The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb

The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb. By Gar Alperovitz. (New York: Knopf, 1995. xiv, 847 pp.) $19.00, ISBN 0-679-44331-2.


Gar Alperovitz, former fellow at Harvard and Cambridge, current Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, and Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Government and Politics and the University of Maryland, issues a formidable addition to an ongoing and heated American debate with his book, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (1995). In this lengthy tome, Alperovitz offers a follow-up to his 1963 Cambridge dissertation, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam, wherein he concluded with a call for "more research and more information" on the subject. Apparently, Alperovitz felt that his call had not been sufficiently answered, and that he could not abide by the "oversimplification" and "obvious graduate-student errors" held up by some critics, so he gathered no less than seven assistants to tackle the issue once more. The reader is assured that the new research he presents is not meant to probe diplomatic considerations relating to the use of the bomb, and Alperovitz acknowledges and sets aside the "once-controversial" and "now commonplace" idea that consideration of the effect of the atomic bomb on relations with the Soviet Union played a significant role in the decision to use the bomb on Japan. Instead, Alperovitz aims to explore "what is now known (and still not known) about the decision to use the atomic bomb" and "why...what most Americans still believe is different."

This is only the beginning of what was a highly informative yet often confusing read. One wonders, for example, how to accurately assess "fundamental" questions about what was known and not known during the time leading up to the decision to use the atomic bomb without careful exploration of U.S. concerns about Russia? Furthermore, although he assures us that there is now "no dispute" over the facts that Japan was in its death throes, that many high-level officials believed allowing Japan to keep its Emperor would likely result in a surrender, that the Interim Committee decided how and when to use the atomic bomb, and that the final decision was made at Potsdam, Alperovitz spends a good part of the first half of the book painstakingly supporting and outlining those very claims.

Despite emphasizing throughout the book that "we simply do not have enough information to make a final judgment" [about the decision to use the bomb], Alperovitz presents primary documents and other details as if they were evidence in a trial. The accused are President Harry Truman and Secretary of State James Byrnes, who are charged with the crime of knowingly using atomic bombs on civilian populations with the full knowledge that viable alternatives were available to elicit surrender and end the war without an American invasion. Of his methodology and approach, Alperovitz explains that he strays from the "usual narrative mode of most history writing," instead choosing to present a collection of primary documents and "inviting the reader into the documentary discovery process." This reviewer finds it rather disingenuous that Alperovitz implies he is "straightforwardly" presenting the documents and leaving judgment up to the reader, but this is an admittedly common and highly effective rhetorical tactic. To summarize, Alperovitz makes the following claims:

1. A "two-step logic" would have brought about a Japanese surrender with minimal casualties. These two steps were (a) clarification of the surrender terms in order to make clear to the Japanese that the Emperor would be preserved, and (b) the shock of the entrance of the Russians into the war.
2. No less than 11 major officials and government bodies made Truman aware of the Emperor issue and several discussed the Russian option with him.
3. President Truman and Secretary of State Byrnes chose to ignore this two-step logic in light of the availability of the atomic bomb and the prospect of its making Russia "more manageable in Europe."
4. It is "extraordinary" and difficult to understand why the American people were lied to and mislead about the above reasons for dropping the atomic bomb.

Alperovitz methodically and convincingly supports 1-3. However, when reading this thoughtful indictment, one is left to wonder whether or not there was a viable alternative that would have undoubtedly caused a Japanese surrender on terms favorable and acceptable to the United States? It is, of course, impossible to answer this question with any certainty. Since Alperovitz admittedly hinges his claims on after-the-fact assessments, such as those of the Strategic Bombing Survey of 1946, and many after-the-fact public, private and written statements made by involved officials, it seems odd not to explore the possible results and aftermath of the "two-step logic" he favors. If a clarification of surrender terms and the Russians entering the war succeeded in bringing about a Japanese capitulation and acceptable surrender terms, what would have happened next? For example, under the two-step logic plan, would Russia have remained "manageable" in Europe? Although the claim that half a million American/Allied lives were saved is certainly a "hoary" one as Alperovitz points out, does it necessarily follow that no lives were saved?

As mentioned, Alperovitz's last stated aim is to provide "a cautionary illustration (and warning) about the way 'official' versions of reality get promoted" and later contradicted by previously suppressed information that later comes to light. Alperovitz is also especially concerned with his observation that Americans' beliefs about the decision to drop the bomb are very different from what is known to "serious scholars" and "historians." While this is a valid question, it seems a rather naïve one with an obvious answer, but it is admittedly difficult to objectively evaluate such attitudes when writing a review 13 years after a book's publication. It is difficult for this reviewer to see how propaganda, censorship and cover-ups of documents related to political and military decisions--particularly during a time of war--could be considered "extraordinary." One statement Alperovitz makes in particular provides valuable insight into his frame of reference:


"In our own time, most Americans have come to take for granted the fact that government officials regularly lie to the people and then attempt to cover their tracks. Many people are cynical in a way they were not fifty years ago. We don't like to think that the men of earlier days might possibly have acted as men do today."

Perhaps this reviewer is too entrenched in the contemporary cynicism Alperovitz laments, but the fantastic statement above seems indicative of the highly personal nature of this project. It is difficult to reconcile the above statement with Alperovitz's own earlier observation that in his experience, "statements made by important military figures and by official bodies...which run directly contrary to major government decisions rarely see the light of day." There will, of course, always be a subset of Americans who believe that "men of earlier days," were somehow "different" from those of today, just as there will always be a subset of Americans who believe Columbus proved the earth is round. The most cursory research would quickly dispel these notions, just as they would challenge an oversimplified understanding of the complicated decision to drop the atomic bomb. That Alperovitz is deeply troubled by what he views to be widespread public misunderstanding of the decision to drop the bomb is clear, but perhaps `misunderstanding' is, at times, being confused with ongoing disagreement and debate. It is clear from his findings, though, that a diligent government effort was made to promote a certain perception of the reasons behind the decision to use the atomic bomb, and that President Truman himself repeatedly and continuously lied about them, even to himself.

Alperovitz asserts that "most Americans think that the bombings were totally justified--and moreover, that they had saved a very significant number of lives which might otherwise have been lost in an invasion." Unfortunately, the second half of this claim is not supported by the polls Alperovitz himself cites as evidence in his notes. He references several public opinion polls with dates spanning 1945-1990 in the footnote, but the polls exclusively report respondents' disapproval or approval of using the bombs. Not one survey cited asked Americans whether or not they believed that "a very significant number of lives" had been saved, and this oversight gives one pause, especially in light of the fact that Alperovitz had a team of seven researchers assisting him. It was of equal concern to this reviewer that Alperovitz relies heavily on a method of repeating the same quotations from the same sources in order to make different points in several different chapters.

Overall, Alperovitz presents an impressive and elaborate indictment of Byrnes and Truman's actions, and readers should take this work to be a valuable and extensive collection of primary documents to add to an ongoing discussion. Alperovitz and his team gathered, organized and indexed a body of information that is--and will likely remain--key to any attempt to better understand the decision to use the atomic bomb. Unfortunately, as Alperovitz himself admits, we may never have a complete or satisfactory version of the story because so much of the discussion and documentation of the decision to drop the bomb was either destroyed or never recorded.

This book is essential and in-depth scholarship for those trying to filter and understand the confounding narratives regarding the decision to use the bombs on essentially civilian populations.

In spite of a large bibliography, Alperovitz's book managed to overlook some of the best scholarly work on the subject of the Pacific war, the intelligence on the Japanese High Command, and the decision processes in the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations on the use of strategic bombing. That alone makes me wonder about the author's bias; a serious academic study as this book claims to be should not be so careless in its scholarship.

But before quickly summarizing some of those arguments (another Amazon reviewer has given a nice list of some of the major substantive arguments for the use of nuclear weapons to end the war), it is important to point out that this book fails because it is not accurate in some of its critical facts, and is also a very incomplete counterfactual history of the end of the Pacific War.

More specifically, the author does a poor job in assessing proximate alternative decisions. This is a must for any work claiming to examine "the Decision" about something. Decision-making is a specialty research area of mine, and one of the first axioms you learn in management or economics is that all decisions have alternatives, including a no-decision, and all decisions carry benefits, costs, and opportunity costs, vis-a-vie other decisions, and these MUST be assessed in comparison. If you fail to do that, you are failing to analyze the decision in question. On this, all major decision-making scholars across multiple disciplines are in agreement.

Alperovitz's book fails totally and utterly on this point of comparative assessment. This alone would make this book impossible for me to recommend, having spent about 20 years in this field studying and writing about major strategic decisions in business, governments, and the military around the world.

Before finishing my review of this book, let me also quickly say to of the Amazon readers that are a little slow or sloppy in their reading that this book review is not intended to give my own personal views about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor any other view about nuclear power and its use then or today. If you read my review carefully, you will see I have not given my own personal views on this - this is a review of Gar Alperovitz's interesting but deeply flawed and incomplete book - nothing more, nothing less.

Most of the arguments concerning the decision to use the atomic bomb in WWII make two large and necessary assumptions that must hold if their argument is to have any validity: First, that Japan was ready to surrender and in fact was planning to do so and that "surrender" was explicitely or implicitely, the self-evident alternative to Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and second that such surrender terms were acceptable to the U.S., Britain, the USSR, and China. Neither assumption can be reasonably defended with the use of accepted tests for historical facts and counterfactual argumentation. And the 'surrender option' was simply not realistic for many reasons that have been covered well elsewhere. The point is, that the alternative, proximate alternatives were not covered well in Alperovitz's book, and they needed to be. Comparative assessment is an absolute must when assessing any "decision" as this book claims to.

It would take a book to summarize why the above two assumptions (and many other statements made by Alperovitz in this book) are unsustainable or flatly incorrect. I will just summarize a few; other amazon reviewers have done a good job of outlining additional evidence that needs to be considered (and was mostly overlooked in this book). First consider why the "surrender option" was not seen as a realistic alternative for Truman, Churchill, General Chiang, Mao, Stalin, and other Allies at that time?

1) If Japan was really "getting ready to surrender" before the first atomic bomb was dropped (as several Amazon reviewers have mused), why didn't they surrender after the first bomb was dropped? Why did it take a second bomb? And even then, after the second bomb, there was still debate, and it was very close (the war minister did not want to surrender; the army did not want to surrender with millions of men under arms and well supplied in China, etc.). Such an action doesn't sound like a country that was "getting ready to surrender." Alperovitz barely touches this question - a remarkable oversight for a scholarly work and a question that has generated a great deal of debate.

2) If the main decision-makers (the Japanese military - particular army officers) were "getting ready to surrender", then why did they try to steal the Emperor's recording of his surrender message, and even to kidnap the Emperor himself before that message could be broadcast to the Japanese people? If they were getting ready to surrender, why were the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa even fought? Why did the Japanese fight to almost the last man on both islands? Funny behavior for a country that was "getting ready to surrender."

To assess the use of the atomic bombs in 1945, realistic comparative assessments must be made. A 'surrender scenario' by Japan was unrealistic and would not have been accepted by the Allies. Stalin for one, had been promised a free hand on the boarder lands with Japan and expected land, machinery and other equipment, and islands (some of which he took) for agreeing to, and finally entering the war against Japan. Chiang was also expecting concessions, as was Mao. An armistice or related negotiated conditional surrender was seen as out of the question by all decision-makers involved, going back to Roosevelt and Churchill at the Casablanca conference in early 1943. A conditional surrender would not have been possible, nor would a WWI style armistice. No decision-maker of that day would have even dreamt of creating a replay of Versailles. Some amazon readers have proposed that this should have been tried. A WWII Versailles could not even so much as be proposed - Versailles was (and generally still is) seen at the main cause of WWII, and something to be strongly avoided.

3) In terms of other weakly discussed options (e.g. invasion, another related assumption often cavalierly accepted was the casualty assumptions in the low tens of thousands for an invasion of Kyshuu made based on one intelligence report given to Truman in the summer of 1945. Then, after this single intelligence report is accepted on face value (and other major reports of the day ignored) authors in this genre quickly make the enormous and wholy unjustified leap of logic that Truman accepted that lone, low-casualty report. Read Truman's main biographer on that topic - you won't find a shread of evidence that Truman accepted a single lone intelligence report for such low numbers of casualties upon an Allied invasion of Japan. There were many other reports from a variety of sources, including from General MacArthur's staff that put expected US casualties well into the hundreds of thousands, not to mention Japanese and civilian casualties (and often overlooked are the continuing casualties in China, and the famine that was going on ALL around SE Asia and in China). If you had been the decision-maker in 1945, what would you have believed (especially after Iwo Jima and Okinawa - minor islands compared to the main islands of Japan)? How would you have weighed all of that evidence pointing to major numbers of deaths in Japan - military and Civilian, Allied and Japanese, and Southeast Asian and prisoner of war and other inturnees (numbering in the hundreds of thousands, or perhaps millions if you include the slave labor camps of various kinds)? I have personally interviewed over one dozen survivers of Japanese prison camps, other interred in camps and towns in China and SE Asia, others that were machine gunned at point blank range and spared though luck or providence, and one thing that all of them stated was that in 1945, people in China, SE Asia, and the prison camps were starving to death (some were sucombing early to beri-beri and cholera). No telling how large the death toll would have been, but even 1 in 100 in these various places would have put the largely civilian death toll at about 100,000-200,000 - just from starvation diseases in 1945-6.

There is an enormous amount of evidence that Japan was not going to surrender, at least not in any way remotely acceptable to the U.S., Britain, and China (somehow the Chinese and their wishes get lost in these atomic bomb arguments - Japan's conditional surrender was totally unacceptable to both Mao and Chiang and that also had to play into Truman's decision). Some of that further evidence includes the large and increasing number of casualties suffered by both sides in battles as the war progressed and neared the Japanese homeland (including the large numbers of civilian casualties and civilian participation at the periphery of the battles), the intelligence reports that the military hierarchy in Japan was not ready to surrender and beliefs that the military wanted to at least try once to beat back the US invasion back as Japanese samurai had done to the Mongolian invaders some 700 years before. Indeed some of the most horrific battles of WWII (and several other wars) occurred when one side had essentially lost but was not ready to give up. This all strongly adds to the evidence that the decision-makers had at that time about Japan's likelihood of surrender.

The main alternative decisions were not assessed properly by Alperovitz. On this point alone, this book fails to answer one of its research questions about the validity of the decision to use atomic weapons or even strategic bombing on Japan. The death toll would have almost certainly been higher with an invasion. Many civilians would have been killed also as they were training to kill invaders with various weapons including farm equipment and suicide bombs. Some Amazon reviewers may think that Japanese civilians were "innocent" but if they (those same Amazon reviewers) had washed up in a wrecked boat on the shores of southern Japan in summer 1945, they would have had to change their minds very quickly about this.

In addition, the author makes little use of key works such as John Ray Skates classic study "The Invasion of Japan", Robert Newman's "Truman and the Hiroshima Cult" or the extensive body of literature on intelligence in the Pacific War (his citiations on this topic are very very selective, and he fails to explain the large body of evidence that militate against his thesis).

I was also surprised that several of the deans of WWII historical scholarship such as Gerhard Weinberg (author of what is thought to be the best single volume on WWII) and John Costello (author of still the best single volume on the Pacific War) were also barely utilized. I strongly suggest readers to seek out the main works in this field first.

In conclusion, this book makes some interesting points, especially about James Byrnes' influence. If that was the title of the book, I would give it a higher rating because Alperovitz handles his role well, but almost certainly inflates the influence of one official, however high, in making military policy and major decisions (on this point see Graham Allison's fine work on the Cuban Missile Crisis).

But as a scholarly work, it is rather so-so. As a counterfactual (what if/pop history) book, it is fun to read, but still suffers from several weaknesses that a counterfactual history must overcome. Alperovitz's work fails to meet criteria for both genres of work. There is much better scholarship and counterfactual analysis on this subject. It is fun to read, but not to be taken very seriously. .

Far more gripping than the average history text. Very thoroughly researched and compellingly argued. Having just recently read the book, and having it fresh in mind, I'd like to state my reaction to the one-star reviewers below - I can only surmise that they have either:

1. Not actually read the book

or

2. Read it, while failing to absorb about 90% of it.

I say this because every point that the book allegedly "ignores" or "overlooks" is in fact addressed at length and in great detail therein. The critics below totally distort the arguments actually made in the book. And this straw-man about the Okinawa Battle two months prior..c'mon folks. Japan inflicted heavy losses because they were using their fighter planes as suicide-weapons. Not exactly a strategy bound to endure for very long, is it?

This is a valuable contribution to world history. Read it.

Upon reading this book it doesn't take long to recognize the following:

A) Eisenhower, MacArthur, and every high military figure believed the bomb was unnecessary because Japan was seekin a way to surrender with dignity.

B) [...] This book shows - through the statements and writings of ther actors themselves - who started the "million lives lost" lie", and why. Only extremist right-wing conservatives can read this work and still assert the bombings were necessary.

C) Truman dropped the bombs because he was far weaker than is commonly thought, and allowed the cranky old warhawk Byrnes to talk him into it.

This book raises issues about not only the bombings, but of political deception, militarist propaganda, and ugly patriotic nationalism. Everyone shoud read this book.