The Decision to employ Nuclear Weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Throughout human history there may hardly be found any other single decision that still causes such high amounts of scholarly debate as does the dropping of Atomic Bombs upon the Japanese city of Hiroshima in August 6th 1945, and respectively, three days later upon the city of Nagasaki. These events have caused close to 100 000 casualties in the civilian population, and yet, it does not include all of those persons who would later succumb to radiation sickness or severe birth deformations.

Historians still debate the alleged plurality of motives underlying this momentous decision. The debate's result is a polarized scholarly discord which by now virtually abounds in a multitude of different theories, and competing suppositions. On the one hand, there are those scholars who argue that the decision rested solely on grounds of military expediency, foremost on the necessity to shorten a gruelling war, and to save the lives of American soldiers.

On the other hand, historians offer the explanation that American policy makers above all wanted to exhibit their country's enormous military potency, and therefore, Hiroshima and Nagasaki should demonstrate the vast destructive potential which presently solely the United States had at its command, and so, counter post-war ambitions of the Soviet Union.

The author of this study analyses the contextual circumstances in the spring and summer of 1945, and moreover, the principal motives of the key American government officials. Accordingly, the author offers his own substantive and conclusive answer to the question that concerns the primary factors and/or ostensibly ulterior motives that led American decision makers to issue the consequential order to detonate Atomic Bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. First and foremost, the findings rest upon a critical and comprehensive engagement, and are based on the available documentary evidence from this time.



Text sample:

Chapter 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.' 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.

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. 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.

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 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, 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.

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. 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? 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 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.

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.'

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'. 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.' 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.'

There can be no mistake that analyses such as these ultimately only reinforced the overall appreciation of high-ranking American officials that Japan was indeed far from being on the brink of imminent surrender. For not only did the MAGIC intercepts clearly bear out the 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', 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.