Lessons of Hiroshima
Using nuclear bombs on Japan was a political, not military, decision
By Kevin Black
[article snipped to get to the interesting part]
The second reason for our near universal misunderstanding of the twin nuclear holocausts stems from an equally human, but more socially harmful motivation. We have been collectively blocked from a critical understanding of the A-bombings because of a lack of public criticism in the face of a powerful and purposeful historical misrepresentation that began with President Harry Truman in the years following 1945 and is only ending now, albeit very slowly.
The ongoing declassification of U.S. government documents and officials' diaries have fairly recently revealed evidence that the history lessons that we were taught after the end of the Pacific War were false. To wit:
- The Joint Chiefs of Staff and every other high military official, as well as all Truman's key advisers, save one, were against the use of the A-bombs against the Japanese. Many were particularly concerned about the impact to America's moral stature for using bombs that they considered barbaric, especially upon a nation that they knew was beaten. After all, the U.S. military had already gained complete domination of Japanese airspace and waterways. They were simply waiting for the terms of surrender to be formulated between the U.S. and Japanese governments.
- Truman repeatedly delayed acceptance of the Japanese government's conditional surrender attempts until after both types of A-bomb had been used.
- Truman's physical target for the A-bombs were the Japanese, but the political target was his ally, but ideological opposite, Joseph Stalin.
- Hiroshima's city centre was targeted because its high population and building density would maximally display to the Soviets the killing and destructive power of America's new weapon.
- The deciding factors for the Japanese government's capitulation were the entry of the Soviet Union into the Pacific War coupled with America's post-bombing acceptance of conditional surrender.
- The story of a million American lives (and many more Japanese lives) saved by the A-bombs was a complete fabrication designed to eliminate public criticism of the president's decision.
- Thus, the twin destructive forces of "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" were of political, but not military, utility. In other words, the nuclear holocausts were used for the purpose of "atomic diplomacy" with the Soviets rather than to bring a swift end to the war.
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The article footnote reads, "Kevin Black is a clinical psychologist who has lived and worked in Hiroshima." This piece was found under the Opinion section of my morning paper - how much of that is confirmed fact? Nonetheless I thought it was interesting.
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