Omitted Information: Hiroshima

Hiroshima Did Not “End The War Sooner”


One great American lie, that lives on even today, is that dropping the A-Bomb actually saved lives by ending the war. The theory behind this is that the only other possible action would have been to continue the war with Japan indefinitely, adding countless lives to the body count; more lives than the A-Bomb itself would take. The problem with this optimistic outlook on the past is this – The Japanese military had already been extinguished by 1945.
In the months before the dropping of the bomb, it had been noted by U.S. officials that the Japanese military had been extinguished. Dire resources were no longer available and the Navy and Airforce had been utterly destroyed1. In fact, the Japanese had not been gearing up for more violence, but asking for peace.
A cable sent on May 5th, intercepted and decoded by U.S. intelligence had clearly spells out the desire to end the fighting:

Since the situation is clearly recognized to be hopeless, large
sections of the Japanese armed forces would not regard with
disfavor an American request for capitulation even if the terms
were hard.2

Truman’s Secretary of War, Henry Stimpson, was not fearful of the innocent lives that would be lost in the oncoming slaughter, but of the possibility that Japan’s Airforce would be so “bombed out” by the time the new weapon was ready that it “would not have a fair background to show it’s strength.”3 To further illustrate the American military’s callous indifference of peace through negotiation we must look no further than the later memoirs of Stimpson himself, which states “no effort was made, and none was seriously considered, to achieve surrender merely in order not to have to use the bomb".4

Given the state of the Japanese military compared to that of the U.S., plus the known information of Japan’s willingness to end war, it is fair to say that further war could have been easily avoided diplomatically. Unfortunately for the one-hundred thousand plus Japanese citizens killed by the bombs5, the U.S. would not settle for anything less than Japan’s unconditional surrender.6 Even in excepting the extreme nature of this form of “diplomacy”, the idea of perceiving this “final warning” as a diplomatic one is absurd: Truman authorized the dropping of the bomb the day before the terms were issued. 7

Why, then, was the bomb dropped? Why were all those lives taken arbitrarily? There was, in fact, a reason behind the dropping of the atom bomb. America was now emerging as the world’s super power. Stalin was a major enemy. What better way to demonstrate your strength then by showing off your new state of the art weapon, many years in the making. Dropping a 15 kiloton atomic bomb over a defenseless city is a sure-fire way of showing the world, especially the communists, who is in charge.8


1. By June, Gen. Curtis LeMay, in charge of the air
attacks, was complaining that after months of terrible
firebombing, there was nothing left of Japanese cities for his
bombers but "garbage can targets". By July, US planes could
fly over Japan without resistance and bomb as much and as long as they pleased. Japan could no longer defend itself.
William Blum, Hiroshima: Last Act of WWII or First Act of the Cold War?, 1995 citing: Stewart Udall, The Myths of August (New York, 1994), pp.73, 75; Martin S. Quigley, Peace Without Hiroshima (Lanham, MD, 1991), pp.105-6; Charles L. Mee, Jr., Meeting at Potsdam (New York, 1975), p.76

2. Tim Weiner, "US Spied on its World War II Allies," New York Times, August 11, 1993, p.9
Also refer to the Potsdam meeting in which Japan instructed Japanese Ambassador Naotake Sato to keep meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Molotov to impress the Russians "with the sincerity of our desire to end the war [and] have them understand that we are trying to end hostilities by asking for very reasonable terms in order to secure and maintain our national existence and honor." Before the meeting, Sato was instructed to request the Russia’s help in mediation with the United States. A radio message to Sato from Japan, intercepted by the U.S., read "His Majesty is extremely anxious to terminate the war as soon as possible." “Should, however, the United States and Great Britain insist on unconditional surrender, Japan would be forced to fight to the bitter end."
See Hearings Before the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Relations (US Senate), June 25, 1951, p.3113; Mee, p.23; Los Angeles Times, January 9, 1995, p.5

3. Udall, p.76

4. Stimson, p.629

5. Nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, on August 6 and 9, 1945. The bombs killed 64,000 in Hiroshima and 39,000 in Nagasaki. Thousands more died afterwards from the short and long-term effects of exposure.
Chris Hedges, What Every Person Should Know About War, 2003, pp. 58

6. "Tokyo rocks under the weight of our bombs...I want the entire world to know that this direction must and will remain - unchanged and unhampered, Our demand has been and it remains - unconditional surrender."
- President Truman, in his initial address to Congress, 16 April 1945.

7. Mee, p.239

8. Referring to the immediate aftermath of Nagasaki, Stimson wrote of what came to be known as "atomic diplomacy":
In the State Department there developed a tendency to think of the bomb as a diplomatic weapon. Outraged by constant evidence of Russian perfidy, some of the men in charge of foreign policy were eager to carry the bomb for a while as their ace-in-the-hole. ... American statesmen were eager for their country to browbeat the Russians with the bomb held rather ostentatiously on our hip.
- Secretary of State, Henry Stimpson speaking of what would be known as “atomic diplomacy.”

"The psychological effect on Stalin [of the bombs] was twofold; The Americans had not only used a doomsday machine; they had used it when, as Stalin knew, it was not militarily necessary. It was this last chilling fact that doubtless made the greatest impression on the Russians."
- Historian Charles L. Mee, Jr.
Mee, p.239