Looking Back at the Bomb

The great debate over the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that swept across America last summer was partly emotional and even trivial but mainly genuine and profound.The 50th anniversary of the bombings generated at least nine books, a packet of magazine articles, radio commentaries, television shows, reminiscences by Americans who attacked and Japanese who were victims.If it had not been for the O. J. Simpson trial, the atomic issue might have dominated national attention.The deliberations have subsided, but that does not mean the issues have gone away or a consensus has been reached.The fundamental question remains: Was the United States justified in dropping two bombs that immediately killed 200,000 people, the vast majority of them civilians?More simply, was President Truman right or wrong?After studying much of the literature, we have concluded that the United States was justified and President Truman was right.We also believe that, like most human endeavors, it could have been handled better; the atomic bombing of Nagasaki so soon after Hiroshima is rightly open to question.Lastly, we recognize that, again as with most human endeavor, reasonable men and women will differ.Sifting through this mass of material, it seems evident that Japan had been defeated by late July 1945, and that some Japanese leaders realized this.But defeat and surrender are not the same, and the issue was how to get Japan, notably the militarists who ruled the nation, to quit.In this, President Truman appeared to have six options:Invade Japan in two stages, prolonging the war for a year and taking large numbers of American and Allied casualties.Continue the aerial bombing and naval blockade until the Japanese lost the will to resist and surrendered.Get the Russians into the war in the hope they would crack Japanese resolve and make them sue for peace.Accept Japan's proposals to negotiate by modifying the demand for an unconditional surrender to permit Japan to retain the Emperor, a vital point to the Japanese, and agreeing to a minimal occupation of Japan.Warn that atomic bombs would be used unless Japan surrendered, and possibly detonate one as a demonstration.Drop the atomic bombs to shock the Japanese into quitting before more devastation was loosed on their nation.Each option was considered, some more thoroughly than others, between 12 April when Mr. Truman became President and 24 July when he approved an order to drop the bombs after 3 August 1945.It was not a methodical process-government then was no more neat and orderly than it is today--but the decision was taken after three and a half years of a brutal, draining, desperate war.US forces planned to invade Kyushu, Japan's southwestern island, on 1 November 1945; a second assault was planned for 1 March 1946, against Tokyo.As for expected casualties, planners knew the ratio had risen as American forces got closer to Japan and the Japanese became ever more ferocious in defending their homeland.Estimates were all over the lot, from a minimum of 40,000 on up.Continuing to bomb and blockade aroused fears that Japan would wait out the United States in hopes of a better deal.Americans were weary and impatient to end the war.Keeping an invasion force poised for months would be hard.Allied prisoners all over Asia might be killed.The Russians promised to enter the war in August, but there is little evidence that Japan would have quit even if the Russians had reached the southern tip of Korea.The high command in Tokyo was not relying on forces on the Asian mainland to defend Japan proper.Negotiating on Japanese terms was seen as breaking faith with Allies and a political land mine within the United States, where the public backed unconditional surrender.The Allies relented on retaining the Emperor; a shift

Nuclear weapon · Political science · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Law

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