Silly Thinking
*with Jim Farris*
2011323 Curiosities served
Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945
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Boston Globe
"ALTHOUGH THE WAR did not make any immediate demands on me physically, while it lasted it put a complete stop to my artistic activity because it forced me into an agonizing reappraisal of my fundamental assumptions.'' These words were spoken by Thomas Mann in his Nobel laureate speech in 1929, a reflection of the broad psychological rupture inflicted on the European mind by World War I. But just as war can lead to the ''reappraisal of fundamental assumptions,'' it can do the opposite, reinforcing assumptions to the point of shutting down debate. That seems a more American story.
Tomorrow marks the 58th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
The Case Against the Atomic Bombing
The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, set up by the War Department in 1944 to study the results of aerial attacks in the war, interviewed hundreds of Japanese civilian and military leaders after Japan surrendered, and reported just after the war:
“Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to December 31 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”
But could American leaders have known this in August 1945?
The answer is, clearly, yes. The Japanese code had been broken, and Japan’s messages were being intercepted.
Chomsky on Hiroshima
I stated that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are "among the most unspeakable crimes in history." I took no position on just where they stand on the scale of horrors relative to Auschwitz, the bombing of Chungking, Lidice, and so on. Others have been less reticent. For example, the leading Asian representative on the Tokyo Tribunal, Justice R. Pal of India, stated in his dissenting opinion that the decision to use the atom bomb "is the only near approach" in the Pacific war to the Nazi crimes. And that "nothing like this could be traced to the credit of the present accused." For what it is worth, I think that he is right, and that the bombing of Nagasaki, in particular, was history's most abominable experiment. To argue this point, one would have to analyze the decision to use the bomb and the basis for demanding an unconditional victory in the first place. This is not the place for such a review, obviously, but I do think that an intensive study of this question is an inescapable task for any thinking person in the United States—specifically, for anyone who feels inclined to censure Germany for its failure to face up to the crimes of the Nazi era.
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