On August 6, 1945, the world dramatically entered the atomic
age: without either warning or precedent, an American plane dropped a single
nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion utterly destroyed
more than four square miles of the city center. About about 90,000 people were
killed immediately; another 40,000 were injured, many of whom died in
protracted agony from radiation sickness. Three days later, a second atomic
strike on the city of Nagasaki killed some 37,000 people and injured another
43,000. Together the two bombs eventually killed an estimated 200,000 Japanese
civilians.
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A cloud of smoke arises from the enormous explosion of the bombing of Nagasaki, August 9, 1945. Some 37,000 people were killed and another 43,000 were injured in the attack. Coming three days after the atomic destruction of Hiroshima, this was the second and last time the new atomic weapon was used.
A Secret Memorandum
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Between the two bombings, Soviet Russia joined the United
States in war against Japan. Under strong US prodding, Stalin broke his
regime’s 1941 non-aggression treaty with Tokyo. On the same day that Nagasaki
was destroyed, Soviet troops began pouring into Manchuria, overwhelming
Japanese forces there. Although Soviet participation did little or nothing to
change the military outcome of the war, Moscow benefitted enormously from
joining the conflict.
In a broadcast from Tokyo the next day, August 10, the Japanese
government announced its readiness to accept the joint American-British
“unconditional surrender” declaration of Potsdam, “with the understanding that
the said declaration does not compromise any demand which prejudices the
prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler.”
A day later came the American reply, which included these
words: “From the moment of surrender the authority of the Emperor and the
Japanese Government to rule the State shall be subject to the Supreme Commander
of the Allied Powers.” Finally, on August 14, the Japanese formally accepted
the provisions of the Potsdam declaration, and a “cease fire” was announced. On
September 2, Japanese envoys signed the instrument of surrender aboard the US
battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
Even before the Hiroshima attack, American air force General
Curtis LeMay boasted that American bombers were “driving them [Japanese] back
to the stone age.” Henry H. (“Hap”) Arnold, commanding General of the Army air
forces, declared in his 1949 memoirs: “It always appeared to us, atomic bomb or
no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.” This was
confirmed by former Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoye, who said:
“Fundamentally, the thing that brought about the determination to make peace
was the prolonged bombing by the B-29s.”
Japan Seeks Peace
Months before the end of the war, Japan’s leaders recognized
that defeat was inevitable. In April 1945 a new government headed by Kantaro
Suzuki took office with the mission of ending the war. When Germany capitulated
in early May, the Japanese understood that the British and Americans would now
direct the full fury of their awesome military power exclusively against them.
American officials, having long since broken Japan’s secret
codes, knew from intercepted messages that the country’s leaders were seeking
to end the war on terms as favorable as possible. Details of these efforts were
known from decoded secret communications between the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo
and Japanese diplomats abroad.
In his 1965 study, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and
Potsdam (pp. 107, 108), historian Gar Alperovitz writes:
Although Japanese peace feelers had been sent out as early
as September 1944 (and [China’s] Chiang Kai-shek had been approached regarding
surrender possibilities in December 1944), the real effort to end the war began
in the spring of 1945. This effort stressed the role of the Soviet Union ...
In mid-April [1945] the [US] Joint Intelligence Committee
reported that Japanese leaders were looking for a way to modify the surrender
terms to end the war. The State Department was convinced the Emperor was
actively seeking a way to stop the fighting.
It was only after the war that the American public learned
about Japan’s efforts to bring the conflict to an end. Chicago Tribune reporter
Walter Trohan, for example, was obliged by wartime censorship to withhold for
seven months one of the most important stories of the war.
In an article that finally appeared August 19, 1945, on the
front pages of the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald,
Trohan revealed that on January 20, 1945, two days prior to his departure for
the Yalta meeting with Stalin and Churchill, President Roosevelt received a
40-page memorandum from General Douglas MacArthur outlining five separate
surrender overtures from high-level Japanese officials. (The complete text of
Trohan’s article is in the Winter 1985-86 Journal, pp. 508-512.)
Is this memorandum authentic? It was supposedly leaked to
Trohan by Admiral William D. Leahy, presidential Chief of Staff. (See: M.
Rothbard in A. Goddard, ed., Harry Elmer Barnes: Learned Crusader [1968],
pp. 327f.) Historian Harry Elmer Barnes has related (in “Hiroshima: Assault on
a Beaten Foe,” National Review, May 10, 1958):
The authenticity of the Trohan article was never challenged
by the White House or the State Department, and for very good reason. After
General MacArthur returned from Korea in 1951, his neighbor in the Waldorf
Towers, former President Herbert Hoover, took the Trohan article to General
MacArthur and the latter confirmed its accuracy in every detail and without
qualification.
Peace Overtures
In April and May 1945, Japan made three attempts through
neutral Sweden and Portugal to bring the war to a peaceful end. On April 7,
acting Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu met with Swedish ambassador Widon
Bagge in Tokyo, asking him “to ascertain what peace terms the United States and
Britain had in mind.” But he emphasized that unconditional surrender was
unacceptable, and that “the Emperor must not be touched.” Bagge relayed the
message to the United States, but Secretary of State Stettinius told the US
Ambassador in Sweden to “show no interest or take any initiative in pursuit of
the matter.” Similar Japanese peace signals through Portugal, on May 7, and
again through Sweden, on the 10th, proved similarly fruitless.
By early July the US had intercepted messages from Togo to
the Japanese ambassador in Moscow, Naotake Sato, showing that the Emperor
himself was taking a personal hand in the peace effort, and had directed that
the Soviet Union be asked to help end the war. US officials also knew that the
key obstacle to ending the war was American insistence on “unconditional
surrender,” a demand that precluded any negotiations. The Japanese were willing
to accept nearly everything, except turning over their semi-divine Emperor.
Heir of a 2,600-year-old dynasty, Hirohito was regarded by his people as a
“living god” who personified the nation. (Until the August 15 radio broadcast
of his surrender announcement, the Japanese people had never heard his voice.)
Japanese particularly feared that the Americans would humiliate the Emperor,
and even execute him as a war criminal.
On July 12, Hirohito summoned Fumimaro Konoye, who had
served as prime minister in 1940-41. Explaining that “it will be necessary to
terminate the war without delay,” the Emperor said that he wished Konoye to
secure peace with the Americans and British through the Soviets. As Prince Konoye
later recalled, the Emperor instructed him “to secure peace at any price,
notwithstanding its severity.”
On July 17, another intercepted Japanese message revealed
that although Japan’s leaders felt that the unconditional surrender formula
involved an unacceptable dishonor, they were convinced that “the demands of the
times” made Soviet mediation to terminate the war absolutely essential. Further
diplomatic messages indicated that the only condition asked by the Japanese was
preservation of “our form of government.” The only “difficult point,” a July 25
message disclosed, “is the ... formality of unconditional surrender.”
The Allied "Big Three" meet on July 17,
1945, at Potsdam, near Berlin, in defeated Germany. President Truman stands
between Soviet premier Stalin and British prime minister Churchill. It was at
this conference that Japan was given the grim ultimatum: proclaim
"unconditional surrender" or face "prompt and utter
destruction."
Navy Secretary James Forrestal termed the intercepted
messages “real evidence of a Japanese desire to get out of the war.” “With the
interception of these messages,” notes historian Alperovitz, “there
could no longer be any real doubt as to the Japanese intentions; the maneuvers
were overt and explicit and, most of all, official acts. Koichi Kido, Japan’s
Lord Privy Seal and a close advisor to the Emperor, later affirmed: “Our
decision to seek a way out of this war, was made in early June before any
atomic bomb had been dropped and Russia had not entered the war. It was already
our decision.”
In spite of this, on July 26 the leaders of the United
States and Britain issued the Potsdam declaration, which included this grim
ultimatum: “We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the
unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces and to provide proper and
adequate assurance of good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is
prompt and utter destruction.” (A Military History of the Western World [1987],
p. 675.)
America’s leaders understood Japan’s desperate position: the
Japanese were willing to end the war on any terms, as long as the Emperor was
not molested. If the US leadership had not insisted on unconditionalsurrender
– that is, if they had made clear a willingness to permit the Emperor to remain
in place – the Japanese very likely would have surrendered immediately, thus
saving many thousands of lives.
Justifications
President Truman steadfastly defended his use of the atomic
bomb, claiming that it “saved millions of lives” by bringing the war to a quick
end. Justifying his decision, he went so far as to declare: “The world will
note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That
was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the
killing of civilians.”
This was a preposterous statement. In fact, almost all of
the victims were civilians, and the United States Strategic Bombing Survey
(issued in 1946) stated in its official report: “Hiroshima and Nagasaki were
chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population.”
If the atomic bomb was dropped to impress the Japanese
leaders with the immense destructive power of a new weapon, this could have
been accomplished by deploying it on an isolated military base. It was not
necessary to destroy a large city. And whatever the justification for the
Hiroshima blast, it is much more difficult to defend the second bombing of
Nagasaki.
Critical Voices
Amid the general clamor of enthusiasm, there were some who
had grave misgivings. “We are the inheritors to the mantle of Genghis Khan,”
wrote New York Times editorial writer Hanson Baldwin, “and of all those in
history who have justified the use of utter ruthlessness in war.” Norman Thomas
called Nagasaki “the greatest single atrocity of a very cruel war.” Joseph P.
Kennedy, father of the President, was similarly appalled.
A leading voice of American Protestantism, Christian
Century, strongly condemned the bombings. An editorial entitled “America’s
Atomic Atrocity” in the issue of August 29, 1945, told readers:
The atomic bomb was used at a time when Japan’s navy was
sunk, her air force virtually destroyed, her homeland surrounded, her supplies
cut off, and our forces poised for the final stroke ... Our leaders seem not to
have weighed the moral considerations involved. No sooner was the bomb ready
than it was rushed to the front and dropped on two helpless cities ... The
atomic bomb can fairly be said to have struck Christianity itself ... The
churches of America must dissociate themselves and their faith from this
inhuman and reckless act of the American Government.
US Strategic Bombing Survey Verdict
After studying this matter in great detail, the United
States Strategic Bombing Survey rejected the notion that Japan gave up because
of the atomic bombings. In its authoritative 1946 report, the Survey concluded:
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs did not defeat Japan, nor
by the testimony of the enemy leaders who ended the war did they persuade Japan
to accept unconditional surrender. The Emperor, the Lord Privy Seal, the Prime
Minister, the Foreign Minister, and the Navy Minister had decided as early as
May of 1945 that the war should be ended even if it meant acceptance of defeat
on allied terms ...
The mission of the Suzuki government, appointed 7 April
1945, was to make peace. An appearance of negotiating for terms less onerous
than unconditional surrender was maintained in order to contain the military
and bureaucratic elements still determined on a final Bushido defense, and perhaps
even more importantly to obtain freedom to create peace with a minimum of
personal danger and internal obstruction. It seems clear, however, that in
extremis the peacemakers would have peace, and peace on any terms. This was the
gist of advice given to Hirohito by the Jushin in February, the declared
conclusion of Kido in April, the underlying reason for Koiso’s fall in April,
the specific injunction of the Emperor to Suzuki on becoming premier which was
known to all members of his cabinet ...
Historians’ Views
In a 1986 study, historian and journalist Edwin P. Hoyt
nailed the “great myth, perpetuated by well-meaning people throughout the
world,” that “the atomic bomb caused the surrender of Japan.” In Japan’s
War: The Great Pacific Conflict (p. 420), he explained:
The fact is that as far as the Japanese militarists were
concerned, the atomic bomb was just another weapon. The two atomic bombs at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were icing on the cake, and did not do as much damage as
the firebombings of Japanese cities. The B-29 firebombing campaign had brought
the destruction of 3,100,000 homes, leaving 15 million people homeless, and
killing about a million of them. It was the ruthless firebombing, and
Hirohito’s realization that if necessary the Allies wouldcompletely
destroy Japan and kill every Japanese to achieve “unconditional surrender” that
persuaded him to the decision to end the war. The atomic bomb is indeed a
fearsome weapon, but it was not the cause of Japan’s surrender, even though the
myth persists even to this day.
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