The guy who piloted the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima sixty-nine years ago today, didn’t lose any sleep over it. In fact, President Truman instructed him not to lose any sleep over it. I’m kind of ambivalent about that. Part of me thinks he should have been anguished about his role, but part of me is happy that he was able to live out his life without being tormented by his role in killing so many innocent civilians. The decision to drop the two atomic bombs will always remain controversial. On balance, I think that dropping them and looking at the ensuing damage helped prevent anyone from dropping any more nuclear weapons. And, since those weapons quickly became much more destructive, this is a very good thing. I am glad that no one ever set off a hydrogen bomb in a populated area.
Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s efforts at non-proliferation have lost out to their desire to refurbish our nuclear arsenal. Today is a good day to express our disappointment.
The difference between what we did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and what we did to Tokyo and Dresden is simply the number of bombers involved. The firebombing of cities was decided after the war to be beyond the pale, whether it was done with napalm or uranium. While it lacks the the treaty status of chemical weapons and the Geneva Convention, what is remarkable is that the whole sale slaughter of the World Wars made certain weapons unusable.
And while Truman did order the dropping of those weapons, it is telling to me that he DIDN’T drop bombs on Korea despite the near military catastrophes there (first Pusan and then the Chinese intervention).
Truman may have been the only person to order the use of nuclear weapons, but he never made that decision again, despite having ample opportunity to do so. I think that’s telling.
Have to wonder if Truman didn’t later come to suspect that his military advisers didn’t give him all the available information or withheld critical information that led him to approve the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Not unlike what McNamara did to LBJ almost two decades later.
That article made me sad, but also helped me understand a few things. One of which was the unshakeable sense that McNamara was lying in his “Fog of War” interviews.
I too am dubious about McN’s credibility on the GoT, but overall, considered in context, I’m still convinced LBJ wasn’t so much pushed into the war or whether to go to war, but only as to its timing, with a hugely important Nov election to consider, Johnson trying to cover both his right and left flanks with calculated, conflicting messages being sent to a largely unaroused public about escalation.
When you consider some of the hawkish statements he made prior to the GoT — his meeting with the JCS just after the assassination, and his tape recorded phone conversation w/McN in Feb 1964 where he clearly expressed disagreement w/JFKs policy of gradual withdrawal and firmly orders Mac to put out a stronger statement of public commitment to the war effort over there — it doesn’t paint a picture of a president being manipulated or pressured by advisors but rather someone all too eager to push ahead militarily.
Well, they were actually holdover advisers from Kennedy not his own hand picked team. Johnson wanted, needed to keep them inside the tent for political reasons, but mostly just in the year after Dallas and to get past the election so as to keep the Kennedy wing satisfied. Once the election plus a decent interval had occurred — perhaps Johnson’s plan from the beginning — he would be free to escalate and later to deal with any advisers not on board with his policy.
Bundy, iirc, was eased out within a year of the escalation once he began having second thoughts about the war. McN’s ouster would occur a few years later when he began reviewing the escalation policy.
All still very murky after all these years. Perhaps Robert Caro’s fifth volume on LBJ will shed more light on it. Not buying that JFK’s advisers changed their tune after his death. Whether his doubts were stronger than LBJ’s doubts can never be known. However, JFK’s re-election was far less certain than LBJ’s election in 1964.
LBJ had a firmer grasp of and more interest in domestic policies than foreign policies. Thus, he was more dependent on his foreign policy team. Weasels that could advocate for war and then later express misgivings because they knew that LBJ was President in an era when “the buck stops here” prevailed. Truman and LBJ, whatever their doubts or later misgivings, owned their decisions. Unlike Nixon and Reagan that expected others to take the fall for their failings.
My impression is that HST may have had doubts about the wisdom of using the bomb, at least as of the early 1950s according to some statements he made. If true, it’s likely that he was less hung ho about using atomic weapons as of 1950 when MacA suggested their use.
In 1945 , so soon after taking office, he was far too trusting of some of the ultra hawkish military brass and seemed a bit insecure as he immediately accepted their proposal without carefully considering the ramifications. Five years later,he’d become more confident in his ability to think things through for himself.
As for the original unfortunate , hasty decision on Hiroshima, he may have been misled by some, but other advisers were there (his top military aide Adm Leahy, and maybe Gen Eisenhower) trying to persuade him not to use the weapon, so there was no unanimity of opinion pressuring him one way only.
Not at all clear that HST and MacA had any serious discussion, much less disagreement, about using nukes in Korea.
Possession of atomic bombs, US became a unilateral superpower and the most belligerent nation on the planet. The start of the U.S. policy of ‘containment’ of the Soviet Union, Cold War rhetoric, McCarthyism, nuclear arms race, etc., etc. See recent development U.S. and NATO with ‘containment 2.0’ policy vs Russia and pushing NATO eastward, Ukraine as top prize.
○ On August 12, 1953 the Soviet Union detonated a thermonuclear (“hydrogen”) bomb at the Semipalatinsk test site in northern Kazakhstan
Thus, Truman was a bit careful in Korea … it’s called balance of power.
Started long before then:
American Expeditionary Force Siberia 1918-1919. HUAC 1939 hearing.
Sixty-nine years ago today.
So one of the major reasons he was awarded the peace prize, and he’s reversing course? How wonderful…
I haven’t even seen much reporting on that. First I’ve heard of it. Thanks for the link.
Not “one,” but the reason.
From Jon Letman’s The Cost of Teaching an Old Nuclear Weapon New Tricks
Well I said “major” rather than the only one because I think an unstated reason was simply winning the election and beating McCain. If McCain won and championed nuclear disarmament I don’t think he would have been awarded the prize.
we were never going to be the first to disarm
Sahil Kapur at TPM critiques Elaine Chao’s ad for her hubby.
Of particular note is her statement that Mitch McConnell cosponsored the original Violence Against Women Act – he’s always supported its purpose. The first half is true and the second not so much unless voting against the 1993 VAWA and its reauthorizations is evidence of support.
What Kapur overlooks is a bit of context. In 1991 when McConnell was a cosponsor to the original VAWA that never passed he was married to his first wife (Sherill Redmon, mother of his three daughters.) In 1993, when another VAWA was proposed, Mitch wasn’t a cosponsor and he divorced Redmon and married Chao that year.
The more I learn about McConnell, the more I want to shower.
His first wife and three daughters are decent and interesting. So, he wasn’t always on the dark side.
Doesn’t reflect on him.
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/08/06/the-enduring-myth-of-hiroshima/
It’s controversial for the same reason things like AGW are — ignorance.
I always get a great laugh at this nonsense. Read the article you linked! McAurthur says ‘dropping the bomb was not necessary TO END THE WAR.’
The quotes in the article are littered with such parsing of quotes. No where is the word ‘occupation’ used. The allies were never going to accept anything excluding occupation, the Japanese were never going to accept anything including it. There is a huge difference between ‘surrender’ and ‘unconditional surrender’. The Japanese ALWAYS planned on a negotiated end to the war, from the very beginning.
Let’s be clear..dropping the bomb should not be looked at as a way to ‘end the war’, it should be looked at as a way ‘to prevent an invasion’. Was the bomb ‘necessary’ to accomplish any of this? No, of course not. But it was a very quick and efficient method of accomplishing all of it, with no AMERICAN loss of life. And had the added benefit (for the time) of showing off to the world (USSR) what we were capable of.
We live in the real world, where consequences of the hard decisions have real results. If a leader has the option of pushing a magical button, and the result is an immediate and complete ending of something that was seen even at the time as a horrendous war against enemies that fight to the death, it’s no surprise he would push that button. Truman never lost a bit of sleep over that decision.
Of course as soon as people became aware of the results, they wanted to distance them selves. So you get the article you linked to, and the quotes in it. It’s not a shock. It’s human nature.
Not to even mention the Japanese military was going to assassinate anyone planning capitulation, and had in fact begun to do so.
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ignorant garbage
Kept hidden for decades was the 1946 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey’s conclusion that Japan almost certainly would have surrendered in 1945 without the atomic bombs, without a Soviet invasion and without a U.S. invasion. Not long after V-J Day in 1945, Brig. Gen. Bonnie Feller wrote, “Neither the atomic bombing nor the entry of the Soviet Union into the war forced Japan’s unconditional surrender. She was defeated before either of these events took place.”
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a five-star general and the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, said in his memoirs he believed “that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary.”
Adm. William Leahy, the wartime Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in 1950, “It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material success in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.”
I’ll take their opinion over that of some obscure internet declaration master any day of the week.
ANd try a reading comp class. Your garbage in no way undermines the ONLY point that I made/championed — that Americans historically are ignorant of all of this, like you were.
except for the fact that after Hiroshima they still failed to surrender
“unconditionally”
They were holding out for the preservation of the emperor. In the end, McArthur finessed that one in order to get the surrender for his boss and brought up the USS Missouri, named for Truman’s home state, to do it.
Even after Nagsaki, the Japanese would not agree to giving up the emperor. Emperor Akhito is the ceremonial head of state of Japan as of now.
The US did not get unconditional surrender from Japan, a detail that has caused no end of trouble in expectations for other wars. Wars are about politics, and nothing about politics ever turns out to be unconditional.
Agree 100%. All of this is revisionism. At the time, the impact of the bomb was poorly understood, if at all.
The notion that we used a weapon which was ipso facto a war crime is absolutely absurd and ignorant at that.
The apologists for Japan ignore the huge war crimes of which the Japanese were responsible, and for which they have NEVER acknowledged. The 10 – 20 million dead Chinese, the millions dead in teh rest of Asia, are all I need to know.
Thank god we ended the war.
The notion of a “war crime” was a result of World War II.
The impact of the bomb was well enough understood that Leo Szilard and others wanted for it not to be used on cities as was the practice with the bombing raids conducted by Curtis LeMay. It was Secretry of State James Byrnes, a Southerner and most likely a bigot, who convinced Truman to use the bomb on a populated place.
The war crimes of others never absolve one’s own war crimes. Never. Nor do war crimes committed in vengeance against war crimes.
I will worry about the miniscule issue of Hiroshima if and when the Japanese admit any culpability about WWII. Any. Which they still refuse to do. Every time some PM goes to Yakasuni, and says some Shinto prayer for the war dead, what do they say in Nanhing, where the Japanese killed 300,000 or more, raping a lot of women? What do the grandmas in Korea say, the ones who were the comfort women?
Honestly, I have no sympathy for the Japanese. None.
Yes, a lot of big anniversaries coming along here, Hiroshima and the outbreak of the Great War.
It’s a little disconcerting to contemplate these two events these days, as we needlessly provoke and prod the Russian bear over Ukraine. We have been able to keep the nuclear weapons from exploding for over 60 years now, and the Great Powers had staved off a general European war for almost 45 years in the summer of 1914.
The statesmen of 1914 ultimately couldn’t head off the war that effectively destroyed their world. We’ll see if our great foreign policy elites can do the same with a nuclear war against our traditional manufactured enemy, Russia and villain du jour Putin. That a nuclear exchange between the superpowers hasn’t happened yet is of course no strong guarantee against the future. Especially since the same Western elites sure seem intent on keeping tensions high, and demonizing the other nuclear superpower. Sort of worrying, as we watch Ukraine and the separatists and the Russians escalate the actual shooting.
No one wants a nuclear war. Of course, it doesn’t appear (at the remove of 100 years) that any Great Power wanted a world war, either….
Also, King George and his cousin Nicky didn’t like their cousin Willy. WWI did wipe out a bunch of monarchies. Although shortly afterwards, the UK facilitated the creation of several new ones in the ME.
This is also the 13th anniversary of “You’ve covered your ass, Sonny Boy, now get out of here.”
The other Presidential decision that impacted our world for the worse.
The more you read history, and reflect on it, you realize how stupid little, tiny things are the linchpin of the terrible things that come later. Ignorance and bias and preconceived notions have led us forever.
Bush is such a stupid f*ck, but it’s Condeleeza Rice who carried the bias and preconceived notions that put us there. And she was the ‘smart’ one!
FSM save us, we are doomed.
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