The Nuking of Nagasaki: Even More Immoral and Unnecessary than Hiroshima

[sparky]

Some people continue to claim that the Japanese peace feelers in the months leading up to Hiroshima were all meaningless low-level approaches with no high-level support. In fact, this is a standard talking point among authors who defend the nuking of Japan. However, there are government records and plenty of scholarly studies that refute this claim. I will summarize some of the facts documented in those records and scholarship. These peace feelers, and others, are discussed in detail by John Toland in The Rising Sun, by Lester Brooks in Behind Japan’s Surrender, and by Gar Alperovitz in The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb.

-- Very few books on WWII mention the fact that in May 1945, Radio Tokyo’s English-language broadcast, which operated under government supervision, stated that if the Americans would drop their demand for unconditional surrender, Japan’s leaders might be willing to enter into negotiations to end the war (Marco Heinrichs and Galliccio, Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944-1945, Oxford University Press, 2017, p. 15). This was an astounding statement to be aired on a radio station monitored by all the Allies and by much of Asia. However, Truman and his Japan-hating Secretary of State, James Byrnes, ignored it.

-- In April 1945, none other than Mamoru Shigemitsu, Japan’s Foreign Minister at the time, approached the Swedish minister to Japan and asked if Sweden would be willing to mediate a surrender agreement with the U.S. Now, I would say that a peace feeler done by Japan’s Foreign Minister was both official and very high level.

Shigemitsu’s effort did not succeed, but that was only because his successor, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, believed that a more powerful intermediary should be approached. Togo did not object to the approach on principle, but only to the proposed intermediary. Togo suggested that the Soviets be approached to mediate a surrender with the U.S.

-- Another peace feeler was carried out in Berne, Switzerland, by Yoshiro Fujimura, the Japanese naval attache in Berne, and had the backing of Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai, the Navy Minister; General Shuichi Miyazaki, the Chief of Operations; and Admiral Sokichi Takagi, who even offered to fly to Switzerland to open formal negotiations. On May 3, three months before Hiroshima, Dr. Heck, the German intermediary in the approach, was informed by the office of Allen Dulles that the U.S. State Department had authorized direct negotiations with the Fujimura group. Allen Dulles was the head of the OSS office in Switzerland and had numerous high connections, including in the White House.

Fujimura contacted the Navy Ministry and made them aware of his negotiations with the Dulles people. On May 23, the Navy Ministry sent Fujimura a reply, signed by the Navy Minister: the ministry advised him to be cautious but did not shut down the approach.

Yonai then informed Foreign Minister Togo of the negotiations, and Togo authorized Yonai to have the Fujimura group explore the Dulles proposal more thoroughly.

So the claim that the approach to Dulles was some meaningless low-level effort that had no backing in Tokyo is demonstrably incorrect. The hardliners eventually succeeded in killing the Fujimura approach to Dulles, but it was not a meaningless effort with no high-level support. In addition, the hardliners would not have been able to kill it if Truman, or a high official at Truman’s direction, had simply advised the Japanese that we would not depose the emperor if they surrendered according to the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.

We know that on June 4, two months before Hiroshima, Truman received a report on this peace feeler. The report stated that the Fujimura people “particularly stress” the need to maintain the emperor in any surrender in order “to avoid Communism and chaos.” The report added that Fujimura had emphasized the fact that Japan could no longer supply herself with “essential foodstuffs,” i.e., the people were beginning to starve.

On June 22, Truman received another memo on the Fujimura-Dulles peace talks. The memo advised him that “Fujimura insists that the Japanese, before surrendering, would require assurances that the Emperor would be retained.”

So Truman knew, long before Hiroshima, that the only real obstacle to a surrender was his refusal to assure the Japanese that the emperor would not be deposed if they surrendered.

-- The second peace feeler in Switzerland involved General Seigo Okamoto, the Japanese military attache in Berne, and two Japanese officials at the International Bank of Settlements in Basel, in July 1945. Not only was Okamoto a general and the head of the Japanese attache office in Berne, he was a close friend of General Yoshijiru Omezu’s, the Japanese Army Chief of Staff. This feeler also involved Per Jacobsson, a Swiss bank director. This was not Jacobsson’s first involvement with back-door peace negotiations: he had persuaded De Valera to negotiate with the British in 1935.

This approach was made to Gero Gaevernitz, Dulles’s second-in-command, and to Dulles himself. Gaevernitz was no stranger to back-door negotiations either: he had recently masterminded the surrender of all German forces in Italy.

When Jacobsson met with Dulles and Gaevernitz, he told them that the Japanese moderates were doing their best to bring about a surrender but that the Allied demand for unconditional surrender was greatly helping the hardliners. Jacobsson further told Dulles that the only real Japanese condition for surrender was that the emperor not be deposed. Following this meeting, Dulles placed a call to Potsdam.

We also know that on July 13, nearly a month before Hiroshima, Dulles sent a message about his contact with Jacobsson to Potsdam in which he advised that it had been indicated to him that “the only condition on which Japan would insist with respect to surrender would be some consideration for the Japanese Imperial family.”

William Donovan, the head of the OSS, sent a follow-up message to Truman on July 16 about the Dulles-Jacobsson meeting and stated that Jacobsson advised that Japanese officials had stressed only two conditions for surrender, namely, that the emperor be retained and that there be the “possibility” of retaining the Meiji Constitution.

-- Furthermore, Emperor Hirohito himself authorized the effort to get the Soviets to mediate a surrender with the U.S., and Truman was aware of this fact from Foreign Minister Togo’s July 12 cable. Hirohito even wanted to send Prince Konoye to Moscow as a special envoy to get the Soviets to mediate a surrender deal with the U.S. I’d say that a peace feeler pushed by the Foreign Minister and strongly backed by Emperor Hirohito was about as substantial, official, and high ranking as you could get.

Incidentally, the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Historian website includes an article on the Japanese peace feelers, and it documents that American high officials were aware of these efforts:

The contents of certain of these papers [Japanese messages and memos about the peace feelers] were known to United States officials in Washington, however, as early as July 13 (see Walter Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries(New York, 1951), page 74; cf. pages 75–76) and information on Japanese peace maneuvers was received by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson at Babelsberg on July 16 (see volume II, document No. 1236, footnote 4). It has also been determined that a series of messages of Japanese origin on this subject was received by the United States Delegation during the course of the Berlin Conference and that these messages were circulated at Babelsberg to some members of the President’s party. Furthermore, in a conference on January 24, 1956, between Truman and members of his staff and Department of State historians, Truman supplied the information that he was familiar with the contents of the first Japanese peace feeler (i.e., the proposal contained in document No. 582) before Stalin mentioned it to him at Babelsberg (see volume II, page 87) and that he was familiar with the contents of the second Japanese peace feeler (i.e., the approach reported in document No. 1234) before Stalin brought it to the attention of Truman and Attlee at the Tenth Plenary Meeting of the Berlin Conference on July 28 (see volume II, page 460).​

I find your posts far more informative than that through the lense of racism Mike

~S~

 

[elektra]

Ha, ha, ha, now the liberal cry babies that can not face the truth are saying we who know the truth and expose the truth, are racists. I will tell that to my Japanese daughter.

New Kyushu museum breaks taboo with POW vivisection display | The Japan Times

New Kyushu museum breaks taboo with POW vivisection display
Kyodo

FUKUOKA – A new medical history museum in Fukuoka faced the area’s dark wartime past on Saturday by using its grand opening to finally address the infamous live dissections of U.S. prisoners of war that took place at Kyushu University’s medical school.

 

[elektra]

Some people continue to claim that the Japanese peace feelers in the months leading up to Hiroshima were all meaningless low-level approaches with no high-level support. In fact, this is a standard talking point among authors who defend the nuking of Japan. However, there are government records and plenty of scholarly studies that refute this claim. I will summarize some of the facts documented in those records and scholarship. These peace feelers, and others, are discussed in detail by John Toland in The Rising Sun, by Lester Brooks in Behind Japan’s Surrender, and by Gar Alperovitz in The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb.

-- Very few books on WWII mention the fact that in May 1945, Radio Tokyo’s English-language broadcast, which operated under government supervision, stated that if the Americans would drop their demand for unconditional surrender, Japan’s leaders might be willing to enter into negotiations to end the war (Marco Heinrichs and Galliccio, Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944-1945, Oxford University Press, 2017, p. 15). This was an astounding statement to be aired on a radio station monitored by all the Allies and by much of Asia. However, Truman and his Japan-hating Secretary of State, James Byrnes, ignored it.

-- In April 1945, none other than Mamoru Shigemitsu, Japan’s Foreign Minister at the time, approached the Swedish minister to Japan and asked if Sweden would be willing to mediate a surrender agreement with the U.S. Now, I would say that a peace feeler done by Japan’s Foreign Minister was both official and very high level.

Shigemitsu’s effort did not succeed, but that was only because his successor, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, believed that a more powerful intermediary should be approached. Togo did not object to the approach on principle, but only to the proposed intermediary. Togo suggested that the Soviets be approached to mediate a surrender with the U.S.

-- Another peace feeler was carried out in Berne, Switzerland, by Yoshiro Fujimura, the Japanese naval attache in Berne, and had the backing of Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai, the Navy Minister; General Shuichi Miyazaki, the Chief of Operations; and Admiral Sokichi Takagi, who even offered to fly to Switzerland to open formal negotiations. On May 3, three months before Hiroshima, Dr. Heck, the German intermediary in the approach, was informed by the office of Allen Dulles that the U.S. State Department had authorized direct negotiations with the Fujimura group. Allen Dulles was the head of the OSS office in Switzerland and had numerous high connections, including in the White House.

Fujimura contacted the Navy Ministry and made them aware of his negotiations with the Dulles people. On May 23, the Navy Ministry sent Fujimura a reply, signed by the Navy Minister: the ministry advised him to be cautious but did not shut down the approach.

Yonai then informed Foreign Minister Togo of the negotiations, and Togo authorized Yonai to have the Fujimura group explore the Dulles proposal more thoroughly.

So the claim that the approach to Dulles was some meaningless low-level effort that had no backing in Tokyo is demonstrably incorrect. The hardliners eventually succeeded in killing the Fujimura approach to Dulles, but it was not a meaningless effort with no high-level support. In addition, the hardliners would not have been able to kill it if Truman, or a high official at Truman’s direction, had simply advised the Japanese that we would not depose the emperor if they surrendered according to the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.

We know that on June 4, two months before Hiroshima, Truman received a report on this peace feeler. The report stated that the Fujimura people “particularly stress” the need to maintain the emperor in any surrender in order “to avoid Communism and chaos.” The report added that Fujimura had emphasized the fact that Japan could no longer supply herself with “essential foodstuffs,” i.e., the people were beginning to starve.

On June 22, Truman received another memo on the Fujimura-Dulles peace talks. The memo advised him that “Fujimura insists that the Japanese, before surrendering, would require assurances that the Emperor would be retained.”

So Truman knew, long before Hiroshima, that the only real obstacle to a surrender was his refusal to assure the Japanese that the emperor would not be deposed if they surrendered.

-- The second peace feeler in Switzerland involved General Seigo Okamoto, the Japanese military attache in Berne, and two Japanese officials at the International Bank of Settlements in Basel, in July 1945. Not only was Okamoto a general and the head of the Japanese attache office in Berne, he was a close friend of General Yoshijiru Omezu’s, the Japanese Army Chief of Staff. This feeler also involved Per Jacobsson, a Swiss bank director. This was not Jacobsson’s first involvement with back-door peace negotiations: he had persuaded De Valera to negotiate with the British in 1935.

This approach was made to Gero Gaevernitz, Dulles’s second-in-command, and to Dulles himself. Gaevernitz was no stranger to back-door negotiations either: he had recently masterminded the surrender of all German forces in Italy.

When Jacobsson met with Dulles and Gaevernitz, he told them that the Japanese moderates were doing their best to bring about a surrender but that the Allied demand for unconditional surrender was greatly helping the hardliners. Jacobsson further told Dulles that the only real Japanese condition for surrender was that the emperor not be deposed. Following this meeting, Dulles placed a call to Potsdam.

We also know that on July 13, nearly a month before Hiroshima, Dulles sent a message about his contact with Jacobsson to Potsdam in which he advised that it had been indicated to him that “the only condition on which Japan would insist with respect to surrender would be some consideration for the Japanese Imperial family.”

William Donovan, the head of the OSS, sent a follow-up message to Truman on July 16 about the Dulles-Jacobsson meeting and stated that Jacobsson advised that Japanese officials had stressed only two conditions for surrender, namely, that the emperor be retained and that there be the “possibility” of retaining the Meiji Constitution.

-- Furthermore, Emperor Hirohito himself authorized the effort to get the Soviets to mediate a surrender with the U.S., and Truman was aware of this fact from Foreign Minister Togo’s July 12 cable. Hirohito even wanted to send Prince Konoye to Moscow as a special envoy to get the Soviets to mediate a surrender deal with the U.S. I’d say that a peace feeler pushed by the Foreign Minister and strongly backed by Emperor Hirohito was about as substantial, official, and high ranking as you could get.

Incidentally, the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Historian website includes an article on the Japanese peace feelers, and it documents that American high officials were aware of these efforts:

The contents of certain of these papers [Japanese messages and memos about the peace feelers] were known to United States officials in Washington, however, as early as July 13 (see Walter Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries(New York, 1951), page 74; cf. pages 75–76) and information on Japanese peace maneuvers was received by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson at Babelsberg on July 16 (see volume II, document No. 1236, footnote 4). It has also been determined that a series of messages of Japanese origin on this subject was received by the United States Delegation during the course of the Berlin Conference and that these messages were circulated at Babelsberg to some members of the President’s party. Furthermore, in a conference on January 24, 1956, between Truman and members of his staff and Department of State historians, Truman supplied the information that he was familiar with the contents of the first Japanese peace feeler (i.e., the proposal contained in document No. 582) before Stalin mentioned it to him at Babelsberg (see volume II, page 87) and that he was familiar with the contents of the second Japanese peace feeler (i.e., the approach reported in document No. 1234) before Stalin brought it to the attention of Truman and Attlee at the Tenth Plenary Meeting of the Berlin Conference on July 28 (see volume II, page 460).​

A japanese general talking to bankers in switzerland, a japanese general that was not speaking with the emperor? A japanese general with no official connection anybody associated with the emperor? He was speaking to bankers? Who were to get in touch with Dulles? In the middle of the Potsdam conference? This low level general was not in communication with tyoko? We were to take a japanese general talking to bankers in switzerland serious?

And while this was going on, Japan was attempting to negotiate with the russians, who were simply ignoring the japanese, and or leading them on.

These were pathetic attempts at surrender, one not even close to being official, the other involved russia? And yes there was the third? Maybe?

Well, we do know that no condition of surrender ever stated that the emperor had to step down, and that is what the emperor himself stated, when surrendering, that we had not demanded such.

The emperor also knew, that we had not bombed his palace, sparing his life, when we could of on numerous occasions.

 

[toobfreak]

... people were looting

Link?

Link yourself. .....

Yeah, I thought so.

You thought WHAT Uncle Poopyface? That you talk shit all day long but never back up a thing you ever say with any links, proof or evidence? One webpage ostensibly coming out against the bombing with alleged quotes (obviously) from people saying they were against it? Wow. Yeah, we all know so.

 

[toobfreak]

inda stings to have outed yourself so fucking completely, huh? Maybe you'll do better on another thread. Good luck.

Fuck of, drippy poop. First your claims that Bushido code on the military and civilians of Japan PROVEN WRONG, liar. Then your other lie that "civilians" in Japan were like regular civilians elsewhere PROVEN WRONG, Drippy Pants. The only thing funnier than all your lies is your constant deflection from even admitting to them!

Oh yeah, I can feel your embarrassment from here.

No, that's just the drippy poop running down your leg.

 

[toobfreak]

... people were looting

Link?

People were also wounded and dying and rats were feeding on the bodies of the dead. Nuking them would have fixed all this

Link?

Nuclear blast cure all disease

Trust me

Trust you? Why? That last comment was completely wrong.

Trust you? Completely wrong? Man, I don't trust anything you proffer any farther than I can fling shit. You argue like a White Man's IM2.

 

[toobfreak]

inda stings to have outed yourself so fucking completely, huh? Maybe you'll do better on another thread. Good luck.

Fuck of, drippy poop. First your claims that Bushido code on the military and civilians of Japan PROVEN WRONG, liar. Then your other lie that "civilians" in Japan were like regular civilians elsewhere PROVEN WRONG, Drippy Pants. The only thing funnier than all your lies is your constant deflection from even admitting to them!

Oh yeah, I can feel your embarrassment from here.

That's your chicken you are choking

He has no chicken. All he's got is a little peep.

 

[elektra]

That post hadn't even been addressed to me in the first place. It's a simple dilution of what his post actually says, that's it.
"Buy my Appeal to Emotion, or I'll beat the shit out of you". Not exactly anything remotely near logical argument. QED.

Again ---- reading comprehension.

Ah yes, we see you consider yourself an elite intellectual snob.

A dilution of what the post says? No dumbass, it was not a dilution. I simply mangled the words so that post said something different.

No, what he said is you got the shit beat out of you by a third grader wielding a nutshell, that is why you are so stupid. Put some ice on that brain damage.

It is called, satire, yes, SATIRE. And yes, reading comprehension is important. We dont expect any from you, you read much into a post that you paraphrased in a nefarious manner. That is why I used satire to point out how stupid your post was.

Your quote:

So in a nutshell what you're saying here is "buy my Appeal to Emotion or I'll beat the shit out of you

Get it now?

 

[Frannie]

... people were looting

Link?

Link yourself. .....

Yeah, I thought so.

You thought WHAT Uncle Poopyface? That you talk shit all day long but never back up a thing you ever say with any links, proof or evidence? One webpage ostensibly coming out against the bombing with alleged quotes (obviously) from people saying they were against it? Wow. Yeah, we all know so.

Yakushima seems frustrated.

 

[mikegriffith1]

In 1995, under pressure from some members of Congress and the leaders of some veterans groups, the Smithsonian Institution canceled its planned exhibit on the Enola Gay and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When the first text of the exhibit was released, leaders of certain veterans groups and some members of Congress expressed outrage over many of its statements and claimed that the exhibit dishonored Pacific War veterans and whitewashed Japan’s role in the war. The text was actually very balanced, and in fact it pulled many valid punches that could have been thrown, but it was too much for the critics. Moreover, even after the Smithsonian issued a watered-down revision, defenders of the nuking of Japan still were not satisfied, so eventually the decision was made to cancel the exhibit.

The open letter below was written to the Smithsonian’s secretary, Michael Heyman, to protest the revised version of the exhibit’s text. The letter was signed by scholars from leading universities, including Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Ohio State, and MIT:

Mr. I. Michael Heyman
Secretary
The Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D.C. 20560

July 31, 1995

Dear Secretary Heyman:

Testifying before a House subcommittee on March 10, 1995, you promised that when you finally unveiled the Enola Gay exhibit, "I am just going to report the facts."[1]

Unfortunately, the Enola Gay exhibit contains a text which goes far beyond the facts. The critical label at the heart of the exhibit makes the following assertions:

* The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki "destroyed much of the two cities and caused many tens of thousands of deaths." This substantially understates the widely accepted figure that at least 200,000 men, women and children were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Official Japanese records calculate a figure of more than 200,000 deaths--the vast majority of victims being women, children and elderly men.)[2]

* "However," claims the Smithsonian, "the use of the bombs led to the immediate surrender of Japan and made unnecessary the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands." Presented as fact, this sentence is actually a highly contentious interpretation. For example, an April 30, 1946 study by the War Department's Military Intelligence Division concluded, "The war would almost certainly have terminated when Russia entered the war against Japan."[3] (The Soviet entry into the war on August 8th is not even mentioned in the exhibit as a major factor in the Japanese surrender.) And it is also a fact that even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed, the Japanese still insisted that Emperor Hirohito be allowed to remain emperor as a condition of surrender. Only when that assurance was given did the Japanese agree to surrender. This was precisely the clarification of surrender terms that many of Truman's own top advisors had urged on him in the months prior to Hiroshima. This, too, is a widely known fact.[4]

* The Smithsonian's label also takes the highly partisan view that, "It was thought highly unlikely that Japan, while in a very weakened military condition, would have surrendered unconditionally without such an invasion." Nowhere in the exhibit is this interpretation balanced by other views. Visitors to the exhibit will not learn that many U.S. leaders--including Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower[5], Admiral William D. Leahy[6], War Secretary Henry L. Stimson[7], Acting Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew[8] and Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy[9]--thought it highly probable that the Japanese would surrender well before the earliest possible invasion, scheduled for November 1945. It is spurious to assert as fact that obliterating Hiroshima in August was needed to obviate an invasion in November. This is interpretation--the very thing you said would be banned from the exhibit.

* In yet another label, the Smithsonian asserts as fact that "Special leaflets were then dropped on Japanese cities three days before a bombing raid to warn civilians to evacuate." The very next sentence refers to the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, implying that the civilian inhabitants of Hiroshima were given a warning. In fact, no evidence has ever been uncovered that leaflets warning of atomic attack were dropped on Hiroshima. Indeed, the decision of the Interim Committee was "that we could not give the Japanese any warning."[10]

* In a 16 minute video film in which the crew of the Enola Gay are allowed to speak at length about why they believe the atomic bombings were justified, pilot Col. Paul Tibbits asserts that Hiroshima was "definitely a military objective." Nowhere in the exhibit is this false assertion balanced by contrary information. Hiroshima was chosen as a target precisely because it had been very low on the previous spring's campaign of conventional bombing, and therefore was a pristine target on which to measure the destructive powers of the atomic bomb.[11] Defining Hiroshima as a "military" target is analogous to calling San Francisco a "military" target because it has a port and contains the Presidio. James Conant, a member of the Interim Committee that advised President Truman, defined the target for the bomb as a "vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers' houses."[12] There were indeed military factories in Hiroshima, but they lay on the outskirts of the city. Nevertheless, the Enola Gay bombardier's instructions were to target the bomb on the center of this civilian city.

The few words in the exhibit that attempt to provide some historical context for viewing the Enola Gay amount to a highly unbalanced and one-sided presentation of a largely discredited post-war justification of the atomic bombings.

Such errors of fact and such tendentious interpretation in the exhibit are no doubt partly the result of your decision earlier this year to take this exhibit out of the hands of professional curators and your own board of historical advisors. Accepting your stated concerns for accuracy, we trust that you will therefore adjust the exhibit, either to eliminate the highly contentious interpretations, or at the very least, balance them with other interpretations that can be easily drawn from the attached footnotes.

Sincerely,

Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin
Co-chairs of the Historians' Committee for Open Debate on Hiroshima

(see the attached sheet for additional signatories)
References

1. "Enola Gay Exhibit to 'Report the Facts,'" Washington Times, March 11, 1995.

2. Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings, (New York: Basic Books, 1981), p. 364.

3. "Memorandum for Chief, Strategic Policy Section, S&P Group, OPD, Subject: Use of the Atomic Bomb on Japan," April 30, 1946, ABC 471.6 Atom (17 August 1945) Sec 7, Entry 421, Record Group 165, National Archives.

4. Joseph C. Grew, Turbulent Era: A Diplomatic Record of Forty Years 1904-1945, Vol. II (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1952), pp. 1406-1442; U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Japan's Struggle to End the War (Washington, July 1946); Gar Alperovitz, "Hiroshima: Historians Reassess," Foreign Policy, Summer 1995, pp. 15-34; and, Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and the Origins of the Arms Race, rev. ed. (New York, Random House, 1987), p. 225.

5. See "Notes on talk with President Eisenhower," April 6, 1960, War Department Notes envelope, Box 66, Herbert Feis Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Division; and, Gen. Andrew Goodpaster, "Memorandum of Conference with the President, April 6, 1960," April 11, 1960, "Staff Notes--April 1960," Folder 2, DDE Diary Series, Box 49, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library; and also, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 1953-1956 (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc.), pp. 312-313.

6. William D. Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, Based on His Notes and Diaries Made at the Time, (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1950), p. 441. See also his private diary (in particular the June 18, 1945 entry) available at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.

7. Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947, 1948), pp. 628-629.

8. Joseph C. Grew, Turbulent Era, pp. 1406-1442; Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 225.

9. See John J. McCloy interview with Fred Freed for NBC White Paper, "The Decision to Drop the Bomb," (interview conducted sometime between May 1964 and February 1965), Roll 1, p. 11, File 50A, Box SP2, McCloy Papers, Amherst College Archives.

10. Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, see Appendix L, "Notes of the Interim Committee Meeting, May 31, 1945," p. 302.

11. The papers of Gen. Leslie R. Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, are filled with his statements to the effect that he wanted a virgin target large enough so that the effects of the bomb would not dissipate by the time they reached the edge of the city. See for example the letter from Groves to John A. Shane, 12/27/60 on target selection, in the Groves Papers, Record Group 200, National Archives. See also, Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 229-230.

12. Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, see Appendix L, "Notes of the Interim Committee Meeting, May 31, 1945," p. 302.​

If you want to read the list of scholars who signed the letter, here is a link to the full letter:

Hiroshima: Historians' Letter to the Smithsonian

 

[Unkotare]

This was not addressed to me, but I will point out that, in point of fact, the Russians did invade Japan: they attacked the Kurile Islands, which had been part of Japan for some 80 years. The first attack brought on the Battle of Shumshu, where the Japanese put up stiff resistance for a while but then collapsed once the Soviets were able to use their naval guns and bring in air support when the weather cleared. Once the Soviets overran the rest of the Japanese forces on the islands, they proceeded to expel the 17,000 Japanese citizens who lived on them.

Russia attacked some tiny islands, so what, that was not japan ...?

Not so “tiny,” and yes it was/is.

 

[Unkotare]

Some people continue to claim that the Japanese peace feelers in the months leading up to Hiroshima were all meaningless low-level approaches with no high-level support. In fact, this is a standard talking point among authors who defend the nuking of Japan. However, there are government records and plenty of scholarly studies that refute this claim. I will summarize some of the facts documented in those records and scholarship. These peace feelers, and others, are discussed in detail by John Toland in The Rising Sun, by Lester Brooks in Behind Japan’s Surrender, and by Gar Alperovitz in The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb.

-- Very few books on WWII mention the fact that in May 1945, Radio Tokyo’s English-language broadcast, which operated under government supervision, stated that if the Americans would drop their demand for unconditional surrender, Japan’s leaders might be willing to enter into negotiations to end the war (Marco Heinrichs and Galliccio, Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944-1945, Oxford University Press, 2017, p. 15). This was an astounding statement to be aired on a radio station monitored by all the Allies and by much of Asia. However, Truman and his Japan-hating Secretary of State, James Byrnes, ignored it.

-- In April 1945, none other than Mamoru Shigemitsu, Japan’s Foreign Minister at the time, approached the Swedish minister to Japan and asked if Sweden would be willing to mediate a surrender agreement with the U.S. Now, I would say that a peace feeler done by Japan’s Foreign Minister was both official and very high level.

Shigemitsu’s effort did not succeed, but that was only because his successor, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, believed that a more powerful intermediary should be approached. Togo did not object to the approach on principle, but only to the proposed intermediary. Togo suggested that the Soviets be approached to mediate a surrender with the U.S.

-- Another peace feeler was carried out in Berne, Switzerland, by Yoshiro Fujimura, the Japanese naval attache in Berne, and had the backing of Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai, the Navy Minister; General Shuichi Miyazaki, the Chief of Operations; and Admiral Sokichi Takagi, who even offered to fly to Switzerland to open formal negotiations. On May 3, three months before Hiroshima, Dr. Heck, the German intermediary in the approach, was informed by the office of Allen Dulles that the U.S. State Department had authorized direct negotiations with the Fujimura group. Allen Dulles was the head of the OSS office in Switzerland and had numerous high connections, including in the White House.

Fujimura contacted the Navy Ministry and made them aware of his negotiations with the Dulles people. On May 23, the Navy Ministry sent Fujimura a reply, signed by the Navy Minister: the ministry advised him to be cautious but did not shut down the approach.

Yonai then informed Foreign Minister Togo of the negotiations, and Togo authorized Yonai to have the Fujimura group explore the Dulles proposal more thoroughly.

So the claim that the approach to Dulles was some meaningless low-level effort that had no backing in Tokyo is demonstrably incorrect. The hardliners eventually succeeded in killing the Fujimura approach to Dulles, but it was not a meaningless effort with no high-level support. In addition, the hardliners would not have been able to kill it if Truman, or a high official at Truman’s direction, had simply advised the Japanese that we would not depose the emperor if they surrendered according to the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.

We know that on June 4, two months before Hiroshima, Truman received a report on this peace feeler. The report stated that the Fujimura people “particularly stress” the need to maintain the emperor in any surrender in order “to avoid Communism and chaos.” The report added that Fujimura had emphasized the fact that Japan could no longer supply herself with “essential foodstuffs,” i.e., the people were beginning to starve.

On June 22, Truman received another memo on the Fujimura-Dulles peace talks. The memo advised him that “Fujimura insists that the Japanese, before surrendering, would require assurances that the Emperor would be retained.”

So Truman knew, long before Hiroshima, that the only real obstacle to a surrender was his refusal to assure the Japanese that the emperor would not be deposed if they surrendered.

-- The second peace feeler in Switzerland involved General Seigo Okamoto, the Japanese military attache in Berne, and two Japanese officials at the International Bank of Settlements in Basel, in July 1945. Not only was Okamoto a general and the head of the Japanese attache office in Berne, he was a close friend of General Yoshijiru Omezu’s, the Japanese Army Chief of Staff. This feeler also involved Per Jacobsson, a Swiss bank director. This was not Jacobsson’s first involvement with back-door peace negotiations: he had persuaded De Valera to negotiate with the British in 1935.

This approach was made to Gero Gaevernitz, Dulles’s second-in-command, and to Dulles himself. Gaevernitz was no stranger to back-door negotiations either: he had recently masterminded the surrender of all German forces in Italy.

When Jacobsson met with Dulles and Gaevernitz, he told them that the Japanese moderates were doing their best to bring about a surrender but that the Allied demand for unconditional surrender was greatly helping the hardliners. Jacobsson further told Dulles that the only real Japanese condition for surrender was that the emperor not be deposed. Following this meeting, Dulles placed a call to Potsdam.

We also know that on July 13, nearly a month before Hiroshima, Dulles sent a message about his contact with Jacobsson to Potsdam in which he advised that it had been indicated to him that “the only condition on which Japan would insist with respect to surrender would be some consideration for the Japanese Imperial family.”

William Donovan, the head of the OSS, sent a follow-up message to Truman on July 16 about the Dulles-Jacobsson meeting and stated that Jacobsson advised that Japanese officials had stressed only two conditions for surrender, namely, that the emperor be retained and that there be the “possibility” of retaining the Meiji Constitution.

-- Furthermore, Emperor Hirohito himself authorized the effort to get the Soviets to mediate a surrender with the U.S., and Truman was aware of this fact from Foreign Minister Togo’s July 12 cable. Hirohito even wanted to send Prince Konoye to Moscow as a special envoy to get the Soviets to mediate a surrender deal with the U.S. I’d say that a peace feeler pushed by the Foreign Minister and strongly backed by Emperor Hirohito was about as substantial, official, and high ranking as you could get.

Incidentally, the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Historian website includes an article on the Japanese peace feelers, and it documents that American high officials were aware of these efforts:

The contents of certain of these papers [Japanese messages and memos about the peace feelers] were known to United States officials in Washington, however, as early as July 13 (see Walter Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries(New York, 1951), page 74; cf. pages 75–76) and information on Japanese peace maneuvers was received by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson at Babelsberg on July 16 (see volume II, document No. 1236, footnote 4). It has also been determined that a series of messages of Japanese origin on this subject was received by the United States Delegation during the course of the Berlin Conference and that these messages were circulated at Babelsberg to some members of the President’s party. Furthermore, in a conference on January 24, 1956, between Truman and members of his staff and Department of State historians, Truman supplied the information that he was familiar with the contents of the first Japanese peace feeler (i.e., the proposal contained in document No. 582) before Stalin mentioned it to him at Babelsberg (see volume II, page 87) and that he was familiar with the contents of the second Japanese peace feeler (i.e., the approach reported in document No. 1234) before Stalin brought it to the attention of Truman and Attlee at the Tenth Plenary Meeting of the Berlin Conference on July 28 (see volume II, page 460).​

A japanese general talking to bankers in switzerland, a japanese general that was not speaking with the emperor? A japanese general with no official connection anybody associated with the emperor? He was speaking to bankers? Who were to get in touch with Dulles? In the middle of the Potsdam conference? This low level general was not in communication with tyoko? We were to take a japanese general talking to bankers in switzerland serious?

And while this was going on, Japan was attempting to negotiate with the russians, who were simply ignoring the japanese, and or leading them on.

These were pathetic attempts at surrender, one not even close to being official, the other involved russia? And yes there was the third? Maybe?

Well, we do know that no condition of surrender ever stated that the emperor had to step down, and that is what the emperor himself stated, when surrendering, that we had not demanded such.

The emperor also knew, that we had not bombed his palace, sparing his life, when we could of on numerous occasions.

Don’t throw out your back moving those goal posts.

 

[Unkotare]

Link?

People were also wounded and dying and rats were feeding on the bodies of the dead. Nuking them would have fixed all this

Link?

Nuclear blast cure all disease

Trust me

Trust you? Why? That last comment was completely wrong.

Trust you? Completely wrong? Man, I don't trust anything you proffer any farther than I can fling shit. You argue like a White Man's IM2.

I was responding to frannie’s “trust me,” you stupid shit.

 

[Unkotare]

... people were looting

Link?

Link yourself. .....

Yeah, I thought so.

You thought WHAT ...?

That you have been doing nothing but talking out your ass all along, liar.

 

[Frannie]

... people were looting

Link?

Link yourself. .....

Yeah, I thought so.

You thought WHAT ...?

That you have been doing nothing but talking out your ass all along, liar.

You attracted to toobs ass there huh kid...……………...

 

[Pogo]

That post hadn't even been addressed to me in the first place. It's a simple dilution of what his post actually says, that's it.
"Buy my Appeal to Emotion, or I'll beat the shit out of you". Not exactly anything remotely near logical argument. QED.

Again ---- reading comprehension.

Ah yes, we see you consider yourself an elite intellectual snob.

Actually I made no allusion whatsoever to myself or to intellectual anything at all. You just completely made that up.

A dilution of what the post says? No dumbass, it was not a dilution. I simply mangled the words so that post said something different.

No, what he said is you got the shit beat out of you by a third grader wielding a nutshell, that is why you are so stupid. Put some ice on that brain damage.

It is called, satire, yes, SATIRE. And yes, reading comprehension is important. We dont expect any from you, you read much into a post that you paraphrased in a nefarious manner. That is why I used satire to point out how stupid your post was.

That isn't even remotely related to satire". It's a simple example of your illiteracy, where you read MY comment about SOMEBODY ELSE's post responding to a THIRD PARTY ----- none of which have jack squat to do with you ---- and took them personally on the basis of nothing but your own inability to read. Not to mention your complete cluelessness as to what the word "satire" means.

I figure this level of wanton illiteracy is the same failing that produces the phrase "would of".

Your quote:

So in a nutshell what you're saying here is "buy my Appeal to Emotion or I'll beat the shit out of you

Get it now?

I "got it" when I first fucking posted it, Dweebles. You on the other hand are still lost.

Here's a tip: try confining yourself to missives that are actually directed TO you. Clearly you're not cut out for anything more complex.

 

[Unkotare]

Link?

Link yourself. .....

Yeah, I thought so.

You thought WHAT ...?

That you have been doing nothing but talking out your ass all along, liar.

You attracted to toobs ass there huh kid...……………...

You and Salty can go be stupid together somewhere else.

 

[elektra]

In 1995, under pressure from some members of Congress and the leaders of some veterans groups, the Smithsonian Institution canceled its planned exhibit on the Enola Gay and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When the first text of the exhibit was released, leaders of certain veterans groups and some members of Congress expressed outrage over many of its statements and claimed that the exhibit dishonored Pacific War veterans and whitewashed Japan’s role in the war. The text was actually very balanced, and in fact it pulled many valid punches that could have been thrown, but it was too much for the critics. Moreover, even after the Smithsonian issued a watered-down revision, defenders of the nuking of Japan still were not satisfied, so eventually the decision was made to cancel the exhibit.

The open letter below was written to the Smithsonian’s secretary, Michael Heyman, to protest the revised version of the exhibit’s text. The letter was signed by scholars from leading universities, including Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Ohio State, and MIT:

Mr. I. Michael Heyman
Secretary
The Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D.C. 20560

July 31, 1995

Dear Secretary Heyman:

Testifying before a House subcommittee on March 10, 1995, you promised that when you finally unveiled the Enola Gay exhibit, "I am just going to report the facts."[1]

Unfortunately, the Enola Gay exhibit contains a text which goes far beyond the facts. The critical label at the heart of the exhibit makes the following assertions:

* The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki "destroyed much of the two cities and caused many tens of thousands of deaths." This substantially understates the widely accepted figure that at least 200,000 men, women and children were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Official Japanese records calculate a figure of more than 200,000 deaths--the vast majority of victims being women, children and elderly men.)[2]

* "However," claims the Smithsonian, "the use of the bombs led to the immediate surrender of Japan and made unnecessary the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands." Presented as fact, this sentence is actually a highly contentious interpretation. For example, an April 30, 1946 study by the War Department's Military Intelligence Division concluded, "The war would almost certainly have terminated when Russia entered the war against Japan."[3] (The Soviet entry into the war on August 8th is not even mentioned in the exhibit as a major factor in the Japanese surrender.) And it is also a fact that even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed, the Japanese still insisted that Emperor Hirohito be allowed to remain emperor as a condition of surrender. Only when that assurance was given did the Japanese agree to surrender. This was precisely the clarification of surrender terms that many of Truman's own top advisors had urged on him in the months prior to Hiroshima. This, too, is a widely known fact.[4]

* The Smithsonian's label also takes the highly partisan view that, "It was thought highly unlikely that Japan, while in a very weakened military condition, would have surrendered unconditionally without such an invasion." Nowhere in the exhibit is this interpretation balanced by other views. Visitors to the exhibit will not learn that many U.S. leaders--including Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower[5], Admiral William D. Leahy[6], War Secretary Henry L. Stimson[7], Acting Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew[8] and Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy[9]--thought it highly probable that the Japanese would surrender well before the earliest possible invasion, scheduled for November 1945. It is spurious to assert as fact that obliterating Hiroshima in August was needed to obviate an invasion in November. This is interpretation--the very thing you said would be banned from the exhibit.

* In yet another label, the Smithsonian asserts as fact that "Special leaflets were then dropped on Japanese cities three days before a bombing raid to warn civilians to evacuate." The very next sentence refers to the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, implying that the civilian inhabitants of Hiroshima were given a warning. In fact, no evidence has ever been uncovered that leaflets warning of atomic attack were dropped on Hiroshima. Indeed, the decision of the Interim Committee was "that we could not give the Japanese any warning."[10]

* In a 16 minute video film in which the crew of the Enola Gay are allowed to speak at length about why they believe the atomic bombings were justified, pilot Col. Paul Tibbits asserts that Hiroshima was "definitely a military objective." Nowhere in the exhibit is this false assertion balanced by contrary information. Hiroshima was chosen as a target precisely because it had been very low on the previous spring's campaign of conventional bombing, and therefore was a pristine target on which to measure the destructive powers of the atomic bomb.[11] Defining Hiroshima as a "military" target is analogous to calling San Francisco a "military" target because it has a port and contains the Presidio. James Conant, a member of the Interim Committee that advised President Truman, defined the target for the bomb as a "vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers' houses."[12] There were indeed military factories in Hiroshima, but they lay on the outskirts of the city. Nevertheless, the Enola Gay bombardier's instructions were to target the bomb on the center of this civilian city.

The few words in the exhibit that attempt to provide some historical context for viewing the Enola Gay amount to a highly unbalanced and one-sided presentation of a largely discredited post-war justification of the atomic bombings.

Such errors of fact and such tendentious interpretation in the exhibit are no doubt partly the result of your decision earlier this year to take this exhibit out of the hands of professional curators and your own board of historical advisors. Accepting your stated concerns for accuracy, we trust that you will therefore adjust the exhibit, either to eliminate the highly contentious interpretations, or at the very least, balance them with other interpretations that can be easily drawn from the attached footnotes.

Sincerely,

Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin
Co-chairs of the Historians' Committee for Open Debate on Hiroshima

(see the attached sheet for additional signatories)
References

1. "Enola Gay Exhibit to 'Report the Facts,'" Washington Times, March 11, 1995.

2. Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings, (New York: Basic Books, 1981), p. 364.

3. "Memorandum for Chief, Strategic Policy Section, S&P Group, OPD, Subject: Use of the Atomic Bomb on Japan," April 30, 1946, ABC 471.6 Atom (17 August 1945) Sec 7, Entry 421, Record Group 165, National Archives.

4. Joseph C. Grew, Turbulent Era: A Diplomatic Record of Forty Years 1904-1945, Vol. II (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1952), pp. 1406-1442; U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Japan's Struggle to End the War (Washington, July 1946); Gar Alperovitz, "Hiroshima: Historians Reassess," Foreign Policy, Summer 1995, pp. 15-34; and, Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and the Origins of the Arms Race, rev. ed. (New York, Random House, 1987), p. 225.

5. See "Notes on talk with President Eisenhower," April 6, 1960, War Department Notes envelope, Box 66, Herbert Feis Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Division; and, Gen. Andrew Goodpaster, "Memorandum of Conference with the President, April 6, 1960," April 11, 1960, "Staff Notes--April 1960," Folder 2, DDE Diary Series, Box 49, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library; and also, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 1953-1956 (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc.), pp. 312-313.

6. William D. Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, Based on His Notes and Diaries Made at the Time, (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1950), p. 441. See also his private diary (in particular the June 18, 1945 entry) available at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.

7. Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947, 1948), pp. 628-629.

8. Joseph C. Grew, Turbulent Era, pp. 1406-1442; Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 225.

9. See John J. McCloy interview with Fred Freed for NBC White Paper, "The Decision to Drop the Bomb," (interview conducted sometime between May 1964 and February 1965), Roll 1, p. 11, File 50A, Box SP2, McCloy Papers, Amherst College Archives.

10. Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, see Appendix L, "Notes of the Interim Committee Meeting, May 31, 1945," p. 302.

11. The papers of Gen. Leslie R. Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, are filled with his statements to the effect that he wanted a virgin target large enough so that the effects of the bomb would not dissipate by the time they reached the edge of the city. See for example the letter from Groves to John A. Shane, 12/27/60 on target selection, in the Groves Papers, Record Group 200, National Archives. See also, Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 229-230.

12. Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, see Appendix L, "Notes of the Interim Committee Meeting, May 31, 1945," p. 302.​

If you want to read the list of scholars who signed the letter, here is a link to the full letter:

Hiroshima: Historians' Letter to the Smithsonian

Yes, we get it, you hate America.

Stimson was for dropping the bomb.
Everyone who knew of the bomb, everyone, agreed it must be dropped.

You see, it was dropped to save American lives. Lives you have stated, in so many words, are lives not worth saving.

You are a disgusting individual. For despite you lengthy "reports". None of them are factual. They are all Fiction based on fact.

Arguing that Hiroshima is no different than San Fransisco is pure ignorance, but technically, it is a pure lie.
It is a statement that the lazy, the dumb, the gullible would believe.

San Fransisco has no industry
Hiroshima manufactured parts for war ships, for fighter planes. Hiroshima was a center for war.

San Fransisco, Presido, yes, an Army Headquarters very active during the war. San Fransisco thus is a legitimate target.

Hiroshima, Army Headquarters, thus a legitimate target.

Another revisionist's post, destroyed.

 

[elektra]

I "got it" when I first fucking posted it, Dweebles. You on the other hand are still lost.

Here's a tip: try confining yourself to missives that are actually directed TO you. Clearly you're not cut out for anything more complex.

Fuck you asshole, I will respond to any of your posts whatever way that I please. I will also point out when you are not smart enough to comprehend satire.

I did not expect you to admit your stupidity in failing to comprehend satire, but hey, you are what you are.

 

[elektra]

Don’t throw out your back moving those goal posts.

Dont throw out your brain, trying to join the conversation.