"Assume for a second, for the sake of argument that Japan would not have surrendered without one of three things having happened first, a massive invasion, months of continued blockade and heavy conventional and incendiary bombing, or dropping an A-bomb on a city or two"
The Strategic Bombing Report was there, it was then, and it was conclusive. The Japanese were going to surrender by the end of December...PERIOD: no ifs, no ands, no buts.
In "ALL probability they were going to surrender by the end of October...PERIOD: no ifs, no ands, no buts.
For many months it had not been a question of "IF" Japan was going to surrender, but under what terms. There is pretty much full consensus among historians that diplomacy could have ended the war well before the bombs were dropped. However, it might well have meant compromising with the Japanese desire to hold their own war crime trials, and to keep some of their sovereignty as a sop to their disgrace.
On June 18, Truman indicated that he would be open to modifying the surrender terms, but that Congress would need to author and initiate the change.
The American Public hated the Japanese with a passion. Giving the Japanese less punitive terms of settlement than Germany had been given, would place either the President or the Congress in a position of being reviled by the American public. Both of them passed on the opportunity to be the scapegoat to a revengeful and enraged populace.
So it was politics which prevented the Government from negotiating a conditional surrender, in spite of the fact that the strategy team was aware that the surrender could be gotten with a continued use of blockade, and control of the air...and a slight flexibility in the "demands" for an unconditional surrender.
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"if you have reasonable cause to believe that more Japanese civilians will die from either of the other two alternatives then from the atom bomb, would you order the bomb dropped if you where president?"
The fundamental basis of human freedom is the right to exist. A necessary corollary of this is the right to self defence.
In war, even a civilian does not forego the right to defence of hearth and home. Self defence is a deeper principle than whatever the rules of the particular war may be.
War is declared hostilities between enemies. It is therefore acknowledged, that combatants on both sides may initiate injury or death in complying with an (understood) self defence. However, the "enemy", by undeclaring hostilities and surrendering to his captor, is no longer attempting to injure or to harm, and he may therefore not be killed with the excuse of self defence. At that point it becomes murder.
These type of "murders" were done extensively by all or most nations in the war. Many of the criminals were hanged, but the majority went unpunished.
Killing a civilian is always murder, unless it is in self defence; or unless it is accidental or collateral damage.
The choice is not between the murder of civilians, and the collateral death of civilians. The choice is between the estimated collateral deaths of civilians in one approach, versus the estimated collateral deaths in another approach.
Certainly, some civilians may be killed because they are a threat (perhaps they are lobbing grenades). However, the innocent civilians and the surrendered soldiers may not. Indiscriminate killing is immoral. It violates the foundations of human justice; and, if there were anything sacred about a human life, then sending innocent people to suffering and death is an act of inhumanity.
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In the cases of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was their distinction as non-military targets which did them in.
On April 29, the JIC informed the JCOS that increasing "numbers of informed Japanese, both military and civilian, already realize the inevitability of absolute defeat."
They then continued that, "The entry of the U.S.S.R. into the war would, together with the foregoing factors, convince most Japanese at once of the inevitability of complete defeat.
On June 18 General Marshall advised the President that "the impact of Russian entry [into the war] on the already hopeless Japanese may well be the decisive action levering them into capitulation at that time..."
On July 8 the U.S.-British Combined Intelligence Committee completed a formal "Estimate of the Enemy Situation." This high-level document included the following assessment:
"We believe that a considerable portion of the Japanese population now consider absolute military defeat probable. The increasing effects of sea blockade and the cumulative devastation wrought by strategic bombing, which has already rendered millions homeless and has destroyed from 25% to 50% of the builtup areas of Japan's most important cities, should make this realization increasingly general...An entry of the Soviet Union into the war would finally convince the Japanese of the inevitability of complete defeat."
Truman said repeatedly that the main reason he went to Potsdam to meet Stalin was to make sure that Russia would enter the war. As he said: "If the test [of the atomic bomb] should fail, then it would be even more important to us to bring about a surrender before we had to make a physical conquest of Japan."
Now, Truman knew this. He had been advised by numerous strategy leaders (of which I have listed 2 or 3 above) that Russia spelled "finis for the Japs." Furthermore, he was happy to confirm that Russia was coming in on the 15th because: "If the test [of the atomic bomb] should fail, then it would be even more important to us to bring about a surrender before we had to make a physical conquest of Japan."
So: he knew that the Russian entry (on the 15th) would spell "finis for the Japs." But on Aug. 6 he decided to bomb a civilian target which had deliberately been left off of the previous airport raids precisely because it WAS a civilian target.
The Interim Committe on June 1st had recommended that the nuclear drop be on a military target, or on an important industrial facilty. All major factories in Hiroshima were on the outside of the city and escaped major damage, as confirmed by the SBR. Meeting of May 28 recommended that bomb drop be on the civilian center of the city-and so it was.
The goal announced by the Target Committee on May 31 was to, "seek to make a profound psychological impression on as many of the inhabitants as possible."
Likewise, Nagasaki was a civilian town which had been spared in previous raids as having no military value.
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...Then Truman's "Potsdam Journal" got "lost" until 1979. Listen very carefully what he wrote in it:
"Most of the big points are settled. He'll be in the Jap War on August 15. Fini Japs when that comes about"
Not "finis Japs" because of American invasion; not "finis Japs" because of atomic bombs; but "finis Japs" because Russia is entering the war on the 15th, and I have been repeatedly advised that this will force a surrender.
Documents reveal that there was no doubt but that the entry of Russia into the war would force the capitulation of the Japanese people.
Why did Truman use the bombs when he knew that all the best advice said that Japan was trying to surrender, and that they would capitulate once Russia entered the war? He knew Russia was entering on the 15th. Why didn't he wait??
Well, Russia decdided the 15th was no longer a good day, so after discussing what Truman had done...they declared war on Japan on the 8th. Then "BOOM"--again.
The mysterious end of the Pacific War...
Some of the people who urged the President to clarify the terms of surrender:
Churchhill, Secretary of State, Grew (repeatedly), Herbert Hoover, Presidential Council, Samuel I. Rosenman , Secretary of war, Stimsom, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, etc., etc., etc...
Leading newspapers were also urging the President to give surrender a chance. Truman knew the Proclamation could not/would not be accepted by the Japanese because the "Divine Throne" could not be made a sacrilege.
Well, I have indicated how both Congress and Truman were unwilling to give Japan a better treatment than Germany, as the public hate of the Japanese was a strong political wind.
Anyway, it is over. The world is threatened again with "I am Death." World leaders try to insist that nothing will justify the legal use of such a device again. I believe I read, however, that the International Court had left a loop hole in the case of a State fighting for its homeland in utter extremity. I am too tired to find a link. |
