Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
[Editor's Note: I'm beyond delighted to introduce Fr. Bill Miscamble, C.S.C., who we've asked to join us as one of Ricochet's resident historians. Professor of History at Notre Dame University, Fr. Bill's expertise lies in the subject of American foreign policy since World War II. You can find a full listing of the books he's authored on his profile page.]
If the past is any guide the upcoming anniversaries of the use of atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, 1945, will prompt the publication of a range of opinion pieces fiercely critical of the American actions. It will be alleged that the Japanese really were right on the verge of surrender before the atomic bombs were used, and that President Harry Truman and his associates knew this. Further, it will be argued that the atomic bombings should be understood less as a means to bring World War II to an end by forcing Japan’s surrender and more as the opening salvo in the Cold War and intended primarily to influence and to intimidate the Soviet Union.
In anticipation of such flawed arguments let me offer to Ricochet readers the essential conclusions of my recent study: The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs and the Defeat of Japan (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
Firstly, the principal motive for the American use of the devastating new weapon lay in a potent mix of desire to force Japan’s surrender and to save American lives. Secondly, the atomic bombs contributed decisively in forcing that eventual surrender and in bringing the brutal war to an end prior to any costly invasion of the Japanese home islands. Furthermore, while the A-Bomb was never entirely separated from considerations of postwar international politics, the decision to use the weapon was not driven by these concerns. The atomic bombs were used primarily for a military purpose, and they proved effective in inflicting defeat on the Japanese.
We must be clear that Truman and his associates did not seek “alternatives” to using the atomic bombs, but viable and less costly options that might have proved successful cannot be identified with any certainty--even in retrospect and when far removed from the pressures Truman was under in 1945. This is largely the position that Truman held from 1945 onwards. Ultimately, he proved far more reliable than the host of his subsequent revisionist critics.
(In a subsequent post I will address issues surrounding the morality of using the atomic bombs.)
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Comments :
Jun '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
Cas Balicki
Bravo! · Aug 4 at 11:49am
We fight to win, but we also fight honorably. If we sacrifice our principles and adopt the belief that "all's fair in war" then we risk losing the "humane, urbane, and intellectual" civilization we fight to defend in the first place.
Sep '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
Time for negotiations was long past at this point. We were in total war mode—like Sherman marching across the South to make the Confederates hate war more than they hated the enemy. As one from the Deep South, I can assure you, we would never have surrendered without literally going through hell.
Joseph Stanko
etoiledunord
If you only have two, you don't blow up uninhabited islands with them. I don't believe that would've accomplished anything. All that would've shown the Japanese is, we didn't have the stomach to use them on people. · Aug 4 at 11:40am
What about dropping the first on Hiroshima, then demand surrender and wait a few weeks before dropping the 2nd (and last) one we had? 3 days is barely enough time to even figure out what happened, much less to let it sink in and give them time to assess, argue, and finally convince the hardliners of the inevitability of surrender. · Aug 4 at 11:50am
May '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
Joseph Stanko
Cas Balicki
Joseph Stanko
I think it is always wrong to intentionally kill innocent non-combatants.
What if the innocent non-combatants are manufacturing armaments? What it a city is a transportation hub that speeds the flow or arms to your enemy? What if a city is an entrepot for arms or a chandler for your enemy's navy?
Then we're talking legitimate military targets and collateral damage.
Collateral damage is when you kill non-combatants by accident. Destroying a supply target does not kill civilians by mistake, though they are peripheral. I don't consider that collateral damage.
It's not all that different from killing enemy soldiers. If it were possible to destroy the soldier's weapon or motivation without killing the soldier, we would do it.
The way to end any war is to defeat the enemy's will to fight. That can be accomplished in a variety of ways, but it seems nearly all require killing unarmed civilians. I wish it were not so.
I won't criticize the decision to nuke Japan. But we should be wary of weighing lives by numbers alone. Life itself is not our highest value.
Sep '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
Perhaps your beliefs are better than mine, Joseph, but I don't think anyone's hands remain clean in war, no matter how nobly fought. Now, I don't believe in slowly torturing prisoners to death on out-of-the-way Pacific atolls, but I do believe that once you decide to make a bomb you better be ready to use it, and whatever the Japanese people wanted, well, the military and the monarchs are all that mattered back then.
Sep '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
Jun '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
But Sherman did not (to the best of my knowledge) round up Confederate women and children, shoot them, and bury them in mass graves. He could have; he was marching unopposed. Suppose by rounding up and executing 1,000 innocent civilians he could have ended the war a few months earlier and saved the lives of 10,000 Union soldiers, should he have done so?
May '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
General George S. Patton, awarded with applause by the people of Los Angeles in 1945:
That's how America used to fight wars. That's how all nations used to fight wars.
Sep '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
Are you kidding? They burned everything in their wake. Why do you think there are so many southerners who still despise Lincoln?
Joseph Stanko
But Sherman did not (to the best of my knowledge) round up Confederate women and children, shoot them, and bury them in mass graves. He could have; he was marching unopposed. Suppose by rounding up and executing 1,000 innocent civilians he could have ended the war a few months earlier and saved the lives of 10,000 Union soldiers, should he have done so? · Aug 4 at 12:17pm
Jul '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
..... and Father Bill comes out swinging for the fences...
Nov '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
I fully support Truman's decision under the circumstances, but felt compelled to mention that the weird but amazingly viable "Bat Bomb" had every chance of success in devastating Japan's war industries with less loss of life.
For Ricocheteers interested in a fascinating and often funny footnote to WWII, I heartily recommend The Bat Bomb, written by Jack Couffer, who was a member of the project team at age seventeen.
Jun '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
Leslie Watkins: Are you kidding? They burned everything in their wake. Why do you think there are so many southerners who still despise Lincoln?
Joseph Stanko
But Sherman did not (to the best of my knowledge) round up Confederate women and children, shoot them, and bury them in mass graves. He could have; he was marching unopposed. Suppose by rounding up and executing 1,000 innocent civilians he could have ended the war a few months earlier and saved the lives of 10,000 Union soldiers, should he have done so? · Aug 4 at 12:17pm
I am under the impression his army destroyed Southern property: tore up railroads, slaughtered cattle, burned crops, and burned down (unoccupied) cities and towns. No doubt this caused famine and disease that indirectly killed civilians.
Still, that's categorically different than rounding up and massacring non-combatants, at least in my book.
Apr '11
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
World War II was a holocaust, a total war. We were fighting the best army in the world and the most fanatical on two sides of the earth from us.
We were firebombing every bit of Japan were could reach for years and they did not surrender.
We bombed every inch we could of Germany both and they did not surrender either.
I'm afraid our grandparents did not have the luxury high moral sentiment. They had to do it anyway.
That's why we need to honor them. We cannot imagine what that world was like unless we were there. They saved us from it.
Jun '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
etoiledunord
Brian Watt
etoiledunord: If America had gone through a brutal bloody large-scale invasion of Japan, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of American lives, and the public found out later that we had a new and devastating bomb we could've used instead, to end the war, Truman would've been strung up in front of the White House. And he might've deserved it. · Aug 4 at 11:14am
Edited on Aug 04 at 11:16 am
I don't think anyone on this thread has advocated that we shouldn't have used the weapons, have they? · Aug 4 at 11:21am
If you only have two, you don't blow up uninhabited islands with them. I don't believe that would've accomplished anything. All that would've shown the Japanese is, we didn't have the stomach to use them on people. · Aug 4 at 11:40am
See my comment #17.
Sep '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
I would prefer to be shot than to be left to starve to death. That would be torture. But that may just be me.
Joseph Stanko
Leslie Watkins: Are you kidding? They burned everything in their wake. Why do you think there are so many southerners who still despise Lincoln?
Joseph Stanko
But Sherman did not (to the best of my knowledge) round up Confederate women and children, shoot them, and bury them in mass graves. He could have; he was marching unopposed. Suppose by rounding up and executing 1,000 innocent civilians he could have ended the war a few months earlier and saved the lives of 10,000 Union soldiers, should he have done so? · Aug 4 at 12:17pm
I am under the impression his army destroyed Southern property: tore up railroads, slaughtered cattle, burned crops, and burned down (unoccupied) cities and towns. No doubt this caused famine and disease that indirectly killed civilians.
Still, that's categorically different than rounding up and massacring non-combatants, at least in my book. · Aug 4 at 12:40pm
May '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
Another moral consideration applies to bombs and missiles in general: the impersonalization of war.
Be it pilots dropping bombs or submariners firing missiles from a hundred miles away, our soldiers know they are killing and are at risk of retaliatory strikes. But there is obviously a difference between killing someone with the press of a button and seeing that horror and death up close.
I'm not certain about it, but I'm inclined to think there should be a personal cost to taking a life, even if the killing is completely justifiable. Soldiers can't afford to hesitate before killing. But... well, I don't know. Perhaps some of Ricochet's soldiers would care to comment on it.
Of course, we can't undo the advance of discoveries and technologies. Nukes will continue to exist, and they will be used again... as surely as there will be another World War. But I'm not certain we should always use every technological advantage in war.
As I said before, there are some things more important than life itself. We must do many horrible things to protect life and liberty... but not anything.
Jun '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
"Sherman destroyed property to convince Southerners that their cause was hopeless and that they should surrender. He believed that this psychological warfare would end the Civil War more quickly and with less loss of life than traditional battlefield conflicts."
"His army systematically destroyed only property connected with the Confederate war effort, Union prisoners of war, or slavery. However, Sherman's Union soldiers, Wheeler's Confederate cavalry, deserters from both sides, fugitive slaves, and pillaging Southern civilians wantonly destroyed property. The anarchy aided Sherman's psychological cause and resulted in heavy though not total damage. Military and civilian casualties were extremely low."
"Sherman's march to the sea brought the Civil War home to Southern civilians. Few became casualties, but many lost property and felt demoralized."
-Dictionary of American History | 2003
I would rather be penniless, homeless, and demoralized than dead. But that may just be me.
May '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
Leslie Watkins: I would prefer to be shot than to be left to starve to death. That would be torture. But that may just be me.
Joseph Stanko
I am under the impression his army destroyed Southern property: tore up railroads, slaughtered cattle, burned crops, and burned down (unoccupied) cities and towns. No doubt this caused famine and disease that indirectly killed civilians.
Still, that's categorically different than rounding up and massacring non-combatants, at least in my book.
It's a distraction from the main conversation, but I'll say my view falls somewhere between y'all's. Some of my ancestors were supposedly Confederate non-combatant millers (ironically enough) who were sent to a Yankee prison camp in Ohio where they died of famine or disease... as was common in those camps.
That's not the same as Soviet-style mass slaughter, especially considering how many soldiers on both sides of the war died of disease well outside prison camps and among their fellows. But I'm not sure it was necessary either.
My grandmother lived near Andersonville and hated how histories often criticized Confederate prison camps without discussing Union prison camps.
Anyway, back to the nukes!
May '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
...joining this conversation late...
Aside from welcoming Fr. Bill, I just want to toss a question into the mix.
Do we believe that the Cold War could have remained "cold" for decades had the world not witnessed the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
I am confident that sooner or later, and probably sooner, such exotic and mind-blowing weapons were going to be used against a population. Only the shock and remorse of the result would cool the passion to see it in action. There is a power in nuclear physics that fascinates and horrifies at the same time, and a weakness in political decision-makers that makes them unable to hold a great power without using it.
As I said, sooner or later the weapons would get used. Had the first detonations been a decade later, the results would have been much more terrible and potentially led to genuine exchanges. Truman answered the question for the whole world, and the bombs stayed in the silos.
Jun '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
Aaron Miller: Another moral consideration applies to bombs and missiles in general: the impersonalization of war.
Be it pilots dropping bombs or submariners firing missiles from a hundred miles away, our soldiers know they are killing and are at risk of retaliatory strikes. But there is obviously a difference between killing someone with the press of a button and seeing that horror and death up close.
Great point. I think this impersonalization leads to some bizarre moral reasoning, particularly on the Left.
Case in point: if you arrest a suspected terrorist, detain him indefinitely in Gitmo, and subject him to enhanced interrogation techniques, you are a monster who has committed unspeakable crimes. On the other hand, if you use a remote-controlled Predator drone to launch a missile that kills the suspected terrorist and anyone else who happens to be near him, shrug, no big deal. Utterly incoherent reasoning.
Sep '10
Re: Truman's Use of the Atomic Bombs
Joseph Stanko: I would rather be penniless, homeless, and demoralized than dead. But that may just be me.
I really don't think you understand the devastation that was left. No livestock. No crops. Despoiled water. It's the beginning of winter. The men are all gone. ... Sherman was right to do what he did, but his march to the sea was as much a psych op as a battle and every bit as damaging and deliberately destructive—and much more torturous—than a bullet through the head. With respect, I think it is sentimental to think otherwise.