The cold war over Hiroshima

Anatoly Koshkin, RIA Novosti, Moscow

Western historians, particularly Americans, are inclined to think that the dropping of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended World War II. However, although the psychological impact was significant and brought the Japanese surrender closer, it cannot be said that the bombs decided the outcome of the war. Prominent Western politicians admitted this. For example, Winston S. Churchill said, "It would be a mistake to suppose that the fate of Japan was settled by the atomic bomb."

The facts are: The bomb did not force Japan to surrender. The Japanese government and the supreme command did not inform the nation that America had used the new weapon. They continued to prepare for a decisive battle on Japanese territory.

Nor did the Supreme Council for the Conduction of War discuss the bombing of Hiroshima at a session. On Aug. 7, President Harry Truman warned that his country was ready to launch new atomic strikes against Japan, but the Japanese high command viewed this as Allied propaganda. The Japanese military claimed after Hiroshima that the imperial army and navy could still fight, and that they would inflict serious losses on the enemy. And that meant Japan would be able to conclude an honorable peace treaty.

U.S. military planners estimated that it would take at least nine atomic bombs to support amphibious landings on Japanese territory. It became clear after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the U.S. had no more atomic bombs, and that it would take considerable time to produce them. U.S. War Secretary Henry S. Stimson later said that the dropped bombs were the only ones the States had and production was proceeding extremely slowly.

The atomic strikes clearly did not seek to accomplish any important military objectives. In 1960, General Douglas MacArthur, who commanded Allied forces in the Pacific, admitted that "there was no military justification for the dropping of the bomb" in 1945. In a bid to conceal the atomic strike's genuine goals, Truman said on Aug. 9, 1945, "The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base...to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians." In reality, though, the U.S. leadership targeted the population of both cities. This is convincingly proved by archive documents. The U.S. supreme command's operations order No. 13 (dated Aug. 2, 1945) set the date of the attack for Aug. 6. The atomic bomb was to have been dropped on Hiroshima's central district and industrial area. The Kokura arsenal and that city's central district were reserve targets, while the center of Nagasaki became the third reserve target.

By hitting densely populated central districts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. wanted to make a tremendous psychological impact by killing a great many people. Truman personally approved the proposal of his closest adviser James F. Byrnes, who said, "... the bomb should be used against Japan as soon as possible; that it be used on a war plant surrounded by workers' homes; and that it be used without prior warning." As we know, these recommendations were followed.

Dropping the bomb on Japan was also meant to intimidate the Soviet Union and other countries and to ensure Washington's postwar global domination by means of its nuclear monopoly. By preparing to use atomic bombs, the U.S. leadership hoped that such strikes would make Russia more compliant. Truman is known to have remarked, "...if the bomb explodes, as I think it will, I will certainly have a hammer on those boys." One cannot but agree with British academic P.M.S. Blackett, who believes that atomic strikes were to a great extent spearheaded against Russia. Indeed, the dropping of the bomb was "the first major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia." It certainly did not amount to the final act of World War II.

There is a theory that Stalin decided to enter the war against Japan after learning about Hiroshima, so that he could have a vote during the post-war East Asian peace settlement. This may be correct. But the opposite may be true. Truman apparently tried to drop the bombs before the Soviet attack on Japan so that he could claim victory for the United States and obtain a monopoly right to occupy and administer Japan in defeat. However, Stalin did not make a single mistake. The Soviet Union entered the war against Japan on Aug. 8, 1945, exactly three months after the defeat of Germany, thereby honoring the commitments it made in Yalta to the letter.

Taking a decision to drop a bomb on Hiroshima, the Americans were sure that Stalin would fulfill his promise to render them military assistance in the Far East. On May 28, 1945, the U.S. president's personal envoy Harry Hopkins reported to Washington that Stalin had informed him and the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow Averell Harriman that the Soviet Army would be deployed completely along its Manchurian positions by Aug. 8. The Allies believed that "an entry of the Soviet Union into the war would finally convince the Japanese of the inevitability of complete defeat."

Subsequent events showed they were right. Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki of Japan addressed an emergency session of the Supreme Council for the Conduction of War on Aug. 9, saying that the Soviet decision to declare war on Japan that morning had placed the country in a completely hopeless situation, and that it was no longer possible to continue the war. In his rescript to soldiers and sailors, Emperor Hirohito, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Armed Forces, announced, "Now that the Soviet Union has entered the war against us, to continue...would be only to increase needlessly the ravages of war finally to the point of endangering the very foundation of the Empire's existence."