A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror

by Larry Schweikart

  All along, the U.S. government had intended to use the weapon as soon as it became available on any of the Axis powers still in the war. Truman said he “regarded the bomb as a military weapon and never had any doubt that it should be used.”80 Nor did he find the actual decision to use the bomb difficult. The former army artillery major recalled that giving authority to use the atomic bomb “was no great decision, not any decision you had to worry about,” but rather called the bomb “merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousnss.”81 Thus, both the condition and the attitude of Japan in late July, as the invasion and the bombs were being readied, remains the key issue in determining how necessary the use of the bombs was. At the same time, the American public had started to expect some of the troops in Europe to come home, forcing the army to adopt a point system based on a soldier’s length of service, military honors, and participation in campaigns. The perverse effect of this was that “for the first time in their army careers, the officers and men became seriously concerned with medals.”82 Having defeated the Germans, few servicemen wanted to be transferred to fight the Japanese, which was an increasingly likely prospect.

  Regardless of the fact that Japan had launched no new offensives, their capability to resist a large-scale invasion, with bloody results, still remained. No one doubts that in the absence of the bombs an invasion would have occurred.83 Instead, liberal critics challenge the casualty estimates of the American planners. Based on Japan’s remaining military forces, and using Iwo Jima and Okinawa casualty rates as a barometer, strategists concluded that between 100,000 and 1 million American soldiers and sailors would die in a full-scale invasion. In addition, using as a guide the civilian casualties at Manila, Okinawa, and other densely populated areas that the U.S. had reconquered during the war, the numbers of Japanese civilians expected to die in such an invasion were put at between 1 and 9 million. Critics charge that these numbers represented only the highest initial estimates, and that expected casualty rates were scaled down.

  In fact, however, the estimates were probably low.84 The figures only included ground-battle casualties, not total expected losses to such deadly weapons as kamikazes. Moreover, the Joint Chiefs of Staff considered its estimates, at best, only educated guesses and that the projections of Japanese resistance severely understated the number of Japanese troops.85 Equally distressing, intercepts of Japanese secret documents revealed that Japan had concentrated all of its troops near the southern beaches, the location where the invasion was planned to begin.86 This proved particularly troubling because the first round of casualty guesses in June was based on the anticipation that Japan’s forces would be dispersed. Indeed, there were probably far more than 350,000 Japanese troops in the southern part of Kyushu—a fact that could yield at least 900,000 American combat casualties.

  Other models used for estimates produced even more sobering predictors of Japanese resistance. At Tarawa, of 2,571 enemy soldiers on the island when the U.S. Marines landed, only 8 men were captured alive, indicating a shocking casualty rate of 99.7 percent; and in the Aleutians, only 29 out of 2,350 surrendered, for a fatality rate of 98.8 percent. Worse, on Saipan, hundreds of civilians refused to surrender. Marines watched whole families wade into the ocean to drown together or huddle around grenades; parents “tossed their children off cliffs before leaping to join them in death.”87 It seems clear, then, that no matter which estimates are employed, more than a million soldiers and civilians at least would die in an invasion under even the rosiest scenarios. If the bomb could save lives in the end, the morality of dropping it was clear. Perhaps more important than the what-ifs, the Japanese reaction provides sobering testimony of the bombs’ value, because even after the first bomb fell, the Japanese made no effort whatsoever to surrender.

  Recent research in classified Japanese governmental documents confirms the wisdom of Truman’s decision. Historian Sadao Asada argues that it was most likely the atom bomb that finally overcame the warlords’ tenacious (and suicidal) opposition to surrender. Asada concludes from postwar memoranda left by the inner councils that “the atomic bombing was crucial in accelerating the peace process.” Although some hard-liners were also concerned about the possibility of a concurrent Soviet/U.S. invasion, that fear merely served as the coup de grâce. The memoirs of the deputy chief of the Army General Staff confirm this when he noted, “There is nothing we can do about the…atomic bomb. That nullifies everything.”88

  Truman never had the slightest hesitation about using the bomb, leaving left-wing scholars to scour his memoirs and letters for even the slightest evidence of second thoughts. He promptly gave his approval as soon as the Trinity test proved successful. Moreover, Truman planned to drop the existing bombs in a fairly rapid sequence if the warlords did not surrender, in order to convince Japan that Americans had a plentiful supply.

  On August 6, 1945, two B-29s flew over Hiroshima, one of them a reconnaissance/photo plane, another the Enola Gay, under the command of Colonel Paul Tibbets, which carried the atomic bomb. American aircraft two days earlier had dropped three-quarters of a million warning leaflets informing citizens of Hiroshima that the city would be obliterated, but few Japanese had heeded the message. Rumors that Truman’s mother had once lived nearby or that the United States planned to make the city an occupation center or just plain stubbornness contributed to the fatal decision of most inhabitants to remain.

  Tibbets’s payload produced an explosion about the size of 20,000 tons of TNT, or about three times the size of the August first raid, when 820 B-29 bombers had dropped 6,600 tons of TNT on several cities. More than 66,000 people in Hiroshima died instantly or soon after the explosion; some 80,000 more were injured; and another 300,000 were exposed to radiation. The Japanese government reacted by calling in its own top atomic scientist, Dr. Yoshio Nishina, inquiring whether Japan could make such a weapon in a short period.89 Clearly, this was not the response of a “defeated” nation seeking an end to hostilities. After nothing but a deafening silence had emanated from Tokyo, Truman ordered the second bomb to be dropped. On August ninth, Nagasaki, an alternative target to Kokura, was hit. (The B-29 pilot, ordered to strike a clear target, had to abandon munitions-rich Kokura because of cloud conditions.) The deadly results were similar to those in Hiroshima: nearly 75,000 dead.

  After Nagasaki, Japanese officials cabled a message that they accepted in principle the terms of unconditional surrender. Still, that cable did not itself constitute a surrender. Truman halted atomic warfare (an act that in itself was a bluff, since the United States had no more bombs immediately ready), but conventional raids continued while the Japanese officials argued heatedly about their course of action. Indeed, for a brief time on August tenth, even though no Japanese reply had surfaced, Marshall ordered a halt to the strategic bombing. On August fourteenth, the Japanese cabinet was still divided over the prospect of surrender, with the war minister and members of the chiefs of staff still opposing it.

  Only when that gridlock prevented a decision did the new prime minister, Kantaro Suzuki, ask Emperor Hirohito to intervene. By Japanese tradition, he had to remain silent until that moment, but allowed to speak, he quickly sided with those favoring surrender. Hirohito’s decision, broadcast on radio, was an amazing occurrence. Most Japanese people had never before heard the voice of this “god,” so to lessen the trauma the emperor had recorded the message, instructing his citizens that they had to “endure the unendurable” and allow American occupation because the only alternative was the “total extinction of human civilization.”90 Even then, aides worried that militarists would attempt to assassinate him before he could record the message. He told his subjects, “The time has come when we must bear the unbearable…. I swallow my own tears and give my sanction to the proposal to accept the Allied proclamation.”91 Even in defeat, however, the emperor’s comments gave insight into the nature of the Japanese thinking that had started the war in the first place: the massacre of two hundred thousand Chinese at Nanking apparen
tly did not count when it came to “human civilization”—only Japanese dead. American commanders ordered their forces to cease fire on August fifteenth, and on September second, aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz, along with representatives of the other Allied powers in the Pacific, accepted the Japanese surrender. American planes blackened the skies above, and most of the ships in the Pacific fleet sailed by in a massive display of might. As one veteran at the ceremonies observed, “We wanted to make sure they knew who won the war.”92

  Most Americans seemed undisturbed by the use of atomic weapons to end the war. Far from causing “nuclear nightmares,” as activists liked to imply later, some 65 percent of Gallup Poll respondents claimed they were not concerned about the bomb or its implications.93 Truman remained unmoved in his view that the bomb’s use was thoroughly justified. When the head of the atomic bomb project, J. Robert Oppenheimer, commented to Truman that some of the scientists “felt like they had blood on their hands…, [Truman] offered him a handkerchief and said: ‘Well, here, would you like to wipe off your hands?’”94 Years later, when a crew filming a documentary on Hiroshima asked Truman if he would consider a pilgrimage to ground zero, he caustically responded, “I’ll go to Japan if that’s what you want. But I won’t kiss their ass.”95

  In retrospect, three central reasons justified the dropping of the atomic bombs. First, and most important, the invasion of Japan would cost more American lives—up to a million, perhaps far more. The interests of the United States demanded that the government do everything in its power to see that not one more American soldier or sailor died than was absolutely necessary, and the atomic bombs ensured that result. Second, Japan would not surrender, nor did its leaders give any indication whatsoever that they would surrender short of annihilation. One can engage in hypothetical discussions about possible intentions, but public statements such as the fight-to-the-bitter-end comment and the summoning of Japan’s top atomic scientist after the Hiroshima bomb was dropped demonstrate rather conclusively that the empire planned to fight on. Third, the depredations of the Japanese equaled those of the Nazis. The Allies, therefore, were justified in nothing less than unconditional surrender and a complete dismantling of the samurai Bushido as a requirement for peace.

  Only in the aftermath, when the prisoner-of-war camps were opened, did it become apparent that the Japanese regime had been every bit as brutal as the Nazis, if less focused on particular groups. Thousands of prisoners died working on the Siam railway, and field commanders had working instructions to kill any prisoners incapable of labor. (Guards routinely forced fistfuls of rice down prisoners’ throats, then filled them with water, then as their stomachs swelled, punched or kicked the men’s bellies.)96 Almost five times as many Anglo-American POWs died in Japanese hands as in the Nazi camps, which reflected almost benign treatment in comparison to what Chinese and other Asians received at the hands of the Japanese. As with the Nazis, such horrors illustrated not only individuals’ capacity for evil but, more important, they also illustrated the nature of the brutal system that had produced a view of non-Japanese as “subhumans.”

  At the same time, Japan’s fanaticism led to a paralysis of government that prevented the nation from surrendering. The outcome of the war, evident after Midway, was probably decided even before. In February 1942, advisers had told the emperor that Japan could not possibly win. Human suicide bombers were used in 1944 with no end of the war in sight. Fanaticism of that type mirrored the fiendish Nazi ideology, and in the end, the Japanese warlords and Nazi despots had made the Second World War a contest between barbarism and civilization. Civilization won.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  America’s “Happy Days,” 1946–59

  Atoms for Peace

  Having defeated the totalitarians and vanquished the Great Depression, it was inevitable that the United States would develop a can-do optimism and problem-solving confidence at the end of World War II. Threats remained, at home and abroad, yet were these not minor compared to the victories already achieved? By 1960, however, many would reflect on the immediate postwar years soberly, reevaluating their optimism. For by that time the civil rights movement would have exposed racism and the lingering effects of Jim Crow; the Soviet Union would have shown itself to be a dangerous and well-armed enemy; and the role of world leader meant that America could afford few mistakes—politically, morally, or culturally.

  Having just fought and bled a second time in thirty years, having witnessed a massive—though many at the time thought necessary—shift of power to the executive branch, and having seen inflation and high taxes eat away at the prosperity that they anticipated would come from defeating the Axis powers, Americans were open to change in 1946. Government had grown rapidly in the period following the Great Crash, and the size of the federal government doubled in a scant three years from 1939 to 1942, ballooning to almost 2 million employees! More than 250,000 government workers lived in the Washington area alone, up from a mere 73,000 in 1932.

  The 1946 elections, in which Republicans ran against “big government, big labor, big regulation, and the New Deal’s links to communism” produced a rout in which the GOP captured control of both houses of Congress for the first time since before the Great Depression.1 Not only had the Republicans whipped the Democrats, but they also virtually annihilated the liberal wing of the Democratic machine, sending 37 of 69 liberal Democrats in Congress down to defeat, shattering the Left-laborite coalition that had sustained FDR.

  Part of the Republican victory could be attributed to the high taxes and heavy regulation imposed by the New Deal and the war. U.S. News & World Report’s headlines blared the handout era is over as the can-do attitude that characterized the war effort quickly replaced the helplessness of the New Deal.2 National security and communism also concerned the public. Shortly after Germany surrendered, the nation was shocked by the discovery that the magazine Amerasia had been passing highly classified documents to the Soviets. In June of 1945, the FBI traced the documents to a massive Soviet espionage ring in the United States.3 When word of that leaked, it gave credence to allegations that the Roosevelt administration had been soft on communists. Consequently, the Republican Congress came in, as Representative Clarence Brown put it, to “open with a prayer, and close with a probe.”4 Far from being paranoid, most Americans correctly perceived that Soviet espionage and domestic subversion was a serious a threat.

  President Harry Truman eventually made hay campaigning against the Republican “do-nothing Congress,” but in fact it did a great deal—just nothing that Truman liked. The Eightieth Congress passed the first balanced budget since the Great Crash; chopped taxes by nearly $5 billion (while at the same time exempting millions of low-income working-class Americans from taxation); quashed a socialist national health-care scheme; passed the Taft-Hartley freedom-to-work act over the president’s veto; and closed the Office of Price Administration, which had fixed prices since the beginning of the war. In a massive reorganization of government, Congress folded the departments of the army and navy into a new Department of Defense, and the National Security Act created the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) out of the former OSS. In international affairs, Congress funded the Marshall Plan and America’s commitment to the new North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations.

  An Atomic World

  In a sense, World War II did not end with the surrender of Germany in May 1945, or even of Japan in August 1945, but rather continued until the 1990s, when the Soviet communist state fell. The Second World War, after all, was a struggle between barbarism and civilization, and it only moved from an active heated battle in 1945 into a quieter, but equally dangerous phase thereafter. Indeed, instead of a true two-sided conflict, World War II had been a triangular struggle pitting Hitler and his demonic allies in one corner, Stalin and his communist accomplices in another, and the Western democracies in a third. Keep in mind that until Hitler invaded Russia in 1941, he and Stalin w
ere de facto allies, and American communists, such as the American Peace Mobilization and the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), had lobbied hard for nonintervention.5

  Shaking off the shortsightedness of Roosevelt and other policy makers, by 1946 a few advisers in the Truman administration had recognized the dangers posed by an expansionist Soviet Union. Truman himself required more convincing. As late as 1945 the president had referred privately to Stalin as “a fine man who wanted to do the right thing”—this about a dictator whose mass murders had exceeded those of Hitler and Tojo combined.6 Stalin was, said Truman, “an honest man who is easy to get along with—who arrives at sound decisions.”7 Well before the Missourian spoke those words, however, this “fine man” had started work on a Soviet atomic bomb—developing the weapon in the middle of the Battle of Stalingrad, when it was apparent it could not be ready in time to assist in the destruction of Germany. Stalin was already looking ahead to the postwar world and his new enemies, the United States and Great Britain.8

  Over time, Truman formulated a different assessment of the Soviet dictator, recognizing the dangers posed by an expansionist Soviet Union. For the next forty-five years the ensuing cold war in many ways required more national commitment than was ever before seen in American history. By 1991 the Soviet system had collapsed, and the United States and the West could claim victory. In a sense, this constituted the unfinished conclusion of World War II’s struggle against tyranny. Victory had several architects, including Americans Harry Truman, George Kennan, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush as well as British allies Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.