Enola Gay
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Ike: "It Wasn't Necessary to Hit Them With That Awful Thing"
The Decision to Bomb Hiroshima
By GAR ALPEROVITZ
Today is the 66th anniversary of the bombing of
Hiroshima. Though most Americans are unaware of the
fact, increasing numbers of historians now recognize the
United States did not need to use the atomic bomb to end
the war against Japan in 1945. Moreover, this essential
judgment was expressed by the vast majority of top
American military leaders in all three services in the
years after the war ended: Army, Navy and Army Air
Force. Nor was this the judgment of "liberals," as is
sometimes thought today. In fact, leading conservatives
were far more outspoken in challenging the decision as
unjustified and immoral than American liberals in the
years following World War II.
By the summer of 1945 Japan was essentially defeated,
its navy at the bottom of the ocean; its air force
limited by fuel, equipment, and other shortages; its
army facing defeat on all fronts; and its cities
subjected to bombing that was all but impossible to
challenge. With Germany out of the war, the United
States and Britain were about to bring their full power
to bear on what was left of the Japanese military.
Moreover, the Soviet Union—at this point in time still
neutral—was getting ready to attack on the Asian
mainland: the Red Army, fresh from victory over Hitler,
was poised to strike across the Manchurian border.
Long before the bombings occurred in August 1945—indeed,
as early as late April 1945, more than three months
before Hiroshima—U.S. intelligence advised that the
Japanese were likely to surrender when the Soviet Union
entered the war if they were assured that it did not
imply national annihilation. An April 29 Joint
Intelligence Staff document put it this way: "If at any
time the U.S.S.R. should enter the war, all Japanese
will realize that absolute defeat is inevitable."
For this reason—because it would drastically shorten the
war—before the atomic bomb was successfully tested (on
July 16, 1945) the U.S. had strongly and repeatedly
urged the Soviet Union to join the battle as soon after
the defeat of Hitler as possible. A target date of three
months after Germany's surrender was agreed upon—which
put the planned Red Army attack date at roughly August
8, the war in Europe having ended on May 8. (In late
July the date was temporarily extended by a week.)
Nor was there any doubt that the Soviet Union would join
the war for its own reasons. At the Potsdam Conference
in July (before the successful atomic test) President
Truman entered the following in his diary after meeting
with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin on July 17: "He'll be
in the Jap War on August 15. Fini Japs when that comes
about."
The next day, July 18, in a private letter to his wife,
the President wrote: "I've gotten what I came for—Stalin
goes to war August 15 with no strings on it…I'll say
that we'll end the war a year sooner now…"
The President had also been urged to offer assurances
that the Japanese Emperor would be allowed to remain in
some form of powerless figurehead bomb garrole by many
top advisers—including, importantly, Secretary of War
Henry L. Stimson, the man who oversaw the development of
the atomic bomb. Before the bomb was used he explicitly
urged the President that in his judgment the war would
end if such assurances were given—without the use of the
atomic bomb.
Nor were there insuperable political obstacles to this
approach: Leadings newspapers like the Washington Post,
along with leaders of the opposition Republican Party
were publically demanding such a course. (Moreover, the
U.S. Army wanted to maintain the Emperor in some role so
as to use his authority both to order surrender and to
help manage Japan during the occupation period after
war's end—which, of course, is what, in fact, was done:
Japan still has an Emperor.)
As the President's diary entry and letter to his wife
indicate, there is little doubt that he understood the
advice given by the intelligence experts as to the
likely impact of the upcoming Russian attack. Further
evidence is also available on this central point: The
American and British Joint Chiefs of Staff—the very top
military leaders of the two nations—also met at Potsdam
to consolidate planning for the final stages of the war
in the Pacific. General Sir Hastings Ismay, Chief of
Staff to the British Minister of Defence, summarized the
latest (early July) combined US-UK intelligence evidence
for Prime Minister Churchill this way: "[W]hen Russia
came into the war against Japan, the Japanese would
probably wish to get out on almost any terms short of
the dethronement of the Emperor."
The July joint intelligence finding, of course, for the
most part simply restated what had been the essential
view of American intelligence and many of the
President's top advisers throughout the spring and
summer months leading up to the July meeting at Potsdam.
Among the many reasons the shock of Soviet entry was
expected to be so powerful were: first, that it would
directly challenge the Japanese army in what had been
one of its most important strongholds, Manchuria;
second, it would signal that there was literally no hope
once the third of the three Great Powers was no longer
neutral; and third, and perhaps even more important,
with the Japanese economy in disarray Japanese leaders
were extremely fearful that leftist groups might be
powerfully encouraged, politically, if the Soviet Union
were to play a major role in Japan's defeat.
Furthermore, U.S. intelligence had broken Japanese codes
and knew Japanese leaders were frantically hoping
against hope as they attempted to arrange some form of
settlement with Moscow as a mediator. Since their
strategy was so heavily focused on what the Russians
might or might not do, this further underscored the
judgment that when the Red Army attacked, the end would
not be far off: the illusory hope of a negotiation
through Moscow would be thoroughly dashed as Soviet
tanks rolled into Manchuria.
Instead, the United States rushed to use two atomic
bombs at almost exactly the time that an August 8 Soviet
attack had originally been scheduled: Hiroshima on
August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9. The timing itself has
obviously raised questions among many historians. The
available evidence, though not conclusive, strongly
suggests that the atomic bombs may well have been used
in part because American leaders "preferred"—as Pulitzer
Prize–winning historian Martin Sherwin has put it—to end
the war with the bombs rather than the Soviet attack.
Impressing the Soviets during the early diplomatic
sparring that ultimately became the Cold War also
appears likely to have been a significant factor.
Some modern analysts have urged that Japanese military
planning to thwart an invasion was much more advanced
than had previously been understood, and hence more
threatening to U.S. plans. Others have argued that
Japanese military leaders were much more ardently
committed to one or more of four proposed 'conditions'
to attach to a surrender than a number of experts hold,
and hence, again, would likely have fought hard to
continue the war.
It is, of course, impossible to know whether the advice
given by top U.S. and British intelligence that a
Russian attack would likely to produce surrender was
correct. We do know that the President ignored such
judgments and the advice of people like Secretary of War
Stimson that the war could be ended in other ways when
he made his decision. This, of course, is an important
fact in its own right in considering whether the
decision was justified, since so many civilian lives
were sacrificed in the two bombings.
Moreover, many leading historians who have studied both
the U.S. and Japanese records carefully (including,
among others, Barton Bernstein and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa)
have concluded that Japan was indeed in such dire
straits that–as U.S. and British intelligence had urged
long before the bombings–the war would, in fact, have
likely ended before the November invasion target date
once the Russians entered.
It is also important to note that there was very little
to lose by using the Russian attack to end the war. The
atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on
August 6 and August 9. There were still three months to
go before the first landing could take place in
November. If the early August Russian attack did not
work as expected, the bombs could obviously have been
used anyway long before any lives were lost in the
landing.
(Since use of the atomic bombs and Russia's entry into
the war came at almost exactly the same time, scholars
have debated at great length which factor influenced the
surrender decision more. This, of course, is a very
different question from whether using the atomic bomb
was justified as the only way to end the war. Still, it
is instructive to note that speaking privately to top
Army officials on August 14 the Japanese Emperor stated
bluntly: "The military situation has changed suddenly.
The Soviet Union entered the war against us. Suicide
attacks can't compete with the power of science.
Therefore, there is no alternative…" And the Imperial
Rescript the Emperor issued to officers and soldiers to
make sure they would lay down their arms stated: "Now
that the Soviet Union has entered the war, to continue
under the present conditions at home and abroad would
only result in further useless damage… Therefore…I am
going to make peace.")
The most illuminating perspective, however, comes from
top World War II American military leaders. The
conventional wisdom that the atomic bomb saved a million
lives is so widespread that (quite apart from the
inaccuracy of this figure, as noted by Samuel Walker)
most Americans haven't paused to ponder something rather
striking to anyone seriously concerned with the issue:
Not only did most top U.S. military leaders think the
bombings were unnecessary and unjustified, many were
morally offended by what they regarded as the
unnecessary destruction of Japanese cities and what were
essentially noncombat populations. Moreover, they spoke
about it quite openly and publicly.
Here is how General Dwight D. Eisenhower reports he
reacted when he was told by Secretary of War Henry L.
Stimson that the atomic bomb would be used:
"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been
conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to
him 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 country should avoid shocking world
opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I
thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save
American lives."
In another public statement the man who later became
President of the United States was blunt: "It wasn't
necessary to hit them with that awful thing."
General Curtis LeMay, the tough cigar-smoking Army Air
Force "hawk," was also dismayed. Shortly after the
bombings he stated publically: "The war would have been
over in two weeks. . . . The atomic bomb had nothing to
do with the end of the war at all."
Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of
the Pacific Fleet, went public with this statement: "The
Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. . . . The
atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely
military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan."
I noted above the report General Sir Hastings Ismay,
Chief of Staff to the British Minister of Defence, made
to Prime Minister Churchill that "when Russia came into
the war against Japan, the Japanese would probably wish
to get out on almost any terms short of the dethronement
of the Emperor." On hearing that the atomic test was
successful, Ismay's private reaction was one of
"revulsion."
Shortly before his death General George C. Marshall
quietly defended the decision, but for the most part he
is on record as repeatedly saying that it was not a
military decision, but rather a political one. Even more
important, well before the atomic bombs were used,
contemporary documents record show that Marshall felt
"these weapons might first be used against straight
military objectives such as a large naval installation
and then if no complete result was derived from the
effect of that, he thought we ought to designate a
number of large manufacturing areas from which the
people would be warned to leave–telling the Japanese
that we intend to destroy such centers…."
As the document concerning Marshall's views suggests,
the question of whether the use of the atomic bomb was
justified turns not only on whether other options were
available, and whether top leaders were advised of this.
It also turns on whether the bombs had to be used
against a largely civilian target rather than a strictly
military target—which, in fact, was the explicit choice
since although there were Japanese troops in the cities,
neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki was deemed militarily
vital by U.S. planners. (This is one of the reasons
neither had been heavily bombed up to this point in the
war.) Moreover, targeting was aimed explicitly on
non-military facilities surrounded by workers' homes.
Here we can gain further insight from two additional,
equally conservative military leaders.
Many years later President Richard Nixon recalled that
"[General Douglas] MacArthur once spoke to me very
eloquently about it, pacing the floor of his apartment
in the Waldorf. He thought it a tragedy that the Bomb
was ever exploded. MacArthur believed that the same
restrictions ought to apply to atomic weapons as to
conventional weapons, that the military objective should
always be limited damage to noncombatants. . . .
MacArthur, you see, was a soldier. He believed in using
force only against military targets, and that is why the
nuclear thing turned him off."
Although many others could be cited, here, finally, is
the statement of another conservative, a man who was a
close friend of President Truman's, his Chief of Staff
(as well as President Roosevelt's Chief of Staff), and
the five star Admiral who presided over meetings of the
Combined U.S.-U.K. Chiefs of Staff during the
war—William D. Leahy:
"[T]he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war
against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and
ready to surrender. . . . [I]n being the first to use
it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the
barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make
war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by
destroying women and children."
Gar Alperovitz, Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political
Economy at the University of Maryland and co-founder of
the Democracy Collaborative, is a historian and
political economist. He is the author, most recently, of
America Beyond Capitalism and (with Lew Daly) Unjust
Deserts. His work on the history of the decision to use
the atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki spans over
four decades; his 1995 book The Decision to Use the
Atomic Bomb remains one of the definitive accounts of
the actions and motivations of the US in the last,
tragic chapter of WWII.
Source: Counterpunch
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Copyright: Albert van der Kaap, 2011