Scholars? Ha, ha, ha. They dont even get the page numbers right when they quote.
Oh, of course, because scholars never get page numbers wrong, right? One can occasionally find such errors in the best historical scholarship. And what do you mean that I have not dealt with any of your posts? Uh, I have responded to several of your replies, and I have posted other replies that address arguments you have made.
Okay, now let's deal with your claims about Eisenhower’s statements on nuking Japan. I suspect your claims are based on Robert Maddox’s book
Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism. It is ironic that Maddox thinks of himself as battling “revisionism” when in fact the majority of scholars who have published on this subject disagree with him. To give you some idea of how extreme he is on the issue, Maddox stridently applauds the censoring and cancellation of the modestly objective and carefully worded text of the
Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in 1995, even though dozens of leading historians—including historians from Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Ohio State, Dartmouth, Georgetown, and Stanford—condemned the censoring and removal of the text.
When dealing with the fact that General Omar Bradley confirmed in his memoir that Ike voiced objection to nuking Japan to Stimson and Truman, Maddox argues that that part of Bradley’s book was fabricated by Bradley’s co-author!
Perhaps sensing that his claim that Bradley’s confirming account was fabricated might seem doubtful, Maddox notes that Bradley wrote to Eisenhower and expressed support for the nuking of Japan. Maddox then argues that Bradley would not have done this if he had witnessed Ike objecting to Stimson and Truman about using the atomic bomb. This is silly. Bradley could have expressed his view to Ike precisely because he knew Ike disagreed and because he was trying to change his mind about it. Or, Bradley might not have even been trying to persuade Ike on this issue but just felt like expressing his opinion that Japan surrendered because of the nukes.
Maddox makes much of the fact that Eisenhower might have erred in his recollection that he was present when Stimson received the first or second cable on the a-bomb test because Ike first met with Stimson two days after the second cable arrived. Maddox pretends this is a huge problem with Ike’s account, while others might see the account as essentially correct and credible given that Ike was recalling events that happened 18 years earlier. And, Maddox is forced to admit that one of Stimson’s aides recorded that Stimson and Eisenhower did in fact discuss the atomic bomb when the two had lunch at Ike’s HQ on July 27, even though Stimson’s diary for that day says nothing about it, which should warn us about making arguments from silence.
Maddox argues that Eisenhower’s recollection of his July 20 conversation with Stimson “grew more vivid with the passage of time.” Really? And Maddox is supposed to be a historian? In his 1948 book
Crusade in Europe, Ike said he told Stimson that he hoped we would never need to use such a weapon against an enemy because he did not want America to be the first to use such a “horrible and destructive” weapon. Ike’s account of this conversation in his 1963 book
Mandate for Change contains more details but follows the identical thrust, i.e., that Ike was repulsed by the very idea of nuking Japan.
Eisenhower’s 1963 account contains two additional details: that Ike told Stimson that nuking Japan was unnecessary and that Stimson got upset when Ike expressed his misgivings about nuking Japan. It is perfectly understandable that Ike would have withheld such information in 1948, when feelings were still raw and when the principals were all alive: he did not want to rock the boat nor embarrass anyone. And it is equally understandable that 18 years later, Ike would have felt more at liberty to give the full account of the meeting. But Maddox, ignoring this reasonable consideration, simply assumes that Eisenhower invented the additional details in his 1963 book.
Maddox minimizes the indisputable fact that in Eisehhower’s 1963 interview with
Newsweek, he said we did not need to nuke Japan because Japan was already defeated.
In reply to Maddox and other Truman defenders, Professor Gar Alperovitz has said the following:
There is a long-standing debate about whether or not General Eisenhower--as he repeatedly claimed--urged Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson (and possibly President Truman) not to use the atomic bomb. In interviews with his biographer, Stephen Ambrose, he was insistent that he urged his views to one or another of these men at the time. [THE DECISION, p. 358 n.] Quite apart from what he said at the time, there is no doubt, however, about his own repeatedly stated opinion on the central question:
* In his memoirs Eisenhower reported the following reaction when Secretary of War Stimson informed him the atomic bomb would be used:
During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. . . . [THE DECISION, p. 4.]
* Eisenhower made similar public and private statements on numerous occasions. He put it bluntly in a 1963 interview, stating quite simply: ". . . it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." [THE DECISION, p. 356.] (Several of the occasions during which Eisenhower offered similar judgments are discussed at length in THE DECISION [pp. 352-358].)
(B) It is sometimes urged that there is no record of any of the military men directly advising President Truman not to use the atomic bomb--and that this must mean that they felt its use was justified at the time. However, this is speculation. The fact is there is also no record of military leaders advising President Truman
to use the bomb:
We simply have little solid information one way or the other on what was said by top military leaders on the key question at the time: There are very few direct contemporaneous records on this subject. And there is certainly no formal recommendation that the atomic bomb be used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
On the other hand, what little contemporaneous evidence we do have strongly suggests that
before the atomic bomb was used at least two of the four members of the Joint Chiefs did not believe that military considerations required the destruction of Japanese cities without advance warning. Here, for instance, is how General George C. Marshall put it in a discussion more than two months before Hiroshima was destroyed (McCloy memo, May 29, 1945):
... he thought these weapons might first be used against straight military objectives such as a large naval installation and then if no complete result was derived from the effect of that, he thought we ought to designate a number of large manufacturing areas from which the people would be warned to leave--telling the Japanese that we intend to destroy such centers.... Every effort should be made to keep our record of warning clear. We must offset by such warning methods the opprobrium which might follow from an ill-considered employment of such force. [THE DECISION, p. 53.]
The President's Chief of Staff, Admiral Leahy--the man who presided over meetings of the Joint Chiefs--noted in his diary of June 18, 1945 (seven weeks
prior to the bombing of Hiroshima):
It is my opinion at the present time that a surrender of Japan can be arranged with terms that can be accepted by Japan and that will make fully satisfactory provisions for America's defense against future trans-Pacific aggression. [THE DECISION, p. 324.]
(Leahy also stated subsequently something which should be obvious--namely that the Chief of Staff regularly made his views known to the President. His well-documented comments in a meeting with the President urging assurances for the Emperor this same day--June 18--are only one indication of this. Although we have no records of their private conversations, we know that the two men met to discuss matters of state every morning at 9:45 a.m. [THE DECISION, pp. 324-6.])
There is also substantial, but less direct evidence (including some which seems to have come from President Truman himself) that General Arnold argued explicitly that the atomic bomb was not needed [THE DECISION, pp. 322-4; 335-7]--and as noted above, that Arnold instructed his deputy Lieutenant General Ira C. Eaker that although he did not wish to press the point, he did not believe the bomb was needed. As also noted above, in his memoirs Arnold stated that "it always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse." [THE DECISION, p. 334.] (In this connection, as we shall discuss in Part III, it is commonly forgotten that by the time Hiroshima was bombed orders had already been given to alter targeting priorities so as to down-play city bombing. Although there were some difficulties in the field, the new priorities were on the verge of being moved into implementation as the war ended. [THE DECISION, p. 342-3.]) (
Decision: Part I)
