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Why Truman Dropped the Bomb
Weekly Standard ^ | 8 August 2005 | Richard B. Frank

Posted on 07/29/2005 3:53:38 PM PDT by 45Auto

The sixtieth anniversary of Hiroshima seems to be shaping up as a subdued affair--though not for any lack of significance. A survey of news editors in 1999 ranked the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945, first among the top one hundred stories of the twentieth century. And any thoughtful list of controversies in American history would place it near the top again. It was not always so. In 1945, an overwhelming majority of Americans regarded as a matter of course that the United States had used atomic bombs to end the Pacific war. They further believed that those bombs had actually ended the war and saved countless lives. This set of beliefs is now sometimes labeled by academic historians the "traditionalist" view. One unkindly dubbed it the "patriotic orthodoxy."

But in the 1960s, what were previously modest and scattered challenges of the decision to use the bombs began to crystallize into a rival canon. The challengers were branded "revisionists," but this is inapt. Any historian who gains possession of significant new evidence has a duty to revise his appreciation of the relevant events. These challengers are better termed critics.

The critics share three fundamental premises. The first is that Japan's situation in 1945 was catastrophically hopeless. The second is that Japan's leaders recognized that fact and were seeking to surrender in the summer of 1945. The third is that thanks to decoded Japanese diplomatic messages, American leaders knew that Japan was about to surrender when they unleashed needless nuclear devastation. The critics divide over what prompted the decision to drop the bombs in spite of the impending surrender, with the most provocative arguments focusing on Washington's desire to intimidate the Kremlin. Among an important stratum of American society--and still more perhaps abroad--the critics' interpretation displaced the traditionalist view.

These rival narratives clashed in a major battle over the exhibition of the Enola Gay, the airplane from which the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, at the Smithsonian Institution in 1995. That confrontation froze many people's understanding of the competing views. Since then, however, a sheaf of new archival discoveries and publications has expanded our understanding of the events of August 1945. This new evidence requires serious revision of the terms of the debate. What is perhaps the most interesting feature of the new findings is that they make a case President Harry S. Truman deliberately chose not to make publicly in defense of his decision to use the bomb.

When scholars began to examine the archival records in the 1960s, some intuited quite correctly that the accounts of their decision-making that Truman and members of his administration had offered in 1945 were at least incomplete. And if Truman had refused to disclose fully his thinking, these scholars reasoned, it must be because the real basis for his choices would undermine or even delegitimize his decisions. It scarcely seemed plausible to such critics--or to almost anyone else--that there could be any legitimate reason that the U.S. government would have concealed at the time, and would continue to conceal, powerful evidence that supported and explained the president's decisions.


TOPICS: Japan; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: anniversary; bigbang; hiroshima; japan; missouri; rightthing2do; truman; wwii
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To: kaktuskid

Not only were they working on one, the North Koreans still have the "parts" to it.


41 posted on 07/29/2005 5:41:40 PM PDT by muawiyah (/ hey coach do I gotta' put in that "/sarcasm " thing again?)
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To: 45Auto
What these types of articles fail to mention was that Japan was attempting to develop their own atomic bomb (as was Germany). We just beat them to it. Had they perfected theirs first, they would not have hesitated to use it on us a la December 7th.
42 posted on 07/29/2005 5:45:28 PM PDT by Conservative Infidel (How come they call it "Tourist Season" if we can't shoot them??)
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To: softwarecreator

< bows >

At your service :)


43 posted on 07/29/2005 5:46:17 PM PDT by MikefromOhio (Proud member of Planet ManRam)
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To: TexanToTheCore
"If you want to get a fairly clear picture of what kind of people we were up against when we went to war with Japan read:

The Rape of Nanking.

It will leave you numb."

It left me numb. I have read two books, Killer Angels and The Rape of Nanking that I had to put down while reading because I was overcome. The Japanese of the time made nazis look like the Salvation Army by comparison. In fact, the hero of The Rape of Nanking is in fact a nazi. Read it and then try to find a way to question Trumans wisdom.

44 posted on 07/29/2005 5:46:51 PM PDT by muir_redwoods (Free Sirhan Sirhan, after all, the bastard who killed Mary Jo Kopeckne is walking around free)
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To: don-o
Look, because of their own atom bomb program (which we knew about) the Japanese would not be persuaded if we used one bomb. We would need to use at least two, and preferably two different kinds ~ a plutonium bomb, and an uranium bomb.

We also needed to prepare to make an invasion anyway because we had only two bombs ready to go.

The same sort of game theory was worked to bring about victory at the battle of Wake Island.

45 posted on 07/29/2005 5:48:04 PM PDT by muawiyah (/ hey coach do I gotta' put in that "/sarcasm " thing again?)
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To: 45Auto

This is just conjecture but....had F.D.R.lived to see the Manhattan Project deliver the expected results, I wounder what he would have done with the "Gadget"


46 posted on 07/29/2005 6:25:51 PM PDT by skimask (I only fly on planes with two right wings)
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To: 45Auto

The Atom Bomb.

Built in America, Tested in Japan!!!


47 posted on 07/29/2005 6:29:58 PM PDT by amigatec (There are no significant bugs in our software... Maybe you're not using it properly.- Bill Gates)
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To: Conservative Infidel

Yes, nobody remembers the cargo sub full of nuclear material that was a gift from germany to japan.


48 posted on 07/29/2005 6:36:22 PM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE!)
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To: 45Auto
Considering that we had to drop not one, but two atomic bombs on Japan to force their surrender, I'd say the rationale for nuking them was clear. The Japanese government of the time was not willing or able to be rational until the writing was on the wall, in blood and in triplicate.

I've long since grown tired of the historical Monday-Morning Quarterbacks who think they knew better than the people in charge at the time.

Sure, it would have been nice if we'd never dropped the bomb on anyone.

It'd have been equally nice if Japan hadn't started this whole thing by attacking Pearl Harbor.

No Hard Feelings!

49 posted on 07/29/2005 10:04:52 PM PDT by Prime Choice (Thanks to the Leftists, yesterday's deviants are today's "alternate lifestyles.")
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To: CWOJackson
We only had two bombs...

According to Dr. Edward Teller, we had more!

This is what Teller told us during a conference at Standford in 1971.

50 posted on 07/29/2005 10:07:33 PM PDT by F-117A
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To: muawiyah; don-o
we had only two bombs ready to go.

According to Dr. Edward Teller, we had more.

This is what Teller told us during a conference at Standford in 1971.

51 posted on 07/29/2005 10:12:28 PM PDT by F-117A
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To: elbucko

Well, the little boy was wrong, we didn't eat him, but we sure are a fat people and look like we've been eating somebody. LOL


52 posted on 07/29/2005 10:48:28 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: A CA Guy
but we sure are a fat people and look like we've been eating somebody. LOL

;^)

LMHO! That's for sure. In the USA even the poor are fat.

53 posted on 07/30/2005 12:17:15 PM PDT by elbucko
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To: 45Auto

Screw the revisionists. The bottom line to ALL of this so-called "controversy" is that the Japs started World War II in the Pacific at Pearl Harbor with their sneak attack on December 7th, 1941, and America ended it in August of 1945, and if the Japs didn't like getting their ass kicked and two of their cities thoroughly radiated and wiped out, they shouldn't have messed with US (as in U.S.), in the first place.

If Truman had refused to use the atomic bomb on the Japanese and had instead chosen a land invasion of the Japanese home islands, with the resulting hundreds of thousands of deaths on BOTH sides, he would have been impeached, convicted, removed from office and very possibly executed for high treason.

Truman did the right thing and that's the end of it.

God Bless the crews who dropped the Big Ones on Hiroshima and Nagasaki!


54 posted on 07/30/2005 12:25:17 PM PDT by Mad Mammoth (Some folks just need killin' = Clint Eastwood as 'The Outlaw Josey Wales'...)
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To: WalterSkinner
Ditto. Amen.


55 posted on 08/01/2005 6:58:55 PM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s......you weren't really there.)
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To: SolidSupplySide
Of course dropping the A-bomb *did* have the additional effect of scaring the Russians. It is possible to have multiple desirable outcomes influence a decision.

Which, in combination with the American lives dropping them saved versus an invasion, is the reason why the Left abhors us having dropped them.

56 posted on 08/03/2005 10:49:26 AM PDT by steveegg (Real torture is taking a ride with Sen Ted "Swimmer" Kennedy in a 1968 Oldsmobile off a short bridge)
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To: elbucko

Ummm, was "Rudy" by any chance a CSM in the 11ACR? We had an old German guy as Regimental CSM. Didn't know much about him, but...


57 posted on 08/03/2005 10:52:09 AM PDT by Little Ray (I'm a reactionary, hirsute, gun-owning, knuckle dragging, Christian Neanderthal and proud of it!)
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To: F-117A

The historical record seems settled on this point: three devices were available, one was tested at Alamagordo, two were used in Japan.

The expectation was that further fuel would not be available until November.


If Teller told you otherwise, it is information he did not shared with the rest of history.


58 posted on 08/03/2005 10:56:28 AM PDT by Petronski (I love Cyborg!)
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To: MikeinIraq

Last time I checked, August is still in the summer and Yes the Japanese WERE looking to surrender say about the 10th of August hehe



X ACT LEEEE. And if we had dropped the bomb on Tehran last summer, the Islamist would have been in the same state of mind.


59 posted on 08/03/2005 10:57:09 AM PDT by TomasUSMC (FIGHT LIKE WW2, FINISH LIKE WW2. FIGHT LIKE NAM, FINISH LIKE NAM.)
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To: Americanexpat
I am not a Truman fan, but in this case he made the right decision and IMO, a lot of American military personnel and more Japanese are alive because of it.

Too bad Truman dismissed MacArthur. Other than his atomic bomb decision, Truman is the most overrated President ever.

60 posted on 08/03/2005 10:57:20 AM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist (If there was a problem, yo! I'll solve it!!)
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