President Harry Truman and Hiroshima
excerpted from the book
Lying for Empire
How to Commit War Crimes With
A Straight Face
by David Model
Common Courage Press, 2005, paper
p45
On November 25, 1941, after a meeting of the War Cabinet, Secretary
of War Stimson wrote in his diary that the President:
Brought up the event that we were likely to be attacked perhaps
(as soon as) next Monday, for the Japanese are notorious for making
an attack without warning and the question was what we should
do. The question was how we should maneuver them into the position
of firing the first shot without too much danger to ourselves.
(A. Russell Buchanan, The United States and World War II)
This reveals that the U.S. was angling
for a fight, for an excuse and justification to enter the war.
Because the Roosevelt administration understood that it had cut
off 88% of the oil supply, they knew it was only a matter of time
before Japan, starved for oil, would attack in an attempt to regain
access to oil. The subsequent claim that Pearl Harbor was an unprovoked
surprise attack that "shall live in infamy" counts as
one of the most important presidential lies of all time.
p58
After the B-29s were shifted to the Marianas the Americans conducted
I a raid against an aircraft plant in Tokyo. During this mission,
the planes flew at 32,000 feet and were impervious to Japanese
flak and fighters. For the next three months, the bombing raids
targeted the aircraft industry. General Curtis LeMay, who was
in command of the B-29s, concluded that to inflict greater damage
during bombing raids, the aircraft would need to shift to incendiary
bombs which contained napalm, a jellied form of petroleum that
exploded upon impact engulfing everything in the vicinity in flames.
On February 4, 1945, bombers carrying
incendiary bombs struck at Kobe, Japan's sixth largest city. The
result was that five of the twelve main factories were damaged
as well as one of the two shipyards. A second raid with incendiary
bombs struck Tokyo on February 25 and destroyed 28,000 structures
(homes, factories etc.). On March 8, 1945, LeMay ordered a largescale
bombing of Tokyo involving 334 bombers. Almost sixteen square
miles of the city was incinerated and 267,000 buildings were destroyed.
More than 83,000 people were killed and another 41,000 were injured.
By early June, Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama, and Kawasaki
were subject to further bombings. Ronald H. Spector in Eagle Against
the Sun: The American War With Japan, described the destruction
as:
Over 40% of the total urban area of these
cities had been gutted; millions had been rendered homeless. LeMay
next turned to the destruction of Japan's smaller cities. His
bomber force, now almost 600 strong, ranged over Japan almost
at will, visiting destruction on half a hundred smaller cities
and manufacturing centres.
At this point in the war, Japan's cities
had been severely damaged, the industrial base virtually destroyed,
the navy and air force rendered useless, and the people left suffering
from starvation.
... Despite the massive victories scored
against Japan, American leaders were not celebrating because they
were dreading the invasion of Japan itself. U.S. military planners
were very apprehensive about Japanese soldiers fighting in their
homeland because they had already demonstrated their unyielding
tenacity and truculence elsewhere. A number of options were discussed
including:
* invade Japan and fight until the Japanese
surrender;
* demand a surrender with terms other than an unconditional surrender
and threaten to use a new highly destructive weapon (atomic bomb);
* demand unconditional surrender with the same threat;
* demand either conditional or unconditional surrender and not
warn the Japanese about the new weapon;
* demand either conditional or unconditional surrender and demonstrate
the new weapon;
* respond to Japanese attempts (mostly through the Soviet Union)
to negotiate the terms of the surrender.
Many high level meetings and committees
discussed these and other options at great length for many months.
The events leading up to the conclusion of the war as well as
the behind-the-scene discussions and diary entries of key figures
are instrumental in understanding the motives of President Truman
(President Roosevelt died in April) in making the decision about
how to end the war.
A number of important events preceded
the use of the atomic bombs. On April 1945, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff ordered their field commanders to make plans for the invasion
of Japan. Discussions about where to begin the invasion were heated
but a consensus was finally reached to invade Kyushu. The Joint
Chiefs of Staff presented the plan to President Truman with an
estimate of the number of American lives that would be lost. The
number was mere speculation and was not based on any sound rational
process but On an extrapolation based on the number of casualties
in Okinawa. Some military officers contemplated the possibility
of ending the war without an invasion
One of the most controversial issues in
the Pacific theatre was t'' debate over the terms of surrender
to be offered to Japan. In 1943, Roosevelt, Churchill and their
military advisors met in Casablanca to discuss strategy. The British
War Cabinet and President Roosevelt's advisors had already discussed
the terms of surrender and at a press conference held at the end
of the Casablanca Conference, Roosevelt announced that the Allied
Powers were striving for an "unconditional surrender."
The term was first coined by Ulysses S. Grant in the Civil War.
Unconditional surrender implied that the
institution of Emperor would be abolished and this was one of
the stumbling blocks to a Japanese surrender. Japanese fears about
the Emperor were not groundless. American leaders such as Secretary
of State, James F. Byrnes, believed that the Emperor symbolized
the military clique that dominated Japan and, therefore, must
not survive the war. A June 1945 Gallup poll revealed that 33%
of Americans wanted the Emperor to be executed as a war criminal.
In Japanese society, the Emperor was regarded
as a deity similar to Jesus or Buddha. Gar Alperovitz in The Decision
to Use the Atomic Bomb described the tradition of the Emperor:
The godhood of the Emperor was a tradition which traced back to
660 9) B.C. and the first Japanese Emperor, Jimmu, who was, according
to legend, a descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu, made him
and all of his successors also divine beings. 7 The status of
the Emperor would explain Japanese consternation about an "unconditional
surrender." It is not clear that losing the Emperor was a
critical issue for the Americans since, in the end, the Emperor
was retained anyway.
The terms of surrender and the use of
the bomb were on the agenda of a high-level committee appointed
by President Truman. As a result of a meeting on April 25, 1945,
Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson and President Truman proposed
the creation of the Interim Committee. Its mandate was to operate
only between early May and the actual use of the bomb (the decision
to use the atomic bomb had not been made yet). One of the recommendations
of the committee was the retention of the Emperor. The Interim
Committee also recommended that:
... the Secretary of War should be advised that, while recognizing
that the final selection of the target was essentially a military
decision, the present view of the Committee was that the bomb
should be used against Japan as soon as possible; that it be used
on a war plant surrounded by workers' homes; and that it be used
without prior warning.
p62
In the months prior to the Potsdam meeting, the Allied leaders
were very concerned about the strength and intentions of the Soviet
Union after the war. Acting Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew
summed up their concern:
Already Russia is showing us-in Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary,
Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia-the future world pattern
that she visualizes and will aim to create. With her certain stranglehold
on these countries, Russia's power will steadily increase and
she will in the not distant future be in a favorable position
to expand her control, step by step through Europe. (Gar Alperovitz,
The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb)
President Truman was advised that:
If expectations were to be realized, he [Stimson] told me, the
atomic bomb would be certain to have a decisive influence on our
relations with other countries. And if it worked, the bomb, in
all probability, would shorten the war. Byrnes had already told
me that the weapon might be so powerful as to be potentially capable
of wiping out entire cities and killing people on an unprecedented
scale. And he added that in his belief the bomb might well put
us in a position to dictate our terms at the end of the war. (Gar
Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb)
The expression "dictating our terms"
is in reference to the Soviet Union whose expansionist ambitions
were no secret.
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson reported
that:
I told him [Assistant Secretary of War-John J. Mcloy] that my
own opinion was that the time now and the method now to deal with
Russia was to keep our mouths shut and let our actions speak for
words. The Russians will understand them better than anything
else. It is a case where we have got to retain the lead and perhaps
do it in a pretty rough and realistic way. (Gar Alperovitz, The
Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb)
A War Department staff report recognized
that:
In destroying Germany, the nation that set out to dominate Europe
using force, we have made Russia, a nation with an economic system
of national monopoly, the unquestionably dominant power in Europe.
(Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb)
P. M. S. Blackett, a British Nobel Prize-winning
physicist, concluded that:
... the dropping of the atomic bomb was not so much the last military
act of the Second World War as the first major operation of the
cold diplomatic war with Russia.
But using civilians from a third country
as a warning of America's new, highly destructive weapon has to
rank as one of the greatest crimes against humanity. To sacrifice
two cities and about 150,000 people to inform your post-war adversary
that they may be next is unadulterated insanity.
Leo Szilard, an atomic scientist who met
with James F. Byrnes noted that:
Mr. Byrnes did not argue that it was necessary to use the bomb
against the cities of Japan in order to win the war. He knew at
the time, as the rest of the government knew that Japan was essentially
defeated and that we could win the war in another six months.
At that time Mr. Byrnes was much concerned about the spreading
of Russian influence in Europe... [Mr. Byrnes view was] that our
possessing and demonstrating the bomb would make Russia more manageable
in Europe. (Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb)
The Soviet Union's growing power, influence,
and ambitions were causing the American leaders a gnawing disquietude
about the distribution of power in the post-war world. Their apprehensions
were based on Soviet ideology, as understood in the West, on Soviet
ambitions for world domination and on their maneuvers to gain
control of Eastern Europe and much of Japanese territory as possible.
Both became critical factors in lied thinking about how to end
the war. According to Bill Gordon in Reflections Hiroshima:
... American leaders had concerns that the Soviet Union would
occupy Manchuria and would share the occupation of Japan with
the U.S.; in addition, American leaders believed that dropping
the bomb would strengthen their position with the Soviet Union
concerning their sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.
As well, Gar Alperovitz, in The Decision
to Use the Atomic Bomb, observed that:
The primary focal point... is the fact that throughout the spring
and summer of 1945 American officials developed their thinking
on the use of the atomic bomb in close relationship in the planning
of U.S. diplomacy towards the Soviet Union.
Truman's strong concern about the post-war
Soviet threat was the primary factor in his repeated attempts
to postpone the Potsdam conference. He was waiting for a successful
test of the atom bomb before meeting with Stalin.
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson suggested
at a meeting with President Truman that:
... the greatest complication was what might happen at the meeting
of the Big Three. He told me he had postponed that until the 15th
of July on purpose to give us more time. (Gar Alperovitz, The
Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb)
When President Truman responded to Prime
Minister Churchill's plea for a big three meeting as early as
possible, he stated that ". . . it will be very difficult
for me to be absent from Washington before the fiscal year (June
30)." Churchill responded on May 11 with "I would have
suggested the middle of June but for your reference to your fiscal
year (June 30) because I feel that every minute counts" and
on May 13 "In this case I consider that we should try to
bring the meeting off sometime in June, and I hope your fiscal
year will not delay it..." Finally, in complete frustration,
Churchill sent a cable to President Truman protesting that:
... I consider that July 15, repeat July the month after June,
is much too late for the urgent questions that demand attention
between us... 1 have proposed June 15, repeat June the month before
July, but if that is not possible why not July 1, 2, or 3? (Gar
Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb)
In a meeting with President Truman on
May 21, Joseph E. Davies, former Ambassador to Moscow, explained
that:
He did not want to meet until July. He had his budget on his hands.
He also told me of another reason, etc. The test [of the bomb]
was set for June, but had been postponed for July. (Gar Alperovitz,
The Decision the Use the Atomic Bomb)
President Truman's posture toward the
Soviet Union shifted after he became aware that a test of the
atomic bomb was imminent. Originally, he needed the Soviet Union
to declare war against Japan to draw some of the Japanese resources
away from the war against the U.S. After the successful test of
the nuclear weapon, Truman decided that he could terminate the
war with Japan without Soviet assistance and he did not want the
Russians to have a share in the Pacific pie. Ronald H. Spector,
in Eagles Against the Sun: The American War With Japan, observed
that:
With the atomic bomb a reality, the participation of the Soviets
in the war against Japan now appeared unnecessary, if not actually
undesirable. Ever since Yalta some American leaders had had doubts
about the value of Soviet participation, and now General Marshall
again advised the President that the Soviets were not really needed.
p66
Two crucial questions must be answered about the terms of surrender.
Firstly, were the Japanese prepared to surrender if there was
a guarantee to retain the Emperor? Secondly, if the Japanese were
prepared to surrender on these terms, was Truman aware of it?
According to Gar Alperovitz in The Decision to Use the Atomic
Bomb:
Truman had been fully aware of the key intercepts (something he
had privately confirmed to State Department interviewers four
years earlier [than 1960 when the official Potsdam Papers were
published], in January 1956).
Fragments of other intercepts to which
President Truman was privy included:
* On May 12, 1942, William Donovan, Director
of the OSS reported to Truman that Shunichi Kase (Japanese Minister
to Switzerland) stated that he "...believes that one of the
few provisions the Japanese would insist upon would be the retention
of the Emperor..."
* On August 11, 1944, Magic reports of
intercepted messages designated "Eyes Only" for the
President, such as "Foreign Minister Shigemitsu has instructed
Ambassador Sato [in
Moscow] to find out whether Russia is
willing to assist in bringing about a negotiated peace... "
It seems highly unlikely that he would have taken such a step
without having consulted at least some members of the new Japanese
Cabinet.
* On May 7, 1945, a peace feeler from
Portugal directly to Truman from the OSS representative reported
that "...the Japanese are ready to cease hostilities, provided
they are allowed to retain possession of their home islands."
Then again on May 19, "On this occasion Inoue declared that
actual peace terms were unimportant so long as the term 'unconditional
surrender' was not employed."
* On July 16, 1945, William Donovan sent
the President a report on P. Jacobson (Swedish economic advisor
to the Bank for International Settlements) informing Truman that
"Throughout discussions with Jacobson, the Japanese officials
stressed only two points: (a) the preservation of the Emperor,
and (b) the possibility of returning to the constitution promulgated
in 1889." (Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic
Bomb)
p68
Secretary of State Byrnes was not only a friend of President Truman
but became his closest advisor. Byrnes strong support for the
use of the atomic bomb without any warning not only influenced
the President but also influenced the Interim Committee whose
recommendations comprised most of the Potsdam Declaration. According
to the New York Times:
... it was understood that Mr. Byrnes would in effect, replace
Harry Hopkins as Presidential confidant, and, it was asserted,
receive far more authority than a President has yet yielded to
any man.
Byrne's assistant Walter Brown observed
that:
The President and Mr. Byrnes talked for an hour and it was apparent
Truman was looking to Byrnes for guidance.. . Truman said he considered
Byrnes one of his best friends and realized that he knew more
about government than anyone else around and, therefore, he wanted
Byrnes' help. (Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic
Bomb)
Secretary Byrnes was single-minded with
respect to his views about how to end the war. He was uncompromising
about the terms of surrender. According to Gar Alperovitz in The
Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb:
... Byrnes is a prime candidate for the advisor who helped Truman
draft his still-unexplained June 1 no-compromise stand on unconditional
surrender... So far as we can tell Byrnes was the only advisor
whose views were fully compatible with this position at this time.
As well, Gar Alperovitz, in the Decision
to Use the Atomic Bomb, concluded that:
In general, it appears that Byrnes not only regarded the atomic
bomb as extremely important to his diplomacy towards Russia, but
that in advising Truman he took a very narrow view of its role.
Minimally, he seems to have seen it from the very beginning as
leverage to help American diplomacy, and, more likely, as the
critical factor which-if shrewdly handled-would allow the United
States to impose its own terms once its power was demonstrated.
Given the context in which President Truman
would be making the decision about ending the war, there would
seem to be a predisposition toward using the bomb. The Interim
Committee had recommended dropping the bomb; Truman's closest
advisor strongly favoured the bomb; and the climate of apprehension
about Soviet expansionism strengthened the case for using the
atomic bomb.
The fear of an expanding Soviet Empire
after the war was a major problem for American policy-makers because
it would threaten the magnitude and strength of the American Empire.
Apprehension of Soviet intentions and the expansion of the American
Empire would play a key role in how to end the war with Japan.
Another major issue to be considered was
whether an invasion of Japan would cost substantially more lives
than dropping the bomb. One of the mythical justifications invoked
to support the use of atomic weapons assumed a fraudulent dichotomy
between dropping the bomb and invading Japan. The justification
was mythical because the President did not have any serious discussions
with the military about the potential loss of lives and most military
leaders rejected the use of nuclear weapons. As well, there were
many other options. American leaders were aware of Japanese peace
feelers from diplomatic intercepts and therefore, negotiations
offered the potential to end the war without the loss of any more
live/s.
... The argument about minimizing the
loss of life ignores the fact that most military leaders were
opposed to using the bomb and were not consulted. Gar Alperovitz
in The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb pointed out that:
When we turn to the testimony of the top military leaders themselves,
the evidence not only confirms that their advice was not seriously
sought, but also (with one possible ambiguous exception) strongly
suggests that none believed the use of the atomic bomb was dictated
by overwhelming military considerations. Several expressed deep
revulsion at the idea of targeting a city.
That lack of consultation doesn't represent
blundering on the part of civilian leaders including Truman. Rather,
it supports the idea that the use of the weapon was not going
to be a military but a diplomatic decision. The decision was going
to be based largely on considerations of empire and therefore
military input was secondary.
Fleet Admiral William D. Leay, Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered the 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 almost ' defeated and ready to surrender.., in being the
first to use it, we... adopted an J ethical standard common to
the barbarians of the Dark Ages. (Gar Alperovitz, Was Hiroshima
Necessary to End the War)
Major General Curtis E. during a press
conference on September 20, 1945, made it clear that military
considerations were not in play when he stated that:
The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians
and without the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb had nothing to do
with the end of Lt the war at all. (Gar Alperovitz, The Decision
to Use the Atomic Bomb)
p75
Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, commander of the Third
Fleet
"The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment It was
a mistake ever to drop it... (the scientists) had this toy and
they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it... It killed a lot
of Japs, but the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through
Russia long before."
p76
General Dwight D. Eisenhower
I voiced 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 the use of a weapon
whose employment was, I thought no longer mandatory as a measure
to save American lives."
p78
There are two ways to assess whether President Truman committed
crimes against humanity.
The first is the Charter of the International
Military Tribunal for the Nuremberg trials which applies to this
case. President Truman violated the following clauses in the Charter
of the International Military Tribunal:
Article 6
b. War Crimes: namely violations of the
laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include... murder,
ill-treatment.., of civilian population... wanton destruction
of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by
military necessity;
c. Crimes against Humanity: namely, murder,
extermination .... of civilian population...
The other way to evaluate President Truman's
culpability is to apply international laws which were created
after the end of WW II. He violated the following clauses in the
Geneva Conventions:
1. Convention IV, Part 1, Article 3, clause
1,-protection of civilians;
2. Convention IV, Chapter III, article
52-protection of nonmilitary objects:
3. Protocol I, Chapter II, Article 51,
clause 4-indiscriminate attacks.
President Truman lied to the American
people about his motives for dropping the two atomic bombs. He
also misled the public about the nature of the first target. In
a radio speech on August 9, 1945, he gave assurances that "The
world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima,
a military base." (Public Papers of the Presidents of the
United States) The killing of over 100,000 civilians, the devastation
of two cities, the deaths and diseases resulting from radiation
poisoning, and the ominous precedent of using nuclear weapons
are categorically crimes against humanity.
Lying
for Empire
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