Barton J. Bernstein: American conservatives are the forgotten critics of the atomic bombing of Japan

San Jose Mercury News ^ | Agust 2, 2014 | Barton J. Bernstein

[No One Special]

"The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul," he wrote. "The only difference between this and the use of gas (which President Franklin D. Roosevelt had barred as a first-use weapon in World War II) is the fear of retaliation."

Those harsh words, written three days after the Hiroshima bombing in August, 1945, were not by a man of the American left, but rather by a very prominent conservative -- former President Herbert Hoover, a foe of the New Deal and Fair Deal.

In 1959, Medford Evans, a conservative writing in William Buckley's strongly nationalistic, energetically right-wing magazine, National Review, stated: "The indefensibility of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima is becoming a part of the national conservative creed." Just the year before, the National Review had featured an angry, anti-atomic bomb article, "Hiroshima: Assault on a Beaten Foe." Like Hoover, that 1958 essay had decried the atomic bombing as wanton murder. National Review's editors, impressed by that article, had offered special reprints.

Those two sets of events --Hoover in 1945 and National Review in 1968-69 -- were not anomalies in early post-Hiroshima U.S. conservatism. In fact, many noted American conservatives -- journalists, former diplomats and retired and occasionally on-duty military officers, and some right-wing historians and political scientists -- criticized the atomic bombing. They frequently contended it was unnecessary, and often maintained it was immoral and that softer surrender terms could have ended the war without such mass killing. They sometimes charged Truman and the atomic bombing with "criminality" and "slaughter."

Yet today, this history of early anti-A-bomb dissent by conservatives is largely unknown. In about the past 20 years, various American conservatives have even assailed A-bomb dissent as typically leftist and anti-American, and as having begun...

[elcid1970]

Barton J. Bernstein is a 78 year old professor of history at Stanford University. He can be presumed liberal.

Herbert Hoover was no conservative, but a government interventionist whose policies turned the 1929 crash into a full-blown depression that FDR prolonged through his own interventionist policies. Hoover’s criticism of the atomic bombings was isolationist, not `conservative’.

Prof. Bernstein cites Hoover & a single 1959 article in the “rightwing journal” National Review, then breathlessly states, “These criticisms are not anomalies” as though they represent an undercurrent within the conservative movement (which really was inaugurated by William F. Buckley Jr.)

Bernstein is only trying to tar today’s conservatism using the events of seven decades ago. Guilt by association in a truly extreme stretch.

Again, he’s 78 and, not satisfied with lifetime tenure, seeks yet fame & relevance in his declining years.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

*** “The indefensibility of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima is becoming a part of the national conservative creed.”***

He would have a different opinion if HE would have been the first person in a landing craft shot dead when he stepped ashore in Japan! The A-bomb kept my dad, just back from Europe, from having to invade Japan.

The ONLY gripe they have about the Atomic bomb is it was one plane with one bomb that did all that damage.

If we had used 500 planes all loaded with firebombs and killed the same number of people people would say...”So what! it’s war!”

Just for the record, a day or two after the Nagasaki bombing we hit Japan with a large bombing force loaded with conventional bombs. Killed thousands and no one here complained.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***President Herbert Hoover Conservative?***

I found something about Hoover I didn’t know. During the 1901 Boxer siege of Peking and Tianjin China, Hoover and his wife were leaders instrumental in protecting Tianjin from extermination by the Boxers.

[chimera]

Good point. The Tokyo firebombing the night of March 9-10 killed more people than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, maybe both. And most of them in a most horrible manner. But no one now mentions this, or probably even knows about it. All they care about is the A-bomb. And they lose sight of the fact that if a country goes to war, the whole country generally suffers. We lucked out because at the time the technology available just wasn’t quite enough to bridge the oceanic isolation of the Western Hemisphere (although in a few years that would have changed). Japan never did quite attain the jumping-off points to make direct attacks on the US mainland possible.

[zeestephen]

Re: “a very prominent conservative — former President Herbert Hoover, a foe of the New Deal and Fair Deal.”

Hoover was a Conservative?

Hoover was a big government, center-left Republican who initiated many of the social welfare programs that Roosevelt included in the New Deal.

Hoover also raised taxes as the Great Depression began, which was economic and political lunacy, and would be rejected by all Conservatives today.

I don't know enough about Hoover to comment on his opposition to Truman's Fair Deal.

But, anyone who believes Truman was a “Plain Speaking” center-right Democrat needs to watch Truman's acceptance speech at the 1948 Democrat Convention.

By 1948, Truman was FDR on steroids.

Every center-left Republican in the country, including Tom Dewey, looked “Conservative” in comparison.

[Politicalkiddo]

“At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of both industrial and military significance. A number of military units were located nearby, the most important of which was the headquarters of Field Marshal Shunroku Hata’s Second General Army, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan,[102] and was located in Hiroshima Castle. Hata’s command consisted of some 400,000 men, most of whom were on Kyushu where an Allied invasion was correctly anticipated.[103] Also present in Hiroshima were the headquarters of the 59th Army, the 5th Division and the 224th Division, a recently formed mobile unit.[104] The city was defended by five batteries of 7-and-8-centimeter (2.8 and 3.1 in) anti-aircraft guns of the 3rd Anti-Aircraft Division, including units from the 121st and 122nd Anti-Aircraft Regiments and the 22nd and 45th Separate Anti-Aircraft Battalions. In total, over 40,000 military personnel were stationed in the city.[105]”

“The city of Nagasaki had been one of the largest seaports in southern Japan, and was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials. The four largest companies in the city were Mitsubishi Shipyards, Electrical Shipyards, Arms Plant, and Steel and Arms Works, which employed about 90% of the city’s labor force, and accounted for 90% of the city’s industry.[166] Although an important industrial city, Nagasaki had been spared from firebombing because its geography made it difficult to locate at night with AN/APQ-13 radar.[108]”

[Arthur McGowan]

Thank you for your cogent argumentation.

[trisham]

"Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes,
they just don't know where to look."

~Ronald Reagan

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[elcid1970]

I just read the Wiki entry on Hernert Hoover. An absolutely amazing American with a lifetime of achievements well into his eighties; he put the service into public service. Also known for hunger relief in Europe in not one but two world wars. A great humanitarian.

Too bad the popular memory of Hoover is that of a failed President who brought on the Depression (this can be argued but FDR’s policies were worse).

[ohioman]

Any time Art. I will try not to be so “wordy” next time.

[kearnyirish2]

Odd; my understanding was that the cities were chosen because they wouldn’t be defended. They didn’t want Enola Gay or Bock’s Car shot down.

[Arthur McGowan]

Don’t get me wrong. My gut is with Truman.

But moral authorities I respect—like a string of Popes—have condemned indiscriminate bombing.

I don’t despise Truman for declining to send two million American boys to their death, in order to spare tens of thousands of Japanese.

[ohioman]

I believe it is the pope’s job to say those things. However, as a leader the only rule is to not lose the war.

[Arthur McGowan]

So “morality” and “real life” are unrelated?

That’s a very common position, but if it’s true, then Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, etc., never did anything wrong.

[ohioman]

Yeah they were real sweethearts. Hitler and toejam learned the hard way that winning is very important to one’s self preservation. Too bad Stalin always won.

[narses]

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[Retain Mike]

Those two cities would be considered military targets within the meaning of the Third Geneva Convention based on the then ability to precision bomb, but further discussion would require an essay. The short version is precision bombing (?) generally meant putting 10%-20% of bombs on the target. Also, wartime Japan relied on a host of surrounding cottage industries to keep their plants going.