The Decision to employ Nuclear Weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki [1 ed.] 9783954895601, 9783954890606

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Joe Majerus

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The Decision to employ Nuclear Weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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Majerus, Joe: The Decision to employ Nuclear Weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hamburg, Anchor Academic Publishing 2013 Original title of the thesis: The Decision to employ Nuclear Weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki Buch-ISBN: 978-3-95489-060-6 PDF-eBook-ISBN: 978-3-95489-560-1 Druck/Herstellung: Anchor Academic Publishing, Hamburg, 2013 Additionally: Université du Luxembourg, Luxemburg, Luxemburg, Bachelor Thesis, , 2012

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek: Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar Bibliographical Information of the German National Library: The German National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography. Detailed bibliographic data can be found at: http://dnb.d-nb.de

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Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Dies gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Bearbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Die Wiedergabe von Gebrauchsnamen, Handelsnamen, Warenbezeichnungen usw. in diesem Werk berechtigt auch ohne besondere Kennzeichnung nicht zu der Annahme, dass solche Namen im Sinne der Warenzeichen- und Markenschutz-Gesetzgebung als frei zu betrachten wären und daher von jedermann benutzt werden dürften. Die Informationen in diesem Werk wurden mit Sorgfalt erarbeitet. Dennoch können Fehler nicht vollständig ausgeschlossen werden und die Diplomica Verlag GmbH, die Autoren oder Übersetzer übernehmen keine juristische Verantwortung oder irgendeine Haftung für evtl. verbliebene fehlerhafte Angaben und deren Folgen. Alle Rechte vorbehalten © Anchor Academic Publishing, ein Imprint der Diplomica® Verlag GmbH http://www.diplom.de, Hamburg 2013 Printed in Germany

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 2.2 Tactics of Strategic Bombing ............................................................................... 6 2.3 Operation Downfall ............................................................................................. 8 3. Alternatives for ending the War.............................................................................. 11 3.1 The impracticalities of a diplomatic solution .................................................... 11 3.2 Conventional alternatives: Military and Economic ........................................... 17 4. Paths to Nuclear Destruction .................................................................................. 22 4.1 “Shock and Awe” ............................................................................................... 22 4.2 The Potsdam Conference: Final Chance to avoid Nuclear Holocaust ............... 26 4.3 The Empire's Last Stand .................................................................................... 29 4.4 The selection of targets ..................................................................................... 30 5. The Detonation of Atomic Bombs ........................................................................... 33 6. Reasons for employing Nuclear Weapons ............................................................... 37 6.1 Diplomatic Power Game.................................................................................... 38 6.2 Structural Imperatives ....................................................................................... 43 7. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 49 8. Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 56 8.1 Primary Sources ................................................................................................. 56 8.2 Secondary Sources ............................................................................................ 59 Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

8.3 Internet Sites ..................................................................................................... 60 

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ͳǤ –”‘†—…–‹‘ “The facts of history are indeed facts about individuals, but not about actions of individuals performed in isolation, and not about the motives [....] from which individuals suppose themselves to have acted. They are facts about the relations of individuals to one another in society and about the social forces which produce from the actions of individuals results often at variance with, and sometimes opposite to, the results which they themselves intended.“1 This fundamental statement by E.H. Carr essentially refers to the pivotal methodological necessity of the historian to not merely relate specific historical events, developments and processes to a single rational decision deliberately taken at a given point in the past by certain individuals in complete knowledge of the implications their actions might entail, but rather that as result of their at times catatonic entrenchment in static decision-making structures and the formative influence exerted upon their reasoning by a multitude of governing factors borne out of various political, economical, military, social and ideological considerations (and possibly even personal predispositions), the actions of individual human beings – in particular those vested with profound and extraordinary political powers - should accordingly not merely be attributed to the preponderance of a single and clearly defined motive presumably guiding their ability to judge. Theirs often are decisions which, although usually only arrived at after long and thorough deliberation, are regularly informed by considerations and calculations inferred from such an intricate interaction of determining influences that any attempt to expose one principal or predominant motive would essentially be to disregard all those other factors and aspects which to a more or lesser degree ultimately bore as well as upon the adoption of a given course of action. Accordingly it is by starting from this very premise that the subsequent analysis sets out to critically illuminate and elaborate upon one of the arguably most consequential and controversial single decisions taken in recent modern history, namely the dropping of Nuclear Weapons upon the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August

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6th, respectively August 9th 1945, by American Air Force Bombers within the overriding context of hostilities between these countries in the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War. In so doing, the paper at hand does, however, not merely attempt to offer a conclusive and exhaustive answer to the question as to what primary factors and/or ostensibly ulterior motives ultimately led American decision makers to issue the order to detonate Atomic Bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but on a more profound scale it essentially also aspires to determine whether any of the given reasons might indeed be said of having considerably outweighed all 1

E.H. Carr, What is History? (Cambridge, 1961). Available at: http://library.universalhistory.net/wpcontent/uploads/2011/05/What-is-history.pdf [revised 29 March 2012], p. 30.

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other considerations contemplated at the time, or in other words whether in effect there truly existed such a thing as a solitary, pre-eminent motive among American policy-makers which clearly and undeniably reduced all other potential influences and motivations to the status of at best complementary, yet ultimately far less significant incitements for dropping the bombs. In accordance with E.C. Carr's statement, the following analysis consequently endeavours to demonstrate that the decision to release nuclear weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki was in fact anything but the result of a premeditated action on the part of leading American authorities, but rather that it evolved out of a unique combination of interrelated strategic and socio-political considerations, inter-personal relationships as well as practical exigencies. To that end the matter at hand will essentially be approached by means of a systematic two-step methodological examination, one which will in a first instance explore in depth the special circumstances under which US officials operated in the weeks and months prior to the actual dropping of nuclear weapons and which, as a consequence, undoubtedly had a profound and eminently decisive impact upon their decision-making. Following that, it will be analysed how their reasoning was furthermore also substantially affected by reflections and objectives of a slightly less tangible yet nevertheless equally important order, influential determinants which especially when reviewed against the contextual background of their time ultimately figured all the more pertinently in deliberations dealing with the seminal issue of employing Nuclear Weapons against Japan. The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, frequently and unjustifiably reduced to the preponderance of a single motive, has ever since been a matter of fierce contention in scholarly debates attempting to provide a definite and incontrovertible answer to the question of why both of these Japanese cities and their inhabitants ultimately had to be submitted to the horrors of nuclear warfare. Historians today still fierily dispute the alleged plurality of motives underlying this momentous decision, the result being a polarized scholarly discord which by now virtually abounds in a multitude of different theories and competing suppositions.2 At one end of the spectrum there are those scholars who argue that the decision solely rested upon grounds of military expediency, foremost the necessity to shorten a gruelling Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

war and to save the lives of American soldiers.3 An entirely different explanation is, on the other hand, offered by those historians who contend that American policy makers above all wanted to exhibit their country's enormous military potency, with Hiroshima and Nagasaki basically serving to counter post-war ambitions of the Soviet Union by demonstrating the vast

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J. Samuel Walker, ‘Recent Literature on Truman’s Atomic Bomb Decision: A Search for the Middle Ground’, Diplomatic History, 29, no. 2 (2005), pp. 311–334. 3 Robert J. Maddox, Weapons for Victory: The Hiroshima Decision Fifty Years Later (Columbia, 1995); J. Samuel Walker, Prompt and utter destruction (Chapel Hill, 1997).

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destructive potential which presently solely the United States had at its command.4 Somewhere in between these diametrically opposed viewpoints there also figure contentions pertaining to the apparent need of American politicians to recover the costs of an expensive nuclear development programme; as well as to considerations of public sentiment and the desire of a retaliatory revenge at Japanese aggression.5 Still, it was only fairly recently that historians, notably Barton J. Bernstein, have aspired to strike a middle ground between these two argumentative extremes, emphasizing on the one hand the primarily military value of the Atomic Bomb while at the same time also giving due credit to its additional purpose as an instrument of diplomatic power politics, as well as to the issue of anticipated American Army casualties in the event of ongoing hostilities in the Pacific.6

ʹǤŠ‡ War ƒ‰ƒ‹•– Japan 2.1 Imperial Resistance To begin with, it is eminently important to first clarify what primary objective the United States actually sought to achieve at the time by issuing the order of releasing nuclear devices over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as only a clear and sound analysis of its overall agenda may effectively explain why its leaders ultimately resorted to the use of atomic warfare. As it were, ever since a correspondent public statement made by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, the principal and foremost aim of that agenda was and always had been none other than the complete and „unconditional surrender“ of the enemies of the Anglo-American alliance.7 It was the unfaltering abidance by that policy which had widely informed the decisions of the Roosevelt Administration in their dealings with both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, one which Henry Truman after assuming the presidential office following Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death on April 12th 1945 ultimately had every intention of pursuing just as staunchly as his predecessor had done.8 Consequently the very key to understanding the intricacies underlying the deliberations and decision-making

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process of employing nuclear warfare essentially boils down to the fact that at the time the American government was altogether firmly convinced that eventually only a complete and uncontested defeat of the Japanese Empire would ensure that never again would there spread 4

Gar Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy. Hiroshima and Potsdam (New York, 1965); Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (Cambridge, 2005). 5 Ronald Takaki, Hiroshima: Why America dropped the Atomic Bomb (Boston, 1995); Walker, pp. 94-97. 6 Barton J. Bernstein, ‘Eclipsed by Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Early Thinking about Tactical Nuclear Weapons’, International Security 12 (Spring 1991), pp. 149-173. 7 Maddox, pp. 6-19. 8 Ibid, p. 13; Henry L. Stimson, ‘The decision to use the atomic bomb’, Harper's Magazine (February 1947), p. 101.

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forth from it such rampant militarist aggression capable to wreak havoc upon American, or for that matter East-Asian soldiers and civilians as well, as had in these past several years.9 It was thus the strict adherence to the policy of “unconditional surrender” which formed the guiding principle of American decision-makers in their efforts to achieve a complete and unequivocal victory on each single war front that the armed forces of the American military were presently engaged in. Yet while in early spring 1945 the European campaign against Nazi-Germany slowly but surely drew to a close, an altogether different picture presented itself in the Pacific Theatre of the war.10 For despite decisive victories and strategic progresses made by American troops in the preceding months, Japanese forces ultimately still maintained a tenaciously resilient defence of the seaborne approaches to their motherland: Even as Allied armies were penetrating ever deeper into the heart of Nazi Germany, Japanese battalions on the pacific island of Iwo Jima were fighting out a tenacious - and in terms of human fatalities immensely costly - resistance against their American assailants. From the outset local garrisons engaged their assailants in a fierce defensive struggle, literally mowing down wave after wave of Marines strenuously battling their way forward from the relative safety of their landing vessels towards the heavily fortified shorelines. Eventually US Marines were able to purge the enemy from his cavernous fortifications on the island, though only at the expense of an exceedingly high body count in their own ranks. Notwithstanding the tactical importance of thus winning Iwo Jima as a seminal base for further airborne ventures against Japan proper, its conquest, moreover, ultimately constituted but one out of several preliminary sub-steps in the overriding endeavour of pushing the Japanese ever nearer to total defeat.11 Worse, American troops soon were to experience another gruelling nightmare following their assault of the southern Japanese island of Okinawa.12 Nearly two months of merciless jungle butchering, in particular vividly remembered by participants for its unusually high degree of raw brutality as a result of close-combat man-to-man fighting13, went by before the US Army at last succeeded in ousting the enemy from its emplacements, achieving a formal victory that saw 7600 American soldiers dead and as much as 75% of their adversaries incapacitated, many of whom for reasons of personal honour and national pride rather Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

preferred death at their own hands than turning themselves over to their adversaries.14

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Walker, Destruction, pp. 42-43. Notably since as a result of the enormous onslaught of Soviet Troops on her eastern front and the simultaneous emergence of major cracks in her western defences, Germany was generally believed unable to withstand much longer the tremendous back-breaking pressure of this double Allied pincer movement. For a concise account of the Allied campaign in Europe and the Pacific see: Chester Wilmot, The Struggle for Europe (Hertfordshire, 1997) and Evan Mawdsley, World War II. A New History (Cambridge, 2009), especially pp. 408-420. 11 Mawdsley, pp. 411-413. 12 Ibid. 13 See in particular John Hersey, Into the Valley. Marines at Guadalcanal (New York, 1943). 14 Mawdsley, p. 412. 10

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Victories in two incredibly horrific battles, largely borne out of a combination of superior troop strength and technological supremacy in the form of auxiliary naval shelling of the enemy's position prior to the actual disembarkation, thus secured the American Army important operational stepping boards for the seemingly inevitable exigency of launching military operations on a considerably larger scale against mainland Japan itself. For notwithstanding the dismal outcome of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, resulting not only in the death of thousands of Japanese soldiers and civilians but also in an irrefutable demonstration of the enormous striking power and sheer limitless resource pool of the US Army, Japanese military leaders still categorically refused to admit to their apparent disadvantages in the field. Quite to the contrary, Iwo Jima and Okinawa actually reinforced their unswerving and steadfast conviction of repelling American troops in the event of an invasion against their homeland, reasoning that if such a relatively small contingent of Japanese forces as had been stationed on Iwo Jima and Okinawa had managed to hold out for several weeks against a vastly superior enemy, while, moreover, inflicting a not unsubstantial number of casualties themselves, than surely they would stand a good fighting chance for defending their infinitely larger home soil for many more additional months, if not even longer.15 This firm resolution of the Imperial Army to fight out an all-or-nothing battle until virtually the very last man ultimately did not go unnoticed by US government officials. Long since had American infantrymen become familiar with the infamous spirit of the Japanese bushido code, characterized, among other things, by the deep-rooted perception of Japanese soldiers that consciously giving one's life while defending the fatherland would always be preferable to an allegedly shameful and dishonourable surrender to the enemy.16 The pertinacious and seemingly irrational perseverance of Japanese battalions in the face of overwhelming adversarial superiority frequently reported by American GI's had after all already clearly attested to that peculiar quality of Japanese soldiers, while suicidal airborne attacks by kamikaze pilots against US Navy ships and advancing land columns provided further evidence of this inscrutable warrior philosophy.17 Finally, American authorities were ultimately also well aware of efforts by the Imperial government aimed at further indoctrination of these belligerent Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

views into the susceptible minds of Japanese citizens, basically through appealing to their sense of national and patriotic honour.18

15

Maddox, p. 53, 110-111. Robin L. Rielly, Kamikaze attacks of World War II (North Carolina, 2010), pp. 8-15; Stanley Sandler, World War II in the Pacific: An Encyclopedia (New York, 2001), pp. 215-216. 17 Mawdsley, pp. 412-415. 18 Rielly, pp. 8-15; Sandler, pp. 215-216. 16

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As a consequence, American military analysts shared no illusions that unless the Imperial Army was administrated such a devastating and decisive blow that would unequivocally testify to its incontrovertible defeat in the field, it would likely continue to mobilize whatever resistance it could still muster for fending off any offensive operations undertaken by its enemies.19 Such reasoning would eventually only further be hardened by the fact that in spite of whatever vague approaches had heretofore been made by members within the Japanese government to conclude an early peace settlement, American officials before long received undeniable proof that the Imperial Army was presently initiating comprehensive precautionary measures in anticipation of a prolonged battle on its own proper home soil, knowledge which thus ultimately surely rendered the prospects for an impending peaceful surrender of Japan ever more improbable in the minds of most American decision-makers.20

2.2 Tactics of Strategic Bombing In the preceding months American military planners had also sought to break the will of the Japanese resistance by resorting to other means of conventional warfare apart from tedious man-to-man combat, notably by making use of the imposing air superiority of their Air Force. Already in mid 1944 American B-29 bomber planes had launched the first assault waves of what eventually was to become one of the largest aerial campaigns in history. Initially, however, these ventures had for the most part been directed against predominantly industrial targets, a tactical priority largely grounded on the concept of best achieving victory over the enemy by systematically crippling his core industries and infrastructure. This process, so it was surmised, would before long lead to a substantial dysfunction of the adversary's central industrial production and transportation capacities, notably since it was believed to severely disrupt the fundamental processes underlying the modern “assembly line”-concept, i.e. internal rationalisation, serialization and standardization. In conjunction with the simultaneous destruction of key transportation networks, perturbations of such tremendous proportions were essentially expected to invariably entail a country's total economic breakdown, the result not Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

only being a severe shortage of fundamental resources required to sustain current war efforts, but following increasing public deprivations of seminal goods and elementary life services the enemy would, moreover, also experience a near complete political - and hence national – collapse as well.21 19

Gabriel Kolko, The Politics of War. The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943-1945 (New York, 1968), pp. 555-556. 20 Memorandum from John Weckerling to Deputy Chief of Staff on “Japanese Peace Offer”, July 13th 1945. In: RG 165, Army Operations OPD Executive File #17, Item 13. 21 For a detailed overview of the strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific see: Michael S. Sherry, The rise of American air power: The creation of Armageddon (New Haven, 1987), pp. 256-292, 400-409.

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However, reality ultimately failed to meet these optimistic theoretical expectations forthwith, as in spite of the unremitting targeting of key industrial compounds as well as the already widescale obliteration of numerous similar sites, Japan was yet still able to keep its economy rolling. It was precisely in this context that US Air Force planners then gradually began to shift priority from precision bombing to deliberate assaults against larger targets, including extensive residential districts in the most populous Japanese cities.22 The alleged effectiveness of such area raids had already been amply demonstrated by the aerial attack of the Chinese city Hankow in mid December 1944, so that despite internal friction within the Air Force as to the advisability over such large-scale incendiary raids against civilian targets, the United States ultimately sanctioned their regular carrying out against Japanese communities as well.23 In so doing, the over-all goal of these operations was to bring home to the Japanese people such unprecedented levels of horror and mortal fear of additional raids that - so the assumption went - the entire country would before long be bombed into such a profound and lasting state of collective “shock and awe” that would ultimately precipitate no less than a complete, nationwide paralysis of public morale and the Japanese will to resist. Consequently, it was essentially due to this systematic flattening of entire residential quarters that Japan eventually had to endure the as yet by far most catastrophic damages on its own proper home ground. Alone the infamous Tokyo raid on March 9th 1944 presumably claimed as much 100000 civilian victims, while the overall number of fatalities incurred as a result of these carpet bombings would eventually amount to the staggering figure of at least 400000 dead people.24 Yet notwithstanding the moral and ethical questioning of such strategies, there had, however, already at the time existed much contention and internal friction with regard to the strategy's overall soundness in terms of its military effectiveness, notably the criticism that just as with the bombing of German city centres, the deliberate targeting of Japanese cities might in the last analysis fall short of meeting its primary objective, namely the weakening of popular morale in the face of looming destruction.25 Whichever view may actually hold true, the fact ultimately remains that by late Spring 1945 neither precision bombing nor its arguably more horrifying alternative had thus far Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

compelled the Imperial government to seriously consider an end of hostilities in conformity with the terms laid out by the policy of unconditional surrender. Accordingly, American 22

Mawdsley, pp. 410-411. Sherry, pp. 256-258. 24 Mawdsley, p. 410. 25 Indeed the argument frequently even goes that large-scale bombings ultimately attained the exact opposite effect, i.e. they actually only hardened the resolution of local populations to hold out until the very end as a direct result of their ongoing exposure to relentless aerial bombing, a situation which, moreover, also readily fed into the government's general representation of the enemy as a merciless and ruthless killer of entire civil communities. For an overview of Allied bombing campaigns, see. Michael Burleigh, Moral Combat. A History of World War II (London, 2010), pp. 506-517. 23

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military strategists increasingly began to turn their attention to other feasible alternatives for securing victory over their resilient enemy. Yet since direct diplomatic communications between both countries were basically all but non-existent at the time, with the possible exception of tentative approaches by certain individual Japanese cabinet members via backchannels at the Russian embassy,26 any hopeful prospects for arriving at a peaceful and acceptable understanding with Japan in the foreseeable future were ultimately deemed rather slim by leading American decision-makers. It was against this bleak background that the US military then eventually seriously moved ahead with preparations for what was generally perceived as the only viable measure to induce an unconditional surrender of the Japanese Empire through conventional warfare: an all-out defeat of the Imperial Army through a fullscale invasion of its major home islands.

2.3 Operation Downfall Even while the US Air Force continued its assaults on Japanese industrial and residential targets, American military planners naturally had felt obliged to make all necessary preliminary provisions for any potential eventualities that might sooner or later arise in the event of a prolonged war. Accordingly the Army began to concern itself with detailed operational and technical specifications for a two-stage invasion plan of the Japanese homeland, the first phase (codenamed Olympic) envisioning a three-front assault of Japan's southern major island Kyushu to be initiated at the latest on November 1st 1945, followed by an even larger amphibious operation (codenamed Coronet) a couple of months later against the Empire's principal island Honshu.27 Yet from the very beginning there was no mistaking that the practical execution of such an invasion would be an incredibly arduous and cumbersome affair, generally believed to considerably surpass any previously conducted enterprises in terms of operational difficulty, logistic feasibility, encountered resistance and, perhaps most important of all, with regard to the number of casualties likely to be incurred in the course of the attack. Basically, such gloomy Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

perceptions were grounded on a variety of interacting factors and tactical considerations: first, both Kyushu and Honshu offered a decidedly unfavourable terrain for any assailing force, given its ragged shorelines and formidable natural obstacles in the form of long mountain ranges extending over sizeable areas upcountry.28 Secondly, American landing forces would 26

Mawdsley, p. 424. Ibid, p. 421. 28 It are essentially the peculiar characteristics of these geographical barriers which are commonly held to account to a not insignificant degree for the fact that in nearly 2600 years of recorded history Japan had not once been conquered by a foreign aggressor. On the unfavourable Japanese terrain features see also Stimson, 'The decision to use the atomic bomb', p. 102; Burleigh, p. 524. 27

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not - as they had had prior to the invasion of Normandy - have the advantage of fooling the enemy into believing that the main assault area would be different from the one that was actually first being engaged. This, in turn, would give the Imperial Army ample time to not only redeploy units into the appointed landing zones, but, moreover, also to bolster fortifications in those areas and - as intercepted radio transmissions suggested - to raise armed civilian militia to assist ordinary soldiers in the repulsion of the aggressor. Finally, the arguably most worrisome aspect involved in planning Operation Downfall pertained to the sombre realisation that even if the United States should master the formidable task of actually establishing a foothold on Kyushu, the accomplishment of such a bold and venturesome endeavour could, so it was believed, ultimately only be achieved at the expense of an enormously high blood toll in American soldiers.29 It were largely observations such as these which in the spring of 1945 substantially influenced the preparation of military operations scheduled to commence in the fall of that year, with their potentially dire outcome already early on being conveyed to decision-makers in Washington as well. In general their deliberations focused on the apparent impracticality of invading the Japanese homeland as well as in particular on the number of casualties to be sustained as a result thereof, prompting high-ranking government officials to consult with various experts and advisers on these sensitive matters, including former President Herbert C. Hoover. In a letter to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, Roosevelt's predecessor gave a detailed personal assessment for the success of Operation Downfall, confirming therein not only the shared belief as to the infeasibility for capturing such an all but impregnable terrain as the Japanese mainland, but also offering his own, though unsubstantiated projections as to the number of soldiers likely to be killed in the course of such an undertaking, a figure which in his view might ultimately very well amount to over 550 000 dead marines.30 It was on a meeting held in the White House on June 18th 1945 that President Harry Truman then eventually was presented as well with the basic facts concerning the envisaged invasion. High-ranking military officials elaborated on all essential details and particulars of their assault plan, explaining to their commander-in-chief not only the above cited difficulties Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

and challenges inherent in such an intricate enterprise, but essentially also providing him with minute estimates of casualties anticipated to be inflicted on American landing forces. It was in particular to the latter aspect that the President before long took a keen and vivid interest, 29

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It was expected that the Japanese would be able to mount at least 8 divisions – about 350 000 troops - to meet an American invasion of Kyushu. - Minutes of Meeting Held at the White House on June 18th 1945. In: Record Group 218, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Central Decimal Files, 1942-1945, box 198 334 JCS (2-2-45) Mtg 186th-194; Burleigh, Moral Combat, p. 524. Memorandum by General George A. Lincoln to General Hull from June 4th 1945, commenting on President Hoover’s evaluation. In: Record Group 165, Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs, American-British-Canadian Top Secret Correspondence, Box 504, ABC 387 Japan.

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presumably as it was above all this specific feature of the operation which would ultimately exert a major influence on his subsequent decisions.31 However, it should be noted that those casualty figures have ever since been a special subject of fierce debate among scholars, especially since many revisionist historians in particular keep persisting on the fact that fatality projections had been exceedingly too high at the time and, as a result, had thus severely misrepresented the potential loss of lives to be incurred in the event of an actual invasion.32 While it is certainly true that casualty estimates might ultimately indeed have been exaggerated, one should nevertheless be careful not to let such theoretical guesswork and scholarly disagreement interfere too much with a sound analysis of the actual historical reality, essentially because in their function as largely unverifiable suppositions they do, for one, frequently delve into he realm of counter-factual history, and, on the other hand, attempt to illuminate a past event by referring to information and insights which for the most part only became available or fully understood after the actual period of historical examination. As far as the question of casualty numbers is concerned, it is thus crucial and indeed of the utmost importance to only focus on such information as at the time undoubtedly acted as a principal decision guidance to the men immediately involved in the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan, notably President Truman and his inner circle of Cabinet members and chief military advisers. In so doing, a close reading of their conversations will invariably reveal that irrespective of any potential exaggerations, American officials in mid June 1945 were for the most part of the firm conviction that Operation Downfall would inevitably entail a considerable number of American fatalities.33 Consequently it ultimately really is beside the point to concentrate on whether or not there would indeed have died as many American soldiers as had been suggested by these figures. What essentially matters is the fact that leading American policy-makers had for the most part believed that they would likely run up to an unbearably high figure, so that as a result it was basically the grim prospect of potentially having to sacrifice tens of thousands of America's finest young men which may thus reasonably be said of having informed to a not unsubstantial degree their judgement with regard to the handling of Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

the Pacific War.34 31

Minutes of Meeting Held at the White House on June 18th 1945. (See. No.29). In particular Barton J. Bernstein, John Ray Skates and Rufus E. Miles. See: Walker, ‘Recent Literature on Truman’s Atomic Bomb Decision’, p. 315. 33 Despite internal disagreement among US authorities as to the exact number of potential casualties, the projected estimates eventually ranged from a minimum of at least 31 000 dead GI's to at the worst several hundred thousands casualties - Minutes of Meeting Held at the White House on June 18th 1945 (See No. 29); Letter by Harry Truman to Prof. James L. Cate, January 12th, 1953, available at: http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Hiroshima/Truman.shtml [revised 1 May 2012]; Maddox, pp. 59-61; D.M. Giangreco, ‘Casualty Projections for the Invasions of Japan: 1945-1946, Planning and Policy Implications’, Journal of Military History (July 1997), pp. 521-82. 34 Burleigh, p. 524. 32

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While casualty figures were certainly not the only determinant in discussions about the general undesirability for effecting Operation Downfall, both the transcripts of governmental meetings held in spring 1945 as well as the statements of various high-ranking officials in later years ultimately clearly refer to the seminal bearing they had on why US policy-makers eventually chose to resort to alternative expedients deemed likely to end the war before an invasion would actually have to be put into execution. President Truman himself has repeatedly stated that as commander-in-chief the protection of the lives of the men and women serving in the three branches of the United States military had naturally been one of his foremost concerns when issuing the order to drop nuclear devices over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, essentially because any alternative scenario would probably have resulted in the death of further thousands of American soldiers in the months thereafter.35 Secretary of War Henry S. Stimson, for his part, would then later also cite this very need to save American lives as one of the major determining factors in the United States’ decision to use atomic bombs.36

3. Alternatives for ending the War 3.1 The impracticalities of a diplomatic solution A fundamental aspect of the decision to employ the atomic bomb certainly regards the question as to whether they had at the time indeed constituted the only tangible alternative for ostensibly preventing the loss of further American lives, or whether there hadn’t after all existed a less radical approach for achieving the same result by exploring more thoroughly the possibilities of a peaceful resolution of the conflict through diplomatic accommodation. In so doing it is, however, once again important to bear in mind that any analytical interpretation of these matters must solely rest on such information and insights available at the time to decision-makers in Washington which clearly reflect the intentions and dispositions of leading Japanese government officials as to the conclusion of an early peace settlement, and which accordingly are thus not diluted with subsequent statements of high-ranking Japanese

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politicians attesting to their country's alleged readiness to accept an early surrender. For after the war there has indeed been much written on the subject that if only the United States had exhibited a more lenient position with regard to “unconditional surrender”, then the possibility of the Japanese government acceding to a peaceful end of hostilities might well have been within graspable reach given that some of its cabinet members had actually expressed an ardent wish for an immediate ceasefire, a desire which they had, moreover, repeatedly sought to bring 35

President Truman’s message to Congress on the use of the atomic bomb from October 3rd, 1945. Available at: http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Deterrence/Truman.shtml [revised 1 May 2012]. 36 Stimson, ‘The decision to use the atomic bomb’, p. 106.

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to the attention of the Americans through communication channels at the Russian embassy.37 However, all of these observations, regardless of the sincerity and genuine will for peace proclaimed by at least some Japanese government officials, ultimately contribute little to the debate of why the Truman Administration employed nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki if they unduly refer to intentions shared by Japanese individuals which at the time were either not properly communicated to American decision-makers, or which for various reasons were simply not deemed trustworthy and/or representative of the over-all attitude of the Imperial government. For ultimately the United States could only base its final judgement and evaluation of the situation on such messages which gave them a clear indication of Japan’s overall agenda and designs, and thus not by merely acting upon the often ambiguous and equivocal avowals made in unofficial approaches. Despite the non-existence of official diplomatic correspondence between the United States and Japan, the Americans were, however, nonetheless able to obtain an at least cursory insight into the general attitude of their adversary through the interception of various transmissions between its government and the leadership of the Imperial Army, even though the information thus received through the ingenuity of the American code-breaking system MAGIC naturally covered but a tiny fraction of the deliberations that were at the time being conducted at the top echelons of the Japanese executive. Moreover, the seminal question also remained as to what extent these various despatches could actually be taken at face value, i.e. whether they in fact reflected the position of the major part of the Japanese governing elite as opposed to merely the wishes of a few solitary cabinet members.38 In keeping with this, an unprejudiced analysis of the available body of intercepted communication should invariably provide the objective reader with a basic understanding for the general mood of suspicion, or at least cautionary reservation with which American decision-makers ultimately classified these transmissions.39 Still, already the mere fact that some of these interceptions seemingly contained at least the theoretical prospect for a peaceful settlement ultimately weighs all the more heavier in light of the tremendous destruction and loss of life that eventually was to follow thereafter, causing certain historians such as Gar Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Alperovitz to criticize the failure of American authorities for seizing this golden opportunity by neglecting to adopt a more reconciliatory approach towards the Japanese through a mitigation of their unconditional surrender policy.40 Yet was there actually indeed such a window of opportunity for ending the war prematurely as claimed by some scholars, and if so why didn't 37

Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to use the Atomic Bomb (New York, 1995), pp. 232-238; Takaki, p. 33. Memorandum from Deputy Chief of Staff George A. Lincoln to Henry L. Stimson, June 15th 1945. In: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, box 8, Japan. 39 A comprehensive collection of primary source material on this and other issues debated by US authorities in spring and early summer 1945 is available at: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/index.htm 40 Alperovitz, The decision to use the Atomic Bomb, pp. 232-238. 38

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American decision-makers act upon it? These basically are the questions which will first require consideration before turning to the employment of nuclear weapons themselves, not least since the use of the latter ultimately also rested to a not unsubstantial degree on the very belief shared by most American policy-makers that an acceptable and worthwhile diplomatic accord with the Japanese was effectively beyond practical realisation. A modification of “unconditional surrender” had in fact been the subject of much contention among US officials long before they eventually learned of the desire of individual Japanese cabinet members to conclude an early peace settlement. The main issue of dispute over which opinions diverged basically concerned the general advisability of guaranteeing to the Japanese the retention of their Emperor, or, put differently, to preserve the imperial tradition and institution which formally constituted the highest political office as well as the symbolic embodiment of Japan's supreme authority and national sovereignty. A minority of cabinet members such as Under Secretary of State Joseph Grew in principle endorsed proposals that the United States alter the terms of unconditional surrender to the effect of offering the Japanese just such an assurance in case of a peaceful capitulation, given that such a proviso might after all be the quintessential prerequisite for them to even only consider a surrender in the first place and, in the event of its absence or non-stating, could thus effectively only further harden their resolve to continue the war.41 Other leading American authorities such as Secretary of State James F. Byrnes and Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson, however, fiercely disagreed with this view, albeit in their case mainly out of considerations that the American people might ultimately strongly disapprove of retaining the Emperor.42 On a more practical score, though, George A. Lincoln43 likewise spoke out against the taking of any such action, noting in a memorandum to Henry L. Stimson that this would essentially only “invite negotiation” and thus raise the possibility of a compromise peace, presumably as a softening of unconditional surrender might run the inherent danger of sending out false signals to the Japanese to the effect of wrongly encouraging them to suspect that through negotiation they might in due time wrest additional concessions from the United States. This, in turn, would then effectively cause a further delay Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

of an acceptable peace settlement to both parties and, by implication, an unnecessary prolongation of the war as well. Accordingly, the unambiguous recommendations of highranking analysts as well as in particular the vocal opposition of such influential governmental 41

Memorandum from Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew to the President, June 13th, 1945: In: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson ("Safe File"), July 1940-September 1945, box 8, Japan. 42 Akira Iriye, Power and Culture: The Japanese American War, 1941-1945 (Harvard, 1981), pp. 255-256. 43 Chief of the Strategy and Policy Group at the U.S. Army’s Operations Department, writing on behalf of Chief of Staff George C. Marshall to Henry L. Stimson. - Memorandum from Chief of Staff Marshall to the Secretary of War, June 15th, 1945. In: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson ("Safe File"), July 1940-September 1945, box 8, Japan.

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officials as Byrnes ultimately exerted a not insignificant influence upon leading US policy makers - notably President Truman himself - in their decision to reject a mitigation of the surrender terms, or in the very least they considerably reinforced their reluctance to consider any such proposals to begin with.44 Finally, the complexity of the matter was eventually only further confounded when, five days later, the United States intercepted a transmission of Japanese Foreign Minister Shigneori Togo to Moscow ambassador Naotake Sato in which the former relayed the Emperor's alleged intention to end the war by means of Soviet mediation.45 In light of such information and knowledge it would thus indeed seem appropriate to ask why the Truman administration ultimately did not explore more thoroughly the feasibility of a peaceful diplomatic solution, even it that implied taking a more lenient position on their “unconditional surrender” policy. Ultimately, an answer to that question may not least of all be given on account of the unmistakable actuality that the interpretation of the intercepted cable by high-ranking US analysts actually only reinforced doubts as to the sincerity and honesty of Japanese initiatives instead of attenuating them. Accordingly, Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff John Weckerling concluded in a memorandum to his superior George C. Marshall that this rather unusual move by Foreign Minister Togo might essentially be only yet another attempt on the part of the Japanese to “stave off defeat” for as long as possible.46 And although historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa certainly is right to point out that - contrary to Weckerling's assessment - the group of Japanese cabinet members mentioned in the intercept had indeed been willing to work out an early peace agreement with the assistance of the Russians,47 the principal fact nonetheless remains that Weckerling's arguments ultimately proved influential in reaffirming the belief of senior US policy-makers that for all the apparent readiness expressed by some Japanese cabinet members to end the war, they themselves still largely perceived Japan's official position as fundamentally unchanged on this issue.48 Moreover, reality itself then before long was to even further substantiate their view when shortly thereafter the United States intercepted another cable from Togo indicating this time that the Emperor was in fact not asking Russian mediation as far as unconditional surrender was concerned.49 Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

While American decision-makers thus basically rejected a moderation of their “unconditional

44

Iriye, pp. 255-256. “Magic“-Intercept of message from Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo to Ambassador Naotake Sato. In: „Magic“- Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1204 – July 12, 1945, Top Secret Ultra. 46 Memorandum from John Weckerling to Deputy Chief of Staff, July 13th, 1945 (See. No. 20). 47 Hasegawa, pp. 126-128. 48 Maddox, pp. 83-84. 49 “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1210 – July 17, 1945, Top Secret Ultra. In: Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, "Magic" Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18. 45

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surrender” policy on the grounds that this could have been construed by the Japanese as an invitation to bargain for further concessions, there certainly existed another element which may ultimately have played a not insignificant role in their reasoning as well, yet which on account of the almost catatonic insistence in most scholarly discourses on the precedence of the issue of retaining the Emperor has essentially not received the contemplation and due consideration it deserves. Basically, that point in question pertains to the fact that it was in any event fairly questionable whether the Japanese could indeed be induced to lay down their arms for good if only they were assured the integrity of their imperial tradition, notably because the inflated emphasis on this issue fundamentally fails to take into account another eminently decisive prerequisite for resolving the whole problematic of a peaceful Japanese surrender to begin with: the acquiescence and compliance of the Imperial Army to the conclusion of a settlement on American terms arrived at through other means than its incontrovertible defeat on the battlefield. The seminal relevance of this latter aspect had, however, as a matter of fact been duly recognized by the American Joint Chiefs of Staff. In particular they challenged the soundness of the assumption that an assurance about the preservation of the Emperor would in fact suffice to obtain an immediate ceasefire, primarily since in spite of the crippled and seemingly hopeless state of Japan's economy its armed forces still unperturbedly moved forward with the initiation of comprehensive measures for an all-out national defence of their homeland and thus accordingly remained “Japan’s greatest military asset”.50 Following their judgement, a capitulation would not merely be contingent upon the readiness of Japan's governing elite to accept an American surrender, but its military leaders would essentially have to endorse and support any such decision as well. This, however, basically seemed an all but improbable eventuality at the time, given that the Imperial Army not only appeared utterly resolved to fight the war out to its bitter end, but also because already the very idea of a peace settlement not borne out of a clear and incontestable defeat of Japanese forces on the battlefield was essentially believed of being an altogether unacceptable option to the Japanese military.51 What's more, Japanese military authorities would surely also never have acceded to a thorough Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

reorganisation and remodelling of the Imperial Army as was envisaged by American policymakers, given that this would have entailed measures of radical demilitarization and, on a personal note certainly even less appealing to its executive staff, legal persecution of high-

50

51

Combined Chiefs of Staff, ‘Estimate of the Enemy Situation’, July 6th, 1945. In: RG 218, Central Decimal Files, 1943-1945, CCS 381 (6-4-45), Sec. 2 Pt. 5. Such a course of action would essentially not only have tarnished the Army's reputation, but, moreover, would also have discredited the honour of the average Japanese soldier as well as the sacrifice of those men who had already given their lives for the “noble” purpose of defending their homeland. Combined Chiefs of Staff, ‘Estimate of the Enemy Situation’, July 6th, 1945 (See No. 50).

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ranking officials for war crimes committed in occupied East-Asian territories.52 Finally, it is also important to remember that the United States were in the last analysis after all not dealing with an enemy that was predominantly governed by independent civilian rulers and polities as was the case in liberal democracies, but with a country whose highest authoritative political body was de facto under the rigid control of an exceedingly autocratic and paternalistic military regime. For not only had Japan relentlessly sought to project its militarist aggression beyond its own proper borders, but its entire political culture and system was, moreover, also fundamentally suffused with the tradition and disciplinary codes of Japanese militarism.53 Accordingly the Army traditionally exerted a decisive influence on the formation of “civil” governments and the national policies they pursued, often resorting to violent intimidation and terror in order to make dissident politicians comply with their decrees and orders.54 Since it was thus basically the military which pulled all the major strings in the Japanese government, it ultimately appears extremely doubtful that even if splintering factions within it should indeed have been more readily disposed towards concluding an early peace settlement with the Americans, its militarist leaders would in the event have supported any such approach as well. Now as historian Richard Frank perceptibly notes, the main dilemma which thus presented itself to US policy-makers in their handling of the Imperial Army was that they ultimately simply could and would not allow for any special concessions whatsoever to be made to their opponents, given that they were of the firm opinion that any such course would essentially fall short of meeting two of the fundamental goals set forth by the United States: the complete eradication of the militarist strand in Japanese society that was believed to have been at the very core of Japanese foreign aggression these past few years, and - directly following from that necessity - preventing its resurgence at any given time in the years thereafter.55 Consequently these issues constituted one vital aspect of “unconditional surrender” on which they could not possibly bring themselves to make any amendments, even while perfectly realising that the Imperial Army, for its part, would be desperate to avoid at all costs the conclusion of a diplomatic solution based on the terms presently laid out by the Americans. Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Irrespective of all the difficulties surrounding the retention of the emperor, it might therefore also to a substantial degree have been the putatively unbridgeable dilemma facing American decision-makers with regard to the central and pre-eminent role of the Imperial Army in any 52 53

54 55

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Mawdsley, pp. 416-418. An actuality perhaps most patently evidenced by the fact that apart from Foreign Minister Togo Shigenori all other members of the inner circle of Japan's central governing authority – the Imperial Privy Council – also held important positions in the Imperial Army or Navy. Richard B. Frank, ‘Keine Atombombe, kein Kriegsende. Das Scheitern der Operation Olympic, November 1945‘, in: Robert Cowley (ed.), Was wäre gewesen wenn?: Wendepunkte der Weltgeschichte (München, 2005), pp. 481-82. Ibidem. Richard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (New York, 1999), p. 219.

prospective peace process which may ultimately go a long way towards explaining their general reluctance to modify their current surrender policy.

3.2 Conventional alternatives: Military and Economic As a diplomatic solution thus basically seemed beyond viable implementation, senior US officials eventually grew ever more certain of the conviction that the war in the Pacific would have to be brought to an end through the employment of military force. Consequently, the pivotal question therefore revolved around which course of action might in the event proof most likely to achieve that end within the shortest possible time. Four “conventional”, yet nevertheless very different options were accordingly considered and explored by American authorities: a continuation of large-scale raids upon Japanese residential cities and industrial centres in the hope that such a strategy would before long impinge upon both Japan's public morale as well as its national economy so that it would eventually be unable to maintain for much longer its present war effort; secondly, the perpetuation of a long-range sea blockade, entailing a complete isolation of the Japanese homelands and their cutting off from vital raw materials and other essential goods; thirdly, waiting for an entry of the Soviet Union into the Pacific war, in the expectation that vast contingents of Russian troops would permanently engage Imperial forces in occupied Manchuria; this, in turn, might in the event then also considerably contribute to the potential success of the fourth – though by far least favourable option - that was being contemplated at the time, perhaps even supersede its execution to begin with: the scheduled invasion of Japan's southern major island Kyushu.56 As it were, American military leaders had initially placed much hope on the success of strategies of economic pressure, which was also precisely why they had in fact been so eager in the first place for seeing through the realisation of an extensive aerial warfare campaign against vital Japanese war industries, transportation networks and, eventually, against its civilian population as well. Yet despite the unrivalled scope and intensity of the destruction thus far visited upon Japan, its leaders apparently still refused to admit to the exceedingly battered and Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

dilapidated state of their economy. Accordingly, American decision-makers increasingly began to ask themselves how much more their enemy might actually still be willing to endure before it would finally yield to their demands, or how much more effort on the part of the US Air Force was still required before Japan's economy would finally collapse? Surely US officials were very well aware of the Empire's predicament with regard to industrial production and the provision of basic goods to its population, but at the same time leading American military staff also noted that for all damages thus far sustained, Japan essentially still retained reserves and 56

Mawdsley, pp. 420-422.

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capacities in some areas. The Combined Chief of Staffs for instance observed that “blockade and air attacks [...] are seriously impairing Japanese defensive capabilities” and “incendiary bombing [….] of cities has had a profound psychological and economic effect on the Japanese”, thereby “placing a tremendous strain upon residual economy.”57 However, in the same paper they also acknowledged that “[Japanese] stocks of ammunition production facilities still require intensive and extremely heavy attacks to produce any shortage significant to the interests of invasion and occupation.”58 In addition, they further commented that although a shortage of shipping capabilities in combination with Allied bombardment and the intensification of the existing sea blockade had indeed severely curtailed the transfer of raw materials between Japan and its occupied territories even while its industry was producing at a far lower rate than in the years before, there were at the same time only minor decreases expected to hit Japan before the end of 1945 in areas such as food supply, not least since the availability of manpower was generally not considered a “limiting factor.”59 As this thorough evaluation of Japanese war-time capacities demonstrated, US policymakers thus certainly realized the full scope of their enemy's detrimental economical situation, yet at the same time they were also unable to predict with absolute accurateness when exactly the graveness of Japan's current predicament would finally attain such levels of overwhelming desolation that its leaders would not possibly be able to delay any longer the conclusion of a peace treaty on American terms. As the Chiefs of Staff had correctly remarked, not all of Japan's resources had thus far been depleted, and it would, moreover, in all likelihood require the simultaneous occurrence of such incisive an event as Soviet entry into the struggle to at long last bring home to its people the futility of keeping up their unabated war efforts. In the meantime, however, the policy of the Japanese government would essentially remain “to fight as long and as desperately as possible in the hope [….] of acquiring a better bargaining position”, even though its members were in fact “aware of their desperate military situation.”60 Now although subsequent analyses have indeed convincingly shown that Japan's economy would in all likelihood at best have functioned a further couple of months,61 it is, however, once again important to remember that such assessments of Japan's war time situation are for Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

the most part based on statistical data and statements of senior Japanese government officials which despite their unmistakable attestation to the imminence of a total national breakdown essentially only became available after the war. Furthermore, there also remains the irrefutable fact that at the time American decision-makers ultimately exhibited far less confidence in the 57

Combined Chiefs of Staff, ‘Estimate of the Enemy Situation’, July 6th 1945 (See No. 50). Ibid. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. 61 Barton J. Bernstein, ‘Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender: Missed Opportunities, Little-Known Near Disasters, and Modern Memory’, Diplomatic History 19 (Spring 1995), pp. 227-73. 58

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occurrence of any such scenario as post-war scholars frequently do. They surely knew that Japan could not go on indefinitely with mobilizing resources given the already crippled state of its infrastructure, but still: what certainties did they actually have that such a national breakdown would indeed occur within the coming months? In the meantime, however, the intermediate weeks might well continue to see the bloodshed of American soldiers, the very prevention of which naturally figured among President Truman’s foremost objectives.62 Ultimately, US officials therefore simply perceived too many uncertainties and uncontrollable elements involved in the sole reliance upon strategies of economic strangulation in order for them to base all of their hopes exclusively upon the pursuit and success of only that one singular option. In addition, the question of a potential breakdown of Japan's economy and public morale was, moreover, also directly linked to the necessity of advancing with preparations for Operation Downfall, essentially since a collapse of Japanese production capacities might ultimately have rendered such an undertaking redundant in the first place. Indeed many prominent top-level authorities of both military and governmental background would later claim that an invasion of the Japanese homelands had in fact been anything but an inevitable actuality, even if the Truman administration had not ordered the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.63 However, one must not forget that most of these testimonies are, in the words of historian Samuel J. Walker, ultimately only “after-de-fact appraisals”, usually expressing views and opinions that were substantially influenced by data, information and assessments which were only disclosed or put forward after the Second World War.64 More important, most of these thoughts had never been publicly voiced in the weeks prior to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or at least not in the form of any vocal and emphatic objections.65 To be sure, there did exist certain views among high-ranking decision-makers to the effect that Japan might indeed surrender before the launch of Operation Downfall, and yet even though a landing on Kyushu was thus not altogether regarded as an unavoidable eventuality, the pivotal fact, however, nevertheless remains that leading American government authorities ultimately were reluctant to put similar levels of blind faith in the prompt success of alternative Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

strategies for ending the war, essentially because they could not be convinced of the supposedly impending advent of such a scenario before an invasion would actually have to be attempted.66 62 63

64 65

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Maddox, pp. 154-155. Notably General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Secretary of the Navy Forrester and the Admirals King and Leahy. Alperovitz, The Decision to use the Atomic Bomb, pp. 329-65. Walker, Destruction, p. 90. Casey Frank, ‘Truman's Bomb, Our Bomb’, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs (1995). Available at: http://www.caseyfrank.com/articles/tb.html [revised 2 April 2012]. Ibid, p. 91.

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3.3 Sovi‡t assistance Finally, there still existed one other conventional option which in contrast to the more or less slim prospects attached to other strategies was generally judged by leading American authorities to constitute a slightly more promising option for inducing a quick Japanese capitulation: a declaration of war by the Soviet Union against the Empire of Japan. An entry of the Soviet Union into the war, so the assessment of US authorities such as Deputy Chief of Staff Thomas Handy, could essentially go a long way towards prompting a quick surrender from their enemy, especially in combination with the “imminent threat of a landing” on the part of the US Army.67 President Truman, for his part, fully recognized the enormity of a Soviet involvement as well, although a diary note of his from July 17th 1945 (“Fini Japs when that comes about”)68 appears to suggest that that he himself apparently did not regard such a development as sufficient in itself for obtaining an immediate Japanese surrender.69 Ultimately, the principal conclusion to draw from statements and assessments such as these is that even though Truman and some of his key advisers evidently appreciated the profound influence a Soviet entry would have upon Japan’s war-time ambitions, they ultimately still did not ascribe such absolute and overwhelming importance to its participation so as to warrant the belief that it would be enough to precipitate by itself a Japanese capitulation. Nevertheless, revisionist historians still contend that even at the time top-level American leaders considered a Soviet entry into the war as the one development by far most qualified to induce an immediate Japanese surrender, citing in particular the above-quoted diary entry by President Truman as manifest proof of his conviction that once the Russians joined the combat, their common enemy would be swiftly defeated.70 Importantly, however, statements such as these may for themselves ultimately hardly sustain Gar Alperovitz's allegation that the United States basically followed a “two-step-logic” in its handling of Japan, meaning that top-level government officials believed a mitigation of unconditional surrender in conjunction with Soviet military assistance to be sufficient for bringing the war to an end.71 For as a matter of fact, President Truman in his diary entry merely

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expressed his view that the United States would eventually defeat the Japanese Empire after Soviet entry into the war, yet nowhere does it actually say that he thought that Russian participation in itself would be enough to accomplish that end, nor, for that matter, when exactly it would be realised. Moreover, there does not exist any solid documentary evidence 67

Memorandum from George C. Marshall to Henry L. Stimson from June 4th, 1945, printed in Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and its Legacies (Stanford, 2003), pp. 353-355. 68 Harry S. Truman Diary Entry from July 17th, 1945. In: Robert H. Ferrell, ed., Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (New York, 1980), pp. 53-54. 69 Walker, Destruction, p. 92. 70 Alperovitz, The Decision to use the Atomic Bomb, pp. 241-242. 71 Ibid, pp. 232-38.

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suggesting that leading American officials were sincerely convinced of the possibility of a swift Japanese capitulation as the sole result of Soviet intervention, a position which was perhaps best articulated in a memorandum from the office of Chief of Staff George C. Marshall to Secretary of War Henry Stimson in early June 1945, in which analysts regarded the exact time of a Japanese surrender as currently “unpredictable”, believing that it will “probably [….] take Russian entry into the war, coupled with a landing, or imminent threat of landing, on Japan proper by us, to convince them of the hopelessness of their position.”72 While it may indeed be true that analyses such as these ultimately largely failed to give due credit to the truly portentous impact a Soviet participation would have had on the Japanese governing elite, they nonetheless clearly indicate that American decision-makers apparently did not believe that Russian involvement in the war would be the quintessential and decisive measure per se to force a Japanese capitulation.73 However beneficial the latter might eventually turn out to be, American authorities in their desire to end the war at the shortest possible moment were in the last analysis simply unwilling to merely wait out the occurrence of a Soviet entry into the Pacific combat, essentially because they were of the opinion that not even as far-reaching and colossal an event as a Soviet invasion of Manchuria would in itself be capable to produce such staggering and profound a blow to Japanese pretensions at a peace on its own terms that its leaders might readily accept an immediate end of hostilities.74 Ultimately, an answer to the question of why the Truman administration eventually chose to forego the option of placing their hopes entirely upon a Soviet invasion of Manchuria may in general be given on two fairly intelligible counts: for one, it simply could or would not take at face value any unspecified commitments of the Soviet Union to at last deliver on its promise to declare war on Japan, particular in light of aggravating tensions within the Grand Alliance.75 And, perhaps still more significant, even its participation in the war was, in itself, not considered to be formidable enough a shock so as to bring about an immediate Japanese capitulation, for although it might in the event have been expected to substantially ease up some of the burden presently solely weighing upon the shoulders of American soldiers, there ultimately still persisted the belief among American officials that it would nevertheless require Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

a tremendous effort on the part of the US Army as well to finally make Japan realise the futility of its situation.76 72

Memorandum from George C. Marshall to Henry Stimson on June 4th 1945 (See No. 67). Minutes of Meeting Held at the White House on June 18th 1945 (See No. 29); Walker, Destruction, p. 88. 74 Moreover, one must also bear in mind that all post-war claims to the effect that an entry of the Soviet Union would invariably have sufficed to end the war expeditiously must - by virtue of their theoretical nature essentially remain inconclusive contentions founded on unverifiable eventualities largely pertaining to the realm of counter-factual history, so that their alleged infallibility can, by implication, thus ultimately never be proven with definite surety on account of their actually never having taken place in the first place. 75 Kolko, p. 556. 76 Memorandum from George C. Marshall to Henry Stimson on June 4th 1945 (See No. 67). 73

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In summary, American policy-makers were thus on the whole not convinced of the possibility to achieve victory over Japan in the shortest possible time by either exclusively resorting to means of economic isolation and aerial destruction or, alternatively, by waiting for the profound psychological impact a Soviet invasion would likely have upon the will and determination of both the Imperial leadership and it's people for upholding their resistance.77

4. Paths to Nuclear Destruction 4.1 “Shock and Awe” In essence, US decision-makers shared the basic consensus that only an “imminent shock” of sheer unrivalled magnitude and scope would have the potential to finally compel the Japanese to accept an immediate and unconditional surrender on American terms. All of the conventional options that had been discussed and elaborated upon were at bottom regarded as likely means for eventually accomplishing the superior goal of a permanent ceasefire in the Pacific, yet at the same time they were also invariably associated with grave uncertainties and uncontrollable eventualities which for all their potential merits and likelihood of success could essentially not guarantee a prompt conclusion of the war, given that to a more or lesser extent they ultimately all lacked the fundamental quality of what one can reasonably only describe as the inherent ability to provoke a sentiment of profound and unprecedented “shock and awe” with the Japanese people. In a widely noticed article from early February 1947, former Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson in his justification to use atomic bombs for the sake of ending the war expeditiously directly referred to the imminent need felt at the time by the Truman Administration to devise of a means of such unparalleled dimensions in terms of psychological warfare that already by the very nature of its tremendous innate power and destructive agency their enemy would essentially be left with no other choice than to instantaneously accept a surrender on American terms.78 Yet since thus far even such devastating attempts at „shock and awe“ as the regular

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bombardment of Japanese cities had altogether failed to produce just such a reaction on the part of the Japanese government79, the need for administering an even stronger and more compelling „jolt“ accordingly became all the more urgent in the view of top-level American officials. The pivotal question was, however, just what kind of imminent shock strategy would in the event prove most effective in achieving the intended goal of bringing the horrifying war in the Pacific to an early close, so that it was ultimately precisely by following such lines of 77 78 79

Walker, ‘Recent Literature on Truman's Atomic Bomb Decision’, pp. 320-21. Stimson, 'The decision to use the atomic bomb', pp. 105-106. Walker, Destruction, pp. 27-34.

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deliberation that the Truman Administration then increasingly found itself obliged to revert to the use of Nuclear Weapons. To begin with, it is, however, important to remember that the application of these weapons had actually never seriously been contested in the first place: from the very beginning there had existed widespread consensus that the overriding impetus and predominant purpose underlying the United States’ nuclear research and development programme had been entirely borne out of the military necessity to produce a weapon which, once available, also was to be employed at once within the larger scheme of aerial operations carried out by the American Air Force against its opponents.80 Accordingly it was all but a fait accompli that in the event of its successful production the United States should seriously contemplate the option of detonating a nuclear device over the territory of its adversaries, an exigency which may ultimately largely be seen as a direct corollary of the perceived dangers to its national security due to the increasingly dismal state of a war-laden international environment seemingly poised to unleash unprecedented terror and destruction upon the world. Already as early as 1939 American policy-makers had harboured great anxieties that Nazi-Germany might before long come into possession of nuclear technology capable to visit large-scale devastation upon other nations, including the United States, so that in order to countervail that threat President Roosevelt had eventually ordered the establishment of his country's own nuclear development programme, the so-called Manhattan Project.81 As a result of the eventual two-fronted assault by Allied troops against Nazi-Germany and the prospect of her impending defeat, American policy-makers then would of course come to realise that there would after all no longer be any need for employing nuclear weapons against Germany. However, discussions nevertheless soon began to focus on the question as to whether the United States might not in due time be obliged to resort to nuclear weapons after all, notably as the war against Japan was raging on with unbridled intensity and since the Japanese government, despite tremendous casualties incurred in the preceding campaigns as well as through the whole-scale destruction of major industrial and residential centres, was still Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

refusing an unconditional surrender. Accordingly there had already been set up an exclusive panel of top-level cabinet members, high-ranking military officials as well as scientific and legal advisers – the so-called Interim Committee – assigned with the task to investigate all aspects of nuclear technology, including its scientific development, post-war domestic and 80

81

Stimson, 'The decision to use the atomic bomb’, p. 98, 100; Barton J. Bernstein, ‘The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered’, Foreign Affairs (January-February 1995), p. 139. An exhaustive history of the Nuclear Development Program behind the Atomic Bomb is offered by Andrew J. Rotter, ‘The United States: imagining and building the bomb’, in: idem, Hiroshima: the worlds bomb (Oxford, 2008), pp. 88-126, pp. 317-320.

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international controls and – crucially – detailed specifications regarding its actual employment as a practical expedient to at last conclude the war against Japan.82 Whatever their position on which approach would proof most instrumental in obtaining a prompt Japanese capitulation, notably with regard to the desirability of modifying the terms of unconditional surrender, it is important to note that most of these top-governmental officials were at the same time nevertheless in all but unanimous agreement that, failing all else, the atomic bomb should essentially be used as a legitimate and logical extension of the Air Force's wide-scale bombardment of Japanese industry and residential areas.83 In view of this, it is therefore all the more vital to regard the atomic bombs for what they actually were: a new and powerful asset of military weaponry, but as such still primarily a military tool nonetheless. Consequently they were largely seen as constituting but the final link in a strategic concept which for several months now had been firmly entrenched in US military policy, namely the destruction of major Japanese industrial centres.84 Strategic bombing had thus far certainly inflicted immeasurable damage upon Japanese production, but had as yet still failed to break the Imperial Army’s resistance for good. The detonation of nuclear weapons might perhaps not straight-away achieve such an outcome either, yet their sheer psychological impact was nevertheless generally believed to considerably outmatch any previous experiences the Japanese people had until then had to endure, and so it was basically the obliterative and fearful character of this ultimate application of „shock and awe“ which was thought of standing the best chances of speeding up the conclusion of hostilities, not least since it was also held to substantially strengthen the position of peace advocates within the Japanese government.85 Surely moral scruples for using nuclear weapons had been an issue with certain key individuals,86 but usually they were being overshadowed by considerations of a different order, pertaining, for one, to the urgency of defeating Japan expeditiously, yet on the other hand also with regard to the impact their employment might have upon the global standing of the United States in post-war international relations, though certainly not only in terms of morality, but

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82

Notes on Interim Committee Meetings, May 2nd and May 31st, 1945. In: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5d and RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 100. 83 Basically their views were grounded on the conception that the new weapon would be capable to inflict such awesome and overwhelming a shock upon the Japanese people that this event would invariably lead to levels of such agonizing fear of further similar annihilation among its citizens that ultimately both their own will to resist, as well as that of their government’s, would essentially be broken for good. Stimson, 'The decision to use the atomic bomb', pp. 100-101, 105. 84 Russell Weigley, The American Way of War (New York, 1973), pp. 364-365. 85 Stimson, ‘The decision to use the atomic bomb’, pp. 105-106. 86 Bernstein in particular identifies Henry L. Stimson and George C. Marshall as remnants of an „older morality“. Bernstein, ‘The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered’, p. 146. Arguments based on ‘Memorandum of Conversation with General Marshall, May 29th, 1945’ by Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy. In: RG 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson (“Safe File”), July 1940-September 1945, box 12, S-1; and ‘Memorandum of Conference between Henry L. Stimson and President Truman’, June 6th, 1945. In: Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers.

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more importantly also over the question of how to best harness this newly discovered energy for peaceful purposes as opposed to its misuse as a powerful and destructive instrument of war.87 It was in particular the relevance of the latter aspect which accordingly prompted senior scientists and engineers actively involved in the development of nuclear weapons to vociferously speak out against their actual application as a practical means to defeat the Japanese in the present war. In a petition submitted to President Truman they articulated their concerns that by virtue of her current leadership in the field of nuclear research the United States would ultimately not only bear the responsibility to safeguard the international community from the negative aspects of the new technology – i.e. the inherent risk of causing unprecedented damage on societies when not being properly controlled, but also that in the event it were to first use this new technology for belligerent purposes, it might as well unwillingly precipitate the beginning of a global arms race which, before long, could lead to the advent of world situation in which the threat of nuclear attacks would become a nearconstant feature of international relations.88 Yet despite due consideration being given by American authorities to these sensitive matters, any deliberations on the putatively negative implications for post-war international relations as a result of dropping atomic bombs over Japan were, at least for the time being, ultimately subordinated to the requirements dictated upon American policy-makers by the more pressing immediacy of the current geopolitical environment. Still, the Truman administration at least shared in the basic assessment of leading scientists that in case the United States should indeed find itself forced to resort to nuclear weapons, any such employment would have to be preceded by the granting of an adequate opportunity for the Japanese people to quit the war on their own accord, accompanied by an assurance that they “could look forward to a life devoted

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to peaceful purposes in their homelands.”89

87

Notes on Interim Committee Meetings, May 31st, 1945 (See No. 82). R. E. Lapp, Leo Szilard, et al (eds.), "A Petition to the President of the United States," July 17th, 1945. In: RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 76. 89 Ibid. 88

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4.2 The Potsdam Conference: Final Chance to avoid Nuclear Holocaust It was the Potsdam conference – held from July 17th to July 29th 1945 – which then basically set the scene for providing the Japanese government with a final chance to avoid further devastation, exhorting them in that meeting's declaration that unless they accede to the demand of an “unconditional surrender of all armed forces”, they would essentially face nothing short of “prompt and utter destruction.”90 Moreover, the Potsdam conference ultimately also is of seminal significance for the historical analysis of why nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on two further important counts: For one it was during that meeting that, on July 17th 1945, American scientists in the New Mexican desert bore witness to the true genesis of the Nuclear Age following the first successful detonation of an atomic test device, with the result that the United States thus at last gained definitive certitude of the fact that it would before long find itself in the position to release these recently liberated forces of nature upon its enemy, even though in its applicable form the bomb was still only expected to become available in early August.91 In addition, the Potsdam declaration has ever since also been the subject of much controversy on account of the content and formulation of some of its key provisions, notably the failure to include an explicit assurance with regard to the preservation of Japan’s imperial institution. However, that aspect had in fact actually been a central point of dispute in the weeks leading up to the conference, with members of a special committee entrusted with the framing of the final draft of the proclamation voicing profound misgivings over precisely this very issue. Accordingly, Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy, for instance, argued that without any concrete guarantee about the retention of the Emperor there would ultimately be little chance for the proclamation to be accepted by the Japanese.92 Still, most senior officials of the Truman Administration ultimately did not see much cause to heed admonitions such as these, with both former Secretary of State Cordell Hull as well as his successor James F. Byrnes vehemently opposing the inclusion of any language alluding towards the potential preservation of Japan's imperial dynasty.93 Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Despite last-minute efforts by Henry L. Stimson to the effect of perhaps adding after all at least some basic provision about Japan's imperial tradition, President Truman, for his part, in the end basically seemed to agree with the present version of the proclamation he and the other 90

Excerpts from the final version of the Potsdam Declaration, available at: http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c06.html [revised 27 March 2012]. 91 Memorandum from General L. R. Groves to Henry L. Stimson about the first testing of a plutonium explosive, July 18th, 1945. In: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 4. 92 Note from Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy to Henry L. Stimson, June 29th, 1945. In: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, box 8, Japan (After December 7/41). 93 Cable from Secretary Joseph Grew to James F. Byrnes, July 16th, 1945. In: Record Group 59, Decimal Files 1945-1949, 740.0011 PW (PE)/7-1645.

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Allied leaders were to sign shortly. For although Stimson had informed the President that a formal assurance to preserve the Emperor might actually go a long way towards making the Japanese more susceptible to an early surrender,94 Truman evidently thought otherwise, ultimately contenting his Secretary of War with the promise that he would personally see to it that the Japanese be given such a guarantee at a later date through diplomatic channels if indeed they should continue to insist on that particular point.95 In view of these comments, one might rightfully raise the question as to why exactly Truman ultimately didn't press for the interpolation of an official assurance to the Japanese about the inviolability of their imperial institution. Certainly it would be too easy to simply attribute the omission of such a provision to circumstances of “bureaucratic inertia”, meaning that since the original formulation of the text that was to be transmitted to the Japanese had already been sent to the Chinese delegation for confirmation, there now basically no longer existed an opportunity to amend its final wording. According to Stimson, Truman was in fact still waiting for clearance by Chinese Premier Chiang Kai-shek and had, moreover, told him that he would actually only thereafter “release the warning” to the Japanese.96 By implication, this meant that as of yet there still had not been issued any public statement whatsoever with regard to the final surrender demands, so that Truman – in his capacity as President of the United States – ultimately could surely still have ordered for a revision of certain aspects of the definite formulation, provided of course that he would have wished to do so. Nevertheless, does the allegedly deliberate neglect to stipulate an explicit assurance about Japan’s imperial tradition necessarily offer a legitimate base for accusations that President Truman ultimately “needed Japan's refusal to justify the use of the atomic bomb” in the first place?97 While it is true that Truman was indeed fairly convinced of the fact that the Japanese would in all likelihood not accept the Potsdam Declaration in the form it was presently being handed over to them, it would on principle still seem logical to assume that ultimately he just didn't see any compelling reason for seriously considering the insertion of a concession about the Emperor on the grounds that he actually fully agreed with the assessment of most top-level Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

cabinet members and presidential advisers that such a course of action might arguably entail the detrimental prospect of misleadingly signalling to the Japanese that the United States was after all receptive to back off from some of its surrender demands, thereby potentially causing its governing elite to push for even more lenient terms. 94

Henry L. Stimson Diary Entry from July 24th, 1945. In: Henry Stimson Diary, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers. 95 Ibid. 96 Ibid. 97 Hasegawa, p. 292.

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In addition, Truman was also well aware of the fact that the vast majority of high-ranking American military officials firmly believed that the Imperial Army would in any event remain determined to fight this war out to the bitter end, so that the issue of retaining Japan's monarchical institution may in the final analysis well have been regarded as constituting but one of several important factors upon which an early conclusion of hostilities ultimately depended on. In any case, Truman eventually contented himself with the belief that “we have given [the Japanese] the chance” to surrender, so that if – as he more or less already anticipated – they should all the same fail to acquiesce to the surrender terms set forth in the Potsdam Declaration, he was in the event utterly resolved to see through the carrying out of his order that “the weapon [...] be used against Japan between now and August 10th.”98 How little the Japanese government was in fact inclined to concede its position with regard to unconditional surrender was then aptly illustrated by a number of further intercepts during and immediately after the conference, communications which accordingly only added substance to the claim that not even the formal guarantee to safeguard its imperial tradition could have induced Japanese leaders to accept a peaceful capitulation. It was in a cable from July 22nd that Foreign Minister Togo, responding to a message from Moscow Ambassador Sato, explicitly rejected the latter's proposal for agreeing to unconditional surrender provided that the Imperial House was preserved, arguing that “we are unable to consent to it under any circumstances”.99 In the same despatch, Togo further attests to the unchanged view of his government on the matter by blatantly stating that “even if the war drags on and it becomes clear that it will take much more bloodshed, the whole country will pit itself against the enemy [….] so long as the enemy demands unconditional surrender.”100 These articulations consequently were the very reason why Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal ultimately summarized the general position of their enemy in his report of the Sato-Togo-correspondence with the words that “the Cabinet in Council had weighed all the considerations which he [Sato] had raised and that their final judgement and decision was that the war must be fought with all the vigour and bitterness [….] so long as the alternative was unconditional surrender.”101 There can be no mistake that analyses such as these ultimately only reinforced the overall Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

appreciation of high-ranking American officials that Japan was indeed far from being on the brink of imminent surrender.102 For not only did the MAGIC intercepts clearly bear out the 98

Diary Entry by President Truman from July 25th, 1945. In: Barton J. Bernstein, ‘Truman at Potsdam: His Secret Diary’, Foreign Service Journal (July/August 1980). 99 Message from Foreign Minister Togo to Moscow Ambassador Sato, included in "Magic" Report from July 22th, 1945. In: Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, "Magic" Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18. 100 Ibid. 101 Diary Entry by Secretary of the Navy Forrestal James Forrestal from July 24th, 1945. In: Naval Historical Center, Operational Archives, James Forrestal Diaries. 102 Frank, Downfall, p. 148; Herbert Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (New York, 2000), p. 490,

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perception that Japan still categorically refused to comply with “unconditional surrender”, but they moreover also revealed that its leaders were fundamentally unable to conceive of any unanimously acceptable strategy for using the Russians as a mediator in any prospective peace negotiations. Thus far the only plan that the Japanese governing elite appeared to have in store in that respect consisted in sending a special envoy to Russia with the assignment to “request assistance in bringing about an end to the war through the good offices of the Russian government”,103 even while it was at the same time precisely the very vagueness of such sketchy and ill-conceived an option which as a result ultimately led Sato to inform his superiors of his view that unless they had “a concrete and definite plan for terminating the war” there would essentially be no sense in trying to win the Russians over for their course.104

4.3 The Empire's Last Stand As had been anticipated by President Truman, Japan's Prime Minister Suzuki eventually was to reject the ultimatum imposed upon his government by the signatories of the Potsdam Declaration, once again reiterating his cabinet's adamant determination to “complete the war to the bitter end.”105 Along with the insight American decision-makers had gained through intercepted communication of the complex and abstruse thinking of senior Japanese officials, Suzuki's stance thus ultimately only further reinforced their view that in all likelihood they could not expect the Japanese to give in to their demands any time soon - at least not by way of a peaceful accommodation. And while it is certainly debatable whether the Japanese essentially only delayed surrender for the sole reason that, as historian Herbert Bix maintains, they believed that the “outlook for a negotiated peace could be improved if [they] fought and won one last decisive battle”,106 it ultimately nevertheless remains an incontestable fact of reality that the general situation in Japan in the early days of August 1945 actually pointed in precisely that very direction. If indeed it required one last incontrovertible proof that the Japanese government evidently sought to ameliorate its desolate position through means of protracted warfare, American Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

authorities ultimately were to receive just such a confirmation with the “Far East Summary” published by the War Department on August 4th 1945.107 In essence, that report offered an accurate and exhaustive picture of the Imperial Army's current efforts to arrange for all 521. Message from Foreign Minister Togo to Moscow Ambassador Sato (See No. 45). 104 "Magic" Report from July 30th, 1945. In: Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, "Magic" Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18. 105 Hasegawa, p. 168. 106 Bix, p. 490. 107 War Department - Far East Summary from August 4th, 1945. In: RG 457, Summaries of Intercepted Japanese Messages ("Magic" Far East Summary, March 20th, 1942 – October 2, 1945), box 7, SRS 491-547 103

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necessary dispositions essential for meeting the challenge of repelling an American invasion, ranging from the regrouping and relocating of forces to areas on both Kyushu and Honshu deemed vital for purposes of regional defence over the dispersal of fuel depots to different locations as well as to the concentration of all available air power on landing sites likely to be attacked by the enemy.108 And while this massive military build-up thus not only gave a good indication of the Imperial Army's firm resolve to carry out a comprehensive strategy of resolute national defence, it ultimately also certainly amplified the concerns of American military planners with regard to the general advisability and feasibility for actually attempting a largescale invasion against such a well-prepared and determined adversary in the first place.109 True, these reports may on the whole only marginally have affected the eventual decision to employ nuclear weapons against the Empire of Japan, given that they were only released on August 4th and also since the first bomb had initially been scheduled to be detonated at the moment of its earliest possible availability on August 1st. Nevertheless, they doubtlessly confirmed already shared perceptions by senior US officials regarding the Imperial Army's steadfast resolution for fighting out a desperate last-ditch battle, thereby essentially only further underscoring the apparent urgency to end the war expeditiously. This realisation, along with the categorical refusal of the Japanese government to relent on its position, may thus accordingly account to a not inconsiderable extent for why President Truman eventually went through with his decision to employ nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the primary and overriding objective being the swift termination of an onerous war whose continuation over an otherwise indeterminable period of time ostensibly carried a whole set of uncontrollable eventualities and grave inherent uncertainties which ultimately neither he, nor most of his advisers, were in the final analysis willing to accept.

4.4 The selection of targets In contrast to the intricate political, economical and military considerations underlying the decision for using nuclear weapons in the first place, the question of where to employ this Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

newest instrument of modern warfare ultimately constituted a relatively less acute and controversial matter. Already in early May 1945 a special target committee had been established to assess the suitability of a number of potential targets, all of which were selected on the basis of a set of specific criteria. In addition, top-level military authorities and nuclear scientists addressed fundamental issues relating to the operation's main technical and logistic 108 109

Ibid. Barton J. Bernstein, ‘The Alarming Japanese Buildup on Southern Kyushu, Growing U.S. Fears and Counterfactual Analysis: Would the Planned November 1945 Invasion of Southern Kyushu Have Occurred?’, Pacific Historical Review 68 (1999), pp. 561-609; Frank, Downfall, pp- 273-274.

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requirements, in particular with regard to acceptable weather conditions and the ideal altitude for detonation.110 As the notes from the committee's first meeting clearly indicate, the city of .

Hiroshima had as a matter of fact figured foremost on the list of targets from the very beginning, essentially because it was the as yet “largest untouched” region of the Air Force's strategic bombing campaign. Other important parameters that were factored in pertained to the size and topographical nature of the selected area and, crucially, the psychological impact a detonation of such magnitude would likely have upon Japanese society.111 While the element of achieving a maximum psychological effect upon public morale as well as the requirement for hitting an area which had as yet been largely unscathed by conventional bombing so as to properly assess the scope of destruction caused by the bomb's detonation thus evidently constituted the predominant criterion for the selection of targets, it should nevertheless be noted that certain US officials had been of the opinion that any such decision could not possibly be grounded on the aspect of total annihilation alone, yet would essentially also need to at least serve some basic military purpose. Accordingly Chief of Staff George C. Marshall had cautioned that “these weapons might first be used against strategic military objectives such as a large scale naval installation” and that in case this should fail to produce the intended effect, to only thereafter employ them against “a number of large manufacturing areas from which the people would be warned to leave....”.112 However, the Interim Committee in its discussion of the cities proposed by the Target Committee ultimately only partially met with Marshall's reservations, concluding that “the most desirable target would be a vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by worker's houses.”113 Consequently, their choice thus represented an at best secondary military objective, for although the targeted production centres were indeed supporting Japan's war effort, it was nevertheless clear that it would in the end still mainly be civilians who would in all likelihood be most affected by the detonation of an atomic bomb.114 As that meeting's protocol reveals, the thinking of the Committee's members was thus undoubtedly guided by the primary desire of achieving the “greatest psychological effect”, which then also was the very

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reason why they ultimately objected to first conducting a demonstration of the bomb's

110

Other aspects that were being discussed included the transport of the bomb's individual compound materials from the United States to the Pacific Theatre, as well as the selection of aerial bases from which to launch the planes that were to carry the device. Report of the Initial Meeting of Target Committee from May 2th, 1945. In: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5d. 111 Summary of Target Committee Meetings on May 10th and 11th May 1945," included in Memorandum from Major J. A. Derry and Dr. N.F. Ramsey to General L.R. Groves from May 12, 1945. In: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5d. 112 Memorandum of conversation between Deputy Secretary of War John J. McCloy and General George C. Marshall, May 29th, 1945. In: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson (“Safe File”), July 1940-September 1945, box 12, S-1 113 Report of Interim Committee meeting from 31st May. In: RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 100. 114 Bernstein, ‘Understanding the Atomic Bomb’, p.144.

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destructive power over an uninhabited island, nor wanted to issue any prior warning to the Japanese people about an impending attack.115 Apart from the opposition of prominent nuclear scientists as to the advisability for employing nuclear weapons against Japan in the first place, the only other high-ranking cabinet official who at the time occasionally voiced moral qualms about the bomb's use against civilian areas was Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson. In a meeting with President Truman on June 6th he accordingly not only shared his general misgivings about killing non-combatants, but furthermore also admonished that any such action might in the event considerably prejudice the international standing and reputation of the United States.116 President Truman, for his part, apparently did not object in any significant way to the targets selected by his military planners, save for his personal intervention to have Kyoto ruled out at the behest of Stimson.117 In general, however, the President seems to have taken no particular interest in which city was to be chosen for nuclear detonation, ostensibly because he basically appears to have regarded the selection of targets as primarily the purview of the Air Force rather than the responsibility of his own office. As a diary entry of his from July 25th shows, the President had left the choice of which area to hit first largely at the discretion of the military officials directly in charge of the operation, instructing them only “that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children.”118 In accordance with Stimson, he then only further noted that “we as the leader of the common welfare cannot drop this terrible bomb on the old city [Kyoto] or the new [Tokyo]”, before once again emphasising that “the target will be a purely military one.”119 The fundamental question which invariably arises from comments such as these is whether President Truman did in fact truly think that the selected targets had indeed mainly been chosen for their alleged military significance, a misconception which in that case then probably was but the result of a mere lack of interest or perceived urgency on his part to engage more closely with the principal criteria guiding the selection process of the Target committee; or whether, on the other hand, Truman simply deceived himself into believing that civilians would indeed for the most part remain unharmed in the event of nuclear destruction.120 Ultimately, it is of course Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

all but impossible to come up with a definitive and authoritative answer to such a question,

115

Stimson, ‘The decision to use the atomic bomb’, pp. 100-101. Memorandum of June 6th, 1945 meeting between Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and President Truman. In: Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers. 117 According to Stimson, the obliteration of Japan's cultural capital would ostensibly have entailed such elevated levels of bitterness and resentment on the part of the Japanese people that it would have been sheer impossible to “reconcile them to us.” Henry L. Stimson Diary Entry from July 24th, 1945. (See No. 94). 118 Diary Entry by President Harry Truman from July 25th, 1945. In: Barton J. Bernstein, ‘Truman at Potsdam: His Secret Diary’, Foreign Service Journal (July/August 1980). 119 Ibid. 120 Bernstein, ‘Understanding the Atomic Bomb’, p. 147; Frank, Downfall, p. 258. 116

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even though Truman – as other leading US authorities as well – would in later years repeatedly claim that Hiroshima and Nagasaki had indeed been primarily selected on the basis of their high military value.121 The only absolute certainty which may be inferred from the available documentary evidence is that Truman apparently did not see any acute necessity to interfere more actively with the decision of his military planners over which city to detonate the first atomic device, presumably because he had unquestionable confidence in their time-tested proficiency and professional experience with regard to matters of large-scale strategic bombing and, by implication, thus also in their ability to define such targets that would in the event best serve the overriding objective of obtaining a prompt and unconditional surrender from Japan. In other words, operational details for employing nuclear weapons thus did not figure among the President’s foremost concerns, notably as it stands to reason that in his function as the holder of America's highest civil office he ultimately seems to have been more preoccupied with the political and diplomatic aspects of his order, even though the simultaneous exercise of commander-in-chief of all American military forces should arguably have urged him to perhaps take a slightly keener interest in the technical specifics involved in the practical execution of such a momentous and consequential operation.

5. The Detonation of Atomic Bombs

Adverse weather conditions had initially delayed the dropping of the first atomic bomb for a number of successive days.122 Then, however, in the early morning hours of August 6th 1945 a US bomber command eventually released a nuclear uranium device over a bridge spanning the principal river that ran through the city-centre of Hiroshima. Not including those people who would later succumb to radiation sickness or become the victim of severe birth deformations, Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

more than 80 000123 persons perished as a direct consequence of this first incident of nuclear destruction.124

121

Burleigh, pp. 526-27; Stimson, ‘The decision to use the atomic bomb’, p. 105. Transmissions from 313th Bomb Wing Command to US War Department from August 3rd and 4th, 1945. In: RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 21. 123 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey: The Effects of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, June 19th 1946. In: President's Secretary's File, Truman Papers, Harry S. Truman Library & Museum. 124 Memorandum from General L. R. Groves to George C. Marshall, August 6th, 1945. In: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents. 122

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Evidently, US policy-makers were careful not to state all too blatantly the precedence of the fact that Hiroshima had primarily been selected for the previously intact state of its infrastructure, but instead generally preferred to shift emphasis to its alleged key geo-strategic location and significance as a major Japanese Army headquarters.125 And yet although considerations as to the Sixth Imperial Army's strategic role in the territorial defense of that part of the country may indeed have influenced the thinking of American military planners, this must ultimately not obscure the fact that Hiroshima had in the first instance effectively been designated for the all-dominant purpose of administering to Japanese society a maximum psychological shock capable to finally dissuade its people from keeping up their public support and assistance of their leaders' ongoing war efforts. However, it was precisely such an effect which at first failed to materialize on a large, nation-wide scale; and even where it did, those in power were ultimately either too slow to react appropriately to the disastrous and world-changing dimension of the catastrophe, or were simply loath to acknowledge the sheer cataclysmic nature of the event as well as the profound ramifications it implied for the future well-being of their country. For even after having been given first news of what had happened at Hiroshima, the Japanese government fundamentally remained divided over what course to adopt. Whereas Foreign Minister Togo strongly urged his cabinet to face reality and give in to American demands, with Emperor Hirohito basically sharing the same view,126 their position ultimately still wasn't strong enough to break the recalcitrance of the military hard-liners. And while the cabinet members were, moreover, generally reluctant to take any decisions prior to having received a detailed report of the true scope of destruction at Hiroshima, Prime Minister Suzuki, for his part, furthermore expressed fears that a premature peace settlement might entail the dreadful prospect of wide-spread insubordination on the part of leading Army authorities.127 While thus largely remaining deadlocked in an imbroglio of indecisiveness and political impasse128, the United States, for its part, meanwhile drew its own proper conclusions from the inaction and assumed unwillingness of the Japanese government to surrender. Presumably convinced more than ever of the need to proceed with the strategy of “shock-bombing” Japan Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

for as long as its leaders refused to acknowledge the hopelessness of their situation, the American military – in accordance with the previously framed directive that additional nuclear weapons be employed over Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata or Nagasaki “as soon as made ready

125

Stimson, ‘The decision to use the atomic bomb’, p. 105. Japanese Cabinet Meetings, August 7-8th, 1945. In: Gaimusho (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) ed. Shusen Shiroku (The Historical Records of the End of the War), annotated by Jun Eto, volume 4, pp. 57-60. 127 Diary Entry by Admiral Tagaki from August 8th, 1945. In: Takashi Itoh, ed., Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), pp. 923-924. 128 Japanese Cabinet Meetings from August 7-8th, 1945 (See No. 126.) 126

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by the project staff”129 - consequently made arrangements to release a second such dreadful device over another Japanese city. Initially, the primary target for that operation had been the city of Kokura, yet following problems of visibility, the crew delivering the bomb ultimately decided to head instead toward the second target on their list – Nagasaki.130 While this city was indeed an important seaport as well as the site of vital war industries131, it too was ultimately first and foremost judged to be an optimal site for “evaluating” the profound psychological impact of nuclear destruction on Japanese morale, leaving in the event at least another 70 000 people dead as a result of this second horrible incident of nuclear annihilation.132 Especially in recent years, some historians have, however, put forward the notion that the detonation of a second atomic weapon had actually been far more a decision taken on the lower military levels than an order that was being carried out at the clear and explicit instigation of top-level politicians in Washington, arguing that if the latter had allowed their subordinates less discretionary power and authority in matters of nuclear weapons employment, than the attack on Nagasaki might actually well have been avoided.133 Still, it ultimately appears doubtful that any such significant operation should indeed have been conducted by the military in stark contravention of the express will of their supervisors; a more substantive and convincing explanation may effectively reside with the plain fact that since the operational particulars for nuclear delivery had been entirely entrusted to the Air Force's immediate sphere of responsibility, its commanders ultimately just saw no compelling reason to deviate from the predetermined course of releasing additional atomic bombs over Japan as soon as they were ready for employment – that is at least not until they would receive clear and unequivocal orders distinctly prohibiting their further use. Importantly, however, no such interdiction had been issued by Washington prior to Nagasaki, and it was essentially only thereafter that President Truman would eventually order a hold on the deliverance of further nuclear weapons.134 Moreover, the Air Force itself was naturally also anything but disposed to consider a potential deviation from the intended delivery schedule on its own accord. After all one has to Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

bear in mind that even at the time there already existed some not inconsiderable amount of

129

Message from General Thomas T. Handy to George C. Marshall, July 24th, 1945. In: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, Files no. 5b and 5e. 130 COMGENAAF 8 cable to COMGENUSASTAF for General Farrell from August 9th, 1945. In: RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 20, Envelope G Tinian Files. 131 Stimson, ‘The decision to use the atomic bomb’, p. 105. 132 Burleigh, p. 531. 133 Bernstein, ‘Understanding the Atomic Bomb’, p. 150; Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed. Hiroshima and its Legacies (Stanford, 2003), pp. 233-37. 134 Diary Entry by Henry A. Wallace on Cabinet Meeting from August 10th, 1945. In: Papers of Henry A. Wallace, Special Collections Department, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.

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internal competition between the military’s three principal operative branches, with the Army, Nay and Air Force not only vying for recognition, prestige and operational credit, but on a more fundamental level essentially also for the allocation of military resources and funds as well. That congressional approbation of the latter would, however, especially in the years to come not least of all be affected by a thorough examination of past achievements was accordingly well appreciated by the Air Force’s high command. Yet contrary to the Army and Navy’s decisive part in previous enterprises, the Air Force had thus far for the most part been accorded an at best secondary role in both theatres of the war. For although its contribution to America’s war effort – notably the shelling of enemy positions in preparation of advancing US troop columns as well as of course the bombing campaign against industrial and civilian areas must certainly not be underestimated, the important fact nevertheless remains that at that point it was ultimately still too early to fully assess and compare the success of these operations in relation to the Army and Navy’s share in pushing their enemies ever closer to defeat. Quite to the contrary, the strategic air campaign against Japan had, importantly, actually not yet met the hopes initially placed in its execution, given that in spite of all the destruction thus far caused, Japan effectively still continued to resist. Consequently, the Air Force could thus hardly be expected to refrain from employing one or, for that matter, several weapons of such sheer destructive power that might in the event offer the American public tangible proof of its undisputed and central part in finally bringing the Japanese Empire to its knees.135 The principal reason for why after Hiroshima the Truman administration had not departed from its initial agenda of detonating more than one nuclear device was that by August 9th despite the double shock of the first nuclear blast and the Soviet declaration of war the day before - Japanese governmental leaders essentially still hadn't approached it with a new peace offer. As the “double jolt“ against Japanese war pretensions had thus as yet seemingly failed to produce the intended effect on their enemy's position, American officials accordingly believed that it would to all appearances necessitate the administering of further such psychological shocks, if only so that the conservative hold-outs within the Japanese government would no longer be able to play down the importance of the first nuclear incident by minimizing its farCopyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

reaching political and social reverberations.136 As it turned out, the destruction of Nagasaki then indeed seems to have had the desired impact upon the temporizing attitude of the Japanese government, finally precipitating it to submit – after much haggling between its hard-liners and the more susceptible peace faction – a first tentative peace proposal to the United States.137 And even though both parties hadn't yet reached a definite understanding, the shock of two atomic 135

Weigley, pp. 368-73. Maddox, p. 148. 137 Memorandum on Emperor's Hirohito's "Sacred Decision [go-seidan]," from August 9th/10th, 1945. In: Zenshiro Hoshina, Daitoa Senso Hishi: Hoshina Zenshiro Kaiso-roku (Tokyo, 1975). 136

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bombs in combination with the fear of major Soviet advances against their territorial possessions thus had at last sharply brought home to Japanese politicians the sheer futility of their situation, which was also why President Truman then eventually ordered that for the time being there be no further nuclear weapons employed against Japan, given that prospects for peace now seemed better than they had perhaps ever done before.138 In the end it was to require the intervention of Emperor Hirohito himself to finally overcome the ideological impasse within his government by taking the single-handed decision to at last seek peace with the Allies, a highly unusual step which was ultimately not least of all motivated by the undeniable fact that “the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable [….]”, as well as by the logical recognition that “should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.”139

6. Reasons for employing Nuclear Weapons The arguably most frequent justification later put forward for the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki usually referred in the first instance to the allegedly ineluctable necessity to prevent the intolerably high loss of additional lives that likely was to occur in the event of ongoing Japanese aggression directed against both American soldiers as well as towards the populations of East-Asia presently still labouring under Imperial yoke.140 Various alternative scenarios for achieving that goal had, despite thorough contemplation, ultimately been deemed less suited and conducive to precipitate an immediate surrender of the Japanese empire, so that at least in the eyes of most American policy-makers the recourse to nuclear destruction by virtue of its assumed potential to afflict a profound and decisive psychological shock to the resistance-minded nation of Japan was accordingly regarded as the most practicable expedient for the accomplishment of that prior-ranking objective. Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Yet was the need for saving countless American (and East-Asian) lives ultimately really the only reason why top-level American officials felt themselves obliged to resort to nuclear weapons, or weren't there perhaps concomitant factors and exigencies of a more powerpolitical nature involved in their decision as well? While the available documentary evidence 138

Diary Entry by Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace from August 10th, 1945 (See. No. 134). Radio Speech of Emperor Hirohito to the Japanese People on August 15th, 1945 , accepting the Potsdam Declaration. Available at: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/hirohito.htm [revised 28 February 2012]. 140 Notably in President Truman’s message to Congress on the use of the atomic bomb from October 3rd, 1945. Available at: http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Deterrence/Truman.shtml [revised 1 May 2012]. the often neglected issue of POW's see Burleigh, p.524-525; Frank, Downfall, pp. 337-343. 139

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does indeed mostly appear to support the notion that the United States basically ordered the employment of nuclear weapons so as to obtain at the earliest possible moment an unconditional surrender from Japan and thereby at last secure the termination of an overly attritional and burdensome conflict, it is nonetheless essential to analyse whether there did not after all exist a set of ulterior motives which may ultimately have influenced just as pivotally – if not even more so – the actions of American authorities. In other words, the principal question which poses itself thus basically revolves around the problematic of whether the professed desire to end the war expeditiously may not after all have been primarily dominated by certain geopolitical contemplations and practical demands ultimately transcending to a not insignificant extent the alleged requirement of anticipating the suffering of further fatalities as a result of the unbending resolution of Japanese commanders to carry this war all the way to its bitter conclusion.

6.1 Diplomatic Power Game The certainly most striking and controversial ulterior motive frequently imputed to the USA basically maintains that the use of nuclear weapons had first and foremost been conceived as a powerful instrument of „Atomic Diplomacy“ ostensibly aimed at leaving on the Soviet Union such grave an impression so as to make them more compliant to American designs regarding the shaping of the post-war global order.141 In other words, the practical application of the sheer enormous destructive power of nuclear arms presently at the sole disposal of the United States thus in the first instance supposedly constituted a tantalizing opportunity for its leaders to impress and intimate their prospective rival on such a profound scale that it would henceforth more readily acquiesce to American demands and propositions. Yet despite the wide-spread impact of and response to these assumptions in the field of historiographic research on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the fundamental question nevertheless still remains as to what extent assertions of that kind are actually supported by the available documentary evidence. To begin with, there can certainly be no denying that American authorities were conscious

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of the fact that the employment of atomic weapons might considerably impact upon its relations with the Soviet Union, if only because by adding such novel and powerful a tool of modern warfare to its already impressive military arsenal it would in the future have at its command a type of political leverage which in the event of growing friction between the two super powers would likely figure as a potent factor and determinant in all subsequent discussions between them. Accordingly, Henry L. Stimson had recognised already as early as May 1945 that with the production of nuclear weapons the United States now “held all the 141

Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy, pp. 179-185, 239-240.

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cards” for handling the Russians, albeit importantly not without at the same time relativising the allegedly pre-eminent importance of the atomic bomb in post-war relationships with the Soviet Union by putting his comments into a larger perspective, notably by writing that “they can't get along without our help and industries and we have coming into action a weapon which will be unique.”142 In the final analysis, Stimson thus basically only referred to a reality in which possession of the atomic bomb might before long indeed substantially favour the position of his country vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, but essentially only as a diplomatic corollary to the United States’ economic prowess to help the Russians out with exigencies of a decidedly more practical and immediate nature, in particular through granting them comprehensive financial relief and material assistance.143 Another move on the part of the Truman Administration supposedly attesting to its intent of using the atomic bomb primarily as a means of Atomic Diplomacy and political intimidation towards the Soviet Union allegedly was its decision to postpone an official meeting of President Truman with Russian Premier Stalin until after the United States had received definite confirmation of the new weapon's destructive power following its first official test.144 According to historians such as Gar Alperovitz and Barton J. Bernstein, Truman's wish to delay talks with his Russian counterpart serves as clear evidence of his presumed desire not to confront Stalin until the United States would actually find itself in the position to offer manifest proof of its recently enhanced global striking power, especially since – in the words of Henry Stimson - the bomb would likely constitute a diplomatic “master card” in discussions with the Soviet Union over Far East issues.145 However, must such a deferment of talks with the Russians necessarily have been borne out of American designs to wait out the new weapon's first testing so as to impress the Soviet Union to the effect of rendering its leaders more compliant to American post-war demands? Or is it not perhaps more likely that Truman and his top-level advisers after all rather simply had objectives of a decidedly more imminent character in mind when they opted to postpone an official interlocution between the two head of states? Surely there can be no doubt that they counted to a more or lesser degree on the fact that news of the United States' acquirement of Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

the atomic bomb would not go without leaving at least some basic impression upon the Russians146, yet the truly pivotal question ultimately is as to what end they actually wanted this 142

Henry L. Stimson Diary Entry from May 14th, 1945. In: Henry Stimson Diary, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers. 143 Burleigh, p. 521. 144 Diary Entry by Joseph E. Davies from May 21st, 1945. In: Joseph E. Davies Papers, Library of Congress, box 17, 21 May 1945. 145 Henry L. Stimson Diary Entry from May 15th, 1945. (See. No. 142) 146 A number of senior US officials such as President Truman, William D. Leahy and James. F. Byrnes - plus Winston Churchill – would later all give detailed personal accounts on how exactly Stalin responded to news of the bomb. Document 19 in: P. L. Cantelon, et al. (eds.), The American atom: a documentary history

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to be the case? Did they really hope to race the Soviet Union into waiving its claims and political pretensions in the Far East by anticipating its entry into the war against Japan through signalling to Stalin at the Potsdam Conference that owing to its recent acquisition of the atomic bomb, the United States would effectively no longer require his country's assistance in EastAsia and, as a result of this, would thus also largely determine the geopolitical re-organisation and re-structuring of the region by itself?147 As Michael Kort has cogently noted in a conclusive analysis of the matter, documentary evidence ultimately does in fact not support the notion that the United States primarily conceived of the atomic bomb as a means to thwart Soviet entry into the war and thereby drastically undercut its post-war ambitions in that region.148 To begin with, arrangements and dispositions with regard to Soviet participation in the fight against Japan as well as the respective role of each Allied super power in the re-shaping of the region's post-war order had already largely been set down and agreed upon at the Yalta conference in February 1945.149 More important still, Russian entry into the war was in fact almost until the very end regarded by the overwhelming majority of the Truman administration as a quintessential and fundamental, perhaps indeed even indispensable factor in their schemes to finally bring the Japanese Empire to its knees.150 The major problem with this plan, however, only was that ultimately no one within the US government could really be certain that the Russians did in fact beyond any reasonable doubt intend to hold on to their commitment of joining the Pacific struggle three months after the defeat of Germany, or at least not without beforehand accommodating them on a number of key political issues.151 Basically the United States thus hoped to obtain some sort of assistance from the Soviet Union in their endeavour to at last secure a swift and complete victory over Japan, yet essentially without being obliged of first making further concessions to the Russians in regard to post-war matters. That American officials clearly desired Soviet entry into the war is ultimately evidenced by a number of statements from leading cabinet figures, notably President Truman himself.152 A participation of their major Ally in the Pacific Struggle might after all entail the prospect of

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achieving victory over Japan at a much earlier stage than without them, notably as a Soviet

of nuclear policies from the discovery of fission to the present (Philadelphia, 1991). Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (Cambridge, 2005). 148 Michael Kort, Racing the Enemy: A Critical look, Historically Speaking: the Bulletin of the Historical Society (January/February 2006). Available at http://www.bu.edu/historic/hs/kort.html [revised 1 May 2012]. 149 Protocol of the Yalta conference available at: http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p4013coll8/id/3687 [revised 27 March 2012]. 150 Essentially it was only after the first successful test that, during the Potsdam conference, Henry L. Stimson raised the question as to whether the Russians were in fact still needed in the Far East. Henry L. Stimson Diary Entry from July 23rd, 1945(See No. 94). 151 In particular an occupation zone on the Japanese mainland. Mawdsley, p. 422. 152 Minutes of Meeting Held at the White House on June 18th 1945 (See. No. 29); Harry S. Truman, Memoirs: Volume One: Year of Decisions (New York, 1955), p. 411. 147

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invasion of Manchuria would put an added strain on Japan‘s pertinacious war efforts.153 After all, one must not forget that despite the high expectations American authorities generally placed in the impact that the atomic bomb would have upon Japanese society, they ultimately didn’t have any substantive guarantee that the employment of the new weapon would by itself inexorably result in an immediate capitulation of their enemy, so that an involvement of the Soviet Union was almost until the very end considered an integral and important aspect for bringing about the practical realisation of that foremost objective.154 In the view of leading American officials it was basically the double jolt of nuclear destruction in conjunction with a Soviet invasion which would in all likelihood stand the best chances of achieving that end, yet in order for such a situation to come about it was ultimately first of all crucial that the Russians actually be induced into ordering the full-scale mobilisation of their troops along the Chinese borderline to begin with.155 Consequently, the atomic bomb thus not only constituted a powerful means for inflicting unprecedented devastation on Japan so as to push its leaders closer to an immediate unconditional surrender, but on a secondary level it also had the added value of inciting the Russians to at last make good on their promise to declare war on the Empire of Japan,156 the latter presumably for fear that with the employment of this new and ground-breaking tool of modern warfare the Americans might ultimately be tempted to pursue a unilateral approach in post-war matters if the Soviet Union should in the event have neglected to contribute its due share to the defeat of Japan .157 From that perspective the postponement of Truman's meeting with Stalin may thus indeed be viewed in a certain sense under the aspect of an “Atomic Diplomacy” towards the Russians, although importantly not because of a fundamental desire to undermine their bargaining position in the Far East, but essentially so as to confront them with the basic choice of either joining the fight against Japan momentarily, or, alternatively, continuing to leave matters for ending the war entirely up to their western ally, though with the not immaterial difference that the latter now had at its command a weapon of unrivalled

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153

Although George C. Marshall apparently was of the opinion that following the build-up of Soviet troops along the Manchurian frontier the Imperial Army was already considerably tied up in that area, he ultimately still couldn’t provide Stimson with an unambiguous assessment as to whether this development really was already sufficient at that time for the Americans to proceed without Russian assistance. Yet even if he should have thought that it did, it surely nonetheless stands to reason that if Marshall evidently already appreciated the enormity of the mere threat that an impending Soviet invasion apparently posed to Japan’s war ambitions, then surely the actual occurrence of such a development would – at least from a military perspective - certainly not have been to his disliking, notably as this would undoubtedly have exerted an even far greater pressure on the Japanese government. Consequently, the fact alone that certain American individuals may indeed have believed that they no longer needed Russian assistance therefore does not rule out by itself the possibility that Soviet help was in any event still seen as a much welcomed succor or backup for bringing about a swift defeat of their common enemy. Stimson Diary Entry from July 23rd, 1945 (See No. 94). 154 Mawdsley, p. 422. 155 Ibid. 156 Burleigh, p. 521. 157 John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War. A New History (New York, 2007), pp. 39-40.

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destructive potential whose arguably decisive part in eventually bringing down the Japanese Empire could ultimately severely curtail Soviet pretensions in East-Asia. Yet what about assertions that the Truman Administration detonated nuclear weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki not only so as to putatively deny them a greater share in post-war arrangements in the Far East, but essentially to stall Soviet ambitions on the global level as well, notably in Eastern and Central Europe. There does indeed exist one peculiar comment by Secretary of State James F. Byrnes that „the Bomb would make the Russians more manageable in Europe“,158 but does such a remark necessarily signify a desire at intimidation with regard to post-war relationships? There was certainly no doubt that the dropping of nuclear weapons might place the United States in a more beneficial bargaining position,159 though perhaps importantly not only or exclusively because of the profound mark their employment allegedly was to leave upon the Soviet Union, but maybe ultimately also for the plain and simple assumption that in their capacity to substantially shorten a war which might otherwise well drag on for several more months, the use of atomic bombs might actually also go a long way towards at last freeing the United States of an immensely cumbersome burden, one which had after all hitherto largely prevented its leaders from directing their undivided attention to the settlement of post-war issues and the establishment of a new world order in the first place. In that emerging order the role of and relations to the Soviet Union would naturally figure among the foremost concerns of US policy makers, so that possession of the atomic bomb might before long indeed come in handy as had already been acknowledged by Byrnes. That divergences with the Soviet Union over a variety of geopolitical issues were likely to prejudice the post-war relationship between the two super powers had by then after all been evident for quite some time as a result of the gradual deterioration of mutual understanding within the Great Alliance these past few months. Yet before American officials could even possibly expect to place themselves in a position that would eventually enable them to play out their recently acquired “master card” in any future bargaining contest with the Soviet Union, it was eminently imperative to first set the scene for an international environment that would in the event actually even only in the first place allow for this diplomatic benefit in the form of the Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

atomic bomb to completely unfold its presumed potential for intimidation of their future rival. In other words, the United States would effectively only be able to seriously address in their entirety any grievances with the Soviet Union after it would finally have concluded its military engagement in the Pacific, basically because authorities in Washington could after all not logically hope of adequately dealing with the Russians for as long as a major conflict presently

158

Statement made according to Leo Szilard at a May 1945 meeting, quoted in Charles L. Mee, Jr., Meeting at Potsdam (New York, 1975), p. 22. 159 Kolko, pp. 540-541.

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still waging on the other side of the world continued to exert an indeed considerable and formidable toll on both their country's national resources as well as on the peaceful pursuit of its international commitments. In sum, the use of the atomic bombs was thus in the first instance not serving the purpose of propelling the United States into a better bargaining position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union with regard to post-war disputes, but in its perceived capacity to substantially shorten the ongoing struggle with Japan, the employment of the new weapon was essentially rather regarded as a fundamental prerequisite for the advent of a propitious international constellation that would actually only even in the first place grant the United States the political and military freedom to concern itself exclusively with issues whose satisfactory resolution was for the time being after all still largely overshadowed by the oppressive necessity of at last achieving a total victory in the Pacific. Before that paramount and all-dominant end was met, any attempt to make the Russians more manageable would in any event likely remain a forlorn endeavour to begin with, provided that such a course of action had indeed formed a chief concern of American policymakers for the post-war era. As historian Russell F. Weigley fittingly observes, belief ”that the Atomic Bomb seemed a useful bargaining counter in relations with Russia” does after all not necessarily in itself disqualify the notion that its primary purpose ultimately still predominantly was to end the war in the Pacific through the employment of the military means at hand.160 From this point of view Byrnes's statement may therefore actually well fit in with the desire to use the atomic bomb for reasons of speeding up the end of hostilities, if only because any prospect of handling the Russians more evenly on the political stage was essentially set to remain elusive wishful thinking for as long as the United States would be fundamentally unable of turning their full and unimpaired attention to the clarification of precisely those issues which were presently threatening to put the two countries at variance.

͸Ǥʹ–”—…–—”ƒŽ ’‡”ƒ–‹˜‡• The exigency to finish the war in the Pacific at the earliest possible moment was ultimately not Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

only of crucial importance for preventing the loss of additional lives in the event of ongoing bellicose confrontations; nor exclusively for redirecting attention and resources to the handling of international challenges. What essentially was at stake for the United States was ultimately nothing less than the obligation of both meeting and safeguarding America's aspiration to universal leadership in a world desperately calling to be re-built and re-structured on the ashes of nearly six years of non-intermittent global warfare. Yet in order for the United States to be

160

Weigley, pp. 539-40.

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able to truly measure up to this self-appointed role as the foremost political player on the future international scene as well as the primary motor and proponent of western civilization and its formative model of liberal democracy and free market economies, it was acutely imperative that it at long last commence in earnest to lay as quickly and sweepingly as possible the definitive political, economical, administrative and material foundations required to embrace and fulfil in every single respect that overly daunting and formidable challenge. The accomplishment of such a task could, however, evidently only be achieved to complete satisfaction once the combat against Japan had irrevocably come to a close, notably as only an ultimate end of the Pacific struggle would finally enable the United States to expedite its transition from a warring nation to a peace-time country.161 This latter point can indeed not be underestimated. For in order for the United States to assume a more comprehensive global leadership in international affairs, it was indeed of seminal importance that its government basically saw to the establishment of a wellfunctioning domestic society capable to meet the manifold foreign challenges ahead of it, essentially because the Second World War had after all radically propelled their country within the span of only a few years from a state of more or less complete geopolitical isolation to the status of but one of two remaining super powers. However, for a nation whose military forces were presently stationed one each single continent and whose diplomatic pre-eminence in global relations as a result of its world-encompassing outreach these past five years now de facto was an undeniable given of contemporary reality, such a development ultimately not only implicated a tremendous opportunity, but at the same also entailed an enormous responsibility to make use of its recently acquired standing to influence the course of humanity for the betterment of all its people, albeit of course in the first place with regard to the livelihood and interests of its own citizens. Accordingly, there was no doubt within the Truman Administration that the United States might in the event once again withdraw to a position of general indifference as to the developments in other parts of the world.162 Their country was by now so fully and irreversibly entangled in the fate of other nations that it would simply be impossible for it not to continue its extensive international commitments, if only because its own national Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

security was increasingly perceived of being fundamentally and invariably tied to proceedings taking place outside its own domestic sphere of influence. Importantly, however, a satisfactory accomplishment of its new global leadership role and its attendant political, economical, military and/or ideological objectives could effectively not be performed by a nation whose resources were at present still not entirely devoted to the consistent realisation of precisely just such an overly ambitious and exhaustive task. And 161 162

Walker, p. 8. Paul Kennedy, Aufstieg und Fall der großen Mächte (Frankfurt, 1992), p.535.

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although it is in that context anything but the intent of this paper to subscribe to the predication of numerous recent publications postulating the emergence of an all-encompassing “American Imperialism” in the post-war era that supposedly only reached its true apogee in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's formal disintegration,163 this analysis shall nevertheless briefly take recourse to conceptual models expounding on the various phases and different structural processes underlying large imperial entities in general. By virtue of such an approach it will essentially be illustrated how the United States - irrespective of whether or not its current position as the dominant global power does after all justify the designation of an “American Empire” – basically had to undergo as well a cycle of structural transformation in conformity with paradigms of imperial transition164, one whose universal validity, if not elementary necessity for measuring up to its global pretensions was in principle fully appreciated by its governing authorities in the summer of 1945. Accordingly, one key aspect of any imperial formation process inevitably pertains to the basic need of undertaking an axiomatic transformation from the phase of initial trans-national outreach to a permanent state of unimpaired internal consolidation.165 In essence, theories of ‘imperial transition' posit that no empire may effectively succeed in perpetuating the gains previously achieved through bellicose intervention without making in due time fundamental dispositions for the establishment of a political environment suited to accommodate the multifarious challenges invariably arising as a result of the thus altered distribution of power and influence within a given international system. Yet contrary to most of history's preceding attempts at imposing imperial hegemony through belligerent expansion, the United States had, for its part, paradoxically obtained its over-regional preponderance largely in response to foreign aggression committed against its own proper territorial integrity, although the overall outcome ultimately still basically was the same. American power now after all extended far beyond the geographical delimitations of its own shores, and so if its recently acquired influence in matters of global governance and international economical interdependence was to be sustained in the long run, it too would eventually have to enter the phase of thorough and

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comprehensive consolidation as well.166

163

However, some scholars have also introduced a more subtle differentiation of America's global postwar predominance from earlier large-scale imperial entities, such as ‘Democratic Empire’ or ‘Accidental Empire by invitation’. John Lewis Gaddis, We Now know: Rethinking Cold War History (New York, 1998), p. 289; Paul Starobin, Five Roads to the Future. Power in the next Global Age (New York, 2010), pp. 53-54. 164 Excellent analyses on the dynamics of empire building and consolidation are offered by Michael Doyle, Empires (New York, 1988) and Herfried Münkler, Imperien. Die Logik der Weltherrschaft (Berlin, 2005). 165 Doyle uses the fitting expression „Augustan threshold“, alluding to Ancient Rome’s passage from an (oligarchic) republic to a de facto imperial form of government as a result of Emperor Augustus’ initiation of seminal economical, administrative and social measures primarily aiming at consolidating the gains achieved through military victory for the sake of the Empire's internal stabilization. Doyle, pp. 93-96. 166 The challenges lying ahead were indeed manifold: In addition to countervailing geopolitical ambitions by the Soviet Union, America was effectively expected to become the leader of a global postwar liberal order. It

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However, that stage could effectively only be initiated in all earnest when its engagement in the Pacific War would no longer exert such oppressive and costly a toll on its national resources as it presently after all still did. For although American wartime production had undoubtedly prospered on an unprecedented scale these past few years167, it was nevertheless crucial that resources currently committed to the defeat of Japan should before long be redirected to the establishment and preservation of a thriving post-war economy, as well as to the formulation and pursuit of a coherent and clearly-articulated international agenda commensurate with the realisation of its global pretensions.168 The reallocation of resources for the benefit of maintaining a viable post-war society naturally comprised all major aspects of modern state governance. Hence, a gradual realignment and reorientation of US national and global policies on military, economical, administrative and geopolitical counts for the purpose of meeting, or preferably staying abreast of the formidable challenges inevitably involved in the process of comprehensive structural adaptation to a changing international environment would thus naturally figure among the foremost concerns of American policy-makers. That in all of this a swift and complete end to the Pacific struggle, however, constituted an indispensable precondition for the United States' expeditious all-out transformation from a nation at present still primarily preoccupied with waging the final, tough likely protracted stage of a gruelling and relentless war to the creation and consolidation of a society expected to assume a pre-eminent position in the re-shaping of the world's power-political and socio-economic figuration was consequently very well appreciated at the highest echelons of its executive establishment. It was on that very score that President Truman ultimately invoked in a justification of his decision to drop atomic bombs that their employment allegedly not only saved thousands of American lives, but that it had, moreover, also finally given “the free nations a chance to face the facts”.169 Implicitly, Truman here took up the argument that in their capacity of having substantially contributed to the end of the Second World War, the detonation of nuclear weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki basically marked a fundamental watershed not only in

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that country's history, but in fact a critical point of transition in the narrative and trajectory of would or already had entered important commitments on the economic side (Bretton Woods, IMF); and it would likely also have a substantial stake in issues relating to no less daunting enterprises than the systematical economic re-construction of Europe's war-battered countries, the establishment of peaceful political regimes in occupied territories as well as guaranteeing the regional integrity and security of various nations all over the globe (Taiwan, South Korea, western Europe). Kennedy, pp. 535-538; Starobin, p. 54. 167 Kennedy, pp. 533-534. 168 As Robert Gilpin noted, inflated emphasis on military power and security, however crucial in obtaining victory over a current enemy, may in the event of strategic overstretch always carry the inherent danger of consuming in the long run too great a share of a country's national revenues and, by implication, prevent a substantial amount of resources from being redirected to new productive investments. This, in turn, will then, however, almost certainly adversely affect the nation's prosperity as well as its international standing. Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 158-159. 169 Letter by Harry Truman to Prof. James L. Cate, January 12th, 1953 (See No. 33).

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all humankind. In his view that event ultimately presented not only for Japan, but more or less for all nations, and in particular for the United States, a sort of seminal historical threshold, the storied rupture with a belligerent past characterized by the agonizing condition of a world at constant war in favour of a state of global and universal peace which, however brittle and unfinished it soon was to proof, nevertheless had allowed countries to at long last once again place both their national resources as well as the collective energy of their people into the service of accomplishing the cherished ideals of domestic prosperity and international stability as opposed to the continuation of senseless slaughter and mutual attrition. As American officials thus evidently understood how truly important their country's foundation on the principle of a sound national economy as well as on the virtues of societal harmony and cohesion ultimately was for the efficient execution of its international engagements, they consequently must indeed have felt a growing urgency for it to enter as quickly as possible the phase of safeguarding its recently acquired position as the world's principal super power. In this process, however, time naturally was of the essence, leading them before long to the ineluctable realisation that without an expeditious conclusion of the Pacific conflict, the United States would, for one, not only lack the resources and political freedom of action to properly address pressing issues of either domestic or foreign character, but that with each additional month the war against Japan was dragging on, the United States would essentially also increasingly run the risk of delaying its all-out transformation from a warring country to a nation that was in the first instance committed to the pursuit of, in principle, largely peaceful endeavours, notably for the sake of economic prosperity and national security. Finally, another important consideration which surely impacted to a not unsubstantial degree upon the reasoning of US government officials and the perceived acuteness of performing a rapid and comprehensive transition from a state of belligerent entanglement in the Pacific to one of a peaceful realignment of its national policies pertained to the paramount and ever-relevant issue of national sentiment.170 For ultimately it were not solely or exclusively the dynamics underlying the abstract processes of geopolitical consolidation, economical Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

transformation and the revaluation of both national and international priorities which informed the thinking of senior American policy-makers, but to a not inconsiderable extent also the public mood and opinion of its citizens with regard to a variety of foremost domestic issues. Among these the ability of the US government to finally bring to an end the arduous struggle in the Pacific and to redirect its political preoccupation as well as its extensive material and intellectual resources to the preservation of a prosperous and flourishing society naturally

170

Henry Stimson & Bundy McGeorge, On Active Service in War & Peace (New York, 1947), p. 632.

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ranked at the top of the list of popular concerns. Crucially, however, such a transfer of vital resources essentially touched upon the human level as well, given that the American public increasingly longed for its men in uniform presently still engaged in over-sea fighting to finally return home to their families again.171 Apart from personal relationships, the reason for this was twofold: on the one hand those servicemen not only comprised the prime of America's youth and accordingly the mainstay of its future workforce, but also included many of its best, bravest and brightest individuals trained and versed in a variety of fields notably heavily relying on such treasured qualities as technical ingenuity, intellectual finesse and professional expertness, personal characteristics not only recently proven and refined in numerous high-stress battle situations, but which, moreover, ultimately also were of seminal importance to America's economical and technological progress in the years to come. Just as significant, a society as aspiring as the United States could essentially not expect its population to continue indefinitely with devoting all of its personal energy and work ethic for the benefit of its country's economical stability while fear for the life of loved ones in the armed forces still guided its every-day existence, or at least not without their being a probable prospect for their save return in the foreseeable future. That such persisting incertitudes as to the fate of entire military contingents might, however, before long come to have a detrimental effect on social cohesion ultimately seems all but self-explanatory, so that considerations for accommodating the public's desire in that sensitive area may thus accordingly have played a not insignificant part in the deliberations of America's leading decision-makers as well.172 As a matter of fact, Henry L. Stimson eventually was to refer explicitly to the importance of precisely this very aspect, arguing that the Truman Administration could not possibly have justified before its own people the loss of more of its servicemen when in fact it had actually possessed the means to prevent such a terrible cost in terms of American lives.173 Furthermore, polls and surveys conducted in the weeks before the dropping of the atomic bombs also clearly expressed the American people's fundamental desire to accelerate the conclusion of the Pacific War, with a not unsubstantial number (13%) apparently so radically convinced of the necessity Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

to at last inflict a total and devastating defeat on their enemy that they ultimately even readily endorsed an all-out extermination of the Japanese people.174 Remarks and public opinions such as these thus only further underscore the notion that the US government was ultimately very well concerned about how their continued engagement in 171

Kennedy, pp. 535-536. Casey Frank, ‘Truman's Bomb, Our Bomb’ (See No. 65). 173 Stimson, ‘The decision to use the atomic bomb’, p. 106. 174 Press Release by the American Institute of Public Opinion, Princeton, December 19th, 1944. Cited in: Arthur N. Feraru, ‘Public Opinion Polls on Japan’, Far Eastern Survey Vol. 19, No. 10 (May 17, 1950), pp. 101-103. 172

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the Pacific - and, by implication, the possibility of thus sustaining further casualties – might affect national sentiment as well as the unquestioned support of its own citizenry. In the antecedent years the American populace had assisted its government with commendable dedication and a profound sense of personal duty in its effort to persistently roll back fascist and militarist aggression in North Africa, Europe and East Asia; however, its governing authorities now also increasingly realised that sooner or later there may very well come a time when the people of the United States might start to experience symptoms of a general and nation-wide battle fatigue as well, one which if permitted to grow or go unheeded could at the worst carry the inherent risk of not only impinging upon public morale, but, moreover, essentially also on the proper functioning of American society at large. Consequently, the prevention of such an inimical state of mind may thus have been reasonably seen as another vital step, probably even as a fundamental precondition in the process of gradual transition from a war-time country to a peace-time nation. Since the loss of more American soldiers, the continued absence and separation of men and women from their loved ones and the sustained involvement in a war which in the past few years had brought home to the American people as well a degree of raw brutality and merciless slaughtering previously unseen or unheard of since all of these conditions could with the passing of more time thus eventually only further nurture feelings of combat weariness and popular disillusionment, American authorities must indeed have regarded the potential advent of such a detrimental situation for its national interests as an additional and persuasive argument for ending the war at the earliest possible moment. Accordingly, American officials then ultimately did not hesitate to make good on this their foremost objective when at last they had at their disposal the proper means deemed most likely to accomplish it. That instrument was of course the atomic bomb.

7. Conclusion Why were nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? This is a question which

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cannot possibly receive adequate answering by naming but a single coherent motivation underlying its intricate and complex decision-making process, essentially because any such narrowing of the matter on the mere aspect of motivation invariably entails a stark misjudgement and gross simplification of the historical reality. Based on the assumption that the deliberate killing of Japanese non-combatants was not seen by senior officials in Washington as an end in itself, but basically as a powerful means towards the achievement of a greater goal, it would indeed seem advisable for any sound analysis of this sensitive matter to widen its emphasis from the purely operational value of the atomic bomb as an instrument to 49

obliterate Japanese cities to an extrapolation of that momentous decision onto a much profounder contextual and critical scale, one whose principal measure should essentially not be the question of personal motives, but rather the pre-eminent relevance of overriding aims and objectives guiding the dynamics of its decision-making process. In so doing, a thorough perusal of the available documentary evidence should ultimately lead to the conclusion that that seminal decision was indeed in the first instance borne out of the firm and genuine desire of US government officials to end the war in the Pacific at the earliest possible moment – by whatever means most likely to accomplish that goal. A number of alternatives for attaining such an outcome had to a more or lesser extent previously been given ample thought and consideration as well, yet for varying reasons these scenarios were ultimately all rejected on account of their perceived inadequacies and inherent shortcomings for bringing about a swift termination of the ongoing struggle against the Japanese Empire. Incertitudes as to the feasibility of envisaged military operations, uncertainty as to a prompt success of strategies aiming at both a productive and psychological wearing down of the enemy's domestic society and public morale, or, alternatively, ambiguities as to the soundness of a diplomatic rapprochement of Japan through peaceful negotiation: All of these possibilities were for the most part eventually seen as less probable approaches for inducing just as expeditiously a surrender of Japan as the application of nuclear weapons was ultimately believed to, basically because in spite of whatever practical chances at success were at one time or another attributed to them by individual officials, they were in the final analysis all more or less perceived of carrying the potential yet unacceptable probability of unnecessarily prolonging the war for an indeterminable period of time. Yet for American decision-makers it was eminently imperative that the war actually end as soon as the United States would finally find itself in the position to do so. Importantly, however, that necessity was not solely borne out of a 'national obligation' to spare the lives of its men in uniform, let alone for obtaining a better bargaining position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. On a much more fundamental level, a swift conclusion of hostilities in the Pacific was also crucial for the very well-being of the United States itself, essentially because only the Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

advent of that long desired situation would truly enable it to redirect the best part of its resources, energy and manpower to the execution of projects and endeavours believed to be vital for, on the one hand, safeguarding its long-term internal stability and economical prosperity, while at the same time also being of equally significant importance for embracing its role as the prospective global leader and principal champion of a liberal-democratic world order, with all the challenges and international commitments attending such a position. For this it was, however, pivotal that the United States at last obtain the political freedom and diplomatic manoeuvrability to devote its undivided and unimpaired attention to the 50

resolution and clarification of issues seen as critical both on the domestic and international plane, yet without simultaneously still being obliged to cope with the tremendous material and psychological burdens of a war which in the event might very well drag on for several more months, if not even longer. This was an eventuality which senior US officials ultimately simply could and would not be willing to accept, with the result that they increasingly came to sense a strong need for making use of whatever such means they presently had at their disposal as were generally deemed most probable and effective for precipitating a Japanese capitulation at the earliest possible moment. According to Henry L. Stimson, it was above all the atomic bomb which eventually furnished just such an instrumental expedient. As the former Secretary of War noted, the employment of nuclear weapons ultimately managed to inflict such profound and far-reaching a psychological shock upon the will and morale of Japanese society that it basically enabled the more peace-minded members of the Imperial government to at last prevail over the staunch opposition of its military hard-liners, given that, ironically, the detonation of atomic bombs essentially made it possible for the latter to accept surrender in light of the fact that this was a new form of warfare which they could not possibly have dealt with by resorting to tactics of conventional territorial defence.175 In reference to E.H. Carr, the decision to employ nuclear weapons ultimately was to a not unsubstantial amount the product of 'social forces' bearing down significantly upon the reasoning and actions of leading US authorities, even while it at the same time also was a decision that had not merely evolved from the will of one individual – President Truman – alone, but essentially from the relationship and mutual exertion of influence by key politicians and military advisers upon one another as well. Transition from a state at war to a nation at peace for the primary sake of domestic stability and prosperity; reorientation of national and international policies, together with the freeing of material and intellectual resources as well as the achievement of political freedom to implement them; the necessity to redress the ills of a global system devastated by years of gruelling warfare through the assumption of a much more predominant role in world affairs, in addition now invariably seen as being inextricably tied to Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

America’s national security as well; the exigency to address in earnest pressing issues pertaining to the emerging post-war order; and, last but not least, the political advisability to heed the desire of its citizenry for ending the war and preventing the potential loss of further American soldiers – all of these were 'forces' that ultimately weighed down heavily upon American officials in their search for appropriate means to at last conclude the war against Japan, and as such they may thus indeed reasonably be said of having exerted a not

175

Stimson, ‘The decision to use the atomic bomb’, pp. 105-106.

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insignificant influence upon the decision-making process to employ nuclear weapons. At the same time, a pivotal role in the deliberations and contemplations underlying that decision's eventual execution must also be accorded to both the personal and professional relationships of key individuals immediately involved in the process. For although it was in the end President Truman who gave the definite order to release nuclear devices over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the decision to do so had surely been anything but his alone to make. After all the President relied heavily upon the information and estimations supplied to him by a team of senior civilian advisers and high-ranking military strategists, so that it were ultimately also to a not unsubstantial degree their personal assessment and tested experience which acted as influential guidance for whatever course of action he would eventually take. This latter aspect should indeed not be underestimated, especially in light of the fact that President Truman had actually only recently assumed his office from his deceased predecessor Franklin D. Roosevelt. Accordingly he was not only surrounded by a team of seasoned politicians and presidential advisers who had exercised key governmental functions these past few years, but more importantly he ultimately also was to a certain degree profoundly influenced in his actions by the agenda and policies they had helped to shape. Effectively, President Truman had after all inherited from Franklin D. Roosevelt no lesser task than the formidable obligation of seeing America's engagement in two major conflicts to a rapid end; yet with the war in Europe over, it consequently now basically was his responsibility to make good on the second part of that promise as well. In that sense one may, moreover, argue that the relationship of President Truman and his advisory entourage was actually informed by far more than merely the exchange of practical information and views between them; on a much more fundamental scale it was ultimately also substantially characterised by the self-evident duty to exercise their office as elected representatives of the American people to the best of its national interests and desires, a condition which in their eyes could eventually only be satisfied through rigorously following through with the realisation of President Roosevelt's agenda of “unconditional surrender”.176 High-ranking officials and influential presidential advisers, in particular James F. Byrnes and Cordell Hull, could in that regard always be counted on to Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

remind the President not to lost track of that overriding and quintessential goal, with the result that in their staunch and unwavering opposition to accommodating the Japanese through peaceful negotiation they may thus indeed be said of having exerted a certainly not immaterial influence on the reasoning of their commander-in-chief, if only by “pushing” him to stay a firm and unapologetic course with regard to an “unconditional surrender” of Japan. In so doing, professional interaction between leading cabinet members and top-level military officials

176

Casey Frank, ‘Truman's Bomb, Our Bomb’ (See. No. 65).

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basically delivered the methods deemed most efficient to accomplish that foremost objective, and it were to a not insignificant degree the demands of structural accommodation to a budding post-war order as well as the silent cry of the American society to at last rid itself of the onerous burden of war which ultimately largely dictated upon President Truman the proper course to implement it - the Atomic Bomb. In that regard the decision to use atomic bombs may thus indeed appear to have been a rational and judicious choice, albeit in the end still only to a limited extent. In more concrete terms, rationality only prevailed in so far as it assumed a pre-eminent standing within the restrictive framework of the fundamental necessity and increasing desire to end the cumbersome and taxing fray in the Pacific at the earliest possible moment by whatever means available, essentially for reasons elaborated on the foregoing pages. Beyond that, however, rational reasoning with regard to the wider ramifications and potentially detrimental effects as a result of employing nuclear weapons was largely subordinated to the practical exigencies at hand, so that despite having been duly apprised of its allegedly negative implications for postwar developments in the field of international relations and accommodations, US policymakers generally perceived the gains to be achieved by using that new kind of warfare to be in excess of any potential costs likely to arise as a result of its application. Accordingly, their decision was predominantly guided by a rationality of imminent expediency, and thus only to a marginal extent by considerations that seriously took into account the creation of putatively adverse political conditions, let alone, for that matter, by issues pertaining to morality or a universal standard for respecting human life.177 In any event, moral qualms were, as seen, ultimately only of inferior importance in the decision to unleash nuclear destruction. Despite their occasional utterance by certain cabinet members, ethical reservations were for the most part put second to the alleged urgency of finally bringing the Japanese Empire to its knees, a state of mind which may as such ultimately be said of having been but a reflection, some might even say the natural or logical extension of the view which both the American soldier as well as his society at home had in the meantime formed of the specific nature and character of the war in the Pacific – and in particular of the Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

enemy they had encountered there.178 For if indeed there ever was in modern times a war in which the element of humanity would effectively be reduced to almost complete redundancy, than it was in the Second World War, especially during the final stages of the Pacific campaign as far as that theatre of the conflict was concerned. Years of attritional warfare and merciless 177

A condition that was accurately described by Lieutenant General James M. Gavin with the statement that “[....] military thinking seemed, at the outset, to be paralyzed by its [the Atomic Bomb’s] magnitude.” James M. Gavin, War and Peace in the Space Age (London, 1959), p. 114. 178 A vivid account of the personal sentiments and general perceptions of American servicemen towards the Japanese is offered by John Hersey, Into the Valley. Marines at Guadalcanal (New York, 1943).

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slaughter had revealed a degree of raw brutality and blunt violence for killing one's adversary that sooner or later any considerations about the human nature of the enemy eventually began to lose their general validity, with the result that this gradual dulling of moral sensitivities would before long translate into the minds and thinking of leading policy-makers as well.179 Moreover, this war had long since become the epitome of a “Total War”, and so it was accordingly also waged as such, with morality basically superseded by the practical requirements of its operational conduct.180 The death of civilian populations was no longer considered an abhorrent anomaly of strategic imperatives; by 1945 it was to a large extent seen as a legitimate instrument of psychological warfare for wearing down the enemy's unyielding perseverance and to overcome his intractability to surrender,181 apparently justified by the atrocities which in the eyes of American officials Japan had first willingly inflicted upon the freedom-loving populations of other nations. In that regard the atomic bomb was thus generally perceived as but the inevitable corollary or culmination of methods aiming at the systematic erosion of the enemy's principal source of human and material capital – his domestic society, a view which by that time had after all basically come to be the norm in modern warfare instead of a resentful and despicable recourse that was in flagrant violation of principles calling for the maintenance of at least some basic degree of moral restraint in the waging of inter-human conflicts.182 By implication, any questioning of the over-all justification for the employment of such terrible a weapon thus did in most instances not even present itself in the first place; and even where it did, any “just cause” for making use of it was tacitly understood by leading American policy-makers to basically derive its legitimation from the unwritten laws of “proportionality”, meaning that ultimately even the death of tens of thousands of innocent civilians was seen as an acceptable necessity for achieving the greater goal of an imminent peace in the Pacific, one which was essentially believed of not only preventing further American casualties, but which through the discontinuation of economic strangulation and conventional aerial bombing would supposedly also save to a manifold the lives of Japanese citizens to be lost in the wake of

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nuclear annihilation.183

179

President Truman's diary comment from July 25th that the Japanese are „savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic“offers indeed a telling indication of prevailing attitudes at the time. Diary Entry by President Harry Truman from July 25th, 1945 (See No. 98). - Shortly after the detonation of atomic bombs, Truman would, moreover, justify his decision with words adequately reflecting his general perception of the Japanese by saying "When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true. Quoted in Alperovitz, The Decision to use the Atomic Bomb, p. 563. 180 A view perhaps most unabashedly advanced by USAF Strategic Command General Curits LeMay. Curtis LeMay, Mission with LeMay: My Story (New York, 1965), pp. 380-384. 181 Thomas B. Allen & Norman Polmar, Code-Name Downfall (New York, 1995), pp. 266–270. 182 Walker, p. 96. 183 Ibid; Stimson, ‘The decision to use the atomic bomb’, p. 101, 107.

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In that regard, the decision to employ nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki will thus in essence always serve as a memorable reminder and keen admonition to later generations of what unspeakable horrors man – depending on the respective evaluative perspective and moral criteria – is fundamentally capable of to either wilfully unleash or find himself forced to revert to as a means of practical expediency on account of the far-reaching calamities and devastations wreaked by that one biblical rider184 in particular whom humankind even after such disastrous and woeful an affliction as the Second World War - and especially following that conflict's ultimate abomination of modern warfare in the form of two nuclear detonations – still hasn't entirely succeeded in irrevocably disposing itself of as an anachronistic expedient

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for human conflict resolution from the past.

184

That is to say „war“, the other three being pestilence, famine, and death, whose deleterious effects on human life man has, by now, after all reasonably well managed to master or keep at bay – at least in the 'industrialized' world and in comparison to their ubiquitous prevalence in earlier times. John Keegan, 'War in our World', in: John Keegan (ed.), War and our World. The Reith Lectures 1998 (London, 1999).

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ͺǤ‹„Ž‹‘‰”ƒ’Š›

ͺǤͳ”‹ƒ”›‘—”…‡• A comprehensive collection of primary source material is available at: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/index.htm [revised 1 May 2012].

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The War against Japan / Alternate Scenarios / Unconditional Surrender - Memorandum of Conversation with General Marshall May 29th 1945 by Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy. In: RG 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson (“Safe File”), July 1940-September 1945, box 12, S-1. - Memorandum from George C. Marshall to Henry Stimson from June 4th 1945, printed in Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and its Legacies (Stanford, 2003), pp. 353-355. - Memorandum by General George A. Lincoln to General Hull from June 5th 1945, commenting on President's Hoover’s evaluation. In: Record Group 165, Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs, American-British-Canadian Top Secret Correspondence, Box 504, ABC 387 Japan. - Memorandum of Conference between Henry L. Stimson and President Truman, June 6th 1945. In: Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers. - Memorandum from Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew to the President, June 13th 1945: In: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson ("Safe File"), July 1940-September 1945, box 8, Japan. - Memorandum from Chief of Staff Marshall to the Secretary of War, June 15th, 1945. In: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson ("Safe File"), July 1940-September 1945, box 8, Japan. - Memorandum from Deputy Chief of Staff George A. Lincoln to Henry L. Stimson, June 15th 1945. In: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, box 8, Japan. - Minutes of Meeting Held at the White House on June 18th 1945. In: Record Group 218, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Central Decimal Files, 1942-1945, box 198 334 JCS (2-245) Mtg 186-194. - Note from Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy to Henry L. Stimson, June 29th, 1945. In: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, box 8, Japan (After December 7/41). - Combined Chiefs of Staff, ‘Estimate of the Enemy Situation’, July 6th 1945. In: RG 218, Central Decimal Files, 1943-1945, CCS 381 (6-4-45), Sec. 2 Pt. 5. - Diary Entry by Secretary of the Navy Forrestal James Forrestal, July 24th, 1945. In: Naval Historical Center, Operational Archives, James Forrestal Diaries. - War Department - Far East Summary from August 4th, 1945. In: RG 457, Summaries of Intercepted Japanese Messages ("Magic" Far East Summary, March 20th, 1942 – October 2, 1945), box 7, SRS 491-547. - Stimson, Henry L. ‘The decision to use the bomb’, Harper's Magazine (February 1947), pp. 97-107. Potsdam Conference / Meetings / Diary Entries - Cable from Secretary Joseph Grew to James F. Byrnes, July 16th 1945. In: Record Group 59, Decimal Files 1945-1949, 740.0011 PW (PE)/7-1645. - Henry L. Stimson Diary Entries from July 16th to 25th, 1945.In: Henry Stimson Diary,

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Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers. - Diary Entries by President Truman from July 16th to 25th, 1945. In: Barton J. Bernstein, ‘Truman at Potsdam: His Secret Diary’, Foreign Service Journal (July/August 1980). - Harry S. Truman Diary Entry from July 17th, 1945. In: Robert H. Ferrell, ed., Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (New York, 1980), pp. 53-54. - Memorandum from General L. R. Groves to Henry L. Stimson about the first testing of a plutonium explosive, July 18th, 1945. In: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 4. - Excerpts from final version of the Potsdam conference, available at: http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c06.html [revised 27 March 2012].

Intercepted Japanese communications / Japanese cabinet meetings

- “Magic“-Intercept of message from Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo to Ambassador Naotake Sato. In: „Magic“- Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1204 – July 12th, 1945, Top Secret Ultra. - Memorandum from John Weckerling to Deputy Chief of Staff on “Japanese Peace Offer”, July 13th 1945. In: RG 165, Army Operations OPD Executive File #17, Item 13.1 - “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1210 – July 17, 1945, Top Secret Ultra. In: Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, "Magic" Diplomatic Summaries 19421945, box 18. - Message from Foreign Minister Togo to Moscow Ambassador Sato, included in "Magic" Report from July 22th, 1945. In: Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, "Magic" Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18. - "Magic" Report from July 30th, 1945. In: Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, "Magic" Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18. - Japanese Cabinet Meetings, August 7-8, 1945. In. Source: Gaimusho (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) ed. Shusen Shiroku (The Historical Records of the End of the War), annotated by Jun Eto, volume 4, pp. 57-60. - Diary Entry by Admiral Tagaki from August 8th, 1945. In: Takashi Itoh, ed., Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), pp. 923-924. - Radio Speech of Emperor Hirohito to the Japanese People on August 15th 1945, accepting the Potsdam Declaration. Available at: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/hirohito.htm [revised 28 February 2012]. The Selection of Targets / The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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- Report of the Initial Meeting of Target Committee from May 2th, 1945. In: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5d. - Notes on Interim Committee Meetings, May 2th and May 31st 1945. In: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5d and RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 100. - Summary of Target Committee Meetings on May 10th and 11th May 1945," included in Memorandum from Major J. A. Derry and Dr. N.F. Ramsey to General L.R. Groves from May 12, 1945. In: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5d. - Memorandum of Conversation between Deputy Secretary of War John J. McCloy and General Marshall, May 29th, 1945. In: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson (“Safe File”), July 1940September 1945, box 12, S-1 - Report of Interim Committee Meeting from 31st May. In: RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 100. - Memorandum of June 6th 1945 meeting between Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson

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and President Truman. In: Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers. - R. E. Lapp, Leo Szilard, et al (eds.), "A Petition to the President of the United States," July 17, 1945. In: RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 76. - Message from General Thomas T. Handy to George C. Marshall, July 24th 1945. In: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, Files no. 5b and 5e. - Transmissions from 313th Bomb Wing Command to US War Department from August 3rd and 4th 1945. In: RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 21. - Memorandum from General L. R. Groves to George C. Marshall, August 6th, 1945. In: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents. - COMGENAAF 8 cable to COMGENUSASTAF for General Farrell from August 9th 1945. In: RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 20, Envelope G Tinian Files. - Diary Entry by Henry A. Wallace on Cabinet from August 10th, 1945. In: Papers of Henry A. Wallace, Special Collections Department, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa. - Memorandum on Emperor's Hirohito's "Sacred Decision [go-seidan]," from August 9th/10th 1945. In: Zenshiro Hoshina, Daitoa Senso Hishi: Hoshina Zenshiro Kaiso-roku (Tokyo, 1975). - President Truman’s message to Congress on the use of the atomic bomb from October 3rd 1945. Available at: http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Deterrence/Truman.shtml [revised 1 May 2012]. - U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey: The Effects of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, June 19th, 1946. In: President's Secretary's File, Truman Papers, Harry S. Truman Library & Museum.

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Attitude towards the Soviet Union - Protocol of the Yalta conference available at: http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p4013coll8/id/3687 [revised 27 March 2012]. - Henry L. Stimson Diary Entry from May 14th, 1945. In: Henry Stimson Diary, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers. - Henry L. Stimson Diary Entry from May 15th, 1945. In: Henry Stimson Diary, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers. - Diary entry by Joseph E. Davies from May 21st 1945. In: Joseph E. Davies Papers, Library of Congress, box 17, 21 May 1945. - Memorandum from George C. Marshall to Henry L. Stimson from June 4th, 1945, printed in Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and its Legacies (Stanford, 2003), pp. 353-355. - Minutes of Meeting Held at the White House on June 18th 1945. In: Record Group 218, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Central Decimal Files, 1942-1945, box 198 334 JCS (2-245) Mtg 186-194. - Henry L. Stimson Diary Entries from July 16th to 25th, 1945.In: Henry Stimson Diary, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers. - Diary Entries by President Truman from July 16th to 25th, 1945. In: Barton J. Bernstein, ‘Truman at Potsdam: His Secret Diary’, Foreign Service Journal (July/August 1980). - Harry S. Truman Diary Entry from July 17th, 1945. In: Robert H. Ferrell, ed., Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (New York, 1980), pp. 53-54. - Henry L. Stimson Diary Entry from July 23rd, 1945. In: Henry Stimson Diary, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers. - President Truman’s message to Congress on the use of the atomic bomb from October 3rd, 1945. Available at: http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Deterrence/Truman.shtml [revised 1 May 2012].

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Reasons and Motivations / Aftermath / Justifications - President Truman’s message to Congress on the use of the atomic bomb from October 3rd, 1945. Available at: http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Deterrence/Truman.shtml [revised 1 May 2012]. - Stimson, Henry L. ‘The decision to use the bomb’, Harper's Magazine (February 1947), pp. 97-107. - Henry Stimson & Bundy McGeorge, On Active Service in War & Peace (New York, 1947), p. 632. - Press Releases by the American Institute of Public Opinion, Princeton, December 19th 1944. Cited in: Arthur N. Feraru, ‘Public Opinion Polls on Japan’, Far Eastern Survey Vol. 19, No. 10 (May 17, 1950), pp. 101-103. - Letter by Harry Truman to Prof. James L. Cate, January 12th 1953, available at: http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Hiroshima/Truman.shtml [revised 1 May 2012] - Truman, Harry S., Memoirs: Volume One: Year of Decisions (New York, 1955).

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ͺǤʹ‡…‘†ƒ”›‘—”…‡•

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Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

ͺǤ͵ –‡”‡–‹–‡• - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/index.htm [revised 1 May 2012]. - http://www.bu.edu/historic/hs/kort.html [revised 1 May 2012]. - http://www.caseyfrank.com/articles/tb.html [revised 2 April 2012]. - http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c06.html [revised 27 March 2012]. - http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/hirohito.htm [revised 28 February 2012]. - http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Deterrence/Truman.shtml [revised 1 May 2012]. - http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p4013coll8/id/3687 [revised 27 March 2012].

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Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved. Majerus, Joe. The Decision to employ Nuclear Weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Diplomica Verlag, 2013. ProQuest Ebook