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  Remembering Hiroshima: "My God, What Have We Done?"

Remembering Hiroshima "My God, What Have We Done?"

By Klaus Wiegrefe

Part 2: Next Page: The Hiroshima decision

The new man in the White House is a former judge from Missouri, then considered a backwoods state. To Truman's surprise, Roosevelt made him his vice-president in 1944. But Roosevelt, who had a firm grip on his Democratic Party, keeps his vice-president in the dark when it comes to key foreign policy decisions, and Truman only learns of the details of the Manhattan Project after the death of the revered wartime president.

Americans know Truman as an energetic and robust man, a great tactician on the domestic policy front. But Truman quickly realizes that he is a novice when it comes to being the leader of the Western world. "I would rather fire a battery of guns," he writes in his diary, "than lead a country." The president's only wartime experience stems from World War I, in which he served as an artillery captain in France.

Truman later justifies the dropping of the atom bombs by citing how many victims a landing in Japan would have claimed, and that his decision "saved the lives of half a million of our boys." In the spring of 1945, the Americans and the Japanese fight one of the bloodiest battles of World War II on the island of Okinawa. About 50,000 GIs -- almost a third of US forces deployed in the campaign -- are killed or wounded. Truman wants to make sure that a massacre of such proportions will never be repeated.

Scientists disagree, citing the US military's casualty projections from 1945, which are substantially lower. But even Truman's critics refuse to question the president's deep concern for the fate of the "boys." "Think of all the kids who won't be killed now. That's the most important thing," the man in the White House, clearly pleased, writes to his wife when Kremlin dictator Stalin indicates that he will comply with America's wishes and attack Japan in August 1945, a move that would significantly improve the prospects of a swift end to the war.

What choices did Truman have?

Does Truman have any alternatives to using the atom bomb? A naval blockade, for instance? The Japanese fleet has been destroyed, the country's weakened air defenses pose only a minor risk to US bombers, the weapons industry is in ruins, and the Japanese people are starving. Food shortages and outbreaks of disease would likely force Tokyo to capitulate by year's end.

Of course, many more Japanese would die in an invasion -- experts say a million -- than were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But, more importantly, an invasion scenario would run straight against the strengthening tide of public opinion. Japan's war cost 15 million Chinese, Koreans, Britons, Americans and Filipinos their lives in the Pacific theater and the American public wants a quick end to the war. No president would have been able to refrain from using a weapon on the grounds that it would save Japanese lives.

Truman's scientific advisors, including both Oppenheimer and Nobel Laureate Enrico Fermi, propose another alternative: bringing Tokyo's leadership to its senses with a demonstration blast. But there are many arguments against the plan. The Japanese air force, which would have to be notified, could shoot down the bomber that would be dropping the bomb, or the bomb itself could prove to be a dud. Instead of demonstrating American military might, the effort could end in humiliation. Moreover, the Japanese could take American prisoners of war to the detonation site.

Besides, at this point the scientists have only enough material for three bombs. One would be needed for a test explosion, and if the second were used for demonstration purposes, only one of the devices would remain. On June 16, Oppenheimer and the remaining scientists counsel the president not to pursue the demonstration option.

In the spring and summer of 1945, after US intelligence cracks the Japanese code, the Americans are able to intercept and read telegrams sent by the foreign ministry in Tokyo to the Japanese embassy in Moscow. The exchanges suggest to Truman that there is a small but growing number of officials and politicians in the Japanese imperial government who would consider ending the war. But Nippon's powerful military leaders reject all overtures, still hoping for victory or at least a conditional peace that will enable them to retain their power. They order their troops to engage in hand-to-hand combat in the event of an invasion and, if necessary, to kill women, children and the elderly and use the corpses as shields.

In mid-July, the Americans intercept a secret telex to the Japanese embassy in Moscow and learn that Emperor Hirohito wants Stalin to act as an intermediary in peace negotiations with the Allies. But, according to the decoded text, the Americans and the British would have to back down from their demand of "unconditional capitulation."

Hirohito fears for his throne, and rightfully so, since the Allies are thinking of abolishing the emperorship, which according to Japanese tradition, is God given. Indeed, some Japan experts in Washington see this as an essential condition for putting an end to Japanese militarism.

Opinions of Japan's intentions differ widely in Washington. Secretary of State Byrnes believes that after Pearl Harbor and the horrors of the war in the Pacific, the American public will reject any guarantee of Hirohito's political survival. And, he adds, wouldn't a softening of the US position merely reinforce the intransigence of the Japanese hardliners?

Stimson's Department of War is more interested in the fate of its troops: "There are a million GIs out there who couldn't care less if the emperor stays, as long it means they don't have to attack."

Truman initially favors Stimson's position. But, on July 17, the Allies, after emerging victorious in Europe, begin the Potsdam Conference. During the eight-day journey to Antwerp, Byrnes manages to gain the president's support for his plan.

America's junior partner, Churchill, argues in vain that the Japanese should be given the chance to "preserve their military honor." Churchill is concerned that there will be an American-British invasion, despite the bomb. Truman acidly replies that there can't be much left to preserve, especially after Pearl Harbor. After all, the Japanese attacked the US base in Hawaii without declaring war first.

On July 26, 1945, the Western powers give the administration in Tokyo a choice: risk "total devastation" of the country or surrender unconditionally. Truman notes in his diary: "I am certain that they will not do it, but we must give them the chance."

Truman's hunch proves to be correct. At a press conference, Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki announces that the Allied proposal is untrustworthy, and that "for this reason we will ignore it."

Was the atomic bomb necessary

There has been much dispute over whether Truman, with his unwillingness to compromise, lost the opportunity to achieve victory without resorting to the atom bomb. After all, the offer of capitulation while preserving the monarchy would have strengthened the position of those in favor of peace in Tokyo. But the question also arises as to why Hirohito turned to Stalin. Does this suggest that the emperor of Japan was merely testing the fortitude of the anti-Hitler coalition?

The fact that it took dropping a second atom bomb over Nagasaki in August, as well as the Soviet invasion of Japan, to convince Hirohito to stand up to his military leaders reinforces doubts that an offer of compromise from Potsdam one month earlier would have been very effective.

Just before the conference is set to begin in the former Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam, Truman still doesn't know whether the atom bomb will work.

The first test in New Mexico's Alamogordo Desert is planned for July 16. That evening, Secretary of War Stimson receives telegram number 32,887 at his villa in a Berlin suburb: "Operated on this morning. Diagnosis not yet complete but results seem satisfactory and already exceed expectations."

The full report takes a few days to reach Potsdam, but by then the US president is already "a different man," as Churchill observes. According to Churchill, Truman is now "decisively" contradicting Stalin.

When US military officials inform their president that the first bomb can be dropped earlier than expected -- by early August -- the American commander-in-chief is "very excited." On July 31, 1945, he gives the following order: "Release when ready."

Should Truman have waited? Wouldn't the Japanese capitulation have fallen into his lap if he had simply waited for the Soviets to attack, as Stalin had already promised?

All leading Japan experts agree that Moscow's behavior is tremendously important to Tokyo. Even the most narrow-minded Japanese generals know that if they are invaded by the Red Army, they can no longer expect even a negotiated peace. In this respect, it is not just the Americans who are threatening the existence of the royal family. And it's also clear that the emperor, if attacked by the Red Army, will prefer to surrender to Washington -- which is precisely what happens.

Truman is well aware of the ramifications. Writing in his diary about the possibility of the Soviets entering the war in Asia, Truman notes: "Fini Japs" -- the end of the Japanese. Of course, the US president would have had to give his ally, Stalin, the right to participate in the US decision, which is something the American wants to avoid at all costs: "I was not willing to hand over to the Russians the fruits of a long and bitter and courageous fight, a fight in which they had not participated."

To impress Stalin with the super-bomb, Truman lets his opponent in on his plans while still in Potsdam. On the evening of July 24, following a plenary session in the ballroom at Cecilienhof, he tells Stalin, somewhat cryptically, that the Americans have "a new weapon of unusual destructive force." The Soviet premier reacts as if he were pleased, and advises the Americans to "make good use" of the explosive device. The phrase "atom bomb" is never used.

Truman is surprised that the dictator shows so little interest. But, as it turns out, Stalin already knows about the American bomb. A number of scientists who sympathize with the communist anti-fascists in Moscow have already leaked information about the Manhattan Project to Soviet intelligence. Top spy Klaus Fuchs, a communist who has emigrated from Berlin, even took part in the Americans' first test of the bomb in New Mexico. Indeed, Stalin has been pursuing his own atom bomb project for some time prior to the Potsdam Conference.

As Japanese historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa reveals in a brilliant new study, a macabre race begins in the first weeks of August 1945. Stalin is worried that the Japanese could capitulate after the Americans drop their bomb -- before the Soviets have had a chance to enter the war in Asia -- which would deprive him of his claims on Japan.

Ever since the Germans capitulated in the night before May 9, 1945, the Soviet dictator has ordered more than a million troops moved from Europe to the Far East, in a massive effort in which 136,000 rail cars -- up to 30 trains a day -- travel eastward along the single-track Trans-Siberian Railroad. In response to Truman's disclosure, Stalin decides to move up the Soviet invasion of Japanese-occupied Manchuria, originally planned for late August, by two weeks.

The flight of the 'Enola Gay'

But the Americans are unstoppable. In early August, US Colonel Tibbets, a member of the special force assembled for the mission, waits on the South Pacific island of Tinian for a typhoon raging in southern Japan to move out to sea. Tibbets is determined to pilot the plane himself, and he names the aircraft "Enola Gay," after his mother.

Tibbets and his team of about 80 men are forced to wait patiently in their barracks for five days -- until August 6, 1945 -- when, at 1:45 a.m. Japanese time, the mission begins.

There are several targets on Tibbets' list. At the very top is "Hiroshima, urban industrial region." Kokura and Nagasaki are listed as alternate targets. An advance contingent of three B-29 bombers takes off to scout out weather conditions and the strength of Japanese air defenses over the target cities. Later, when the "Enola Gay" takes off, it's accompanied by two other aircraft, while another B-29 remains behind as a replacement.

At 7:25 a.m., the weather scout over Hiroshima transmits the following decisive report: "Cloud cover less than three-tenths at all flying altitudes." At 8:15 a.m., "Little Boy" detonates about 600 meters above what is today the Otemachi parking lot No. 3 at Shima Hospital. A hospital also stood on the same spot in 1945. The building is completely destroyed, the patients vaporized.

Earlier, Truman had noted that the new weapon "may bring about the conflagration that was prophesied in the era of the Euphrates Valley, after Noah and his legendary Ark." And that was precisely what happened.

Since those fateful days in early August 1945, the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been considered by many as Adolf Hitler's last victims. Without the Nazis' rise to political power in Germany, the Szilards, Tellers and Einsteins would not have emigrated. Without Hitler, the Americans would never have built the bomb. And if the war in Europe hadn't ended in May 1945, Tibbets' "Little Boy" would probably have been dropped on Berlin, Hamburg or Munich.

It is one of the paradoxical twists of world history that the Germans were able to benefit, only a few years later, from the existence of those weapons that were originally intended for the "Third Reich." Because of the memory of Hiroshima, the border between West and East Germany became one of the most stable segments of the Cold War front -- until, in 1989, East Germans took to the streets and brought down the ruling SED, or Socialist Unity Party.

On the day the Berlin Wall came down, more than 1.2 million NATO and Warsaw Pact troops stood facing one another along the entire border between the two Germanys, from Flensburg in the north to Berchtesgaden in the south. Tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, together millions of times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, could have destroyed the entire world, and certainly Germany.

But not a single shot was fired.

That, too, is part of the legacy of Hiroshima.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan