{"id":4642,"date":"2008-08-06T11:49:59","date_gmt":"2008-08-06T19:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/08\/06\/was-bombing-hiroshima-necessary\/"},"modified":"2008-08-06T11:49:59","modified_gmt":"2008-08-06T19:09:47","slug":"was-bombing-hiroshima-necessary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=4642","title":{"rendered":"Was bombing Hiroshima necessary?"},"content":{"rendered":"

atomic_bomb.jpgThis is a repost; I originally posted it about five years ago, and Jeff’s post<\/a> today reminded me of it.<\/p>\n

Historian Gar Alperovitz, among others, has argued that US leaders knew they could have gotten a surrender from Japan, without dropping the bombs. There are a number of impressive quotes in support of this idea, like….<\/p>\n

“Experts continue to disagree on some issues, but critical questions have been answered. The consensus among scholars is that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan and to end the war within a relatively short time. It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisers knew it.” -J. Samuel Walker, chief historian of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.<\/p>\n

“It is my opinion that the 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.” -Admiral William D. Leahy, Former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff<\/p>\n

“…Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary […and] no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at this very moment, seeking a way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face.’ ” -General Dwight D. Eisenhower<\/p>\n

“P.M. [Churchill} & I ate alone. Discussed Manhattan (it is a success). Decided to tell Stalin about it. Stalin had told P.M. of telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace.” -President Harry S. Truman, Diary Entry, July 18, 1945.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For a summary of the most radical “dropping the bomb was unnecessary” view held by any respectable historian, check out Gar Alperovitz’s 1995 “Foreign Policy” article<\/a>. I’m not sure that I buy all of Alperovitz’s conclusions, but that the war could have been ended without either the A-Bomb or a full invasion of Japan is a fairly well-supported view. (Of course, some right-wing historians – notably Robert Maddox – disagree. But theirs is not the mainstream view.)<\/p>\n

The issue wasn’t if the Japanese were prepared to surrender – but if they were prepared for unconditional<\/em> surrender. Then and now, many experts believe that the Japanese would have surrendered if they had assurance that they would be able to retain their Emperor in some capacity. As Japanese Prime Minister Suzuki announced on August 9, 1945 (three days after Hiroshima, the day Nagasaki was bombed) “Should the Emperor system be abolished, they [the Japanese people] would lose all reason for existence. ‘Unconditional surrender’, therefore, means death to the hundred million: it leaves us no choice but to go on fighting to the last man.”<\/p>\n

What Americans usually forget is that the Japanese didn’t surrender after August 5, 1945; nor after August 9. On the contrary, Japanese hawks were quite prepared to fight to the death after the dropping of the bombs; that the US so vastly out-powered them only added to the romantic fatalism driving their pro-war views.<\/p>\n

So what did bring about the Japanese surrender? On August 11th, the Americans finally gave the Japanese Emperor and doves what they had been waiting for: surrender terms which said “the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied powers.” This amounted to an explicit statement that the Emperor would not be removed from office. After a few days of studying the terms, on August 14 the Emperor asked the Cabinet to accept the surrender offer; the Cabinet unanimously agreed to surrender that same day.<\/p>\n

To the Japanese hawks, this was the one request for peace that could not be turned down. The Emperor was considered a god, after all.<\/del> It was the Emperor’s request – not the two atomic bombs – that convinced the hawks in the Japanese Cabinet to surrender.<\/p>\n

For further reading on the Japanese surrender, I recommend Doug Long’s essay Hiroshima: Was it Necessery?<\/a>, as well as the Gar Alperovitz essay<\/a> I mentioned above. Also, check out the Slactivist’s<\/a> post on Hiroshima.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a repost; I originally posted it about five years ago, and Jeff’s post today reminded me of it. Historian Gar Alperovitz, among others, has argued that US leaders knew they could have gotten a surrender from Japan, without … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}