Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan

Samuel L. Walker has written a half-way decent introduction to the subject at hand, but it is not as good as many of the other reviewers think.

Walker presents strong evidence that the use of the atomic bomb was necessary if the war was to be ended "as quickly as possible." So far, so good. When it comes to the question of whether the bomb was necessary to end the war 'reasonably quickly,' that is, within three or four more months, he uncritically accepts the claims of Paul Nitze that the Japanese would probably have surrendered by Nov. 1st, 1945, and certainly by Dec. 1st. This is rather odd, because, Walker cites Robert P. Newman's Truman and the Hiroshima Cult. Newman read through the interrogations of Japan's surviving wartime leadership conducted by the Strategic Bombing Survey, and found that they only one Japanese leader agreed with Nitze's estimated surrender date, and that one only when prompted (earlier in the same interview, he expected Japan to hold out rather longer).

Newman further reviewed the intelligence data available to the U.S. through July of 1945, and showed that the Japanese were making strenuous efforts to resist the expected amphibious invasion, while specifically rejecting the terms they finally accepted in August. (The U.S., British, and Chinese governments were convinced that a surrender on terms, a la the Versailles treaty, would likely lead to World War III in the 1960s or 1970s). Thus, even if Nitze's conclusion was correct, there was no reason for Truman or anyone else in Washington to believe it.

Finally, Nitze's conclusion of a surrender by December 1st at the latest, Newman showed, was formed around June of 1945, and was based on his assessment of the damage conventional bombing would inflict on Japan, and how he thought the Japanese leaders would react to that damage. Nitze had persuaded the Air Force to schedule an air campaign targeting Japanese transportation facilities, which would have disrupted both war production and food distribution, leading to a threat of widespread starvation. While this might have caused the Japanese government to fold, it might also have resulted in widespread relocation of civilians to rural areas, where they would have had ready access to food. Thus, the estimated surrender date was little more than a guess, unsupported by evidence.

Robert C. Butow interviewed those same Japanese leaders at much greater length for his book Japan's Decision to Surrender, which I highly recommend. His conclusion, as related by Freeman Dyson in From Eros to Gaia, was that there was no way to know when the Japan would have given up, because the Japanese leaders themselves didn't know when they would have surrendered.

When it comes the question of how many casualties the U.S. would have suffered if the U.S. had invaded Japan, Walker accurately summarizes the estimates presented to Truman in mid-1945, when there were only 350,000 Japanese troops present on Kyushu. Based on experience on Luzon, casualties might have been "only" about 17,000 killed, 53,000 wounded. As Walker says, preventing such casualties was itself enough reason for Truman to order the bomb dropped. But by August 1st, the number of Japanese defenders on Kyushu had grown to 900,000, as Richard B. Frank notes in Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire, another of the works Walker cites. Thus, 'Luzon percentage' casualties would have grown to around 43,000 killed, 137,000 wounded. And, as Frank further notes, Luzon's casualties levels were among the lowest of the Pacific War, when measured by casualties inflicted per Japanese defender. The experience of Okinawa or Saipan would have suggested at least double those figures, and casualties per Japanese defender on the scale of Iwo Jima would have led one to expect around 300,000 dead, 800,000 wounded among the Kyushu invasion force. The medical corps was expecting around 400,000 to 500,000 total casualties, about one-fourth of them dead. In fact, it was the position of the Japanese military that they would inflict such heavy casualties on any invasion force that the Allies would agree to precisely the surrender on terms the Allied governments wished to avoid, and there was substantial evidence of war weariness among the U.S. and British populations.

Further, D. M. Giangreco has since shown that higher estimates were circulating in Washington at the time, and that former President Hoover had written Truman that as many as half a million U.S. troops might die in an invasion of Japan. (See e.g. Harry S. Truman And the Cold War Revisionists by Robert H. Ferrell). Thus Walker's confident predictions of relatively low casualties in an invasion have little value, and his statement that Truman's postwar estimates of hundreds of thousands of deaths among the invasion force were not believed in 1945 is questionable, to say the least.

In addition, Walker completely neglects to mention deaths among Allied POWs and civilian internees held by the Japanese (tens of thousands had already died, and hundreds of thousands probably would have died if the war had continued much longer), Asian civilians who died in areas under Japanese control (perhaps 200,000 per month on the average, for the entire 97 months starting with Japan's invasion of China in 1937), Japanese civilians killed in air conventional air attacks (around 20,000 per month, excluding the Tokyo raid of March 9-10), expected Japanese civilian casualties in an invasion of Japan (over one million), expected British Commonwealth and Japanese casualties in the invasion of Malaya (scheduled to begin September 1st, 1945), and Japanese military and civilian deaths as a result of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria (scheduled to begin August 15th, 1945, but moved up a week after the Hiroshima bombing). When contemplating a war extending another two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half months, these figures lead to a conclusion that many more people would certainly have died than the atom bombs killed, probably have led to more Japanese casualties than occurred, and possibly have led to more Japanese civilian casualties than occurred in the atomic bombings.

And when it comes to the perception of the Japanese as "beasts," Walker completely neglects to mention the deliberate Japanese murders of POWs and civilians, or the documented Japanese biological warfare experimentation and use in China. If the description of Japanese conduct as "beastial" is too objected to, it can only be on the grounds that the adjective is unfair to wild beasts.

As a short introduction to a vast and complicated subject, this book isn't too bad. But it is highly limited, definitely biased against Truman and the U.S., and can not be taken as a last word on the subject by any means. It should definitely be supplemented by some of the works mentioned above for an accurate view.

Prompt and Utter Destruction carefully builds arguments in favor of the decision to use the bomb based upon correspondence, interviews, etc., then tries to demolish them with speculative opinion. Perhaps this was done in the interest of objectivity; however, the result is a difficult to read, conflicted narrative. It is certainly not the definitive word on Truman's decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan.

If you have a passionate interest in atomic age politics, WWII, and/or the Manhattan Project (as I do), this short book is worth reading, if just to have imaginary arguments with its author. However, if your interest is less intense, I can save you some time. The main conclusion of Prompt and Utter Destruction is that Truman had very strong reasons to authorize the use of atomic weapons, and no good reason not to do so:
(1)Atomic bombs might shorten the war and save American lives.
(2)Demonstrating that the US will use nuclear weapons would scare the heck out of Stalin, making him easier to negotiate with after the war.
(3)If they were not used, Congress and the American people would want to know why the government spent $2 billion developing them.
(4)Japan had it coming (payback for Pearl Harbor, the Battan death march, etc).
Against these reasons stood only the vague concern that maybe atomic weapons were immoral. Not a big concern to politicians of any era.

Ideology defined: The body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class, or culture.

If you have already made up your mind that the atomic bombings of Japan were wrong, you have two choices: (1) Don't buy the book and participate in the next demonstration against the bombings which will, again, make you feel morally superior; (2)buy the book and realize that it was not as simple a decision as you thought it was. Then ask yourself, what would I have done in 1945? Very challenging book. It certainly provides a very good understanding of the choices Truman had to deal with and the feelings in the US at that time.

One final point for the anti-bombing crowd: Check the stats on the casualties in the conventional bombings of German and Japanese cities.
And educate yourself about Japanese atrocities in China: 350,000 slaughtered in Sungchiang, and between 260,000-350,000 civilians murdered in Nanking. That's for starters.

One of the most complex, divisive, and nuanced debates in the history of the twentieth century is the decision by U.S. President Harry S. Truman in August 1945 to drop two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, thereby ending World War II. A traditional conception of the decision, indeed the one most often voiced by actors in the decision, was that it was done to speed the end of the war and thereby preserve American lives that might be lost in future combat. The revisionist interpretation, often identified with Gar Alperowitz, argues that the war was almost over and that the Japanese were on the verge of surrender anyway. The reason to drop the bomb, therefore, had little to do with the ending of World War II and was aimed more at impressing and influencing future relations with the Soviet Union. Another interpretation suggests that the use of the atomic bomb had more to do with American racism, and that the U.S. would have refrained from using such a horrific weapon on other Caucasians in Europe. Other scholars condemn the use of such a weapon targeting large populations, including non-combatants, as immoral and obscene. Subsequent historians have argued various permutations of these interpretations and the debate remains far from settled.

J. Samuel Walker's "`prompt & utter destruction': Truman and the Use of the Atomic Bomb against Japan" is a superb short discussion of the merits of each of these interpretations and an assessment of the current state of understanding on the subject. He takes an exceptionally even-handed approach, pointing up the strengths and weaknesses of each major argument and assessing how they have evolved over time. In the end, as Walker documents, five fundamental considerations played into the decision to use atomic bombs in August 1945.

First, the decision makers, especially Truman, sought to end the war at the earliest possible moment. They believed this new and terrifying weapon would do so and should therefore be employed for what they considered the greater good of ending the bloodshed. Wrapped up in this argument, although Walker thinks it a bit of side issue, was a widely held belief that bringing the Japanese to the surrender table would require an invasion of its islands. This would be, as those considering it believed, a costly and lengthy campaign that might mean the loss of thousands of lives on both sides. Casualty estimates of all types exist, and they have been used in the debate since then to justify or condemn the use of the bomb. Walker finds that those estimates, which are at best educated guesses that range broadly depending on the assumptions and the perspectives of those making them, are less useful in assessing what took place than the understanding that Truman was unwilling to accept any more casualties than absolutely necessary.

Second, Walker notes how Truman and his advisors were intensely concerned that they had to justify the enormous cost of developing the atomic weapon, and a decision not to use it once it existed would open them to significant criticism. As Walker states, "The success of the Manhattan Project in building the bombs and ending the war was a source of satisfaction and relief" (p. 94). In this context, Truman expressed great concern that should he decide not to use the weapon once he had it that every American life lost thereafter would have been wasted. As he explained to Secretary of State James F. Byrnes in 1947, "I believe that no man, in our position and subject to our responsibilities, holding in his hands a weapon of such possibilities for accomplishing this purpose and saving those lives, could have failed to use it and afterwards looked his countrymen in the face" (p. 94).

Third, at least one of Truman's advisors, Secretary of State Byrnes, realized immediately and argued to his colleagues that this weapon would be useful in helping to bend the Soviet Union to American wishes in the post-war era. Truman recognized this as well, but according to Walker this was definitely an added bonus and not the primary consideration in using the bomb. Walker concluded, "Growing differences with the Soviet Union were a factor in the thinking of American officials about the bomb but were not the main reason that they rushed to drop it on Japan" (p. 95). Gar Alperowitz's "atomic diplomacy" thesis, therefore, has merit however overstated it might have been.

Fourth, Walker asserts that there was a lack of incentives among those making these decisions not to use the bomb. "Truman," Walker notes, "used the bomb because he had no compelling reason to avoid it" (p. 95). While many people since 1945 have questioned the morality of its use, Truman and his advisors did not let those scruples--and they did exist among them--outweigh their goal of ending the war as quickly as possible. Indeed, by the last year of the war conventional weaponry had laid waste to so many cities containing thousands of non-combatants--witness the firebombing of or Dresden and Tokyo--that virtually no one in a senior decision making role in the U.S. questioned the use of nuclear weapons despite their destructiveness since they believed dropping these bombs would shorten the war and save American lives.

Fifth, Walker comments that "Hatred of the Japanese, a desire for revenge for Pearl Harbor, and racist attitudes were a part of the mix of motives that led to the atomic attacks" (p. 96). Again, this was not the primary consideration in dropping the bomb on Japan, "But the prevalent loathing of Japan, both among policymakers and the American people, helped override any hesitation or ambivalence that Truman and his advisors might have felt about use of atomic bombs" (p. 96).

Walker ends "prompt & utter destruction" with a series of questions still being debated about the decision to use the bomb. These include: "(1) how long the war would have continued if the bomb had not been used; (2) how many casualties American forces would have suffered if the bomb had not been dropped; (3) whether an invasion would have been necessary without the use of the bomb; (4) the number of American lives and casualties an invasion would have exacted had it proven necessary; (5) whether Japan would have responded favorably to a American offer to allow the emperor to remain on the throne before Hiroshima, or whether such an offer would have prolonged the war; and (6) whether any of the alternatives to the use of the bomb would have ended the war as quickly on a basis satisfactory to the United States (pp. 108-109).

These historiographical questions ensure that future study of this subject will remain contested; overlaying all of it, of course, is the question of the morality of Truman's decision. Walker offers no conclusion to the debate, instead inviting further inquiry and exposition as each scholar makes a contribution to the marketplace of ideas where positions will be evaluated and accepted, rejected, or modified. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the nature of the end of World War II and the beginning of the cold war.

I bought this book for school.. I have not read it yet but it arrived in perfect condition.. Very fast shipping.