 percent of the 15 kiloton Hiroshima weapon. The explosion simply blows out a massive crater of radioactive dirt, which rains down on the local region with an especially intense and deadly fallout.

What would be the effects of a nuclear attack on Iran other than the immediate deaths of thousands of civilians?

Tehran has confirmed that it will retaliate if attacked, in the form of ballistic missile strikes directed against Israel (CNN, 8 Feb 2005). These attacks, could also target US military facilities in Iraq and Persian Gulf, which would immediately lead us into a scenario of military escalation and all out war…. The air strikes against Iran could contribute to unleashing a war in the broader Middle East Central Asian region.

Will Congress have the courage to say no to a nuclear attack?

This is like the lead-up to the Iraq War all over again. George W. Bush grossly exaggerating another alleged threat to U.S. security, so that he can pursue a war and occupation of yet another country, in his never ending quest for yet more oil, more war profiteering, more glory him as our “War President”, and most important of all, more power.

The American people voted for a Democratic Congress last November primarily because they were disgusted with the Iraq War. They certainly don’t want to see expansion of the war to yet another country or to the whole Middle East. Can anyone with a modicum of intelligence seriously believe George Bush when he beats the drums for yet another war? Our Democratic Congress needs to step up and do something about this. We need leaders – candidates for President – who are willing to say what needs to be said, without regard to the consequences to their own political careers – leaders like Dennis Kucinich, Wes Clark, Al Gore, and Russ Feingold.

John Pilger summed up our current situation in his recent article, “Iran, The War Begins”, with a statement that referred to journalists but which could just as well have referred to the U.S. Congress. They are, he said:

as silent as a dark West End theatre. What are they waiting for? The declaration of another thousand-year Reich, or a mushroom cloud in the Middle East, or both?

[kimmerspixelated]

1. Excellent Post!

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

2. All nuclear weapons should be destroyed.

No country has the right to have them.

[slackmaster]

5. That would be great, but hard to see how it could be engineered

It's impossible to un-invent the Bomb.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

7. We have already signed agreements to destroy our nukes.

[slackmaster]

10. Yup, and there are plenty of states and organizations that haven't

Even enforcing the treaties in place will be difficult. Preventing rogue states and NGOs from developing and implementing the technology will be harder, and that will be the case forever.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

12. Of course it will be difficult,

But if not one country has the right to have nuclear weapons it takes away the need to have them. these are not weapons, a weapon is something you can use. I say again. NO COUNTRY HAS THE RIGHT TO NUCLEAR WEAPONS !

[krispos42]

22. On the contrary, these are weapons we can use

We have set strict limits on when and how we can use them, limits so strict that they have not yet been met since the end of World War Two.

We are also a sovereign nation, answering to no other authority but to ourselves. We have not signed any treaty giving away the right to have nuclear weapons, so we by default have the right to nuclear weapons.

The 'if only nobody had nukes nobody would need to have them' argument is false. Nuclear weapons are the great equalizer. If you don't believe me, then look at North Korea versus Iraq. One had nukes, so we invaded the other. We did not dare attack the one with nukes because a nuclear defensive strike by North Korea on us or our allies was too high of a price to pay.

With our invasion of Iraq, every penny of North Korea's nuclear weapons program was instantly justified.

It is like saying that if we took away all guns, then nobody would need them to defend themselves. Yet asking Nicole Richie to take on Sylvester Stallone hand-to-hand is obviously unfair.

The use of nuclear weapons is obviously a terrible thing. They cannot be used 'sparingly', which is something that BushCo thinks they can do. But it is the threat of use that keeps them from being used.

This situation sucks. But it works. No nation in the world will ever launch a nuclear missile at us. And any nation that makes a nuclear weapon, then smuggles it into the US and detonates it, will also face retaliation. This is why, I think, North Korea and Pakistan have not given any nuclear weapons to any terrorists. They know we will track down the source and nuke it back.

[Time for change]

37. You make some good points, however

They do not necessarily have to act as an equalizer, as you say. When they do act as an equalizer then that's fine. But in the hands of a mad man they can result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives and the ruining of hundreds of thousands of additional lives. We are fortunate that that hasn't yet happened in the 62 years since the atom bomb was first used. But we are now faced with a situation where their extended use does not seem improbable at all.

[krispos42]

38. That is true except that a madman can make them anyway

That is what worries me. The world disarms, yet one country secretly builds a few nuclear bombs and suddenly demands surrender or death.

In some ways it is like the attempt in some coutries to ban civilian-owned guns. The only problem is that in a country with no legal gun ownership, there is still the police to step in if a madman holds a shopping mall hostage at gunpoint. There are no aliens we can call on to help us with phasers and photon torpedoes if North Korea owns the only nuclear arsenal on earth.

North Korea wants energy help in exchange for taking it's plutonium and uranium out of circulation and under international monitoring. I'd say it's worth a few hundred thousand barrels of crude a year for the peace of mind.

[Time for change]

16. I tend to agree with you, but I also think that the issue is complex

The main reason given for having them is that their very existence is likely to prevent a lot of war. If that was true it would be a good argument. And there is at least some evidence that it IS true to some extent. That is, of course, the fact that during the 50+ years of the the Cold War, there was never a hot war between the Soviet Union and the United States or any Western European country.

On the other hand, there have been plenty of other wars, as well as some close calls for potential WW III. In addition, the arms races have been tremendously expensive and diverted a great deal of money and resources from other things which could have been of great benefit to humanity.

But most important of all is that the potential always existed that some rogue nation (the U.S., for example) would elect some idiot evil bastard who would actually use it. In some ways it seems amazing that the atomic bomb hasn't been used in all this time. But now with Bush and Cheney at the helm it seems likely that it will be.

Of course, to say that no country has the right to have them doesn't have much usefulness in reality unless there is some international system that could enforce the ban -- and that international system doesn't currently exist. If it did exist, then I would assume that the mechanism would also exist to prevent war in general.

That's what we as a nation, and the world also, should be aiming for. But that will never begin to occur with Bush and Cheney in charge of the most powerful military on Earth.

[whistle]

3. Both Bush 1 and Bush 2 have used depleted uranium in Iraq

...as well as in Afghanistan, but then I guess Clinton allowed the use of DU in Kosavo as well. Every president since Truman has used the threat of nuclear war and expanded the U.S. nuclear arsenal so it really has become what Robert Oppenheimer said that he recalled thinking:

"...He later recalled that while witnessing the explosion he thought of a verse from the Hindu holy book, the Bhagavad Gita:

If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one...

Years later he would explain that another verse had also entered his head at that time:

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."<11>

According to his brother, at the time he simply exclaimed, "It worked." News of the successful test was rushed to President Harry S. Truman, who authorized the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Oppenheimer later became an important figure in the debates on the repercussions of this act.

<link> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer

[Time for change]

20. I wonder what Oppenheimer meant by those statements

James Carroll mentioned those quotes in his book, but he didn't know what Oppenheimer meant by them.

[krispos42]

23. That uranium was not part of a nuclear weapon, however

It was used in the form of armor-piercing projectiles.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Kicked and recommended.... excellent synops. n/t

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

6. " What would be the effects of a nuclear attack on Iran ? "

If that unthinkable act happened I would urge a general strike countrywide and removal of the administration.

[Time for change]

36. I would urge that they be removed BEFORE they're given the opportunity

to start a nuclear war.

If Bush and Cheney don't warrant impeachment, then they may as well remove the impeachment clause from the Constitution:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3021745

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

8. When Kerry was asked what is the most important issue ?

He reply ed, " nuclear weapons "

[Bonobo]

9. K&R.

It is impossible to justify the use of nuclear (atomic) weapons in the past without, at the same time, justifying the potential use of them sometime in the future.

THAT is why their use must be condemned, whether that be on the past or in the future. Any such justification MUST be met with resistance or we will be allowing the creation of conditions which will forgive their use by someone else or us.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

11. I agree.

[Bonobo]

17. Kicked!

[Time for change]

18. Exactly --

That is why efforts to expand the defense budget, especially with respect to nuclear weapons, go hand in hand with efforts to justify the initial use of the bomb.

And it also explains all the secrecy surrounding our initial use of the atomic bomb, which is discussed on this thread, which I just saw today:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=146493&mesg_id=146493

Our Congress better wake up and do something before it's too late.

[happyslug]

13. People MUST understand what was happening in the Summer of 1945

Hitler had been defeated and Germany had Surrendered on May 7th, 1945 (Officially effective May 8th, 1945, the day it is celebrated in the Former Soviet Union). By the terms of the Yalta Agreement Stalin had ot launch an attack on Japan within Three months of May 8th, (i.e. August 8th, 1945). By the time of the summer of 1945 Japan had indicated it was willing to surrender on terms (one of which was that the Emperor would stay Emperor) but the US had NOT accepted those terms (And the US wanted to OCCUPY Japan, something Japan opposed at first).

At the same time, do to the rise of the Japanese Militarists in the early 1930s, the ONLY Japanese Leaders NOT tied in with the Militarists was sitting in Moscow and still leading the Japanese Communist Party.

Do to Letye Gulf the Japanese Navy was gone (and what survived was sunk off Okinawa) so the only Defense Japan had was its Army sitting in Manchuria (WHich Japan started to pull back to Japan, but many in the Japanese Army wanted to hold onto Chinese Territory as a bargaining chip during the Surrender negotiations.

Anyway that was situation in the Summer of 1945. The big fear of the US was that the Soviet Union WOULD launch its attack on August 8th and cut through the Japanese Army and take Korea by the end of October (When the Soviet DID attack, they were on that pace when Japan Surrendered on August 15th, 1945).

In my opinion the US bombed Japan to get them to Surrender BEFORE the Soviet Union could intervene. Japan thought it had time thinking that the Soviet Union would NOT attack till November when the Japanese-Soviet Non-aggression pact expired (Stalin seems to have wanted to wait till the end of the pact term, but FDR had pressured him to agreeing to attack early during the Yalta Discussion). When the Soviet Union DID intervene the Japanese Leadership knew it had a limited time to surrender or face a SOVIET invasion of the Home Islands at the same time the US would invade on or about November 1, 1945. The atomic bombing was the US trying to provide an excuse for the Japanese Leadership to surrender BEFORE Soviet Intervention in the home islands.

Thus Truman had reasons to drop the A-Bomb on Japan in 1945 that did NOT exist in 1950. Mao was NOT about to surrender to the US do to the US dropping a few bombs on China. The Soviet Union was valuable to A-bombing, but the US had limited number of planes that could REACH the central part of the Soviet Union with an atomic payload (This was the B-36, the B-52 would not be in service till the mid-1950s, and the B-47s and B-29s could reach parts of European Russia from US bases iN England, but no one wanted B-29s or B-47s in Germany and France (Do to strong Communist parties in BOTH countries). As to the B-29s in Japan, B-29s and B-47s had limited reach in Asiatic Russia. Thus in 1950 the US had a limited ability to get political/military results from using Atomic Bombs, unlike 1945 where the Political affects of the A-bombing providing an excuse for Japan to surrender was huge.

Yes, it is my belief that the main reason Japan Surrendered on August 15th, 1945 was do to the Soviet Invasion NOT the Atomic Bombing. The Japanese Leadership PANICKED and as long as the US was willing to preserve the Emperor Surrendered rather than face Soviet troops on the Japanese Home Islands.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

14. That was then. This is now.

[Time for change]

19. That is not the way I understand the situation

US fear that the USSR would launch an attack on Japan on August 8th and attack Korea? I Never heard that, and if the USSR was that close to attacking when we bombed Japan, I would think it should have been widely known and reported.

Do you have a reference or link for that?

[stormymonday]

27. Read about Operation August Storm

The stunning speed with which the USSR overwhelmed a large Japanese army in Manchuria came as a shock to both the Imperial government in Tokyo and Stalin's western allies. Whether the Soviets would have been able to invade Korea and Hokkaidō as planned is not certain. What is not in doubt is that the USSR had the best military in the world at that time (as any German soldier would surely have vouched). Given that fact it seems that Washington and Tokyo decided not to take any chances.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_August_Storm

[Time for change]

29. Very interesting -- That begs the question, if indeed fear of USSR invasion of Japan was a reason

for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, why that reason has not entered into the official explanations for its use.

Have you ever seen that used as an official explanation, or is that explanation based on the analysis of historians?

Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, wrote the official defense of the decision (and the one that is most often quoted) in Harper's magazine in 1947:
http://www.aasianst.org/EAA/StimsonHarpers.pdf

He doesn't mention the fear of a USSR invasion as the reason. James Carroll summarized the article. Quoting Stimson:

This deliberate, premeditated destruction was our least abhorrent choice. The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki put an end to the Japanese war. It stopped the fire raids, and the strangling blockade; it ended the ghastly specter of a clash of great land armies.

Carroll goes on:

Stimson, like Truman before and Churchill after him, knew the importance of publicizing the costs of that alternative -- for public relations reasons, not to wrestle with the morality of it. A detailed accounting of what the invasion would entail first appeared here: five million U.S. soldiers, combat lasting well into 1946, more than a million American casualties.

But Carroll goes into great detail to show that the war could have been ended peacefully -- and well before the bomb was dropped. If fear of a Soviet invasion of mainland Japan was so great, and if that was the reason for the use of the bomb, then why didn't we use diplomatic means to end the war sooner? As Carroll explains:

Stimson's account is more nuanced in his memoir ... In that book, Stimson emphasizes the Japanese objective with their various spring and summer "peace feelers"... Stimson, by his own account and that of others, was one of those who wanted to adjust this demand (unconditional surrender) in ways that might induce a Japanese surrender...

The primary concern in Tokyo... was the fate of the Emperor. To the Japanese he was a divine being, and it was unthinkable that he be harmed or humiliated... Japanese diplomats wanted an assurance that the Emperor's status would be respected. On July 13, for example, the Americans read in a cable that Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo sent to his ambassador in Moscow, who was urgently seeking an end to the war: "Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace."...

Stimson had proposed to General Marshall an abandonment of the term "unconditional surrender" as defining the war's aim... Another who favored stepping back from unconditional surrender was Winston Churchill...

Truman acted under the express influence of his new secretary of state, James F. Byrnes. The redrafted ultimatum included a sentence Byrnes composed... "There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan".

And the tragedy of the refusal to abandon the concept of "unconditional surrender" is that we never achieved that goal anyhow, even after two atomic bombs. Carroll continues:

Not even the two atomic bombs brought about the unconditional surrender of Japan... Washington received a Morse code message from the Japanese leadership body, the Imperial Conference. "The Japanese Government," it said, "is ready to accept the terms enumerated in the joint declaration which was issued at Potsdam with the understanding that said declaration does not compromise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler."

The Americans accepted that, and the war was over. But there seems to be little reason why the same couldn't have been accomplished several days or weeks earlier, without use of the two bombs.

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. Oh that reason has entered official explanations

At least at the college level

When I took my course work in WW II

We went thought the bombing.

There were several reasons given for it, not in order of importance

1.- The reticnense of the War Council that sill was tied up on surrender even after Nagasaki, the Emperor broke the tie

2.- Expected casaulty numbers in Operation Olympic

3.- The Russian threat to the Western Pacific.

Those were the chief reasons... the first two are usually emphasized in lower levels of historical training since they are easier to comprehend, but the thrid one, in my mind is the most important reason for the bombing, with number one a very close second. It was a signal, to both Moscow and Tokyo.

To Moscow, well keep going you're next. and to Tokyo... we will use this even more times, surrender now. (And a third device would have been ready by the 18th, and things got a little tense along the Kurile Islands, by the way)

I might add at no time in the discusion was the quetion of morality even considered, all this is seen by the pros in a purely strategic question.

[Time for change]

35. There are two different issues regarding the fear of the USSR

One was the more general desire to intimidate them with power, so as to put them on notice that they should not mess with us or be too aggressive about their imperial ambitions. That is the reason that I have seen written about, though never as an "official" explanation, meaning an explanation given by our government.

The other issue, which you and others seem to be referring to, is the issue of an imminent attack upon Japan. That we needed to accomplish a Japanese surrender prior to a USSR invasion of Japan. What doesn't make sense to me about that explanation, other than the fact that I have never seen it provided as an "official" explanation by our government, is that if we were so afraid of an imminent USSR invasion, then why didn't we hurry up with diplomatic efforts to force a surrender, which all the evidence seems to suggest would not have been very difficult at all, as I explain here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=170071&mesg_id=174548

[nadinbrzezinski]

39. Actually given that the War Council

was split three to three even after Nagasaki and the Emperor had to break the tie

And that an officer attemted a coup on the night of the 14th, belies the fact they were ready to surrender/

Also explanations don't have to be official to be regognized as part of the historical record

Most folks who believe it was

1.- A message to the rueskies

2.- A message to the Japanese Governemt

Have drawn these conclusions from avallable declasified material. You really don't need the governemtn to come out and ssy it... it is in the National Archives in declasified material.

Perhaps readying some scholarly papers on the subject might help you in this regard. The last time I read them was a while ago... but the Journal of the American Historical Association prints relvelant articles every so often.

[newyawker99]

30. Hi stormymonday!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[pampango]

28. The USSR did attack Japan. They took the Kuril Islands

and the southern half of Sakhalin Island which belonged to Japan. The USSR did attack Korea a few days and conquered the northern half which is how North Korea can into being.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakhalin
http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa021400a.htm

[Time for change]

31. Nice map in your link

It gives a clear picture of the geographical relationships of the attacked islands in relationship to the mainlands of Japan and Korea.

I'm not sure what this says about the reason for the atomic bomb attacks on Japan. I have never seen the fear of a USSR attack on Japan officially noted as a reason for our use of the atomic bomb. Henry Stimson, the USSR Secretary of War, defended it by noting that the alternative was a long drawn out American war with Japan. If a USSR takeover of Japan was the reason, why didn't he talk about that? That would have made a lot more sense than the reason that he gave. Please see my post # 29 for a more complete discussion of this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=170071&mesg_id=174548

[Buck Rabbit]

41. Fear of the USSR couldn't be part of the official reason.

1- Russia was our most powerful military ally. FDR had spent a good deal of the last year of the war planning for the post war era including Soviet participation in his vision of the planned UN. He gave Stalin the honor of taking Berlin even though the Germans were leaving the roads wide open to the Americans and British, praying they would arrive before the Russians. It was FDR that pushed for Soviet participation in the war against Japan even setting the date range, within 3 months of the fall of Germany. Stimson and Truman had a different perspective on the Russians than FDR.

2- It blew the official excuse that the Bombs were needed to prevent a necessary US invasion. That excuse doesn't sound very good if it is pointed out that by the time of the November US invasion the Russians would already be there.

[happyslug]

32. Look at a map, Manchuria is on the way to Korea and Japan.

Remember the Soviet Union went to war with JAPAN, to attack JAPAN the best way is via Manchuria and then Korea. After the war ended the US picked the 38th Parallel as the division between where US and Soviet Troops were to occupy Korea (Thus the reason North and South Korea was divided).

Now the Soviet Union also took the Northern Island but that was for access to the sea, NOT to attack Japan itself. That was a separate Attack with a separate Agenda, the main attack was Manchuria and then Korea.

[Buck Rabbit]

40. Great post but I disagree with an important part of it.

The Japanese were being routed in Manchuria by the Soviets and the loss of its biggest offshore army was Japan's greatest blow to continuing the war. The tentative US invasion wasn't scheduled for November if at all. Tentative as it was considered a last resort and had no actual backing by anyone but MacArthur and the Navy was dead set against it. By November the need for an invasion would be mute anyway. The US would have an arsenal of dozens of nukes by then and frankly thousands of Soviet T34 tanks would be running around the Japenese home islands at will.

The Japanese were stunned by the Soviet attack in Manchuria, though the US knew it was coming because FDR had demanded it at Yalta and it was right on schedule, 3 months after the fall of Germany.

So I agree with your post including Truman's incentive for use of the Bombs was to get a piece of the settlement and the central role in the occupation instead of Japan becoming part of the Iron Curtain.

Where I disagree was how he used the bombs. He had time, perhaps a month maybe two, before the Soviets would be firmly on the the Japanese home Islands. In that month he would have several bombs not just two at his disposal. He had ample time to demonstrate the power of the bomb in an offshore blast and if needed the South slopes of Mt Fuji or even true military targets like coastal defense fortifications. At the same time he demonstrated its power he could have demonstrated our humanity in choice of targets. Frankly, it was stupid to not do the offshore demonstration first in case the bomb duded you wouldn't want it to land in the middle of an enemy city.

Once Russia had attacked in Manchuria and proven to be unstoppable by the Japanese military any good excuse to surrender to the Americans instead would be preferred and taken, as happened.

[ProgressiveFool]

15. K & R

nt

[dethl]

21. The only thing holding the world together is the promise of total annihilation.

If * decided to use a nuke, in any shape, manner or form, we can expect our world as we know it to end.

Edited spelling.

[OneBlueSky]

24. great post . . . thank you! . . . n/t

.

[LynnTheDem]

25. Truman also stopped the planned 3rd US atomic bombing, saying

"The thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible,"he said; he didn’t like the idea of killing "all those kids"

Too bad about "all those kids" slaughtered by Truman's first 2 atomic bombs.

[malaise]

26. Superb post

How evil is man.

[Uncle Joe]

34. Thanks for the thread, Time for change

Kicked and recommended