9/26: Bonnett asked, "As the various statements of Truman's intentions are surveyed, it is worth asking whose perceptions are at play here: Truman's, or our own?"
Responses have pointed to specific pieces of evidence, e.g., by Thad Williamson on 10/23:
Any purported understanding of Truman's view of Japan's situation in August 1945 has to be evaluated in light of the major new evidence reported in _The Decision_ from Byrnes special assistant Walter Brown's diary entry of August 3 (as the President and Byrnes were returning from Potsdam.) As reported on p. 415 of _The Decision_, Brown noted that "Aboard Augusta/President, Leahy, JFB [Byrnes] agrred [sic] Japas [sic] looking for peace. (Leahy had another report from Pacific) President afraid they will sue for peace through Russia instead of some country like Sweden." Bonnett somehow fails to acknowledge this piece of evidence, even though it comes at the climax of Alperovitz's entire argument regarding Truman's view, and is deliberately highlighted as a critical piece of (new) evidence.
Other responses have also pointed to what the media were reporting before the bomb was dropped, what WW II military leaders have said, and how diaries and internal documents corroborate each other. Here, for example, is a summary of what military leaders have said, posted by Thad Williamson on 10/3:
For purposes of illustration, I will flesh out in detail one important source of evidence--fleshed out in some 50 pages of text in The Decision--which essentially refutes Bonnett's suggestion that Alperovitz has simply read back into Truman's decision his own mindset and prejudices, or "drawn a face in the mirror that bears a striking resemblance to [his] own." The source of evidence I refer to consists of the views of a wide variety of top-level military leaders who, both in 1945 and afterwards, stated explicitly and repeatedly that using atomic bombs against Japan was not a military necessity in 1945. Strangely, Bonnett neither discusses nor acknowledges any of this evidence (some of which is well-known, other parts brought to historical attention for the first time in _The Decision_.)
I quote at length here:
While Eisenhower's outspoken displeasure with the Hiroshima decision is well-known among historians, perhaps more surprising is that Douglas MacArthur too refused to endorse the atomic bombings as militarily necessary. While MacArthur is another figure who changed his public statements over time regarding wartime issues, he remained relatively consistent regarding the bomb. The diary of MacArthur's pilot, Weldon Rhoades, from August 7, 1945 states that "General MacArthur definitely is appalled and depressed by this Frankenstein monster [the bomb]." Herbert Hoover's diary regarding a May 1946 meeting with MacArthur states "I told MacArthur of my memorandum of mid-May 1945 to Truman, that peace could be had with Japan by which our major objectives would be accomplished. MacArthur said that was correct and that we could have avoided all of the losses, the Atomic bomb, and the entry of Russia into Manchuria." In a postwar interview with journalist Norman Cousins, MacArthur expressed the view that there was "no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier...if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor." (pp.350-352)
These quotations (including the views of additional leaders not noted here), their subtleties, and the variation and shifts which take place over time with different leaders (with particular attention to the view of George Marshall) occupy four chapters at the very heart of the book, yet Bonnett's review does not even acknowledge them. Surely the idea that the military leaders of 1945 did _not_ see the bomb as necessary--and what this might say about the on-the-ground reality of 1945--is worthy of some consideration, some analysis. Surely this is data that historians cannot responsibly ignore--and it might be added here that the material becomes even more striking when one notes that most of these military figures did not take into account the potential effects of a guarantee for the Emperor in making their judgments as to whether Japan could be brought to surrender without the bomb or an invasion.
Indeed, the cumulative impact of this evidence is to illustrate that, within the mindset of people actually on the scene in 1945, there was felt no military urgency to use the bomb to accomplish the end of the war. It is not revisionist historians who read back into the evidence notions of morality alien to 1945 or assumptions that the atomic bomb decision was contestable. On the contrary, it is the traditional view which has forgotten that voices of doubt and unease regarding the use of atomic bombs on Japan without warning and without exploring other options were prevalent in 1945, even (and especially) in the military.
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
9/26: Bonnett elaborated on his "schemas" approach to history. Bonnett suggested that one way to get around the bias of one's own personal experience is to closely attend to the role personal experience and generational "Lessons of History" played in shaping the Truman administration's thinking. He proposed a cognitive psychology framework, i.e., looking at the analogies and schemas Truman and others were laboring under.
Uday Mohan responded on 10/3:
In the second part of his review, Bonnett believes he can come closer to what Truman and his advisers really believed about peace feelers, Russian entry, Japan, and the bomb by studying the schemas and analogies these individuals found especially compelling. I look forward to that study because it will provide some useful interpretations, but how will that kind of study be any less given to authorial bias? This question arises from Bonnett's own examples. Bonnett says that Truman justified his decision to resist North Korea's invasion of the South by invoking the schema that "unchecked aggression ... leads to war." Well, why wasn't unchecked, ongoing colonial aggression such a problem for Truman?
Presumably this latter aggression fit better with Truman's conception of a proper global order. Potential bias and narrowness of the schemas/analogies approach is also apparent for the bomb question if one sees the bomb as just another weapon the U.S. could use for winning the war, rather than as a weapon that would also play a significant role in the postwar world, as Byrnes, Stimson, Truman, and others understood. This was, after all, a weapon that Truman described in his diary as the "fire of destruction" prophesied in the Bible.
Postwar concerns about the bomb are clear from Stimson's efforts to link the bomb to U.S.-Soviet relations and desperately think through the postwar implications of the bomb (Alperovitz 431-35), and from a variety of statements of other officials. James Byrnes, for example, asked by _U.S. News_ in 1960 if the U.S. dropped the bomb to end the war before Russian entry, said, "Of course, we were anxious to get the war over as soon as possible." The questioner asked further, "Was there a feeling of urgency to end the war in the Pacific before the Russians became too deeply involved?" Byrnes answered, "There certainly was on my part, and I'm sure what, whatever views President Truman may have had of it earlier in the year, that in the days immediately preceding the dropping of that bomb his views were the same as mine--we wanted to get through with the Japanese phase of the war before the Russians came in." (Alperovitz 583)
At Potsdam, Truman, Byrnes, and Stimson continually linked the bomb to the Soviets (see, e.g., Alperovitz, chaps. 20-21). The psychology of power--the bomb and the postwar world--appears to be much more central here than Bonnett's psychology of combat--the bomb simply as a means to end the war.
Moreover, the psychology of combat framework doesn't appear to make room for concern over the means by which a war can be ended. Stimson, we are told, wanted to apply unremitting military and psychological pressure to the enemy. How then to explain his objection to the unrestrained bombing of Dresden and Tokyo, and even to A-bomb targeting that would kill women and children? (Alperovitz 527; Lifton and Mitchell, _Hiroshima in America_ 130-31) Perhaps there is more flexibility to supposedly ruling schemas--and therefore, in this case, to exploration of alternatives to the bomb--than Bonnett lets on.
Uday Mohan added in H-Japan on 11/30:
In John Bonnett's review and reply he cautions against the notion that documents speak for themselves. And yet in these posts he takes issue with Alperovitz largely through the authority of documents, without checking them against his proposed analogies-and-schemas frame of reference, the very thing he cautions Alperovitz and others against doing. Bonnett recommends a research agenda based on cognitive structures to help remedy the problem of bias. The cognitive structures approach sounds quite reasonable and interesting. In my original response, however, I noted that this approach did not guarantee less biased readings of documents or historical decisionmaking, because a historian looking at cognitive structures might define the set of problems a policymaker was dealing with too narrowly. As well, I noted specific objections to Bonnett's examples of cognitive-based readings of Stimson. It appears that a cognitive structures approach would have little use for a genealogy of ruptures or for subtle evidence of dividedness in the thinking of policymakers. Or for evaluating the willful absurdity of applying lessons from the past. . .
Katie Morris responded on 11/10 on H-Japan:
I would like to comment on John Bonnett's effort to explore a cognitive structures approach as a means for eliminating, or at least minimizing, the gridlock that characterizes bomb debates. While I fully sympathize with Bonnett's obvious frustration with the limitations of bomb debates in general, I was again only disappointed with his selection of Secretary of War Henry Stimson as the analytical subject of his attempt to illustrate the merits of a cognitive structures approach to bomb history. This choice revealed, more than anything else, his lack of awareness of much of the evidence now available--evidence which clarifies that Stimson did not play the central role in bomb decision-making that he was once thought to have played, and which reveals Stimson's position on U.S. policies in the last months of the war to be quite different from those predicted by Bonnett's "Psychology of Combat" schema. In trying to argue that Stimson's approach to the use of the bomb was dictated by this particular schema, he failed to consider the quite accessible evidence (including that which is presented in _The Decision_, the subject of his review) which documents Stimson's progression away from a rigid position on use of the bomb and toward an aggressive position in favor of assuring the Japanese as a potential way to remove the last stumbling block to surrender. He also ignored evidence from the diary of Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy who was, in fact, the "maverick" who appears to have been quite successful in his attempt to persuade Stimson to envision a sequence of events that did not only involve the use of atomic bombs on cities without any warning. In turn, this lack of awareness not only raised questions about his ability to present new approaches, but also, specifically, undercuts his argument for what might be a useful means for enriching bomb discussions.
I, like Bonnett, am frustrated with the state of the bomb debate. And I agree that there are ways discussions of A-bomb history in general and the U.S. decision in particular, could be enhanced. Indeed, just in terms of analogies and schemas, I suspect there are others that would actually emerge as influential on the events and decisions leading up to the atomic bombings (the influence of Truman's experience with political machines, for example; or even Byrnes' "can't be so many cooks" approach to personal politics and the possible translation of this into a "dictate our terms" approach to global politics during this period.) However, until we can agree on the shape of the body of evidentiary materials and everyone reaches more or less common ground in terms of knowledge of the details, new theoretical frameworks will, unfortunately, have little enlightening impact on bomb debates.
Finally, when critics demonstrate such a high level of unfamiliarity with the evidentiary details of the book, how can we hope to move from warlike, generalized debates to intelligent discussions about interpretative differences? While one may disagree with Alperovitz's interpretation, in a reviewing his book, one should, at the very least, be expected to demonstrate familiarity with the evidence it presents, especially that which bears on specific points of criticism.
USE OF POSTWAR MEMOIRS
10/10: Bonnett charged: "Why gentlemen does Alperovitz's latest contribution betray little or no evidence of taking into account a problem for which he has been justly criticized since 1987, namely uncritical use of post-war memoirs that support his case? (Barton Bernstein, "Ike and Hiroshima: Did He Oppose It?" _Journal of Strategic Studies_ [Spring 1987]) Why in turn does Alperovitz' book indicate a willingness to critically appraise and refute memoirs that do, such as those of Stimson, James Byrnes and Harry Truman? This forms part of the basis of my charge that Alperovitz is selective in his use of the evidence, and I stand by it."
A partial response was written by Uday Mohan on 11/30 in H-Japan:
Bonnett's wholesale and rather outrageous charge about Alperovitz's selective use of memoirs also misses the mark. Clear reasons are given in _The Decision_ about why the memoirs of Truman, Stimson, and Byrnes should be treated with skepticism. And the book also provides evidence, wartime and after, to help corroborate the postwar judgments of many military leaders that the bomb was not necessary. One may disagree with the arguments laid out, but to suggest that Alperovitz dismisses or accepts postwar memoirs without evidentiary reason is grossly inaccurate. Nor is it clear how Bonnett escapes the problem he imputes to Alperovitz. Bonnett doesn't say, for example, why he prefers Harvey Bundy's postwar recollections to, say, Joseph Grew's, or those of many others with memories that challenge the necessity of the bomb, and whose judgments occupy several chapters in the book.
See also the discussion about Eisenhower in Part II.
INTERSERVICE RIVALRY
10/10: Bonnett charged inter-service rivalry inspired military memoir claims.
Uday Mohan responded on 11/30 in H-Japan:
[H]ow else can these writers explain the significant postwar dissent of several top military leaders--both in private and in public, in memoirs and in internal military-historical interviews--except in this context of reasonable options? These leaders doubted the unique, necessary efficacy of the bomb. As Alperovitz says, "if America's top military leaders either recommended or supported the use of the atomic bomb as militarily necessary [and we have no evidence of this], they gave very little evidence of such convictions in almost everything most were to say thereafter, both publicly and privately." (p. 324)
And though there is no direct contemporaneous evidence that military leaders advised Truman not to use the bomb, there is also no direct contemporaneous evidence that they advised him to use it--a point often lost by critics of "revisionist" scholarship. Significant evidence points in the direction that what military leaders probably felt--as they so often said--was that it was not necessary.
Although Alperovitz in fact allows that interservice rivalry might be involved in some statements (p. 367), interservice rivalry as an explanation for the depth and frequency of the challenge to the notion of military necessity isn't satisfactory. Many of the key military dissents cited in _The Decision_ were made publicly while Truman was still in office. It's hardly politic to try to obtain funding for your service by suggesting that your commander-in-chief unnecessarily wiped out two cities. Take, e.g., Halsey: "The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment.... It was a mistake to ever drop it. Why reveal a weapon like that to the world when it wasn't necessary? ... [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it.... It killed a lot of Japs, but the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before." [p. 331] This strong anti-bomb comment hardly seems motivated by interservice rivalry; moreover it was partly responsible for the effort to quell postwar anti-bomb dissent with the publication of Stimson's apologia in _Harper's_ in 1947.
RECONVERSION TO PEACETIME ECONOMY
10/10: Bonnett cited Prof. Barton Bernstein to make the following point: "Truman took no steps in early August to accelerate economic reconversion to a peacetime economy, despite his realization that it would be one of the most daunting tasks of his postwar presidency."
Katie Morris responded on 11/10 in H-Japan:
Indeed, as of August 3, after reviewing the latest intercepts, Truman seems to have been fairly confident that peace might not be far off. On that day Brown recorded in his diary:
Significantly, this evidence reveals that still three days before Hiroshima was bombed Truman was not expressing concern about an unending war, but rather about the problems that might arise if the Japanese were to surrender through Moscow. However, aware, again, that this evidence will probably be questioned on the basis that Truman did nothing to indicate that he truly believed surrender was near, I add two points: one, that there is a significant difference between being hopeful and being certain. I am arguing that the MAGIC intercepts encouraged U.S. hopes that Japan was getting closer to surrender on their own at just the time when the a-bomb order was going out. This is distinguished from the argument that on the basis of what they read in MAGIC U.S. leaders were certain that the Japanese were about to surrender and therefore took action to begin closing up the war. Yet, on this last point, there is other evidence which may explain why one does not find a flurry of activity in connection with re-conversion efforts, etc. A July 25 memorandum from General Marshall to Truman, drawn up by War Department staff, assured the president that "Plans have been prepared for the occupation of Japan on short notice and necessary forces and resources are available in the Pacific." Among other details, the memorandum notes:
These factors together with the vigorous leadership of the President and other leaders tend to indicate that fears of widespread unemployment may be exaggerated. This evidence is not hard to come by. The ability to appreciate it and to place it within the context of the decision to use atomic bombs, however, requires nuanced understanding of U.S. policy debates and U.S. records.
MILITARY NECESSITY
11/3: Donald Connelly wrote in H-Japan: The phrase "military necessity" implies serious constraints. But the only constraints American leaders faced "was to end the war as quickly as possible at the least cost." Their military options included: "conventional bombing, naval blockade, invasion, and the atomic bomb.... Conventional bombing and blockade were seen as the equivalent of a siege, low casualties (for the Allies) but time consuming. Invasion was surer but risked high casualties. The A-bomb offered the potential for low American casualties and rapid results."
In his 10/3 posting, Uday Mohan quoted Martin Sherwin as follows: "The choice in the summer of 1945 was not between a conventional invasion or a nuclear war. It was a choice between various forms of diplomacy and warfare." (_A World Destroyed_, Vintage ed., 1987, p. xxiv). [If this formulation is accepted, the question of military necessity cannot be narrowed to only military options.]
See also chapters 26-29 (pp.319-371) for the views of various military leaders on the decision to use the bomb.
"UNCERTAINTY" AND ALTERNATIVES
10/10: Bonnett criticized Thad Williamson: "His is an assertion of what the U.S. _should_ have done, even given the uncertainty, namely avoiding use of the bomb at all costs. For Williamson to persuade me, he is going to have to provide a basis to explain why I should privilege his value charged agenda over the equally charged agenda offered by the Truman Administration."
Response by Thad Williamson on 10/23:
The relevant point is, even if one questions the absolute "certainty" of the war's imminent conclusion, there is no reasonable denial of the notion that making an explicit guarantee for the Emperor and/or waiting for Soviet entry had the potential--if not the "certainty"--to bring about surrender without the November invasion and without the bomb. Furthermore, withholding terms for the emperor was certain to prolong the way, which is why the U.S. military was so strongly for a clarification.
To deny the existence of plausible alternatives, further, is to depart not only from Alperovitz's view but what historian J. Samuel Walker, in a literature review for _Diplomatic History_, calls the scholarly "consensus" regarding the Hiroshima decision. As _The Decision_ illustrates, these alternatives were discussed months ahead of Hiroshima; beginning as early as April 29, the Joint Intelligence Committee repeatedly stressed to the JCS that "The entry of the U.S.S.R. into the war would, together with [continued effects of blockade, bombing, and the German collapse] convince most Japanese at once of the inevitability of complete defeat"; likewise, _The Decision_ documents some 14 distinct occasions between May and July 1945 when Truman Administration officials attempted to sway the President into modifying the policy of "unconditional surrender" in order to facilitate a Japanese surrender.
The debated question is not whether there were alternatives, but the likelihood of their success and why they were not tried.
Suppose then, that one evaluates the evidence and concludes that the U.S. was merely "anything but certain" (could anyone have been totally certain?) about the likely efficacy of trying the available alternatives. The question still remains, why rush to use the bomb? Especially why rush to use the bomb just days before Soviet entry? Especially with invasion nearly 3 full months away? Why not test the alternatives? Was it unreasonable to exhibit some patience before unleashing "the second coming" (as Churchill called it)? This is the morally relevant historical point. There was, in even the most minimal assessment, _some_ chance of the alternatives working, and plenty of time in which to try them; and yet they were not tried.
And as noted below and argued in great detail in _The Decision_, the thrust of the historical evidence suggests that, beyond this minimal statement, the likelihood of the alternatives' success was high. A 1955 assessment by Ernest May in relation to the impact of Soviet entry, as well as the overall Japanese position, may be instructive to briefly recall: "The Emperor's appeal [to end the war] probably resulted, therefore, from the Russian action, but it could not in any event, have been long in coming."
As to the last sentence, I entirely agree. And had the choice been starkly between invasion and the bomb, I would have no moral problem with the use of the bomb. As to the first two sentences, my position is not that intent and perceptions are irrelevant, but that even the actions of persons acting with sincere intent within a given frame of perception are subject to objective moral judgment.
Whether the bomb was dropped because Truman was an evil man or because he was acting within a framework of perception which gave postwar geopolitical considerations (or, by some theories, domestic political considerations) far more import than the lives of Japanese civilians does not alter my moral judgment. Indeed, this is also the position taken by Alperovitz in the book--they were not evil men. They were good Americans. (See p.637) And when they had a choice between making a reasonable (even if not absolutely certain) effort to end the war without using the bomb and pressing their cards for maximal political advantage, they chose the latter. They did so even while knowing that there were still 3 months before the invasion of Japan would begin, and that the bomb would still be there should the alternatives fail; even while knowing that no Potsdam Declaration would be accepted by Japan so long as the Emperor's position was threatened; even while fully aware that in a matter of days the Soviets would enter the war and leave Japan at a total diplomatic and military dead end.
That Truman and Byrnes may have acted consistently within a given framework of perception that prioritized political considerations above Japanese lives does not let them off the hook. That is the profound point about the Hiroshima question-- not to demonize Truman, but to understand the real human consequences of the use of unchecked disproportionate power--even when or if that use seems perfectly reasonable and legitimate to the persons carrying it out.
Of course, I disagree with Bonnett's historical assessment of the likelihood of the alternatives working, and of what Truman himself understood. It should be understood that my brief response, focused on the repeated refusal of top military leaders to declare Hiroshima and Nagasaki "military necessities", made no attempt to convey the mass of evidence regarding the larger question of Truman's understanding of the available alternatives presented in _The Decision_.
ALPEROVITZ AND THE 1965 NBC DOCUMENTARY ON THE BOMB
10/14: Brian Villa wrote on Giovanitti and Freed's 1965 NBC documentary:
Uday Mohan responded on 11/30 in H-Japan:
Even [Professor Villa's] description of the NBC documentary as demolishing Alperovitz's thesis is misleading. The conclusions and tone of the documentary are much more complex than Professor Villa lets on, for the show mentions Leo Szilard's opposition, the Franck report, Asst. Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bard's counsel about a demonstration or warning, McCloy's prescription of terms, Byrnes's anti-Soviet strategizing, and the Potsdam proclamation's lack of clarity about surrender terms. These issues inform the overall picture that emerges of the decision, and they are _not_ simply dismissed, as Professor Villa's characterization would imply. On the contrary, the 1965 show begins to move public knowledge in the direction of the Alperovitz argument.
CRITICISM ABOUT JAPANESE EVIDENCE
10/14: Brian Villa wrote: "I remember being present in the late sixties and early seventies when, in debates between Staunton Lynd and Herbert Feis, and at panels presided over by historians like Gaddis Smith it was repeatedly pointed out to Alperovitz and his supporters that his thesis was persuasive if the Japanese were already determined to surrender before Hiroshima, but unsustainable if the Japanese were determined not to surrender on American terms.... Since Alperovitz first wrote, the evidence continued to mount, particularly from the intercepted Japanese diplomatic traffic-the last batch was devastating to the Alperovitz thesis-that Japanese leaders were not on the verge of surrendering on American terms AND the Americans knew it."
10/16: Paul Dunscomb also raised the question about Japanese evidence on H-Japan: "Japanese psychology, ideology and decision making methods may have been improperly understood by the contemporary decision makers in the U.S. but our continued ignorance of these things makes a full discussion of the dynamic of the decision making process impossible. Japan's actions and attitudes, past present and future, were the mirror which reflected, however poorly, America's actions and attitudes."
10/25: Similarly Edward Friedman in a brief post on H-Japan said the focus should be on what Japanese rulers were thinking and that the work of Herbert Bix is key here.
Uday Mohan commented on 11/30 in H-Japan:
To be sure, the Japanese wanted to concede the minimum to end the war; what losing nation doesn't? But the issue here is what American leaders understood as the main sticking point to Japanese surrender. And from May onward the answer is clear: assurances for the emperor. This is hardly a novel position. Many scholars have made this point, for example, Leon Sigal: "one point was clear to senior U.S. officials regardless of where they stood on war termination.... U.S. senior officials knew that the critical condition for Japan's surrender was the assurance that the throne would be preserved." (quoted in Alperovitz, p. 301) And most of the top leaders were willing to offer assurances as Alperovitz shows in his book. (Katie Morris also convincingly points this out in her posts on H-Japan...).
From various sources--such as Truman's diary ("telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace," p. 238) and Walter Brown's diary ("Aboard Augusta/ President, Leahy, JFB [Byrnes] agrred [sic] Japas [sic] looking for peace.... President afraid they will sue for peace through Russia instead of some country like Sweden," p. 415)--it seems clear that Truman thought that Japanese leaders were asking for, or looking for, or perhaps getting ready to sue for peace. And there were three months still available before an invasion in November could begin. Taken with all the other evidence presented in _The Decision_, including the perceived importance of offering assurances for the Emperor and the devastating impact on Japan of impending Russian entry, it seems most logical to suggest that to Truman it appeared that the bomb was not the only reasonable option for bringing about Japanese surrender, but that he chose this option nonetheless. This is obvious logic, but apparently not to the bomb-was-necessary school. . .
That Truman avoided available diplomatic options partly for strategic reasons is suggested even by scholars who focus mainly on the question of Japanese intent. Herbert Bix says: "neither a) American unwillingness to make a firm, timely statement assuring continuation of the throne, as Grew had argued for, nor b) the last-minute anti-Soviet strategic stance of Truman and Byrnes, who probably wanted use of the atomic bomb rather than diplomatic negotiation, are sufficient, in and of themselves, to account for use of the bomb, or for Japan's delay in ending the suicidal conflict. Rather, Emperor Hirohito's reluctance to face the fait accompli of defeat, and then to act, positively and energetically, to end hostilities, plus certain official acts and policies of his government, are what mainly prolonged the war, though they were not sufficient cause for use of the bomb. In the last analysis, what counted, on the one hand, was not only the transcendent influence of the throne, but the power, authority, and unique personality of its occupant, and on the other, the power, determination, and unique character of Harry Truman." (DH, 1995, 223)
Bix's portrait in his article of a callous Japanese leadership certainly elicits my anger at that leadership's decision to waste human life because it wanted to preserve the kokutai. But that portrait doesn't explain what would have happened if the shock (Bix's word) of Russian entry had been accompanied by a change in terms (Bix does not address Alperovitz's two-step argument); neither does it get at Truman's perception of the endgame; nor does it get at the options that were available short of taking out an entire city--e.g., a demonstration on a military installation as Marshall had suggested.
Professor Villa also harks back to conversations he heard twenty and thirty years ago--perhaps a problematic venture given his misremembering of the NBC documentary, his attributing one statement to two different persons in two versions of the same post (on H-Japan and H-Diplo), his mishandling of Shalom, and his serious misquoting of Alperovitz while making one of his central points (see Williamson's post)--to suggest that Alperovitz has known since the early 1960s that the Japanese evidence disproved his interpretation of why Truman used the bomb. Let me say once again--and I don't know how to say this any more plainly--that, logically, however one reads the Japanese evidence, it _cannot_ prove or disprove an interpretation of Truman's motives in dropping the bomb. Professor Villa refers to Gaddis Smith as presiding over these academic conversations two and three decades ago. I presume Professor Villa mentions Gaddis Smith by name because he wants to imply that Professor Smith, perhaps simply by presiding, endorsed the view that Alperovitz's thesis was unpersuasive because of the Japanese evidence. In any case, when Gaddis Smith reviewed the updated version of Alperovitz's _Atomic Diplomacy_ in 1985 in the _New York Times_ he, to quote Marilyn Young, "pointed to a number of flaws in the book but concluded that, in the years since its original publication, 'the preponderance of new evidence ... tends to sustain the original argument' that the decision to use nuclear weapons was 'centrally connected to Truman's confrontational approach to the Soviet Union.'" (Gaddis Smith, cited in Marilyn Young's [featured review of _The Decision_, (_American Historical Review_, Dec. 1995, p. 1515-16)].
Katie Morris responded on 11/9 on H-Japan:
Equally problematic have been the charges that the argument of _The Decision_ is necessarily distorted, indeed, necessarily wrong, because it is not grounded in information from Japanese sources; and by extension, the implication that U.S. leaders making decisions in 1945 had access to this information. The decision to use the atomic bombs was a U.S. policy decision. It seems fairly straightforward, then, that in analyzing this decision one must attempt to understand the perceptions of the U.S. decision-makers through the analysis of evidence which illuminates what _U.S. leaders perceived was going on in Japan_.
In effect, this means that the evidence will come, necessarily, mostly from American records. Equally straightforward is the fact that as most of the informaion in Japanese sources was made available only after the war, it does not pertian to analysis of the U.S. decision specifically but rather, to an entirely different (if equally important/interesting) line of inquiry, namely, whether, given what we know now, the bombings were necessary for ending the war when it ended. If the latter were the focus of _The Decision_, those who criticize the absence of attention to Japanese sources would be justified. (Similarly, if it were a military history study of the objective necessity of the use of atomic bombs, based on lessons we have learned since the war, the charge that the evidence in _The Decision_ is flawed because it does not take such lessons into consideration would also be justified.(1)) However, _The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb_ is, quite explicitly, a study of a 1945 U.S. policy decision and the context in which this decision was made or, what U.S. decision-makers knew and when. In researching and writing this study, therefore, we were interested in uncovering not what Tokyo wanted, but what Washington thought Tokyo wanted, as revealed by 1945 briefing papers, intelligence studies, strategy papers, cable transcripts, meeting minutes, office records, diaries and personal correspondence.
I should stress that I in no way mean to diminish the contributions of historians who have studied Japanese sources-I believe this work is essential, and have personally learned much from it. Nor do I mean to argue that Japan should be left out of bomb discussions in general. My point is simply that anyone who compares the information in American and Japanese sources will see that American leaders had only limited insight into the internal dynamics of the Japanese cabinet debates in general, and Hirohito's role in particular... Indeed, the evidence reveals that U.S. leaders who looked into this issue believed the emperor's status was the condition on which Japanese surrender debates turned, and that assuring the Japanese they could keep the emperor was well within U.S. war aims, and that once they secured a surrender, they could re-define Hirohito's role as necessary.
HOW TO VIEW TRUMAN
10/20: Bergerud implies that Alperovitz is out to demonize Truman: "If Alperovitz is correct the US commited an astounding war crime in August 1945. Not only did we butcher god knows how many Japanese civilians, we also INTENTIONALLY prolonged the war and thus indirectly killed thousands of third-country civilians, allied soldiers and our OWN MEN. If a scholar wishes to put Truman in the same league as Himmler, he better have the guns to back up the claim."
Thad Williamson responded indirectly on 10/23:
As to the last sentence, I entirely agree. And had the choice been starkly between invasion and the bomb, I would have no moral problem with the use of the bomb. As to the first two sentences, my position is not that intent and perceptions are irrelevant, but that even the actions of persons acting with sincere intent within a given frame of perception are subject to objective moral judgment.
Whether the bomb was dropped because Truman was an evil man or because he was acting within a framework of perception which gave postwar geopolitical considerations (or, by some theories, domestic political considerations) far more import than the lives of Japanese civilians does not alter my moral judgment. Indeed, this is also the position taken by Alperovitz in the book--they were not evil men. They were good Americans. (See p.637) And when they had a choice between making a reasonable (even if not absolutely certain) effort to end the war without using the bomb and pressing their cards for maximal political advantage, they chose the latter. They did so even while knowing that there were still 3 months before the invasion of Japan would begin, and that the bomb would still be there should the alternatives fail; even while knowing that no Potsdam Declaration would be accepted by Japan so long as the Emperor's position was threatened; even while fully aware that in a matter of days the Soviets would enter the war and leave Japan at a total diplomatic and military dead end.
That Truman and Byrnes may have acted consistently within a given framework of perception that prioritized political considerations above Japanese lives does not let them off the hook. That is the profound point about the Hiroshima question--not to demonize Truman, but to understand the real human consequences of the use of unchecked disproportionate power--even when or if that use seems perfectly reasonable and legitimate to the persons carrying it out.
Of course, I disagree with Bonnett's historical assessment of the likelihood of the alternatives working, and of what Truman himself understood. It should be understood that my brief response, focussed on the repeated refusal of top military leaders to declare Hiroshima and Nagasaki "military necessities", made no attempt to convey the mass of evidence regarding the larger question of Truman's understanding of the available alternatives presented in _The Decision_.
ROLE OF SCIENTISTS
11/11: Villa sees scientists as also playing an important role in the use of the bomb: "scientists formed a second faction of some weight pushing for the use of the bomb, closing the door to a more diplomatic use of the bomb [explicit warning and non combat demonstration] because they did not conceive of the birth of the new world [and its peril and hope] without a convincing demonstration of the bomb's full force." These scientists included Oppenheimer, but not Franck and Szillard [sic].
Please see Chapter 14 of The Decision for a discussion of the role of the scientists.
Questions Not Addressed on H-Diplo and H-Japan
Section A of the Summary of Charges and Responses in the Hiroshima Debate on H-Net
Section B of the Summary of Charges and Responses in the Hiroshima Debate on H-Net