Culture » August 6, 2005 » Web Only

Hiroshima: The Falsehood Fallout

As the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima arrives, two recent books examine the history of atomic weapons

By Phyllis Eckhaus

When George W. Bush declared war on Iraq to destroy Saddam’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, he was following the great American tradition of the Big Lie. Sixty years ago, when President Harry Truman announced to the American public that the first atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, he told a whopper, describing the city as “a military base” targeted “because we wished… to avoid…the killing of civilians.” Yet Hiroshima was not a military base; the Bomb had been deliberately dropped without warning on the city center, instantly leveling it and incinerating as many as 75,000 men, women and children. Another 125,000 died more slowly, many of them rotting inside-out from radiation poisoning.

Truman also claimed that the Bomb was our one way to compel Japanese surrender and that its use on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved half a million American lives. Yet as Gerard DeGroot observes in The Bomb, his caustic compendium of the history of nuclear weaponry, weeks earlier the United States had intercepted Japanese peace feelers to the Soviets. Japan was probably prepared to surrender on conditional terms-but the United States would accept only unconditional surrender.

The real target of the Bomb was the USSR. At Yalta, the Soviets had agreed to invade Japan in exchange for concessions in Asia-and the Russians were due to invade by August 15. The U.S. rush to nuke Japan allowed America to renege on that agreement. Analyzing the impact of the Bomb less than a year later, the United States’ own Strategic Bombing Survey challenged the claim that the Bomb ended the war, asserting “certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered.”

DeGroot lingers over the ludicrous lies churned out by government propaganda agencies in the ’50s, when housewives were told that “good housekeeping is one of the best protections against fire in a nuclear attack” and schoolchildren were taught that ducking under wooden desks would save them from immolation. Like today’s random searches of mass transit riders, yesterday’s elaborate civil defense plans were theatrical sham, doing nothing to increase public safety. He points out that the push for each American family to build its own basement fallout shelter presumed not only that everyone had a basement, but that the Soviets would courteously refrain from attack until families were home. Then as now, the government promoted an ideology of private self-help that maximized public vulnerability.

Thanks to DeGroot’s fluid style and ear for absurd detail, The Bomb is often bracingly amusing. But his equal opportunity sarcasm has the unfortunate effect of trivializing peace protests as “feeble and … self-indulgent” freak shows. His presumed pragmatism upholds the status quo by ridiculing the relative few who dare to challenge it. Yet every radical justice movement-from abolition to suffrage-started on the fringe.

DeGroot also gives short shrift to the profiteering that underwrites the arms race. He quotes the admission by Ronald Reagan’s former scientific advisor, George Keyworth, that the whole argument for “Star Wars,” the Strategic Defense Initiative, was “a pack of lies, unadulterated lies,” but relegates to a footnote the fact that almost 90 percent of the funds from this multi-billion dollar boondoggle went to just 10 defense contractors.

In The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Birth of the Modern Arms Race, Priscilla J. McMillan also overlooks the greed that fuels the continuing buildup of the American arsenal. She focuses narrowly on the McCarthy-era yanking of Oppenheimer’s security clearance, claiming that the trumped-up charges “resulted in the removal from public life of the one individual who might have restrained our catastrophic rush to over-armament.” Her tale of ruthless Washington opportunists lying, lawbreaking and generally ganging up on a perceived foe in order to consolidate power and intimidate enemies sounds awfully familiar. But to characterize these events as exceptional seems painfully naive, rather like the “great man” notion that Oppenheimer could have single-handedly halted the arms race. To the extent that Oppenheimer had influence, maybe we’re lucky it was diminished, as his promotion of smaller, “tactical” nuclear weapons seems a recipe for making nuclear war acceptable.

Perhaps the best passage in McMillan’s heavy-handed tome is when she confronts an FBI agent in a blatant falsehood, revealed through now-declassified documents-and he lets loose with a rant against the Freedom of Information Act. Power deceives and all governments lie. Yet with the dawn of the atomic age, the potential impact of a lie grew to encompass the destruction of the planet. DeGroot and McMillan expose the dangerous and deceptive machinations of government but seem to dismiss the only possible effective counterforce: an informed and angry citizenry.

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• Reader Comments

  The bombing of Japan was a watershed event in human history. It ended the war, saving hundreds of thousands of people on our side (of course, we were the side that was ruthlessly attacked). This includes pow’s who were treated inhumanely (to say the least!) by the Japanese and any soldiers who would have attacked Japan directly (full disclosure: i owe my life to the bombing).

  It also demonstrated - in tangible form - what nuclear weapons were capable of. I believe this has been a key reason they have not been used again in the modern age. While we have had irreposnsible leaders on both sides, no one has been so crazy to unleash the nuclear genie again. Let’s just hope the Islamic nuts out there never get such weapons!

  Posted by wolf on Aug 8, 2005 at 2:02 PM

  For other views read:

  WHY TRUMAN DROPPED THE BOMB
  Weekly Standard, 08/08/2005, Volume 010, Issue 44:
  Sixty years after Hiroshima, we now have the secret intercepts that shaped his decision. 
  by Richard B. Frank

  Also, from PBS’s website:
  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pacific/timeline/ 
  FROM THE FALL OF SAIPAN TO SURRENDER

  In the recent battles leading up to the bombing only around 3 percent of the Japanese Imperial troops participating were taken alive. 100,000 Japanese died on Okinawa rather than surrender. Our Naval Intelligence was intercepting over a million of their messages per month. No mutually acceptable terms were ever presented by authorized representatives— quite the opposite.

  “The intercepts of Japanese Imperial Army and Navy messages disclosed without exception that Japan’s armed forces were determined to fight a final Armageddon battle in the homeland against an Allied invasion. The Japanese called this strategy Ketsu Go (Operation Decisive)”

  Even Gen. Marshall, who had favored invasion earlier, changed his view after 900,000 troops (many brought back from China and Mongolia) were revealed to be on their home islands.

  ITT’s article states, “Japan was probably prepared to surrender on conditional terms-but the United States would accept only unconditional surrender.”

  The less than unconditional surrender terms they may have accepted, demanded the Japanese Imperial Army remain in control of Japan. (Like letting Hitler continue in Germany.)

  Also, according to David Bergamini’s book, JAPAN’S IMPERIAL CONSPIRACY, the Emperor was not without blame, but a full participant in the plan for conquest of the southeastern Asian countries which they had so brutally taken.

  Posted by whattheheck on Aug 8, 2005 at 7:32 PM

  Great article and an anniversary under-recognized in the US.  However, a few facts about the actual events in Hiroshima include the distribution of fliers over the city announcing the dropping of a bomb.  The Japanese government advised people to stay, that it was a trick, and to ignore the warnings.  The city is a port for military and an industrial center, however, the vast majority of people killed were women and children (still at home eating breakfast).  Also, the Japanese government’s reaction to the bomb was non-reactive until the 2nd bomb fell, which historical documents actually show that conversations in the Emperor’s cabinet was completely unpredicted.  With conversation and debate, the surrender was determined by the Nagasaki bomb and the destruction Japan faced if these kinds of bombings continued.  Some interesting reading is the Japanese surrender doc which details the limitations on occupation through the surrender.  Thus, Hirohito went on to live a long and comfortable life, in his palace, undisturbed.
  The morality of taking 200,000 lives with just 2 bombs…in order to save more lives…sounds reminiscent of Kissinger’s faulty logic for Vietnam.  Or maybe more currently, Schwarzeneggar’s “Collateral Damage” ethics.  It is an important question that remains to be answered.

  Posted by Judith on Aug 8, 2005 at 8:03 PM

  i don’t think one can view the decision to drop THE BOMB in isolation, i.e. whether the japanese were ready to surrender or could have been defeated conventionally.  first, let me say this: the list of japanese atrocities in the war are legion.  just ask the chinese or koreans or filipinos. this is not to say that we should meet their horror with our greater horror.  but wars are always ugly and this one was more so (as all the “modern” wars have been due to the “efficiencies” achieved).  read “the rape of nanking” if you need convincing.  second, there is “evidence” to drop or not drop on both sides.  yet, as has been noted, the japanese fought to-the-death in places like okinawa and iwo jima.  i have no doubt imagining that the homeland would have fought because the military leaders in japan would have ordered it.  third, it’s hard to make an analogy or comparison b/n truman’s characterization of hiroshima as a military target and bush’s lies re: wmd.  truman didn’t manufacture the war and he didn’t manufacture the arguments about what it might have taken to end it on terms acceptable to the u.s.  fourth, the war was filled with civilians being attacked.  the germans bombed london, the allies bombed dresden, the german subs sunk non-military ships, the japanese had their korean comfort women, and on and on and on.  so let’s not act as if hiroshima was the first time civilians had been attacked in that war.  fifth, the manhattan project began in response to fears that the germans were on the way to developing THE BOMB.  i have no doubt that hitler would have used it; and i have no doubt that if the u.s. and germany had simultaneously developmed THE BOMB each side would have been on a hair trigger.  sixth, i see no problem in pushing for an unconditional surrender with japan.  they would have asked the same of us had the position been reversed.

  anyway, my bottom line point is that it’s too easy and, in my opinion, inaccurate to say that the decision to drop THE BOMB was wrong.  absolutely, it was one of the seminal moments in human history; and i believe that the questions raised by nuclear power and war and peace and etc. are too complex to be distilled to whether it was right or wrong.

  Posted by carl8833 on Aug 8, 2005 at 10:44 PM

  Japan was probably prepared to surrender on conditional terms-but the United States would accept only unconditional surrender.

  And what conditions would those be?  The militarists were insisting on no occupation of the Japan mainland, and were unwilling to lose Japan’s overseas territories (acquired by conquest).  Also, any war criminals would have to be tried by Japanese, not Allied courts.  These conditions would never have been accepted by the Allies.

  Simply allowing the Emperor to remain on the throne would not have been sufficient to induce the military to surrender.

  Finally, would Japan have been better off if the Soviet Union had invaded and occupied Hokkaido?  Look at what happened when the Russians occupied parts of Germany and Korea to get your answer.  Stalin only called off the invasion at the last minute, and long after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed.

  Posted by Bobster1985 on Aug 9, 2005 at 11:21 PM

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