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Perhaps you don't really understand words and their definition. I have provided historical fact. You have provided your opinion.
In fact, the real authority for issuing policies and directives to SCAP resided in Washington.
I find the article to be misleading and inaccurate.Get informed. Read this and tell me what you think of it.
Harry Truman and the Atomic Bomb | Ralph Raico
Sure it is. The prospects for a massive bombing campaign in Iran is enormously funny.That’s not funny.
Should our military have also slowed down the rate of fire on their machineguns in order to give Japan more of a pause between each shot?Here is a sensible explanation of the alternatives that were available to Truman in August 1945, alternatives that did not involve killing over 200,000 civilians and seriously injuring thousands of others with two atomic bombs, presented by Dr. Alex Wellerstein, a professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology. Dr. Wellerstein holds a doctorate in the history of science from Harvard University. Dr. Wellerstein:
Many of those who defend the bombings seem to end up in a position of believing that 1. there were no other options on the table at the time except for exactly what did occur, and 2. that questioning whether there were other options does historical damage. As a historian, I find both of these positions absurd. First, history is full of contingency, and there were several explicit options (and a few implicit ones) on the table in 1945 — more than just “bomb” versus “invade”. . . .
The Hiroshima mission was delayed until August 6th because of weather conditions in Japan. The Kokura mission (which became the Nagasaki mission) was originally scheduled for August 11th, but got pushed up to August 9th because it was feared that further bad weather was coming. At the very least, waiting more than three days after Hiroshima might have been humane. Three days was barely enough time for the Japanese high command to verify that the weapon used was a nuclear bomb, much less assess its impact and make strategic sense of it. Doing so may have avoided the need for the second bombing run altogether. Even if the Japanese had not surrendered, the option for using further bombs would not have gone away. . . .
We weren't there to put on fireworks shows. We were there to kill people and break things.Two months before Hiroshima, scientists at the University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory, one of the key Manhattan Project facilities, authored a report arguing that the first use of an atomic bomb should not be on an inhabited city. The committee, chaired by Nobel laureate and German exile James Franck, argued that a warning, or demonstration, of the bomb on, say, a barren island, would be a worthwhile endeavor. If the Japanese still refused to surrender, then the further use of the weapon, and its further responsibility, could be considered by an informed world community. Another attractive possibility for a demonstration could be the center of Tokyo Bay, which would be visible from the Imperial Palace but have a minimum of casualties if made to detonate high in the air. Leo Szilard, a scientist who had helped launch the bomb effort, circulated a petition signed by dozens of Manhattan Project scientists arguing for such an approach. . . .
Actually the Potsdam Proclamation backed off from unconditional surrender. It was a list of generous surrender terms.By the summer of 1945, a substantial number of the Japanese high command, including the Emperor, were looking for a diplomatic way out of the war. Their problem was that the Allies had, with the Potsdam Declaration, continued to demand “unconditional surrender,” and emphasized the need to remove “obstacles” preventing the “democratic tendencies” of the Japanese people.
That dilemma was easily solved. Japan only needed to start talking to the US to clarify the surrender terms.What did this mean, for the postwar Japanese government? To many in the high command, this sounded a lot like getting rid of the Imperial system, and the Emperor, altogether, possibly prosecuting him as a “war criminal.” For the Japanese leaders, one could no more get rid of the Emperor system and still be “Japan” than one could get rid of the US Constitution and still be “the United States of America.”
The peace party had no real power. The people who had real power in WWII Japan were the Emperor and the Japanese Army.During the summer, those who constituted the “Peace Party” of the high council sent out feelers to the then still-neutral Soviet Union to serve as possible mediators with the United States, hopefully negotiating an end-of-war situation that would give some guarantees as to the Emperor’s position. (Were there alternatives to the atomic bombings?)
Japan provoked the US into nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki.That's third-grade logic. Just about every legal system on the planet recognizes the principle that provocation can constitute starting the fight, even if the provocator does not throw the first punch.
No myth. Japan had millions of soldiers and thousands of kamikazes waiting to pounce on our invasion.So you're just gonna keep repeating this militaristic myth and ignore the fact that Japan was prostrate and starving,
Japan was refusing to surrender.that Japan was trying to surrender,
Truman knew that Japan had millions of soldiers and thousands of kamikazes waiting to pounce on our invasion.that Truman knew all of these things,
Good God. Who cares whether the atomic bombs were what caused surrender???and that the nukes did not even cause Japan to surrender anyway?
No such lie. Truman told the truth.You know, if it was such a righteous deed, why did Truman lie about the first nuke? Huh?
No pretending. Hiroshima was a military base.Why did he pretend that Hiroshima was "a military base"
Truman seems to have been under the mistaken impression that nuking a military base would not result in collateral damage.and that it was nuked to minimize civilian casualties?
Because they believed them to be anti-American propaganda.Why did the Truman administration and MacArthur's occupation government lie about radiation effects and dismiss all the reports of severe injury and death from radiation? Why did the War Department suppress most photos and films of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims?
Yes.Hey? Is that the conduct of people who believe they've done something good?
Fake news. Truman knew of no way of ending the war in July.If Truman had done what he knew he needed to do to end the war in July, the overwhelming majority of GIs would not have cared one hoot that the emperor was not deposed.
Truman also knew that the peace feelers were illegitimate.Oh, no, no, that dog won't hunt. Truman KNEW that Japanese officials were sending out peace feelers in May, three months before Hiroshima.
No he didn't. He knew that it was a possibility, but he did not know for sure.By early July, Truman KNEW that even the emperor wanted to surrender
Truman knew no such falsehood.and that the only real obstacle was the fear that the emperor would be deposed.
Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew advised Truman in July that Japan was probably just trying to escape the war without surrendering.Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew, one of the few genuine Japan experts in the government, gave Truman two extensive briefings in May and explained the emperor's status and limited power and why the Japanese would never surrender if they thought the emperor would be deposed.
Truman knew that Japan had millions of soldiers and thousands of kamikazes ready to pounce on our invading forces.And Truman KNEW that Japan was already severely beaten and prostrate.
Nope. Truman told the truth.Truman lied to his own chief of staff and assured him that the nukes would only be used on military targets.
Not a lie. That is the truth.He lied to the American people and told them the egregious falsehood that Hiroshima was "a military base"
It does seem that Truman was misinformed about the potential for collateral damage.and that this "military base" was chosen as the first target to minimize civilian casualties. Truman was either being played as an absolute fool by the Japan haters in the War Department and the State Department, such as Byrnes and Acheson, or he was lying through his teeth.
This I can agree with. We should have kept aid flowing to South Vietnam. I am deeply ashamed of my country that we cut off aid to our ally in their time of greatest need.Democrats stabbed South Vietnam in the back and refused to provide the air and logistical support we had promised by treaty to give them.
There was no peace opening for us to follow up on. The contacts between Japan and the USSR were private and we were not invited.Admiral Zacharias, like so many other scholars, lamented Truman’s failure to follow up on the peace opening that was provided when we learned that the Japanese were seeking Soviet mediation to clarify the surrender terms and to reach a peace deal,
The admiral is wrong. The holdup was Japan's desire to use Soviet mediation to try to escape the war without surrendering.and the admiral noted that the holdup was the lack of certainty about the emperor’s fate in unconditional surrender.
If they would have accepted the Potsdam Proclamation in June, why did they refuse to accept it in July?Admiral Zacharias argued that if the various statements on unconditional surrender, including the Potsdam Declaration, had been provided in June, the war would have ended without Soviet intervention and without the dropping of nukes:
That one is easy. Japan was not willing to contemplate anything other than Soviet mediation.It is left to the judgment of history to explain why it was necessary for the Soviet Union to take its course of action
Another easy one. Because there was no opening for the US. It was a private exchange between Japan and the USSR.and why the Allies refused to exploit the opening provided by Japan herself.
It is hard to see why Japan would have accepted terms in June that they later rejected in July. But not nuking Japan would certainly have been a disaster for humanity.If the detailed interpretations of the unconditional surrender formula had been forthcoming in June rather than the end of July [when the Potsdam Declaration was issued], the war would have ended without Soviet participation and before the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although the historical perspective is insufficient as yet to provide a complete picture as it existed in June 1945, it is an undeniable fact that the diplomatic situation provided an opportunity for peace many weeks before mid-August. . . . (pp. 367-368)
Ralph Raico was a great man. You could learn so much from him, if you were capable of learning.I find the article to be misleading and inaccurate.
First, it falsely denies the military value of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Second, it falsely claims that there were no estimates of massive casualties if we invaded.
Third, it falsely claims that Truman stuck to unconditional surrender.
There was no peace opening for us to follow up on. The contacts between Japan and the USSR were private and we were not invited.
It's a shame that he spouts so many falsehoods.Ralph Raico was a great man.
I prefer not to "learn" untrue things. I'm a fact-oriented person.You could learn so much from him, if you were capable of learning.
The B-29 had a two thousand seven hundred mile combat radius. It's less than one thousand six hundred miles from Paris to Moscow or one thousand five hundred miles from Scapa Flow to Moscow. Moscow was within easy range of hundreds of allied air bases.Where would the B-29s take off from in order to carry out such a mission?
As if we were somehow in charge of whether the Soviets entered the war?allowing the Soviets to enter the Pacific War was a huge mistake.
Except, if Japan had immediately accepted the Potsdam Proclamation and surrendered, the war would then be over and no atomic bombs would have then been dropped.Another myth that Hasegawa debunks is that Truman decided to nuke Japan because Japan rejected the Potsdam Declaration. Hasegawa points out that General Handy’s order to General Spaatz authorizing the use of nukes was given on July 25, the day before the Potsdam Declaration was released:
It is important to note that Handy’s order to Spaatz, the only existing direct order to deploy atomic bombs against Japan, was given on July 25, the day before the Potsdam Proclamation was issued. The popular myth, artificially concocted by Truman and Stimson themselves and widely believed in the United States, that Japan’s rejection of the Potsdam Proclamation led to the U.S. decision to drop the bomb, cannot be supported by the facts. Truman wrote that he issued the order to drop the bomb after Japan rejected the Potsdam Proclamation. The truth is quite the opposite. (Racing the Enemy, p. 152)
It explains nothing of the sort. They refused to clarify the Emperor's status at that time because there was no reason to think that such clarification would have resulted in Japan surrendering.This explains why Truman and Byrnes refused to clarify the emperor's status in the Potsdam Declaration. They did not want Japan to surrender until they had a chance to drop at least one or two nukes on Japan.
The US had certainly not been perpetrating genocide on anyone. I seriously doubt that France or the UK were doing so either.FDR began imposing increasingly harsh sanctions on Japan for doing the same thing that we, the French, the British, not to mention the Soviets, had been doing for decades.
People can be pretty goofy sometimes.Interestingly, even historian George Feifer, who wrote a labored, lengthy defense of the nuking of Hiroshima, conceded that a strong case can be made against the nuking of Nagasaki:
A stronger case can be made against the second bomb [Nagasaki], especially its dropping so cruelly soon after the first. The Supreme War Council’s minutes reveal that Hiroshima’s destruction made no real dent in its thinking. After acknowledging that an awesome new weapon had caused it, the members essentially proceeded directly to their outstanding military concerns. Nevertheless, three days gave them too little time to assess the damage and the nature of the weapon that produced it, let alone to reflect on the larger consequences. (The Battle of Okinawa: The Blood and the Bomb, 2001, Kindle Edition, loc. 8979)
Except, Japan had millions of soldiers and thousands of kamikazes waiting to pounce on our invading forces.Feifer also conceded that Japan was practically prostrate before Truman nuked her:
The country’s woeful condition before the bombs were dropped was hardly secret either. Virtually her entire merchant marine and Navy lay at the bottom of the Pacific, while America alone, without the Royal Navy, had 23 battleships, 99 carriers, and 72 cruisers on hand in August. The Imperial Navy’s corresponding numbers were one, six, and four—and it had fuel only enough to sustain a force of 20 operational destroyers and perhaps 40 submarines for a few days at sea. Nor was sufficient food available for civilians who showed their ration cards in the shops that stood still. Relentless saturation bombing, easier than ever with the new bases on Okinawa and the feeble opposition from Japanese interceptors, was leveling Japan’s cities.The average adult existed on under 1,300 calories a day. As many as 13 million were homeless. Malaria and tuberculosis were rampant, especially in shantytowns rising in the urban ashes. Schoolchildren, barefoot in winter as well as summer, rooted out forest pine stumps for the war effort. The trees themselves were long gone. In Tokushima, home of many of the 6,000 troops lost on the Toyoma Maru, metal was so scarce that the bells of shrines were melted down, together with charcoal braziers, the sole source of heat for the remaining wood-and-paper homes. While huge numbers of Red Army troops mobilized to attack Manchuria—just as Tadashi Kojo had feared a year earlier, when his regiment was shipped from there to Okinawa—there was no hope of supplying the defenders even if the merchant fleet hadn’t been destroyed and the country’s industry wasn’t in shambles. Exhausted, slowly starving Japan was in no shape for further fighting. (Ibid., loc. 8862-8878)
If Japan had wanted our oil, they needed to stop using that oil to commit genocide.I'm not American born. And until right over my teens, I remember to heard in my country that the attack to Pearl Harbor was the culmination of several petitions of Japan for the US to stop the oil embargo.
I always hear that Japan provoked us into nuking them.What I heard was that while the war was in progress, the US and England decided to provoke Japan to get into the war.
Again, Japan needed to first stop committing genocide.Japan was in need of oil to keep their fish industry in business but the oil was controlled by the allies before the end of the war and they denied their petitions.
The version I hear says that Japan's atrocities provide justification for nuking them.This version I heard in my teens "justifies" the desperate resolution of Japan to attack the US base near their island.
You sure are outraged that FDR took such a strong stand against Japan's genocide.Yes, FDR did all he could to incite Japan to attack. He imposed draconian sanctions and absurd demands on Japan, like demanding their leave China before oil would be released. He knew Japan couldn’t meet his demands. He then refused to even meet with Japan’s envoys in Washington, who tried on multiple occasions to appease FDR.
Fake news.He also knew the Japanese fleet was steaming to Pearl Harbor, since their naval communications code was broken by the US. He refused to warn commanders and then scapegoated them after the attack. He did get the carriers out, but sacrificed the sailors left in the harbor. (Clearly FDR was a psychopath).
Attacks on military targets are neither murder nor war crimes.Mass murdering defenseless civilians can’t ever be considered defensible. It was a war crime for which no one paid a price.
Hardly. The reason why they left that part out was because they knew that Japan would still refuse to surrender.Hasegawa hits the nail on the head when he makes the case that Truman and Byrnes used the Potsdam Declaration as their excuse for nuking Japan, that they refused to include an assurance about the emperor’s status in the declaration precisely because they feared that such an assurance would induce the Japanese to surrender before the nukes could be dropped:
Except, the Potsdam Proclamation abandoned unconditional surrender and gave Japan a list of generous surrender terms.In order to drop the bomb, the United States had to issue the ultimatum to Japan. . . . And this ultimatum had to be rejected by the Japanese in order to justify the use of the atomic bomb. The best way to accomplish all this was to insist upon unconditional surrender. . . .
Truman and Byrnes knew that making the Soviets party to the Potsdam Proclamation would give the Soviets input into the terms offered, and the Soviets would have made the terms harsher so as to make Japan less likely to surrender.Hasegawa also points out that Truman and Byrnes’ decision not to ask the Soviets to sign the Potsdam Declaration, even though they knew the Soviets wanted and expected to be included in any such proclamation, was a further guarantee that Japan would not accept it:
The omission of Stalin’s signature from the Potsdam Proclamation had a profound effect on Japanese policy. The Japanese immediately noticed that Stalin did not sign the proclamation. This prompted them to continue their efforts to terminate the war through Soviet mediation rather than immediately accepting the conditions stipulated by the Potsdam Proclamation. (p. 162)As Truman and Byrnes knew, Stalin’s signature on the Potsdam Declaration might have caused the Japanese to either accept the Potsdam terms or to open direct negotiations with America.
True. Should the war have progressed to the point of us invading Japan, we wanted the Soviets to help us with that invasion.These facts belie the story that Truman and Byrnes wanted to avoid Soviet entry into the war at all costs.
No.They were more determined to avoid an early Japanese surrender so they could nuke Japan than they were to keep the Soviets from entering the war.
No such recommendation.As Hasegawa notes,
But the question remains: If Byrnes’ overriding concern was Soviet expansion in China, why did he not accept Stimson’s recommendation to forestall Soviet entry into the war?
I guess that is maybe why the Potsdam Proclamation abandoned unconditional surrender and offered Japan a list of generous surrender terms.From the Magic intercepts, he was well aware that dropping the demand for unconditional surrender and ensuring the continuation of a constitutional monarchy under the current dynasty [i.e., promising not to depose the emperor] might quicken Japanese surrender. More important, he also knew that any ultimatum that insisted upon unconditional surrender would be rejected by Japan. (p. 158)
No facts. So far much of what you've been posting has been untrue.No, you read facts that you could not bring yourself to process.
Hardly. Stimson's version is historically accurate.If any version is "revisionist," it is the Stimson version,
My defense of the atomic bombings certainly doesn't rely on it.the Stimson version, which every nuke defense since then has used as its starting point.
So what?Stimson didn't even write most of it.
That isn't even remotely true.Why do you suppose that the vast majority of scholars who specialize in Japan's surrender disagree with you?
Wise uncle.Your uncle did not know that the Japanese had been ready to surrender weeks earlier,
Truman knew that Japan was still refusing to surrender.that Truman and his cronies knew this,
Monday morning quarterbacking.and that Japan would have surrendered in a matter of days after the Soviets entered the Pacific War, without our dropping any nukes or any other kind of bomb.
No one’s reading your dumb posts Open Dolt.You sure are outraged that FDR took such a strong stand against Japan's genocide.
Fake news.
Attacks on military targets are neither murder nor war crimes.
An example of war crimes are Pearl Harbor and the Bataan Death March.
I'm not American born. And until right over my teens, I remember to heard in my country that the attack to Pearl Harbor was the culmination of several petitions of Japan for the US to stop the oil embargo.
What I heard was that while the war was in progress, the US and England decided to provoke Japan to get into the war.
This version I heard in my teens "justifies" the desperate resolution of Japan to attack the US base near their island.
By the way, do you know why the US government decided to put in concentration camps to Japanese people regardless of age and sex?
He literally has no idea what he’s talking about on anything. You should see his bat-shit crazy rambling in other threads.You have no idea what you are talking about on any of those issues.
Why? Is your vagina hurting you too much today to read?No one’s reading your dumb posts Open Dolt.
