The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 17 | Issue 18 | Number 1 | Article ID 5311 | Sep 15, 2019

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What role did the atomic bombings of Hiroshima andNagasaki and Soviet entry into the war play in Japan’sdecision to surrender in the Pacific War? Conversations withTsuyoshi Hasegawa

Hibiki Yamaguchi, Fumihiko Yoshida, Radomir Compel

Abstract

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, a US citizen who was bornin Japan, has taught in both countries. Applyinghis specialized knowledge of Russian history toan analysis of the US decision to drop atomicbombs on Japan, he challenges the prevailingAmerican view that the US decision to drop theatomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki wasjustified. The prevailing view is based on twopremises: first, the use of the atomic bombswas the only option available to the USgovernment to avoid launching a costlyinvasion of the Japanese homeland; and second,the atomic bombings had an immediate anddirect impact on Japan’s decision to surrender.Dr. Hasegawa rebuts both assumptions. Healso assesses a third – and often hidden –justification for dropping the bombs, namely,the American desire for revenge. He arguesthat, even before the atomic bombings, theUnited States had already crossed the moralhigh ground that it had held. He views the USuse of atomic bombs as a war crime. But heasserts that this action must be understood inthe context of Japan’s responsibility for startingthe war of aggression and committing atrocitiesin the Asia–Pacific War.

Keywords: Atomic bomb, World War II, Japan’ssurrender, Harry Truman, Joseph Stalin, warcrimes

Hibiki Yamaguchi: We are so honored andprivileged to be here with you to discuss yourworks on the international history of the atomic

bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Youhave published numerous books and articlessuch as Racing the Enemy in Engl isha n d A n t o i n J a p a n e s e(Hasegawa 2005Hasegawa, T. 2005. Racing theEnemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender ofJapan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityP r e s s . [ C r o s s r e f ] , [ G o o g l eScholar], 2006Hasegawa, T. 2006. Anto:Sutarin, Toruman to Nihon Kohuku [DeadlyStruggle: Stalin, Truman and Japan’sSurrdner] Tokyo: Chuo Koron Shinsha. [GoogleScholar]). You are also an expert on Russianhistory and Russo-Japanese relations. In thisregard, you have recently written Crime andP u n i s h m e n t i n t h e R u s s i a nRevolution (Hasegawa 2017aHasegawa, T. 2017a. Crime and Punishment in the RussianRevolution: Mob Justice and Police inPetrograd. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and TheF e b r u a r y R e v o l u t i o n , P e t r o g r a d1917 (Hasegawa 2017bHasegawa, T. 2017b. The February Revolution, Petrograd 1917: TheEnd of the Tsarist Regime and the Birth of DualPower. Leiden: Brill. (Paperback edition,C h i c a g o : H a y m a r k e t B o o k s ,2018).[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). As far as Iunderstand, you have come to the field of theinternational historiography of the atomicbombings at a relatively late stage of yourcareer as a historian.

Dr. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa: That is correct. Butit might be important and useful to explain mybackground as well as the trajectory of my

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scholarly interest at the outset.

I was born in Tokyo in 1941, the year thePacific War began. In 1945, with constantincendiary bombing in the neighborhood, myfamily evacuated to the small village ofIburihashi, now incorporated in the city ofKomatsu, Ishikawa prefecture. As a four-yearold boy, I do not have clear memories of thewar, but I remember the crimson sky indowntown Tokyo when the city was bombed onMarch 9-10,1945. Later in August, the adultsgathered at my grandfather’s house inIburihashi to listen to the emperor announcethe termination of the war on the radio. Somefragments of the war are still vivid in mymemory.

I grew up in Japan and attended the Universityof Tokyo, Komaba campus, where I was theeditor of the university newspaper. It was thetime of large student movements against therenewal of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperationand Security between the United States andJapan (Anpo) in 1960. My close friends dividedand splintered along various ideological lines.Although I did not belong to any faction, Ibecame interested in socialism and questionedwhy the Soviet Union, which was founded onthe seemingly utopian vision of socialism, haddegenerated into the monstrous Stalinistregime. This led me to study Russian history,especially the Russian Revolution, and I wrotemy graduation thesis on the FebruaryRevolution.

While attending the University of Tokyo, I alsojoined a research group on Russian history(Roshiashi Kenkyukai) led by Professor HarukiWada that exposed me to pioneering researchl i b e r a t e d f r o m t h e r i g i d S t a l i n i s thistoriography.

Thanks to a Ford Foundation fellowship, I didmy graduate training at the University ofWashington in Seattle in the United States.There I wrote my PhD dissertation on theFebruary Revolution.

The University of Washington in 1964–1969,like American campuses everywhere, was ahotbed of Vietnam War protests and the civilrights movement. Traditional Russian historywas also being challenged by young scholars,and it was the beginning of attention to thesocial history of the Russian Revolution.

I then taught at the State University of NewYork at Oswego for eight years. Studying,teaching, and living in the United States gaveme an insight into how American societyworked. Impressed by the depth of the roots ofAmerican democracy and the diversity itoffered, I felt more at home and more liberatedin America than in the more regimented Japan,so I became an American citizen in 1976.

American citizenship gave me opportunities todo research in the Soviet Union that were notavailable in Japan at that time. I had access toarchives and established a wide network ofrelations with scholars.

After long years of research in the Sovietarchives, I finally published my first book, TheFebruary Revolution, Petrograd, 1917, in 1981.

When I finished the book, the United Stateswas going through another important debate,this time, on the nuclear issue. I becameinterested in this issue, and retooled myself atColumbia University, familiarizing myself withthe esoteric knowledge and theories of nuclearweapons and strategies of both the UnitedStates and the Soviet Union. I was particularlyinterested in arms control as a means to avoidnuclear war.

In 1985, I took a position at the Slavic ResearchCenter of Hokkaido University as the firstforeign permanent professor in Japan, thanksto new legislation that had just been passed.

I apologize for the long-winded answer, but I dobelieve that the uniqueness of my trajectory inlife and scholarly background is important tounderstanding my research. I have lived in

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three vastly different societies and I am fluentin Japanese, English, and Russian. Because ofmy background, facility for languages, anddiverse scholarly interests in both Russianhistory and nuclear issues, I think myperspective is different from that of mostscholars who have not had such experiences.

Now, finally to answer your question, my stayat the Slavic Research Center coincided withSoviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika,an exciting period that mesmerized not onlyevery specialist on Russia, but also everyspecialist on international history. Whilefollowing developments in the Soviet Union, Ibecame interested in the new era of Soviet-Japanese relations and the thorny NorthernTerritories issue. I found the perspective onthis issue by both Japan and the Soviet Unionunsatisfactory, with both sides driven bynarrow nationalism. There was no room for ameeting point while the world was radicallychanging before our eyes.

Taking advantage of the American debate onperestroika and the new scholarly approach tonationalism and ethnicity, as well as the newimpetus for international history in the UnitedStates, I wanted to enter the discussion tobridge the gap. So I wrote a book on Russo-Japanese relations and the Northern Territoriesb o t h i n E n g l i s h a n d i n J a p a n e s e(Hasegawa 1998Hasegawa, T. 1998. TheNorthern Territories Dispute and Russo-Japanese Relations. International & AreaStudies: University of California. [GoogleS c h o l a r ] ;Hasegawa 2000Hasegawa, T. 2000. HoppoRyodo Mondai to Nichiro Kankei [The NorthernTerritories Question and Russo-JapaneseRelations] Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo. [GoogleScholar]). And in those books, one chapter isdevoted to World War II.

When I examined the history of ending thePacific War, I was surprised to find that verylittle attention had been paid to the role of the

Soviet Union in the ending drama. So thattriggered my interest. Originally, I was going towrite an article or a short book on Russia’sinfluence on Japan’s decision-making, but themore I studied, I thought it’s not enough tostudy Russo-Japanese relations because it’s soconnected with international relations, and onehad to, of course, bring the United States intothe picture.

Looking at American historiography of theending of the Pacific War, Russia is almostabsent. So I decided to study this issue, and Ispent many years examining the archives anddocuments in the United States, Russia, andJapan. The end result is Racing the Enemy. Thisis the first international history of the subject.

In a way, with Racing the Enemy, I returned tothe roots of my childhood memory of the PacificWar, trying to place the fragments of mymemory into the full historical background.

The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb onJapan: Two False Assumptions

Yamaguchi: So why did you choose the issueof the atomic bombings in particular amongvarious events in the last months of World WarII?

Hasegawa: I must stress that this book is notmerely about the atomic bombings; it coversbroader issues of international history. Forinstance, the last chapter is devoted to theintricate negotiations between US PresidentHarry Truman and Soviet leader Joseph Stalinon the territorial settlement over the KurilIslands.

But you are right in one respect. One of themost important issues that the book examinesis the issue of the US decision to use the atomicbombs.

The prevailing American view on the atomic

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bombings ignores or pays little attention to therole the Soviet Union played. The prevailingbelief is that the use of atomic bombs was theonly choice that the US government had,because without the bombs, the United Stateswould have had to invade Japan, and about amillion people, Japanese and Americans, wouldhave perished. And so, to avoid that, the bombswere the only option available to Truman and,in fact, to any president in his place. This is thefirst assumption.

The second assumption is that the bombs didtheir job, that they were the decisive factor,providing the knock-out punch, if you will, inforcing the Japanese to surrender. These twoassumptions constitute the foundation on whichthe official view of the US decision to use theatomic bombs is constructed, and they areshared widely by the American public. Aftercareful examination of the archives and othermater ia ls , I came to quest ion theseassumptions. I concluded that this is a myth, amyth that Americans want to cling to becauseof their own psychological need to justify thekilling as a necessary evil.

With regard to the first assumption, I have topoint out that two very important options wereavailable to Americans. And in fact, the optionswere presented in the course o f thedeliberations of the US government. The firstoption was to welcome Soviet entry into thewar. By the end of 1944, US leaders had cometo the conclusion that in order to force Japan tosurrender, invasion of Japan’s homeland wouldbe necessary. The successful execution of thisstrategy would require Soviet entry into thewar in order to pin down the Japanese forces inChina and Korea.

Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta

The Yalta Conference was held in February1945. In order to secure Stalin’s pledge toenter the war, President Franklin Rooseveltpromised that the United States would rewardthe Soviet Union. This was the so-called YaltaSecret Protocol Agreement. There, Rooseveltpromised to grant the Soviet Union variousconcessions on the railways and ports inManchuria, the return of Southern Sakhalin(Karafuto), and the handing over of the KurilIslands.

But, in the few months that followed, thesituation changed. The war developed in favorof the United States to such an extent that USleaders thought that they could win the warwithout the Soviets. This was the first dilemmathat faced the new president, Harry Truman.Should he welcome Soviet entry into the warand risk of allowing it to enhance its influencein East Asia? Or should he seek to end the warwithout Soviet help? In that case, the war’stermination might be prolonged, necessitatingfurther sacrifices of American lives.

The second dilemma Truman faced was the so-called unconditional-surrender demand. UnderRoosevelt, the United States had demandedunconditional surrender by Japan, and Truman

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followed this policy faithfully. This was becauseJapan had engaged in military aggressionigniting the war (an unjust war) and hadcommitted numerous atrocities againstAmerican and Allied soldiers (violations ofjustice in warfare). In order to defeat Japanesemilitarism so that Japan could never rise againas a military power, the United States and itsallies sought to impose unconditionalsurrender. But as the war developed, certainvery influential people within the government –such as Secretary of War Henry Stimson,Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, andDeputy Secretary of State and formerAmbassador to Japan Joseph Grew – thought itnecessary to define what “unconditionalsurrender” exactly meant. Particularlyimportant was the status of the emperor. If theUnited States were to insist on unconditionalsurrender, particularly if it were to insist ontrying or punishing the emperor, as somewithin the administration insisted, they wereconvinced that the Japanese would fight on tothe very last man. Therefore, they argued, inorder to terminate the war, the US would haveto define the terms in such a way that it couldallow the Japanese to preserve the monarchicalsystem, even under the current dynasty.

Atlee, Truman, Stalin at Potsdam

On July 2, before the Potsdam Conferencebegan, Stimson presented the president withthe dra f t proposa l f o r the Po tsdam

Proclamation, which was meant to be theultimatum to Japan. This draft included twoimportant items. First, it anticipated Sovietentry into the war. In fact, the OperationsDivision of the Army General Staff, which hadworked on the proclamation draft, thought thatthe most effective means of forcing Japan’ssurrender was to time the issuance of theultimatum to Japan to coincide with theinitiation of Soviet entry into the war. Thesecond provision was that the Allied powerswould allow Japan to preserve the monarchyunder the current dynasty, “if it be shown tothe complete satisfaction of the world that sucha government will never aspire again toaggression”.

What happened with these provisions? ThePotsdam Conference was held from July 17 toA u g u s t 2 . O n J u l y 2 6 , t h e P o t s d a mproclamation was issued. It said nothing aboutthe entry of the Soviet Union and nothing aboutthe possible preservation of the monarchy.Those two conditions were rejected because ofpolitical considerations.

Thus, I would argue that the first assumption –that the atomic bomb was the only alternativefor the United States to end the war – wasfalse, a myth. The fact is that Truman did notchoose other alternatives available to him.

Yamaguchi: So your conclusion is that thesetwo options were deliberately rejected byAmerican leaders. Is that right?

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Hasegawa: That’s right. Those two optionswere presented, but they were discarded forpolitical purposes.

Earlier I mentioned that Truman faced twodilemmas. How could the president solve thosetwo dilemmas? The first plutonium bomb testwas successful, one day before the PotsdamConference began. Eureka! The US had thewinning weapon! With the atomic bomb, theUnited States would be able to terminate thewar before the Soviets entered the war, and itwould also be able to bring Japan to its knees.That’s why Truman rejected the alternativesthat Stimson presented.

That’s my argument on the first assumption.The atomic bomb was not the only availableoption; there were two very important optionsavailable. But they were rejected for politicalreasons.

To Deter the Soviets?

Yamaguchi: Some argue that the bombs wereintended not only to terminate the war, but alsoto control or deter the Soviet Union, with aview to the postwar era. What do you think ofthis view?

Hasegawa: One group of revisionist historiansargue that the atomic bombs were used eventhough Japan had already been defeated.Therefore, there was no reason for the UnitedStates to use the bombs. The only reason theUnited States used them was to intimidate theSoviet Union. The Cold War had alreadystarted.

My interpretation is different. Defeat isdifferent from surrender because surrender is apolitical decision. It’s quite clear that Japanwas defeated militarily. There was no way thatJapan could win the war or avert defeat. But itremained that the United States had to forcethe Japanese leadership to accept surrender.

That was a very difficult challenge, particularlybecause Japanese leaders maintained afanatical belief in the kokutai, worship of theemperor, which they considered the spiritualessence of Japanese nationhood.

Among Truman’s advisers, Secretary of StateJames Byrnes may have been the most vocalabout using the bomb to intimidate the Soviets.But Byrnes also sought to intimidate theJapanese to induce surrender. It is difficult tosay which motivation had higher priority forByrnes.

In my opinion, Truman himself and hisadministration as a whole used the bombprimarily to terminate the war, but they did soin such a way that – this is where the secondmotivation comes in – it would prevent theSoviet Union from entering the war. That’squite different from the interpretation by GarAlperovitz and other revisionists of this school.

Impact on the Soviet Union

Yamaguchi: I would like to know more abouthow Soviet decision-making was affected by thedevelopment of the American atomic bombs.

Hasegawa: The Soviet Union was also facing adilemma. They had decided long time – by asearly as October 1944 – to enter the waragainst Japan. But there was one problem. TheSoviet Union and Japan had a neutrality pact. Ithad been concluded in 1941 and included theprovision that unless one party notified theother party one year prior to the termination ofthe pact, it would automatically continue foranother five years.

And so, in April 1945, the Soviet governmentnotified the Japanese government that it wouldnot renew the pact. The Japanese ambassadorto the Soviet Union, Naotake Sato, asked SovietForeign Minister Viacheslav Molotov if theSoviet Union was going to abrogate the pact

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immediately. Molotov said no, the neutralitypact would remain in effect until April 1946. Ofcourse, that was a lie. Stalin had a veryinteresting expression – “We will lull theJapanese to sleep.” Stalin wanted the Japaneseto believe that the Soviet government wasobserving the neutrality pact, while in fact itwas sending troops and equipment to the FarEast in preparation to enter the war.

But there was one problem. The Soviets haddecided that the most favorable moment forattack on Japan would be in August. By thenpreparations would be completed for a surpriseattack on all three fronts against Japaneseforces in China and Korea, and the weatherwould be most favorable. But this would be aclear violation of the neutrality pact. So howwere they to solve this dilemma? The solutionwas that, at the forthcoming PotsdamConference, Stalin would have the Alliednations invite the Soviet Union to join the war.The Soviets’ commitment to the Allies,especially for the higher cause of terminatingthe world war, would trump its legalobligations to Japan.

One might question why Stalin, known as themajor player of Realpolitik, would care muchabout the legal commitment. Actually, contraryto the belief that the dictator could ignore legalniceties at will, the Soviet government wascareful to observe the legal commitments thatit made. Moreover, Stalin was concerned thatthe Soviet entry into the war was a violation ofthe Neutrality Pact, given that his people hadfought and sacrificed so many lives in a warthat had been initiated by the Nazi violation ofthe 1941 Non-Aggression Pact.

But, after the United States acquired theatomic bomb, it moved to exclude the SovietUnion from the ultimatum to Japan, betrayingits earlier promise to place the joint ultimatumon the agenda of the Potsdam Conference. OnJuly 26, a few hours before the official issuanceof the Potsdam Proclamation, Secretary of

State James Byrnes gave the Soviet delegationits text to the press. Throughout the PotsdamConference, the Soviets had been kept in thedark on the deliberations of the Proclamation,although the American and the Britishdelegations were constantly in touch with eachother, and the text was sent to Chiang Kai-shekfor his approval. The announcement was a totalshock to the Soviets. Upon learning about theproclamation, signed by Truman, Churchill, andChiang Kai-shek, the Soviet Union hastily wroteup its own joint proclamation and asked theUnited States to postpone the issuance of itsproclamation, presumably so that the Sovietscould present their own version at theconference. The United States promptlyrejected the request. It had already beenreleased to the press before Molotov made therequest a few hours before the official issuanceof the proclamation. Molotov’s request cametoo late, Byrnes explained. The Soviets wereoutmaneuvered, and lost the chance to presenttheir version, and their draft was sent to thearchives.

And what did Stalin do next? On July 29,Molotov, who attended the meeting in place ofStalin, who claimed that he was sick, proposedthat Truman should invite Stalin to sign theproclamation. Truman rejected this offer aswell. Later Truman explained: “I did not likethis proposal for one important reason. I saw init a cynical diplomatic move to make Russia’sentry at this time appear to be the decisivefactor to bring about victory.” Truman’srejection convinced Stalin, finally, that theUnited States was trying to force Japan tosurrender before the Soviet entry into the war.If that occurred, all the promises that theUnited States made at Yalta would be nullified.Stalin became desperate. The race between theatomic bombs and Soviet entry into the warhad begun in earnest.

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Iconic image of the Hiroshima bomb

Fumihiko Yoshida: When Stalin was notifiedabout the atomic bomb by Truman during thePotsdam conference, what impact did this haveon Stalin? I presume the Soviet Union waspreparing its own nuclear-weapons program.

Hasegawa: That’s a very interesting question.The Soviets had already begun their project todevelop atomic weapons and they had spies inthe Manhattan Project; the most important wasKlaus Fuchs. The Soviet Union was aware ofwhat the United States was doing.

When the first US nuclear test succeeded onJuly 16, however, the Soviet secret police hadno knowledge of the test.

During the Potsdam Conference, when a reportabout the successful test in New Mexicoreached Truman on July 21, he conferred withUK Prime Minister Winston Churchill aboutwhat to do with this information. They agreedthat something had to be reported to Stalin but

that they should not reveal that this was theatomic bomb.

So during recess at the conference on July 24,Truman approached Stalin. Everybody on theAmerican and British sides was watching,because they wanted to know what Stalin’sreaction would be. Truman told Stalin: “I haveto tell you that our country has acquired a newweapon of unusual destructive force”. Stalinlooked at Truman and said, “Well, I hope youmake good use of it.” Truman and everyoneelse thought Stalin didn’t know that Trumanwas talking about the atomic bomb withoutspecifically referring to it as such.

But Stalin was fully aware. When he came backto his villa, he called a conference. He wasangry about the failure of intelligence to detectthe successful American test of the plutoniumbomb. He said: “We are not going to let theAmericans use this to intimidate us”. That nighthe ordered his scientists to speed up the Sovietatomic-bomb project.

The question is whether Stalin expected theUnited States to use the bomb. I don’t thinkthat he expected the United States to make thebomb operational so quickly. But the first bombwas dropped on Hiroshima on August 6 at 8:15Tokyo time. When exactly the news of theatomic bomb reached Stalin is not known, buthe must have heard the news by late afternoonor the evening of August 6. I believe that whenStalin received the news, he was in real shock.And in fact, if you take a look at Stalin’s dailyschedule book, he met all kinds of people onAugust 5, when he returned to Moscow fromBerlin, to discuss with them preparations forthe war.

But on August 6, the day when the Hiroshimabomb was dropped, Stalin’s appointment bookwas blank. This blank page speaks volumes. Isuspect that he was in deep shock. He musthave thought that the atomic bomb mightprompt Japan to end the war immediately,before the Soviets entered the war. But on

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August 7, Ambassador Sato requested ameeting with Molotov to inquire about Japan’spending request for mediation. From thisrequest, Stalin learned that the game was notover yet. He sprang into action. He ordered hismilitary to move up the date to start the war by48 hours, to midnight of August 8-9.

What Was the Decisive Factor in Endingthe War?

Yamaguchi: Now we would like to discuss thesecond assumption that you have mentioned.You rebut the argument that the atomic bombswere the decisive factor in Japan’s surrender.Could you expand on that?

Hasegawa: We have to go back a little bit.Japan also faced a dilemma. The Battle ofOkinawa began on 1 April 1945. The Japanesemilitary and the emperor himself thought thatthey would inflict damage on the Americansand gain favorable conditions under which theycould terminate the war. But the Battle ofOkinawa ended in mid-June with a decisivedefeat for Japan.

This was the first time that Japanese leadersseriously started to discuss how to terminatethe war. The Japanese government washopelessly divided. The highest decision-making body, the Supreme War Council,consisting of the Big Six (prime minister,foreign minister, Army minister, Army chief ofstaff, Navy minister and Navy chief of staff),required unanimity before any decision wasbrought to the emperor for approval. But themilitary – the war party – (except for the Navyminister) continued to insist that in theanticipated American invasion of Kyushu, theJapanese would inflict tremendous damage onthe Americans and break their morale.

Those who favored immediate peace – thepeace party – led by Foreign Minister ShigenoriTogo, Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai, and

Marquis Koichi Kido, Lord Keeper of the PrivySeal, who was not a member of the Big Six, butwas the Emperor’s most trusted adviser,thought that continuing the war would diminishthe possibility of gaining favorable terms. Whatdid they mean by that?

There was a consensus between the war partyand the peace party: the minimal condition forthe termination of the war should be thepreservation of the kokutai. The kokutai wascentered around emperor worship, which theJapanese leadership considered the essence ofthe nation. If this condition was not met, Japanwould fight to the bitter end, to the last soldierand the last civilian. They interpreted theAmerican demand for unconditional surrenderas tantamount to the destruction of the kokutai.Thus, they precluded negotiations with the USand Britain.

There was only one major country thatremained neutral. That was the Soviet Union.So they decided to approach the Soviet Unionand seek help to mediate the termination of thewar.

That was a colossal diplomatic mistake,because, as noted above, the Soviet Union hadalready decided that it would wage war againstJapan and was making preparations for it inearnest, especial ly after the Germancapitulation on May 7. Moreover, Japaneseintelligence sources detected that the Sovietswere sending troops and equipment on amassive scale to the Far East and warned thatSoviet entry into the war was imminent. Butthe Japanese top leaders ended peace feelers inSwitzerland and Sweden, and put all their eggsin the Soviet basket. They confused strategicthinking with wishful thinking, hoping topersuade the Soviet Union to mediate byoffering generous territorial concessions. Theseconcessions were, however, much smaller thanthose that Stalin had been offered at Yalta.

One crucial point that was to become acontentious issue later – and remains

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contentious today – was the possession of thesouthern Kurils, which the Japanese now callthe Northern Territories. (They didn’t do sothen.) As I mentioned before, the entire Kurilchain was included in the reward promised toStalin by the Yalta secret protocol, but thesouthern Kurils were not included in theconcessions that Japan was willing to grant tothe Soviet Union. That was because this part ofthe Kurils had been recognized as belonging toJapan by the Russians in the Treaty of Shimodain 1855, and had always been a part ofHokkaido, that is, an inherent part of Japaneseterritory. Whether this territory should beincluded in the territorial concessions to theSoviet Union was not debated in the Japanesegovernment, most likely because this fact wastaken for granted.

On July 12, five days before the PotsdamConference began, Foreign Minister Togo senta telegram to Ambassador Sato, instructing himto approach the Soviet government to requestmediation, saying that the emperor would sendPrince Fumimaro Konoye as his special envoyto Moscow for that purpose. Molotov askedfurther clarifications, but left for Potsdamwithout responding to Sato’s request formediation.

When Stalin met Truman on July 17, shortlybefore the official conference began, Stalinrevealed to Truman that he had receivedJapan’s request for Soviet mediation toterminate the war. Stalin told Truman that hewould prefer to “lull the Japanese to sleep,”without answering Japan’s request. Actually,Truman knew all this through his secretintelligence operation, Magic intercepts ofJapanese diplomatic dispatches. Withoutrevealing that he knew this, Truman approvedStalin’s policy not to respond to Japan’srequest. Both wanted to prolong the war longenough to surprise Japan, Truman with atomicbombs and Stalin with entry into the waragainst Japan.

When the Potsdam Proclamation was issued onJuly 26, the Japanese government was stillpatiently waiting for the Soviet answer onmediation.

How then did the Japanese government react tothe Potsdam Proclamation? First, theyimmediately noticed that Stalin did not sign it.So they continued to stay the course: to seekthe termination of the war through Sovietmediation. Secondly, the proclamation did notsay anything about the fate of the emperor,which was the most important concern forJapanese leaders. Togo thought that there wasroom for negotiation with the Allies on theterms specified by the Potsdam Proclamation.

The Japanese made another cardinal mistakehere. Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki allegedlydeclared at a press conference that Japan wasgoing to mokusatsu the proclamation.But mokusatsu is not total rejection. It basicallymeans they were going to “keep silent”, and“ignore” it. I say “allegedly” because it is notclear that Suzuki made this declaration or if thepress interpreted his ambiguous statement andused the term mokusatsu.

But the US government took it as rejection.Presumably, Truman and his advisers had notexpected the Japanese to accept theirultimatum in the first place. The removal of anyreference to the preservation of the monarchyensured that the Japanese would most likelynot accept the ultimatum. They took Suzuki’sunofficial mokusatsu statement as Japan’sofficial rejection of the ultimatum, providing aconvenient justification for the use of theatomic bombs.

Actually, the order to use the atomic bombs(not only the first bomb but also the second)was given on July 25, not by the president – nopresidential order was given – but by GeneralThomas Handy, the acting chief of staff of theArmy to General Carl Spaatz of the ArmyStrategic Air Forces, while General Marshallwas away in Potsdam, one day before the

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Potsdam Proclamation was issued. Spaatz wasordered to “deliver the first special bomb assoon as weather permits visual bombing afterabout 3 August 1945 on one of the targets:Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki.” Itadded: “Additional bombs will be delivered onthe above targets as soon as made ready by theproject staff.” The use of the atomic bomb wastreated as a routine military matter, just as thedecision to carry out conventional strategicbombing that had destroyed 64 Japanese citiesprior to the atomic bombing over the precedingfour months. The train had already left thestation, and barring Japan’s immediate decisionto surrender by accepting the Potsdamultimatum, the atomic bombs were fated to bedropped on two of these targets. With theremoval of Stimson’s two crucial stipulations,there was little chance that the Japaneseleaders would immediately accept the PotsdamProclamation.

General Handy's order to drop the atomicbombs

Yamaguchi: The United States then droppedthe bomb on Hiroshima on August 6.

Hasegawa: Yes. So what was the impact of theHiroshima bomb? Of course, i t was atremendous shock. But it cannot be said tohave been decisive and to have led to Japan’simmediate decision to surrender. Right afterthe Hiroshima bomb was dropped, later on theafternoon of August 6, Foreign Minister Togosent an urgent dispatch to Ambassador Sato inMoscow, telling him that they were in a diresituation with the new bomb and urging Sato tomeet Molotov immediately to inquire aboutJapan’s request for Soviet mediation. Thatmeant that despite the atomic bomb onHiroshima, the Japanese government was stillseeking to terminate the war through Sovietmediation. That was also the first response ofthe Japanese government to the bomb inHiroshima. This is telling evidence that theHiroshima bomb was not decisive.

Soviet forces invade Manchuria

And then, after midnight of August 8-9, SovietFar East time, two in the morning Japan time,Soviet tanks rolled into Manchuria, and planesattacked Japanese forces. This surprise attackwas totally unexpected. It was only then, on themorning of August 9, that the Supreme WarCouncil was convened for the first time. It hadnot met following the atomic bomb onHiroshima. But it was convened immediately

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after the Soviet attack.

During the heated debate at the Supreme WarCouncil the first news of the second atomicbomb on Nagasaki was conveyed to theJapanese leaders. The original report said thatthe bomb caused minimal damage. TheImperial General Headquarters record of thismeeting simply stated that the bombing had noimpact on the group’s deliberations. Therewere altogether six reports on the impact of theatomic bomb on Nagasaki dispatched to theImperial General Headquarters, eachconveying progressively more alarming news ofthe damage. Nevertheless, there exists norecord indicating that the second atomic bombhad an impact on the debate within the topechelons of the Japanese leaders. In otherwords, not only the first atomic bomb onHiroshima but also the two bombs combinedwere not decisive, to use the terminology ofboxing, they provided no “knock-out” punch, interms of the Japanese decision to terminate thewar. Even after the one-two punch of theHiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, they could notdecide, because the Supreme War Council wasstill divided. Unable to come to a consensus,they made an unprecedented decision – todefer the final decision to the emperor byholding an imperial conference.

The imperial conference that began at 11:30PM on August 9 and continued into the earlyhours of August 10 eventually decided, with theemperor’s consent, to accept the terms of thePotsdam Proclamation with one condition: “onthe understanding that the Allied Proclamationwould not comprise any demand which wouldprejudice the prerogatives of His Majesty as aSovereign Ruler [Tenno no kokka tochi notaiken].”

The United States rejected this condition. Theemperor’s prerogatives included tosuiken, thecontrol of the military. That prerogative was acrucial factor for Japanese militarism. TheUnited States had been fighting the war to

eradicate Japanese militarism, and there wasno possibility – whether they be hawks or doves– that they would accept this condition. In fact,the objections to this condition came from theJapan specialists who had advocated softeningthe unconditional-surrender demand. Secretaryof State Byrnes sent the so-called Byrnes noteto Japan making it clear that after acceptanceof the ultimatum, the Japanese emperor shouldbe subject to the control of the SupremeCommander of the Allied Powers. As far as theJapanese future polity was concerned, it wouldbe determined by the freely expressed will ofthe people.

The Byrnes note prompted even more seriousdivision among Japanese leaders than onprevious days. Even those people who initiallyfavored peace questioned what the UnitedStates meant by saying that the Japaneseemperor was “to be subject to the SupremeCommander of the Allied Powers”. TheJapanese emperor was divine and not to besubjected to anything, the hard-liners insisted.Furthermore, the kokutai was not the issue onwhich the emperor’s “subjects” could make adetermination. Since this was the acceptedview of kokutai in Japan, the peace advocateshad a hard time countering the hard-liner’scounter-attack.

As a result, there was a backlash. Even Suzuki,Togo and Yonai began to waver, but thesecond-tier peace factions, who had workedhard to secure peace in the Prime Minister’sOffice (Hisatsune Sakomizu), the ForeignMinistry (Shunichi Matsumoto) and the NavalMinistry (Sokichi Takagi), conspired behind theback of the strengthened war party. Theymanaged to mobilize the wavering Kido, Togo,Yonai and eventually Suzuki to arrange asecond imperial conference. And it was at thissecond imperial conference that the emperoraccepted the terms specified by the Potsdamultimatum unconditionally. Japan would acceptdefeat, although it did not use the term“surrender” (kofuku), merely “the termination

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of the war” (shusen). It was also decided thatthe emperor would broadcast the imperialrescript announcing the “termination of war”on the radio, another unprecedented event,since until then the emperor’s real voice hadnever reached his “subjects”.

So that’s the way that the war was terminated.This is my long analysis of the secondassumption that the atomic bomb was adecisive factor on the Japanese decision tosurrender. Neither the first bomb nor thecombined two bombs had immediate and directimpact on Japan’s decision to surrender.

So the two very important justifications for theUS decision to drop the bomb were false. Theywere merely myths.

Yoshida: Do you think then that the Sovietentry into the war was a decisive factor?

Hasegawa: It can be argued that the Sovietentry into the war was not a decisive factoreither since even after Soviet tanks enteredManchuria, the Supreme War Council could notreach a consensus and had to ask the emperorto make the decision.

There is no smoking gun to determine which –the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the two atomicbombs combined, or the Soviet entry into thewar – had a decisive impact on Japan’s decisionto surrender. I think that everything isspeculation. That’s partly because the Japanesegovernment burned all the documents it couldat the end of the war, so we lack documentaryevidence to draw definitive conclusions. Andsecondly, very important surviving documentsand archives still are not available. Forinstance, the Imperial Household Agency(Kunaicho) has records, but these have notbeen made available. So we don’t know whatthe emperor thought and what he discussedwith his advisers, especially Kido, and others.There exists Army minister Korechika Anami’sdiary, but it has not been made public.

But from the circumstantial evidence, I wouldsay, again, that the Soviet factor is moreimportant than not only the first bomb onHiroshima, but also the two atomic bombscombined. The Japanese government reliedheavily on Soviet neutrality. It clung to thehope of Soviet mediation right up until theSoviets entered the war. It is important tostress that even after the Soviet attack, Japandid not declare war against the Soviet Union,limiting the military resistance merely to self-defense.

But Japan was betrayed when it was clinging tothe hope of Soviet mediation. The Japanesecharacterized the Soviet action as that of a firethief (kajiba-dorobo). The betrayal had atremendous psychological effect. The sight ofSoviets tanks rolling into Manchuria, Korea,then Sakhalin and the Kurils was indeedalarming, prompting a fast turnaround by thetop policy-makers, including the emperor, withregard to the role of the Soviet Union. If theSoviets continued to march, they might evengain a decisive voice in the Allied OccupationCouncil and might claim a part of Japan as theiroccupation zone, making even the preservationof the current imperial dynasty uncertain. Infact, in the negotiations with Truman, Stalindemanded that the Soviets have an occupationzone in a part of Hokkaido and a slice of Tokyo.

Suddenly, the fourth provision of Byrnes’ note,which stipulated that Japan’s future politywould be determined by the freely expressedwill of the people, became more attractive. Andthis was the point that the emperor made toKido for unconditional acceptance of thePotsdam terms. In other words, in order topreserve the current imperial dynasty, if notthe kokutai as they understood it, Japanesepolicy-makers, including the emperor, bet onthe American side hoping that the UnitedStates would be willing to preserve theImperial House, and specifically, it would bemore willing than the Soviets to do so. It isimportant to note that in the imperial rescript

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as well as the prime minister’s announcementof the termination of the war, they pretendedthat the kokutai was preserved although themeaning of the kokutai was transformed fromthe traditional mythical term, the spiritualessence of Japan’s nationhood, into thepreservation of the Imperial House.

For these reasons, I think that the Soviet entryinto the war had a more important impact onJapan’s decision to surrender than the twoatomic bombs combined.

The Third Justification: Revenge

Yamaguchi: Do you think any kind of domesticpolitical considerations contributed to the USdecision to drop the bomb?

Hasegawa: That’s very important. There is athird, hidden justification that Americans don’tstate very openly. That is revenge. The UnitedStates experienced the surprise attack on PearlHarbor. The United States and the Allies,including China, as well as Asian people underJapanese rule, suffered atrocious treatment oftheir prisoners of war and civilians – theNanjing Massacre, the Bataan Death March,experiments using poison gas and chemicalwarfare on live prisoners, the comfort women,beheadings and torture, and innumerable otheratrocities in violation of the rules of warfare.

When there were carpet bombings, such as theNazis’ attacks on Rotterdam and Warsaw andJapanese attacks on Chongqing and Shanghai,President Roosevelt issued a statementdenouncing these as totally unethical. Thereare certain things that you cannot do even intime of war. There are the rules of conduct inwarfare. For instance, the use of poison gas isbanned by the Hague Convention.

But these high principles gradually erodedwhen the Pacific War began, as John Dowerargues in his book War Without Mercy, both

s i d e s d e m o n i z e d t h e o t h e r s i d e(Dower 1986Dower, J. 1986. War withoutMercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. NewYork: Pantheon Books. [Google Scholar]). Andpretty soon, the American side began to thinkthat the only way the Japanese could learn theirlesson was to completely annihilate themphysically. New Republic wrote in 1942: “Thenatural enemy of every American man, womanand child is the Japanese man, woman andchild.” One official of the Information office inthe Army declared in 1944: “The entirepopulation of Japan is a proper target… Thereare no civilians in Japan.”

This desire for vengeance was also apparent inTruman. When the Federal Council of Churchesprotested the use of the atomic bombs onAugust 11, 1945. Truman responded: “Nobodyis more disturbed over the use of Atomic bombsthan I am but I was greatly disturbed over theunwarranted attack by the Japanese on PearlHarbor and their murder of our prisoners ofwar. The only language they seem tounderstand is the one we have been using tobombard them. When you have to deal with abeast you have to treat him as a beast.”

So, by the time the United States used theatomic bomb, that moral divide that PresidentRoosevelt had espoused had already beencrossed. Once that divide was crossed, it waseasier to go one step further from incendiarybombings to the atomic bombings.

Yoshida: In the Tokyo bombing, 100,000people were killed in one night. So even inJapan, there is an argument about what thedifference between Tokyo and Hiroshima is.

Hasegawa: But there are qualitativedifferences between conventional strategicbombing and atomic bombing. While the Tokyobombings were carried out by 279 B-52s,dropping 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs, onesingle atomic bomb could kill as many people.That is, one bomb over one city. The secondissue is radiation. If poison gas was prohibited

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by international law, then certainly the atomicbomb should be prohibited, too, since it is moreatrocious than poison gas in terms of masskilling of civilian populations. Truman himselfbecame aware of the horrible consequences ofatomic bombings. That’s why when he receivedthe news of the enormous number of victims ofthe Hiroshima bomb after the second bomb wasdropped on Nagasaki, he ordered that anyfuture use of atomic bombs would requirepresidential authorization. Later on, before hefulfilled his term of office, he admitted that theatomic bomb was many times worse thanpoison gas.

But I have one more important thing to add.Since I am both Japanese and American, Iwould like to make clear which voice I use tomake the following points. Although as anAmerican citizen, I believe that the use ofatomic bomb should be recognized as a warcrime to help prevent the Americans fromcommitting the same mistake in future.

But as a Japanese, I would like to stress thatwhen we talk about Japan as a victim, we alsohave to recall that Japan was also a perpetratorof war. Japan colonized Korea and Taiwan,invaded China, attacked Pearl Harbor, andcommitted numerous atrocities during the war.Countless numbers of people suffered at thehands of the Japanese. We must acknowledgethat Japan must also take responsibility for warcrimes, recognizing that our hands were alsosoaked with blood.

There is also the issue of political responsibilityfor prolonging the war. If Japan had terminatedthe war earlier, there would not have been theatomic bombings or Soviet entry into the war.Very few Japanese will voice their opinion onthis issue, including the responsibility of theJapanese emperor. He could have moredecisively intervened earlier to terminate thewar and save many Japanese, Asian andAmerican lives. He could have abdicated fromthe throne after the war to accept his

responsibility for supporting the war. That’staboo, and few Japanese historians touch uponit. We cannot only protest that we are innocentvictims of the bomb without atoning for thecrimes that Japan committed. Tears that pourout for the victims of the atomic bombs mustalso be accompanied by prayers for those whofell victim to Japan’s criminal acts during thewar.

Nuclear Weapons as a War Crime

Radomir Compel: In your book you write thatthe possession of nuclear weapons, or thepotential for use of those weapons changed theattitude of the United States (e.g. with regardto the Imperial system or early Soviet entryinto the war) . In general terms, is i tconceivable that possession of nuclear weaponshardens policy makers determination to pursuetheir goals more harshly or more assertively?

Hasegawa: I think there are two types ofmilitary men and women or even policy-makerswith regard to the use of the atomic bomb. Thefirst group holds that it should be used only fordeterrence. But there is another group thatbelieves that the atomic bomb can be used as alegitimate war-fighting weapon. It is for thatreason that nuclear weapons have beenconstantly improved and miniaturized, so thatthey can be used in war.

My fear is that, as long as nuclear weaponsexist, they could ultimately be used. PresidentDonald Trump thinks that new types of nuclearweapons can easily be used against roguestates. He and other authoritarian leaderswould not think twice about using them.

The only way to prevent another use of theatomic bomb is to build a global constituencycommitted to honoring and acting on theslogan that Nagasaki adopts – let Nagasaki bethe last victim of the atomic bomb by abolishingnuclear weapons altogether.

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When I was thinking about nuclear weapons inthe middle of the Cold War, I was moreinterested in arms control or how to preventthe use of the atomic bomb rather than nucleardisarmament or total abolition of nuclearweapons.

I spent many years working on the decision-making process a the top, but after publishedRacing the Enemy, I began reading about whatwas happening on the ground in Hiroshima andNagasaki. I read many eye-witness accounts,saw the illlustrations drawn by the victims, andread a rich trove of atomic bomb literature(Tamiki Hara, Sankichi Toge, Masuji Ibuse,Kenzaburo Oe, Yoko Ota, among others).Historians who work on diplomatic historyrarely lower their gaze on the ground. But Ichallenge how many of these diplomatichistorians who justify the dropping of theatomic bombs have the courage to make thesame argument, after becoming familiar withwhat occurred on the ground on Hiroshima andNagasaki, and what sufferings the survivorshave endured over the years. After seriousreflection on these accounts, I have finallycome to the conclusion that nuclear weaponsmust be abolished altogether. That’s the onlyway to prevent them from being used and theuse of nuclear weapons should be denouncedas a war crime.

Compel: In the system, as it is today, we cancondemn only a very few cases among themany war crimes that occur. For example,there have been convictions for war crimes inYugoslavia and in places where the interests ofgreat powers are not involved, like Africa. Atthe same time, many incidents in the wars inSyria, Afghanistan, or Iraq are not beingprosecuted, because they are kept outside ofICC (International Criminal Court) jurisdiction.Also, despite the fact that war crimes may becommitted by other parties to the conflict,often only one party is being tried and foundguilty. This leaves an impression that the otherparty has not committed any war crimes. Does

this not apply to cases like Hiroshima andNagasaki? And do you think there might be away to address such imbalances?

HasegawaTH: Between August 6, that isbetween the day that the atomic bomb wasdropped on Hiroshima and on August 9, whenthe second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, theAllied powers – the United States, Soviet Union,Great Britain and France – got together andtalked about their policy for trials of warcrimes. And they eliminated strategic bombingfrom the category of war crimes. That meantthat atomic bombing would not be addressed inwar crimes trials. Judge Radhabinod Pal ofIndia presented a dissenting view, raised thequestion of the use of atomic bombs as a warcrime at the International Military Tribunal forthe Far East, but his opinion was ruled out.

Your question is about how to make it happen. Idon’t know. It ’s a very diff icult task,particularly in the current climate. But we haveto keep working. As Vol ta ire sa id inhis Candide, “We must cultivate our garden.”

This article is adapted from Hibiki Yamaguchi,Fumihiko Yoshida and Radomir Compel, “Canthe Atomic Bombings on Japan Be Justified? AConversation with Dr. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa",The Journa l f o r Peace and Nuc learDisarmament Vol 2, Issue 1, 2019, pp. 19-33Following the original, Japanese surnames arelisted after given names.

Selected Bibliography

Alperovitz, Gar, 1996. The Decision to Use theAtomic Bomb. New York: Viking Press.

Bird, Kai and Lawrence Lifschulz, 1998.Hiroshima's Shadow. Stony Creek, Conn.:Pamphleteer's Press.

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Butow, J. C. Robert, 1956. Japan’s Decision toSurrender. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Dower, John. 1986. War without Mercy: Raceand Power i n the Pac i f i c War . NewYork: Pantheon Books.

Dower, John, 2010. Cultures of War: PearlHarbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, Iraq. New York: W.W. Norton.

[Google Scholar]

Frank, Richard, 1999. Downfall: the End of theImperial Japanese Empire. New York: RandomHouse.

Gordin, Michael, 2007. Five Days in August .Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. 1998. The NorthernTerritories Dispute and Russo-JapaneseR e l a t i o n s . I n t e r n a t i o n a l & A r e aStudies: University of California.

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Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. 2005. Racing the Enemy:Stal in, Truman and the Surrender ofJapan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress.

[Crossref]

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Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. ed., 2007. The End of theWar Pacific War: Reappraisals. Stanford:Stanfored University Press.

Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. 2017a. Crime and

Punishment in the Russian Revolution: MobJustice and Police in Petrograd.Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press.

[Crossref]

[Google Scholar]Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. 2017b. The FebruaryRevolution, Petrograd 1917: The End of theTsarist Regime and the Birth of DualPower. Leiden: Brill. (Paperback edition,Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2018).

[Google Scholar]

Holloway, David 1994. Stalin and the Bomb.New Haven: Yale University Press.

Malloy, Sean, 2008. Atomic Tragedy: HenryStimson and the Decision to Use the Bombagainst Japan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Norris, Robert, 2002. Racing for the Bomb.South Royjalton, VT: Steerforth Press.

Rhodes, Richard, 1986. The Making of theAtomic Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Southard, Susan, 2015. Nagasaki: Life afterNuclear War. New York: Viking.

Tanaka, Yuki and Marilyn Young, ed., 2009.Bombing Civilians. New York: New Press.

Walker, Samuel, 2004. Prompt and UtterDestruction: Truman and the Use of AtomicBomb against Japan. Chapel Hill: NorthCarolina Press.

Hibiki Yamaguchi is managing editor of the Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament (J-PAND).

Fumihiko Yoshida is editor-in-chief of J-PAND. He also serves as director of the ResearchCenter for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University.

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Radomir Compel is associate professor in the School of Global Humanities and SocialSciences at Nagasaki University.