"I felt, the bomb was successful, the mission was successful, and the entire Manhattan Project was successful," he said. "And so we were going to end the war or significantly shorten the war. And that's what we were trying to do."This is not a new opinion, obviously, but I wanted to establish that before I went on to quote the following:
Kirk said that the feeling he had at that time hasn't changed in the 60 years since. He also answered a question many Japanese people have in mind; was it necessary to drop the bomb?
"Well, my personal feeling was that Japan was a beaten nation before we ever dropped the atomic bomb. Eighty-five percent of the industrial capacity of Japan was ruined before we ever dropped the bomb," he said. "A rational, knowledgeable people would have ended the war a long time before we ever dropped the bombs ... They wanted to fight the last big battle on the beaches."
Kirk then said that more people would have lost their lives if the bombs had not been used against Japan.
"No question about it. Even if there had not been an invasion, there would have been a lot more people (dead) as a result of not ending the war."
Perhaps ironically, Kirk -- like many people around the world -- hopes the bomb will disappear from the globe.I am having trouble with this basically because I share that opinion, and I tend to suspect my own opinions of being ill-informed. It also seems paradoxical to me to claim that the decision to nuke was the right one at the time, but that it will always be the wrong one in the future. That doesn't seem like a claim you can make. I guess you can argue that people didn't have all the information back then--maybe they thought it was just a big bomb, and didn't realize that with the explosion would come horrible radiation sickness. Assuming that was the case, then the previous argument can work. The decision was made without complete information. It was the best decision possible at the time. But now we know better. We know that there should always be another way.
"I think it should be abolished. I really do. But if we are going to have anybody that has an atomic bomb, then I want one more than anybody else," Kirk said.
Of course, I have no idea if the ignorance my rationalization requires was a reality for those who made the decision to use the bomb.
(I probably don't need to point out that the second part of Kirk's statement at the end of the article is problematic--as long as there are governments that share that opinion, there is zero chance of the bomb ever being "abolished".)
2 comments:
Eh, we did quite a bit of discussion on this topic in both my World Wars History class, History of Military Thought, and my Modern Asia and the Pacific Rim class. Operation(s) Downfall, Coronet and Olympic would have resulted in casualties as high (if not worse) than the ones suffered at Normandy (300,000). The various military leaders initially figured the estimated cost would be between 100,000 to 350,000 casualties for the invasion and as many as 1 million plus for victory (with Japanese casualties running into the tens of millions for civilians taking part in defense). The Army ordered 500,000 Purple Heart medals to be made in anticipation of the invasion.
With information available now, many military historians argue what the true casualty rate would have been. There is a great deal of unknown to the numbers, especially with regards in belief of how zealous the Japanese would defend, would civilians with bamboo spears really fight, and could a landing zone have even been made? Remember that the Allies came very close to failing at Normandy, and Japan had only a few spots that made a landing possible (thus easier to defend). All Historians pretty much agree that the invasion would have been very costly in human lives.
I believe that the bomb was the option that had the best chance. We discussed the invasion in Clauswitzean terms, and the bomb's impact (both physical and psychological) was a better weapon than an invasion to achieve an end. However, we should have warned them a little more clearly than the vague Potsdam ultimatium. As Stimson pleaded with Truman, "Tell them we have the bomb. Tell them what it will do to them. They will refuse, they won't believe us, but at least our moral position will be stronger if we use it."
John Ray Skates wrote an excellent work for laypersons on this topic with The Invasion of Japan: Alternative to the Bomb. You can read the (now) declassified Downfall plan Here.
_Kelly
Thanks for that information, Kelly! If you have any more recommended readings, I'd love to hear about them.
For now, it looks like I don't have to distrust my opinion quite so much...
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