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TRUMAN LIED ABOUT A-BOMBS ON HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI

Previously classified documents show that the atomic bombs dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 had not really been necessary to make
Japan surrender, and that then US President Harry Truman had lied in
order to justify the dropping of the bombs.

By Fan Yew Teng

For almost 50 years, the United States authorities have helped to cover
up the facts surrounding the decision of US President Harry Truman to
use atomic weapons against two Japanese cities -- Hiroshima and Nagasaki
-- on 6 August 1945 and 9 August 1945 respectively.

Truman's justification for these atrocities which killed about a quarter
of a million people, mostly civilians, was that this would end the war
quickly, making unnecessary an invasion of Japan. According to US
Secretary of State Byrnes, a million lives would be saved. Truman
claimed that half a million was the figure given him by General George
Marshall.

When the papers of the Manhattan Project were released years later, they
showed Marshall urged a warning to the Japanese about the bomb, so
people could be removed and only military targets hit. Marshall's advice
was obviously rejected by Truman.

As Professor Howard Zinn of Boston University says in his book, "A
People's History of the United States," the 'estimates of invasion
losses were not realistic, and seem to have been pulled out of their air
to justify bombings which, as their effects became known, horrified more
and more people.'

Japan, by August 1945, was in desperate shape and ready to surrender,
"The New York Times" military analyst Hanson Baldwin wrote, shortly
after the war: 'The enemy, in a military sense, was in a hopeless
strategic position by the time the Potsdam demand for unconditional
surrender was made on 26 July. Such then, was the situation when we
wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki.'

The US Strategic Bombing Survey, set up by the War Department in 1944 to
study the results of aerial attacks in the war, interviewed hundreds of
Japanese civilian and military leaders after Japan surrendered, and
reported just after the war: 'Based on a detailed investigation of all
the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese
leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31
December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan
would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been droppd,
even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been
planned or contemplated.'

Did Truman know about this in August 1945? Yes, of course. The Japanese
code had been broken, and Japan's messages were being intercepted. He
knew that the Japanese government had instructed its ambassador in
Moscow to work on peace negotiations with the Allies. Japanese leaders
had begun talking of surrender a year before this, and the Japanese
Emperor himself had begun to suggest, in June 1945, that alternatives to
fighting to the end be considered.

Martin Sherwin, after an exhaustive study of the relevant historical
documents, concludes: 'After having broken the Japanese code before the
war, American Intelligence was able to -- and did -- relay this message
to the President, but it had no effect whatever on efforts to bring the
war to a conclusion.'

In a recent review of the relevant literature, J Samuel Walker, chief
historian of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, wrote in the
respected academic journal "Diplomatic History": 'The consensus among
scholars is that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan
and to end the war within a relatively short time. It is clear that
alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisers knew
it...It is certain that the hoary claim that the bomb prevented one-half
million American combat deaths is unsupportable.'

An avalanche of archival documents released or discovered over the past
decade -- including Truman's 'lost' diary and a series of revealing
letters to his wife, Bess -- as Gar Alperovitz and Kai Bird point out in
the 10 May 1993 issue of "The Nation" of New York, 'leaves no doubt that
Truman knew the war would end "a year sooner now" and without an
invasion'.

One of the main reasons was Truman's awareness that the shock of an
early Soviet declaration of war was expected to jolt Japan into
surrender long before an invasion (tentatively set for planning purposes
in November 1945) could begin.

After receiving Stalin's confirmation that the Soviets would enter the
Pacific war by 15 August, Truman wrote in his diary: 'Fini Japs when
that comes about.'

At least one of the factors in the minds of those making the decision to
use the atomic bomb on Hiroshima involved geo- political and diplomatic
concerns about the Soviet Union. As British scientist P M S Blackett
said in his book, "Fear, War, and the Bomb," the United States was
anxious to drop the bomb before the Russians entered the war against
Japan.

In other words, Blackett says, the dropping of the bomb was 'the first
major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia'. Blackett is
supported by American historian Gar Alperovitz, who notes in his book,
"Atomic Diplomacy," a diary entry for 28 July 1945, by US Secretary of
the Navy James Forrestal, describing Secretary of State James F Byrnes
as 'most anxious to get the Japanese affair over with before the
Russians got in'.

Or, consider a diary entry by Walter Brown, an assistant to Secretary of
State Byrnes which clearly suggests Truman and Byrnes saw the bomb as a
way to reduce Soviet political influence in Asia. Brown noted that
Byrnes, whom Truman had designated his main adviser on the issue, was
'hoping for time, believing that after (the) atomic bomb Japan will
surrender and Russia will not get in so much on the kill, thereby being
in a position to press for claims in China'.

In other words, to ensure that the Americans had an advantage in the US-
Soviet scramble to grab China, a quarter of a million Japanese, mostly
women and children, had to die.

Truman had said, 'The world will note that the first atomic bomb was
dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in
this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of
civilians.'

This was simply untrue. Truman was lying. Those 100,000 killed
immediately in Hiroshima were almost all civilians. The US Strategic
Bombing Survey said in its official report: 'Hiroshima and Nagasaki were
chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and
population.'

And, last but not least, why was the second atomic bomb dropped on
Nagasaki? Was it because this was a plutonium bomb whereas the Hiroshima
bomb was a uranium bomb? Were the dead and irradiated of Nagasaki, as
Professor Howard Zinn asks, 'victims of a scientific experiment'?


(Fan Yew Teng is a writer and former MP in Malaysia.  When reproducing
this feature, please credit Third World Network Features and (if
applicable) the cooperating magazine or agency involved in the article,
and give the byline. Please send us cuttings. 1146/93  Published by
Third World Network of 87 Cantonment Road, 10250 Penang, Malaysia.)

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