60 Years Ago

As we're seeing just about everywhere (but not as much as perhaps we should), today is the 60th anniversary of the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Three days later, the United States dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki. This was the first time a bomb of this size was tested, let alone used as a weapon, and scientists were not entirely sure what to expect. We all know now, of course, that the devastation was massive. So massive, perhaps, that these uses of the bomb became their own deterrent for anyone ever using it again. We have not been deterred from improving the technology, however, and the destructive power and proliferation of atomic weapons have grown by huge amounts since August 1945. We're not entirely sure which countries have nuclear weapons (seven countries are known to have the bomb, and another handful are suspected to have or be close to having it), but certainly a lot more do than did on August 5, 1945.

In the 60 years since, however, we still don't know exactly what influenced the decision of the Truman Administration to use the bomb against Japan. Was the bomb necessary or not? The traditional answer is that using the bomb helped the Allies avoid a Japanese invasion, which it was presumed would have been savage and have resulted in a huge number of casualties on both sides. More recent historians have questioned that assumption and suggested that there were other strategic and political factors in play. I've been persuaded by this argument, of which Gar Alperovitz was an early proponent in his book Atomic Diplomacy (he updated his findings around the 50th anniversary of the bomb in the extremely detailed The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, and the Architecture of an American Myth), but it's hardly a settled issue. Each side pushes the argument its own way, and neither can come up with a knockout piece of evidence to put the struggle to rest. Alperovitz has a column in CommonDreams.org from a couple of days ago, "Hiroshima After Sixty Years: The Debate Continues," that reviews some of the main points. Although I don't have time to look for and provide links from both sides, Eric Alterman gives some background. My own view is that it's to some degree psychologically necessary for Americans to feel there was no choice but to drop the bomb, that for all its horrible effects, it was certainly the lesser of the evils available. If such a mental block is real, it provides a huge obstacle to the objective examination of the evidence.

Editor & Publisher reports on film footage shot very shortly after the bombs were dropped that's been effectively suppressed in the years since. Lt. Col. (Ret.) Daniel A. McGovern was in charge of U.S. military filmmakers in 1945 and 1946, and he managed newsreel footage shot by Japanese filmmakers at the sites, as well. All this material was labeled top secret, and for years McGovern was responsible for maintaining it. The understanding he had about this is quite interesting. Here's what Greg Mitchell wrote in E&P:

"I always had the sense," McGovern told me, "that people in the Atomic Energy Commission were sorry we had dropped the bomb. The Air Force--it was also sorry. I was told by people in the Pentagon that they didn't want those [film] images out because they showed effects on man, woman and child. . . . They didn't want the general public to know what their weapons had done--at a time they were planning on more bomb tests. We didn't want the material out because . . . we were sorry for our sins."

Much of this footage has been incorporated into the film Original Child Bomb, which will be shown on the Sundance Channel tonight and tomorrow.