Diabolical? The Inhumanity Of It All Runs Deeper Still
We have still not gotten to the real reason behind the decision to drop atomic bombs on two Japanese cities. Until now I have been far too charitable in accepting the idea that the bombs were dropped to impress upon Stalin that the Soviets would have no part in the management of postwar Japan. As morally depraved as that is, the truth is far more damning.
If the purpose in dropping the bombs, whether on human populations or on a forest of cryptomeria trees, was to effect a Japanese surrender prior to Russia's entry into the war, the bombs were completely unnecessary. There was no need for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor was there even need of a demonstration of any kind. If the purpose of the bombs, was to effect a Japanese surrender prior to Russia's entry into the war, this surrender was obtainable three weeks earlier without recourse to the bomb simply by accepting Japan's July 22 nd peace offering. This bears repeating: If the purpose of the bombs, was to effect a Japanese surrender prior to Russia's entry into the war, this surrender was obtainable three weeks earlier without recourse to the bomb simply by accepting Japan's July 22 nd peace offering.
As noted, that offer was rejected, ostensibly because it came with the proviso that the Japanese be permitted to retain the institution of the emperor and thus fell short of the unconditional surrender the U.S. demanded. But, as MacArthur noted earlier, when Japan surrendered three weeks later, after the bombs had fallen and Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been utterly destroyed, it was agreed that the institution of the emperor would remain intact anyway.
So asking us to believe that Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been spared if only there were enough time to set up a demonstration is just so much nonsense. Clearly, Truman felt it necessary to use the bombs, and he felt it necessary to use them on civilian populations. Otherwise, why wait until after Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been decimated and their inhabitants incinerated before accepting Japan's July 22 nd peace offering, emperor and all.
What kind of twisted rationale lay behind this madness? The bombs were not used to bring a conclusive end to the war -- that was incidental, and already a given. Nor, as noted earlier, were the bombs dropped to avert the horrors of a ground invasion, and thus to save American lives. Nor, as we now understand, were the bombs dropped to insure that the Russians would have no part in determining the fate of a postwar Japan. Insuring that there would be no interference from Russia in the management of postwar Japan via Japan's timely capitulation to U.S. forces was important to Truman, but the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was in no way necessary to achieving this. Again, Japan's surrender could have been effected weeks before the agreed upon August 9 date of Russia's entry into Manchuria and subsequent ground invasion of the Japanese mainland.
So why? Why the bombs?
Though the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki played no necessary role in keeping Russian influence out of postwar Japan, the evidence is overwhelming that it did play, and was intended to play, an important role in U.S. efforts to contain, and even reverse, Russia's growing influence in Europe.
Several weeks before the bombs were dropped, Leo Szilard, the first scientist to conceive of how an atomic bomb might be built, had a meeting with Truman's Secretary of State, James Byrnes, in which Szilard expressed his concern that by revealing that we had "the bomb and using it in the war against Japan, we might start an atomic arms race between America and Russia which might end with the destruction of both countries." Byrnes' mind was elsewhere. According to Szilard:
Byrnes... was concerned about Russia's postwar behavior. Russian troops had moved into Hungary and Rumania, and Byrnes thought it would be very difficult to persuade Russia to withdraw her troops from these countries, that Russia might be more manageable if impressed by American military might, and that a demonstration of the bomb might impress Russia.
When Byrnes spoke to Szilard of providing the Russians with a "demonstration" of the bomb he was not speaking of the kind of non-lethal demonstration that Strauss suggested in which an atomic bomb would be dropped over a forest of Japanese cryptomeria trees. No. The demonstration Byrnes had in mind had as its target fully populated Japanese cities. Why leave anything to the imagination? Important as it was to Truman that the Russians know that the U.S. had this enormously destructive new weapon, apparently it was also important to him that the Russians understand that the U.S. was quite capable of using this new weapon, and had no qualms about using it against civilian populations. As Truman's Secretary of State made very clear:
...it wasn't necessary to use the bomb against the cities of Japan in order to win the war but our possession and demonstration of the bomb would make the Russians more manageable in Europe.
Two days following his meeting with Byrnes, Szilard had another meeting with J. Robert Oppenheimer, head scientist for the Manhattan Project. Here, once again, the idea is further reinforced that the real purpose in the nuclear massacre of more than 200,000 civilians was to send Russia a clear, unequivocal message of America's postwar hegemonic intent. At this meeting Szilard told Oppenheimer that he "thought it would be a very serious mistake to use the bomb against the cities of Japan." Oppenheimer disagreed:
Well, don't you think that if we tell the Russians what we intend to do and then use the bomb in Japan, the Russians will understand it?
In effect, the U.S. was saying to the Soviet Union: "Observe our great power, and how we don't hesitate to use it. You know what we expect of you, and if you know what's good for you you'll behave yourselves." And the fact that Stalin knew the U.S. used the bomb when there was absolutely no military necessity for it to do so, and that the bomb was used against a civilian population, no doubt made this message all the more terrifyingly persuasive, as Truman no doubt intended. In short, the purpose in dropping the bombs was to scare the bejesus out of Russia, and there is no question that the U.S. succeeded in doing precisely that. The U.S. couldn't have been more explicit in its invitation to the Soviets to begin the nuclear arms race just as Szilard had feared.
So Begins the Cold War, the Nuclear Arms Race, and the Era of Nuclear Terror "Diplomacy"
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