Unknown Alternatives

War: a violent conflict between nation-states employing systematic destruction organized on an industrial scale with an outcome decided by force of arms.

By that definition, America’s last war formally ended in September of 1945. For the preceding 14 years – since the September, 1931, invasion of Manchuria – the Empire of Japan had been inflicting industrial-scale inhumanity across East Asia and the Pacific.

America’s systematic response also spawned an entirely new industry for which today is an important anniversary. It was at 8:15 a.m. on this date in 1945 that war was elevated to a new level about 580 meters above the Shima Surgical Clinic in Hiroshima.

Eleven days earlier the Allies had issued an ultimatum – the Potsdam Declaration – demanding a Japanese surrender and threatening “utter devastation of the Japanese homeland” as the alternative. The demonstration of that alternative over Hiroshima, and three days later at Nagasaki, has been the subject of debate ever since: Was it necessary?

On August 6, 1945, Japan was an aggressor whose martial and economic fortunes had failed. It was largely powerless to resist industrial-scale warfare. Five months earlier, 16 square miles of Tokyo – nearly four times the destruction at Hiroshima – was obliterated in one night of American bombing. The 100,000 Japanese deaths in that one Tokyo raid exceed the immediate death toll of either subsequent atomic attack. In addition, an estimated one million were injured and another million left homeless. It is clear that the Japanese homeland was suffering greatly prior to August 1945 on the strength of conventional munitions alone. What, ask historians on both sides of the question, could nuclear bombs do to change Japan’s mind that ordinary high explosives weren’t already doing?

We all breathe the air of our times. An insightful sample of the air from 65 years ago is contained in eight paragraphs (text in gray, below) of a United States government document prepared by a blue-ribbon panel, the U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey: The Effects of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, June 19, 1946:

Even in the target cities, it must be emphasized, the atomic bomb did not uniformly destroy the Japanese fighting spirit. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when compared with other Japanese cities, were not more defeatist than average. The bombs were tremendous personal catastrophes to the survivors, but neither time nor understanding of the revolutionary threat of the atomic bomb permitted them to see in these personal catastrophes a final blow to Japan’s prospects for victory or negotiated peace.

The further question of the effects of the bombs on the morale of the Japanese leaders and their decision to abandon the war is tied up with other factors. The atomic bomb had more effect on the thinking of government leaders than on the morale of the rank and file of civilians outside of the target areas. It cannot be said, however, that the atomic bomb convinced the leaders who effected the peace of the necessity of surrender. The decision to surrender, influenced in part by knowledge of the low state of popular morale, had been taken at least as early as 26 June at a meeting of the Supreme War Guidance Council in the presence of the Emperor.

This decision did not, of course, represent the unanimous feeling of those influential in government circles. As early as the spring of 1944 a group of former prime ministers and others close to the Emperor had been making efforts toward bringing the war to an end. This group, including such men as Admiral Okada, Admiral Yonai, Prince Konoye, and Marquis Kido, had been influential in effecting Tojo’s resignation and in making Admiral Suzuki Prime Minister after Kioso's fall. Even in the Suzuki cabinet, however, agreement was far from unanimous. The Navy Minister, Admiral Yonai, was sympathetic, but the War Minister, General Anami, usually represented the fight-to-the-end policy of the Army. In the Supreme War Guidance Council, a sort of inner cabinet, his adherence to that line was further assured by the participation of the Army nod Navy Chiefs of Staff, so that on the peace issue this organization was evenly divided, with these three opposing the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and Navy Minister. At any time military (especially Army) dissatisfaction with the Cabinet might have eventuated at least in its fall and possibly in the "liquidation" of the anti-war members.

Thus the problem facing the peace leaders in the government was to bring about a surrender despite the hesitation of the War Minister and the opposition of the Army and Navy Chiefs of Staff. This had to be done, moreover, without precipitating counter measures by the Army which would eliminate the entire peace group. This was done ultimately by bringing the Emperor actively into the decision to accept the Potsdam terms. So long as the Emperor openly supported such a policy and could be presented to the country as doing so, the military, which had fostered and lived on the idea of complete obedience to the Emperor, could not effectively rebel.

A preliminary step in this direction had been taken at the Imperial Conference on 26 June. At this meeting, the Emperor, taking an active part despite his custom to the contrary, stated that he desired the development of a plan to end the war as well as one to defend the home islands [italics mine]. This was followed by a renewal of earlier efforts to get the Soviet Union to intercede with the United States, which were effectively answered by the Potsdam Declaration on 25 July and the Russian declaration of war on 9 August.

The atomic bombings considerably speeded up these political maneuverings within the government. This in itself was partly a morale effect, since there is ample evidence that members of the Cabinet were worried by the prospect of further atomic bombings, especially on the remains of Tokyo. The bombs did not convince the military that defense of the home Islands was impossible, if their behavior in government councils is adequate testimony. It did permit the Government to say, however, that no army without the weapon could possibly resist an enemy who had it, thus saving "face" for the Army leaders and not reflecting on the competence of Japanese industrialists or the valor of the Japanese soldier. In the Supreme War Guidance Council voting remained divided, with the War Minister and the two Chiefs of Staff unwilling to accept unconditional surrender. There seem [sic] little doubt, however, that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki weakened their inclination to oppose the peace group.

The peace effort culminated in an Imperial conference held on the night of 9 August and continued into the early hours of 10 August, for which the stage was set by the atomic bomb and the Russian war declaration. At this meeting the Emperor, again breaking his customary silence, stated specifically that he wanted acceptance of the Potsdam terms.

A quip was current in high [Japanese] government circles at this time that the atomic bomb was the real Kamikaze [“divine wind”], since it saved Japan from further useless slaughter and destruction. It is apparent that in the atomic bomb the Japanese found the opportunity which they had been seeking, to break the existing deadlock within the government over acceptance of the Potsdam terms.

Critics of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings note that the Japanese were discussing surrender months before the nuclear attacks. But the June 26th decision of the Supreme War Guidance Council was ambiguous: in the section of the bombing survey I’ve italicized, the emperor is portrayed as presenting not one option – surrender – but two, thereby preserving the council’s even division on the question.

America’s systematic analysis of the nuclear attacks was just one of three official postwar strategic bombing surveys. Panels also evaluated the theater-wide impacts of aerial strikes in Europe and the Pacific. Paul Nitze, who subsequently spent four decades as an architect of American cold war policy, eventually as a special advisor to President Ronald Reagan, was a member of both the A-bomb survey and the broader survey of bombing in the Pacific theater. Writing the report on the latter, Nitze makes a much stronger statement than any contained in the former, casting the nuclear attacks in a less favorable light:

“Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

Emperor Hirohito declared the Japanese surrender on August 15th. Considering both surveys’ reports, it seems reasonable to conclude that the effect of the atomic attacks was to shorten the war by three or four months. For an America that had suffered more than 350,000 casualties in the Pacific – a figure growing by the hour – and facing the prospect of an additional million-plus in an invasion of Japan's home islands, Hirohito’s announcement couldn’t have come soon enough.

It’s arguable that operational use of the bomb shortened the war by providing Japan's anti-war faction with leverage to break the deadlock in the Supreme War Guidance Council. For that purpose, would one bomb have been sufficient? It is unclear just how well America was reading Japan's mood at the moment. But it does seem that the decision was ultimately Hirohito’s, and it is unknowable when he might have reached it based on the toll – albeit horrific – of conventional bombing alone.

History does not disclose its alternatives. On the rightness of President Harry Truman’s decision to send atoms into combat, historians may be destined to debate forever. What's important is that the war ended without an invasion and Japan, aided by humane victors, built itself back to prosperity and became our ally.

The end of the war meant the Allies were free to make what they would of Europe and Japan. It was also at Potsdam that Russia's Stalin provided the first clues of his intended domination of Eastern Europe to commence at war's end. So, in retrospect, today's Hiroshima anniversary is shared with another: it seems certain that the Cold War, with its own special thermonuclear chill, also began on this day 65 years ago.

Maybe it’s thanks to the harsh object lesson of Hiroshima that the Cold War stayed as cold as it did, and industrial-scale warfare itself was exposed as the one alternative that should remain forevermore unknown.