Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The Fat Man mushroom cloud resulting from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rises into the air from the hypocenter

The debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki concerns the ethical, legal and military controversies surrounding the United States' atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 August and 9 August 1945 at the close of the Second World War (1939–45).

On 26 July 1945, the United States President Harry S. Truman, United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chairman of the Nationalist Government of China Chiang Kai-shek issued the Potsdam Declaration, which outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan as agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference. This ultimatum stated if Japan did not surrender, she would face "prompt and utter destruction." Some debaters focus on the presidential decision-making process, and others on whether or not the bombings were the proximate cause of Japanese surrender.

Over the course of time, different arguments have gained and lost support as new evidence has become available and as new studies have been completed. However, a primary and continuing focus has been on the role of the bombings in Japan's surrender and the U.S.'s justification for them based upon the premise the bombings precipitated the surrender. This remains the subject of both scholarly and popular debate. In 2005, for example, in an overview of historiography about the matter, J. Samuel Walker wrote, "the controversy over the use of the bomb seems certain to continue." Walker stated, "The fundamental issue that has divided scholars over a period of nearly four decades is whether the use of the bomb was necessary to achieve victory in the war in the Pacific on terms satisfactory to the United States."

Supporters of the bombings generally assert they caused the Japanese surrender, preventing massive casualties on both sides in the planned invasion of Japan: Kyūshū was to be invaded in October 1945 and Honshū five months later. It was thought Japan would not surrender unless there was an overwhelming demonstration of destructive capability.

Those who oppose the bombings argue it was simply an extension of the already fierce conventional air raids on Japan and, therefore, militarily unnecessary, inherently immoral, a war crime, or a form of state terrorism. At least one historian states that the Soviet declaration of war on Japan had more of an effect than the two nuclear bombings (cf. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa).

Support

Preferable to invasion

There were those who considered that the atomic bomb should never have been used at all. I cannot associate myself with such ideas… I am surprised that very worthy people—but people who in most cases had no intention of proceeding to the Japanese front themselves—should adopt a position that rather than throw this bomb we should have sacrificed a million American and a quarter of a million British lives…

Winston Churchill, leader of the Opposition, in a speech to the British House of Commons, August 1945

A map outlining the Japanese and U.S. (but not other Allied) ground forces scheduled to take part in the ground battle for Japan. Two landings were planned:
(1) Olympic—the invasion of the southern island, Kyūshū,
(2) Coronet—the invasion of the main island, Honshū.

March 1946's Operation Coronet was planned to take Tokyo with a landing of 25 divisions, compared to D-Day's 12 Divisions.

The bulk of the force invading Japan would be American although the British Commonwealth would contribute three divisions of troops (one each from Britain, Canada, and Australia).

Those who argue in favor of the decision to drop the atom bombs believe massive casualties on both sides would have occurred in Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of Japan.

The U.S. anticipated losing many soldiers in the planned invasion of Japan, although the number of expected fatalities and wounded is subject to some debate. U.S. President Truman stated in 1953 he had been advised U.S. casualties could range from 250,000 to one million men. A quarter of a million is roughly the level the Joint War Plans Committee, in its paper prepared for Truman's 18 June meeting, had estimated (JWPC 369/1) . A review of documents from the Truman Library shows Truman's initial draft response to the query describes Marshall only as saying "one quarter of a million would be the minimum." The "as much as a million" phrase was added to the final draft by Truman's staff, so as not to appear to contradict an earlier statement given in a published article by Stimson (former secretary of war). In a study done by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in April 1945, the figures of 7.45 casualties per 1,000 man-days and 1.78 fatalities per 1,000 man-days were developed. This implied the two planned campaigns to conquer Japan would cost 1.6 million U.S. casualties, including 380,000 dead. A later study by the Joint War Plans Committee, - JWPC 369/1, 15 June 1945 - who provided planning information to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated an invasion of Japan would result in 40,000 U.S. dead and 150,000 wounded. Delivered on 15 June 1945, after insight gained from the Battle of Okinawa, the study noted Japan's inadequate defenses due to the very effective sea blockade and the American firebombing campaign. Generals George C. Marshall and Douglas MacArthur signed documents agreeing with the Joint War Plans Committee estimate.

In addition, a large number of Japanese military and civilian casualties were expected as a result of such actions. Contemporary estimates of Japanese deaths from an invasion of the Home Islands ranged from several hundreds of thousands to as high as ten million. General MacArthur's staff provided an estimated range of American deaths depending on the duration of the invasion, and also estimated a 22:1 ratio of Japanese to American deaths. From this, a low figure of somewhat more than 200,000 Japanese deaths can be calculated for a short invasion of two weeks, and almost 3 million Japanese deaths if the fighting lasted four months. A widely cited estimate of 5 to 10 million Japanese deaths came from a study by William Shockley and Quincy Wright; the upper figure was used by Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy who characterized it as conservative. Some 400,000 additional Japanese deaths might have been suffered in the expected Soviet invasion of Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's main islands. An Air Force Association webpage states that "Millions of women, old men, and boys and girls had been trained to resist by such means as attacking with bamboo spears and strapping explosives to their bodies and throwing themselves under advancing tanks." The AFA noted that "[t]he Japanese cabinet had approved a measure extending the draft to include men from ages fifteen to sixty and women from seventeen to forty-five (an additional 28 million people)."

Supporters also point to an order given by the Japanese War Ministry on 1 August 1944, ordering the execution of Allied prisoners of war, POW, "...when an uprising of large numbers cannot be suppressed without the use of firearms" or when the POW-camp was in the combat zone, so "escapees from the camp may turn into a hostile fighting force".

The great loss of lives during the battle of Iwo Jima and other Pacific islands gave US leaders a clear picture of the casualties that would happen with a main land invasion. Of the 22,060 Japanese soldiers entrenched on the Iwo Jima, 21,844 died either from fighting or by ritual suicide. Only 216 were captured during the battle. According to the official Navy Department Library website, "The 36-day (Iwo Jima) assault resulted in more than 26,000 American casualties, including 6,800 dead." 19,217 wounded To put this into context, the 82-day Battle of Okinawa lasted from early April until mid-June 1945 and U.S. casualties (out of 5 Army and 2 Marine Corps Divisions) were over 62,000, of which over 12,000 were killed or missing.

The U.S. military had nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals manufactured in anticipation of potential casualties from the planned invasion of Japan. To the present date, all the American military casualties of the 60 years following the end of World War II—including the Korean and Vietnam Wars—have not exceeded that number. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock. Because of the number available, combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan were able to keep Purple Hearts on-hand for immediate award to wounded soldiers on the field.

Speedy end of war saved lives

Supporters of the bombing argue waiting for the Japanese to surrender would also have cost lives. "For China alone, depending upon what number one chooses for overall Chinese casualties, in each of the ninety-seven months between July 1937 and August 1945, somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 persons perished, the vast majority of them noncombatants. For the other Asian states alone, the average probably ranged in the tens of thousands per month, but the actual numbers were almost certainly greater in 1945, notably due to the mass death in a famine in Vietnam. Historian Robert P. Newman concluded that each month that the war continued in 1945 would have produced the deaths of 'upwards of 250,000 people, mostly Asian but some Westerners.'"

The end of the war liberated millions of laborers working in harsh conditions under a forced mobilization. In the Dutch East Indies, there was a "forced mobilization of some 4 million—although some estimates are as high as 10 million—romusha (manual laborers)...About 270,000 romusha were sent to the Outer Islands and Japanese-held territories in Southeast Asia, where they joined other Asians in performing wartime construction projects. At the end of the war, only 52,000 were repatriated to Java."

The firebombing of Tokyo alone had killed well over 100,000 people in Japan since February 1945, directly and indirectly. Because the USAAF wanted to use its bombs on previously undamaged cities in order to have accurate data on nuclear-caused damage, Kokura, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Niigata were preserved from conventional bombing raids. Otherwise they would all have been fire-bombed. Intensive conventional bombing would have continued or increased prior to an invasion. The submarine blockade and the United States Army Air Forces's mining operation, Operation Starvation, had effectively cut off Japan's imports. A complementary operation against Japan's railways was about to begin, isolating the cities of southern Honshū from the food grown elsewhere in the Home Islands. "Immediately after the defeat, some estimated that 10 million people were likely to starve to death", noted historian Daikichi Irokawa. Meanwhile, fighting continued in The Philippines, New Guinea and Borneo, and offensives were scheduled for September in southern China and Malaya. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria had, in the week before the surrender, caused over 80,000 deaths.

In September 1945, nuclear physicist Karl T. Compton, who himself took part in the Manhattan Project, visited MacArthur's headquarters in Tokyo, and following his visit wrote a defensive article, in which he summarized his conclusions as follows: "If the atomic bomb had not been used, evidence like that I have cited points to the practical certainty that there would have been many more months of death and destruction on an enormous scale".

Philippine justice Delfin Jaranilla, member of the Tokyo tribunal, wrote in his judgment:

"If a means is justified by an end, the use of the atomic bomb was justified for it brought Japan to her knees and ended the horrible war. If the war had gone longer, without the use of the atomic bomb, how many thousands and thousands of helpless men, women and children would have needlessly died and suffered ...?"

Lee Kuan Yew, the Former Prime Minister of Singapore concurred:

"But they also showed a meanness and viciousness towards their enemies equal to the Huns'. Genghis Khan and his hordes could not have been more merciless. I have no doubts about whether the two atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary. Without them, hundreds of thousands of civilians in Malaya and Singapore, and millions in Japan itself, would have perished."

Lee witnessed his home city being invaded by the Japanese and was nearly executed in the Sook Ching Massacre.

Part of total war

Chinese civilians massacred during Japan's campaign of total war in Xuzhou.

Supporters of the bombings have argued the Japanese government had promulgated a National Mobilization Law and waged total war, ordering many civilians (including women and children) to work in factories and military offices and to fight against any invading force. Father John A. Siemes, professor of modern philosophy at Tokyo's Catholic University, and an eyewitness to the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima wrote:

"We have discussed among ourselves the ethics of the use of the bomb... It seems logical to me that he who supports total war in principle cannot complain of war against civilians."

This point of view was contradicted 7 December 1963 by the Tokyo District Court: "Accordingly, it is wrong to say that the distinction between military objective and non-military objective has gone out of existence because of total war.".

Supporters of the bombings have emphasized the strategic significance of the targets. Hiroshima was used as headquarters of the Fifth Division and the 2nd General Army, which commanded the defense of southern Japan with 40,000 military personnel in the city. Hiroshima was a communication center, an assembly area for troops, a storage point and had several military factories as well. Nagasaki was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials.

An article published in the International Review of the Red Cross notes that, with respect to the "anti-city" or "blitz" strategy, that "in examining these events in the light of international humanitarian law, it should be borne in mind that during the Second World War there was no agreement, treaty, convention or any other instrument governing the protection of the civilian population or civilian property." While it is true there was no general protection, the Hague Conventions did prohibit the targeting of undefended civilians. The Blitz was not one of the charges against Hermann Göring, commander of the Luftwaffe, at the Nuremberg Trials.

On 30 June 2007, Japan's defense minister Fumio Kyuma said the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan by the United States during World War II was an inevitable way to end the war. Kyuma said: "I now have come to accept in my mind that in order to end the war, it could not be helped (Shikata ga nai) that an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and that countless numbers of people suffered great tragedy." Kyuma, who is from Nagasaki, said the bombing caused great suffering in the city, but he does not resent the U.S. because it prevented the Soviet Union from entering the war with Japan. Kyuma's comments were similar to those made by Emperor Hirohito when, in his first ever press conference given in Tokyo in 1975, he was asked what he thought of the bombing of Hiroshima, and answered: "It's very regrettable that nuclear bombs were dropped and I feel sorry for the citizens of Hiroshima but it couldn't be helped (Shikata ga nai) because that happened in wartime."

Nagasaki mayor Tomihisa Taue protested against Kyuma, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe apologized over Kyuma's remark to Hiroshima A-bomb survivors. In the wake of the outrage provoked by his statements, Kyuma had to resign on 3 July.

In early July, on his way to Potsdam, Truman had re-examined the decision to use the bomb. In the end, Truman made the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. His stated intention in ordering the bombings was to bring about a quick resolution of the war by inflicting destruction, and instilling fear of further destruction, sufficient to cause Japan to surrender.

In his speech to the Japanese people presenting his reasons for surrender, the Emperor referred specifically to the atomic bombs, stating if they continued to fight it would result in "...an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation..." In his Rescript to the Soldiers and Sailors, delivered on 17 August, however, he focused on the impact of the Soviet invasion, omitting any reference to the atomic bombings.

Commenting on the use of the atomic bomb, then-U.S. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson stated "The atomic bomb was more than a weapon of terrible destruction; it was a psychological weapon."

Japan's leaders refused to surrender

Some historians see ancient Japanese warrior traditions as a major factor in the resistance in the Japanese military to the idea of surrender. According to one Air Force account,

"The Japanese code of bushido—'the way of the warrior'—was deeply ingrained. The concept of Yamato-damashii equipped each soldier with a strict code: never be captured, never break down, and never surrender. Surrender was dishonorable. Each soldier was trained to fight to the death and was expected to die before suffering dishonor. Defeated Japanese leaders preferred to take their own lives in the painful samurai ritual of seppuku (called hara kiri in the West). Warriors who surrendered were not deemed worthy of regard or respect."

Japanese militarism was aggravated by the Great Depression, and had resulted in countless assassinations of reformers attempting to check military power, among them Takahashi Korekiyo, Saitō Makoto, and Inukai Tsuyoshi. This created an environment in which opposition to war was a much riskier endeavor.

According to historian Richard B. Frank,

"The intercepts of Japanese Imperial Army and Navy messages disclosed without exception that Japan's armed forces were determined to fight a final Armageddon battle in the homeland against an Allied invasion. The Japanese called this strategy Ketsu Go (Operation Decisive). It was founded on the premise that American morale was brittle and could be shattered by heavy losses in the initial invasion. American politicians would then gladly negotiate an end to the war far more generous than unconditional surrender."

The U.S. Department of Energy's history of the Manhattan Project lends some credence to these claims, saying that military leaders in Japan

"also hoped that if they could hold out until the ground invasion of Japan began, they would be able to inflict so many casualties on the Allies that Japan still might win some sort of negotiated settlement."

While some members of the civilian leadership did use covert diplomatic channels to attempt peace negotiation, they could not negotiate surrender or even a cease-fire. Japan could legally enter into a peace agreement only with the unanimous support of the Japanese cabinet, and in the summer of 1945, the Japanese Supreme War Council, consisting of representatives of the Army, the Navy and the civilian government, could not reach a consensus on how to proceed.

A political stalemate developed between the military and civilian leaders of Japan, the military increasingly determined to fight despite all costs and odds and the civilian leadership seeking a way to negotiate an end to the war. Further complicating the decision was the fact no cabinet could exist without the representative of the Imperial Japanese Army. This meant the Army or Navy could veto any decision by having its Minister resign, thus making them the most powerful posts on the SWC. In early August 1945, the cabinet was equally split between those who advocated an end to the war on one condition, the preservation of the kokutai, and those who insisted on three other conditions:

1. Leave disarmament and demobilization to Imperial General Headquarters
2. No occupation of the Japanese Home Islands, Korea, or Formosa
3. Delegation to the Japanese government of the punishment of war criminals

The "hawks" consisted of General Korechika Anami, General Yoshijirō Umezu, and Admiral Soemu Toyoda and were led by Anami. The "doves" consisted of Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki, Naval Minister Mitsumasa Yonai, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Shigenori Tōgō and were led by Togo. Under special permission of Hirohito, the president of the Privy council, Hiranuma Kiichirō, was also a member of the imperial conference. For him, the preservation of the kokutai implied not only the Imperial institution but also the Emperor's reign.

Japan had an example of unconditional surrender in the German Instrument of Surrender. On 26 July, Truman and other allied leaders - except the Soviet Union - issued The Potsdam Declaration outlining terms of surrender for Japan. The declaration stated, "The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction." It was not accepted, though there is debate on Japan's intentions. The Emperor, who was waiting for a Soviet reply to Japanese peace feelers, made no move to change the government position. In the PBS documentary "Victory in the Pacific" (2005), broadcast in the "American Experience" series, historian Donald Miller argues, in the days after the declaration, the Emperor seemed more concerned with moving the Imperial Regalia of Japan to a secure location than with "the destruction of his country." This comment is based on declarations made by the Emperor to Kōichi Kido on 25 and 31 July 1945, when he ordered the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Japan to protect "at all cost" the Imperial Regalia.

It has sometimes been argued Japan would have surrendered if simply guaranteed the Emperor would be allowed to continue as formal head of state. However, Japanese diplomatic messages regarding a possible Soviet mediation—intercepted through Magic, and made available to Allied leaders—have been interpreted by some historians to mean, "the dominant militarists insisted on preservation of the old militaristic order in Japan, the one in which they ruled." They also faced potential death sentences in trials for Japanese war crimes if they surrendered. This was also what occurred in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and other tribunals.

History professor Robert James Maddox wrote:

"Another myth that has attained wide attention is that at least several of Truman's top military advisers later informed him that using atomic bombs against Japan would be militarily unnecessary or immoral, or both. There is no persuasive evidence that any of them did so. None of the Joint Chiefs ever made such a claim, although one inventive author has tried to make it appear that Leahy did by braiding together several unrelated passages from the admiral's memoirs. Actually, two days after Hiroshima, Truman told aides that Leahy had 'said up to the last that it wouldn't go off.'
Neither MacArthur nor Nimitz ever communicated to Truman any change of mind about the need for invasion or expressed reservations about using the bombs. When first informed about their imminent use only days before Hiroshima, MacArthur responded with a lecture on the future of atomic warfare and even after Hiroshima strongly recommended that the invasion go forward. Nimitz, from whose jurisdiction the atomic strikes would be launched, was notified in early 1945. 'This sounds fine,' he told the courier, 'but this is only February. Can't we get one sooner?'
The best that can be said about Eisenhower's memory is that it had become flawed by the passage of time.
Notes made by one of Stimson's aides indicate that there was a discussion of atomic bombs, but there is no mention of any protest on Eisenhower's part."

Maddox also wrote, "Even after both bombs had fallen and Russia entered the war, Japanese militants insisted on such lenient peace terms that moderates knew there was no sense even transmitting them to the United States. Hirohito had to intervene personally on two occasions during the next few days to induce hardliners to abandon their conditions." "That they would have conceded defeat months earlier, before such calamities struck, is far-fetched to say the least."

The fact that even after the triple shock of the Soviet intervention and two atomic bombs, the Japanese cabinet was deadlocked and incapable of deciding upon a course of action is telling both of the power of the Army and naval factions in the cabinet, and of their unwillingness to even consider surrender. Even following the personal intervention of the emperor to break the deadlock in favour of surrender, there were no less than three separate coup attempts by senior Japanese officers to try to prevent the surrender and take the Emperor into 'protective custody'. Once these coup attempts had failed, senior leaders of the air force and Navy ordered bombing and kamikaze raids on the U.S. fleet (in which some Japanese generals personally participated) to try to derail any possibility of peace. It is clear from these accounts that while many in the civilian government knew the war could not be won, the power of the military in the Japanese government kept surrender from even being considered as a real option prior to the two atomic bombs.

Another argument is that it was the Soviet declaration of war in the days between the bombings that caused the surrender. After the war, Admiral Soemu Toyoda said, "I believe the Russian participation in the war against Japan rather than the atom bombs did more to hasten the surrender." Prime Minister Suzuki also declared that the entry of the USSR into the war made "the continuance of the war impossible." Upon hearing news of the event from Foreign Minister Togo, Suzuki immediately said, "Let us end the war", and agreed to finally convene an emergency meeting of the Supreme Council with that aim. The official British history, The War Against Japan, also writes the Soviet declaration of war "brought home to all members of the Supreme Council the realization that the last hope of a negotiated peace had gone and there was no alternative but to accept the Allied terms sooner or later."

The "one condition" faction, led by Togo, seized on the bombing as decisive justification of surrender. Kōichi Kido, one of Emperor Hirohito's closest advisers, stated, "We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war." Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief Cabinet secretary in 1945, called the bombing "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war."

Opposition

See also: Anti-nuclear movement

The cenotaph at the Hiroshima Peace Park is inscribed with an ambiguous sentence: "Let all the souls here rest in peace; this mistake shall not be repeated." This construction was intended to memorialize the victims of Hiroshima without politicizing the issue, taking advantage of the fact that Japanese politeness typically demands lexical ambiguity in the first place.

Fundamentally immoral

In 1946, a report by the Federal Council of Churches entitled Atomic Warfare and the Christian Faith, includes the following passage:

"As American Christians, we are deeply penitent for the irresponsible use already made of the atomic bomb. We are agreed that, whatever be one's judgment of the war in principle, the surprise bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are morally indefensible."

A continuation of previous behaviour

American historian Gabriel Kolko has said discussion regarding the moral dimension of the attacks is wrong-headed, given the fundamental moral decision had already been made:

"During November 1944 American B-29's began their first incendiary bomb raids on Tokyo, and on 9 March 1945, wave upon wave dropped masses of small incendiaries containing an early version of napalm on the city's population—for they directed this assault against civilians. Soon small fires spread, connected, grew into a vast firestorm that sucked the oxygen out of the lower atmosphere. The bomb raid was a 'success' for the Americans; they killed 125,000 Japanese in one attack. The Allies bombed Hamburg and Dresden in the same manner, and Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, and Tokyo again on May 24. The basic moral decision that the Americans had to make during the war was whether or not they would violate international law by indiscriminately attacking and destroying civilians, and they resolved that dilemma within the context of conventional weapons. Neither fanfare nor hesitation accompanied their choice, and in fact the atomic bomb used against Hiroshima was less lethal than massive fire bombing. The war had so brutalized the American leaders that burning vast numbers of civilians no longer posed a real predicament by the spring of 1945. Given the anticipated power of the atomic bomb, which was far less than that of fire bombing, no one expected small quantities of it to end the war. Only its technique was novel—nothing more. By June 1945 the mass destruction of civilians via strategic bombing did impress Stimson as something of a moral problem, but the thought no sooner arose than he forgot it, and in no appreciable manner did it shape American use of conventional or atomic bombs. 'I did not want to have the United States get the reputation of outdoing Hitler in atrocities,' he noted telling the President on June 6. There was another difficulty posed by mass conventional bombing, and that was its very success, a success that made the two modes of human destruction qualitatively identical in fact and in the minds of the American military. 'I was a little fearful,' Stimson told Truman, 'that before we could get ready the Air Force might have Japan so thoroughly bombed out that the new weapon would not have a fair background to show its strength.' To this the President 'laughed and said he understood.'

The bombings as war crimes

A number of notable individuals and organizations have criticized the bombings, many of them characterizing them as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and/or state terrorism. Early critics of the bombings were Albert Einstein, Eugene Wigner and Leo Szilard, who had together spurred the first bomb research in 1939 with a jointly written letter to President Roosevelt. Szilard, who had gone on to play a major role in the Manhattan Project, argued:

"Let me say only this much to the moral issue involved: Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?"

A number of scientists who worked on the bomb were against its use. Led by Dr. James Franck, seven scientists submitted a report to the Interim Committee (which advised the President) in May 1945, saying:

"If the United States were to be the first to release this new means of indiscriminate destruction upon mankind, she would sacrifice public support throughout the world, precipitate the race for armaments, and prejudice the possibility of reaching an international agreement on the future control of such weapons."

Mark Selden writes, "Perhaps the most trenchant contemporary critique of the American moral position on the bomb and the scales of justice in the war was voiced by the Indian jurist Radhabinod Pal, a dissenting voice at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, who balked at accepting the uniqueness of Japanese war crimes. Recalling Kaiser Wilhelm II's account of his duty to bring World War I to a swift end—"everything must be put to fire and sword; men, women and children and old men must be slaughtered and not a tree or house be left standing." Pal observed:

"This policy of indiscriminate murder to shorten the war was considered to be a crime. In the Pacific war under our consideration, if there was anything approaching what is indicated in the above letter of the German Emperor, it is the decision coming from the Allied powers to use the bomb. Future generations will judge this dire decision... If any indiscriminate destruction of civilian life and property is still illegal in warfare, then, in the Pacific War, this decision to use the atom bomb is the only near approach to the directives of the German Emperor during the first World War and of the Nazi leaders during the second World War."

Selden mentions another critique of the nuclear bombing, which he says the U.S. government effectively suppressed for twenty-five years, as worth mention. On 11 August 1945, the Japanese government filed an official protest over the atomic bombing to the U.S. State Department through the Swiss Legation in Tokyo, observing:

"Combatant and noncombatant men and women, old and young, are massacred without discrimination by the atmospheric pressure of the explosion, as well as by the radiating heat which result therefrom. Consequently there is involved a bomb having the most cruel effects humanity has ever known... The bombs in question, used by the Americans, by their cruelty and by their terrorizing effects, surpass by far gas or any other arm, the use of which is prohibited. Japanese protests against U.S. desecration of international principles of war paired the use of the atomic bomb with the earlier firebombing, which massacred old people, women and children, destroying and burning down Shinto and Buddhist temples, schools, hospitals, living quarters, etc... They now use this new bomb, having an uncontrollable and cruel effect much greater than any other arms or projectiles ever used to date. This constitutes a new crime against humanity and civilization."

Selden concludes, despite the war crimes committed by the Empire of Japan, nevertheless, "the Japanese protest correctly pointed to U.S. violations of internationally accepted principles of war with respect to the wholesale destruction of populations."

In 1963, the bombings were the subject of a judicial review in Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State. On the 22nd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the District Court of Tokyo declined to rule on the legality of nuclear weapons in general, but found, "the attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused such severe and indiscriminate suffering that they did violate the most basic legal principles governing the conduct of war."

In the opinion of the court, the act of dropping an atomic bomb on cities was at the time governed by international law found in the Hague Regulations on Land Warfare of 1907 and the Hague Draft Rules of Air Warfare of 1922–1923 and was therefore illegal.

In the documentary The Fog of War, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara recalls General Curtis LeMay, who relayed the Presidential order to drop nuclear bombs on Japan, said:

"'If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals.' And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"

As the first military use of nuclear weapons, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki represent to some the crossing of a crucial barrier. Peter Kuznick, director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, wrote of President Truman: "He knew he was beginning the process of annihilation of the species." Kuznick said the atomic bombing of Japan "was not just a war crime; it was a crime against humanity."

Takashi Hiraoka, mayor of Hiroshima, upholding nuclear disarmament, said in a hearing to The Hague International Court of Justice (ICJ): "It is clear that the use of nuclear weapons, which cause indiscriminate mass murder that leaves [effects on] survivors for decades, is a violation of international law". Iccho Itoh, the mayor of Nagasaki, declared in the same hearing:

"It is said that the descendants of the atomic bomb survivors will have to be monitored for several generations to clarify the genetic impact, which means that the descendants will live in anxiety for [decades] to come... with their colossal power and capacity for slaughter and destruction, nuclear weapons make no distinction between combatants and non-combatants or between military installations and civilian communities... The use of nuclear weapons... therefore is a manifest infraction of international law."

Although bombings do not meet the definition of genocide, some consider this definition is too strict, and these bombings do represent a genocide. For example, University of Chicago historian Bruce Cumings states there is a consensus among historians to Martin Sherwin's statement "the Nagasaki bomb was gratuitous at best and genocidal at worst."

The scholar R. J. Rummel instead extends the definition of genocide to what he calls democide, and includes the major part of deaths from the atom bombings in these. His definition of democide includes not only genocide, but also an excessive killing of civilians in war, to the extent this is against the agreed rules for warfare; he argues the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes, and thus democide. Rummel quotes among others an official protest from the US government in 1938 to Japan, for its bombing of Chinese cities: "The bombing of non-combatant populations violated international and humanitarian laws." He also considers excess deaths of civilians in firestorms caused by conventional means, such as in Tokyo, as acts of democide.

In 1967, Noam Chomsky described the atomic bombings as "among the most unspeakable crimes in history". Chomsky pointed to the complicity of the American people in the bombings, referring to the bitter experiences they had undergone prior to the event as the cause for their acceptance of its legitimacy.

In 2007, a group of intellectuals in Hiroshima established an unofficial body called International Peoples' Tribunal on the Dropping of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On 16 July 2007, it delivered its verdict, stating:

"The Tribunal finds that the nature of damage caused by the atomic bombs can be described as indiscriminate extermination of all life forms or inflicting unnecessary pain to the survivors".

About the legality and the morality of the action, the unofficial tribunal found:

"The... use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was illegal in the light of the principles and rules of International Humanitarian Law applicable in armed conflicts, since the bombing of both cities, made civilians the object of attack, using nuclear weapons that were incapable of distinguishing between civilians and military targets and consequently, caused unnecessary suffering to the civilian survivors".

Militarily unnecessary

The 1946 United States Strategic Bombing Survey, written by Paul Nitze, concluded the atomic bombs had been unnecessary to win the war. After reviewing numerous documents, and interviewing hundreds of Japanese civilian and military leaders after Japan surrendered, Nitze reported:

"There is little point in attempting precisely to impute Japan's unconditional surrender to any one of the numerous causes which jointly and cumulatively were responsible for Japan's disaster. The time lapse between military impotence and political acceptance of the inevitable might have been shorter had the political structure of Japan permitted a more rapid and decisive determination of national policies. Nevertheless, it seems clear that, even without the atomic bombing attacks, air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion.

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 31 December 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."

This conclusion assumed conventional fire bombing would have continued, with ever-increasing numbers of B-29s, and a greater level of destruction to Japan's cities and population. One of Nitze's most influential sources was Prince Fumimaro Konoe, who responded to a question asking whether Japan would have surrendered if the atomic bombs had not been dropped by saying resistance would have continued through November or December, 1945.

Historians such as Bernstein, Hasegawa, and Newman have criticized Nitze for drawing a conclusion they say went far beyond what the available evidence warranted, in order to promote the reputation of the Air Force at the expense of the Army and Navy.

Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in his memoir The White House Years:

"In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives."

Other U.S. military officers who disagreed with the necessity of the bombings include General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials), and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet.

"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

"The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons... The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children." Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman.

Historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa wrote the atomic bombings themselves were not the principal reason for Japan's capitulation. Instead, he contends, it was the Soviet entry in the war on 8 August, allowed by the Potsdam Declaration signed by the other Allies. The fact the Soviet Union did not sign this declaration gave Japan reason to believe the Soviets could be kept out of the war. As late as 25 July, the day before the declaration was issued, Japan had asked for a diplomatic envoy led by Konoe to come to Moscow hoping to mediate peace in the Pacific. Konoe was supposed to bring a letter from the Emperor stating:

"His Majesty the Emperor, mindful of the fact that the present war daily brings greater evil and sacrifice of the peoples of all the belligerent powers, desires from his heart that it may be quickly terminated. But as long as England and the United States insist upon unconditional surrender the Japanese Empire has no alternative to fight on with all its strength for the honour and existence of the Motherland…It is the Emperor’s private intention to send Prince Konoe to Moscow as a Special Envoy…"

Hasegawa's view is, when the Soviet Union declared war on 8 August, it crushed all hope in Japan's leading circles the Soviets could be kept out of the war, and/or allow reinforcement from Asia to the Japanese islands for the expected invasion. Hasegawa wrote:

"On the basis of available evidence, however, it is clear that the two atomic bombs… alone were not decisive in inducing Japan to surrender. Despite their destructive power, the atomic bombs were not sufficient to change the direction of Japanese diplomacy. The Soviet invasion was. Without the Soviet entry in the war, the Japanese would have continued to fight until numerous atomic bombs, a successful allied invasion of the home islands, or continued aerial bombardments, combined with a naval blockade, rendered them incapable of doing so."

Despite Truman's insistence the effects of Japan witnessing a failed test would be too great of a risk to arrange such a demonstration, some have argued a show of the destructive power of the atomic bomb in an unpopulated (or less-populated) area could have sufficed to demonstrate the unquestionable capacity of the Allies to deliver on the "prompt and utter destruction" promised at the Potsdam conference—without the large loss of life.

State terrorism

Historical accounts indicate the decision to use the atomic bombs was made in order to provoke a surrender of Japan by use of an awe-inspiring power. These observations have caused Michael Walzer to state the incident was an act of "war terrorism". Walzer wrote, "... And, finally, there is war terrorism: the effort to kill civilians in such large numbers that their government is forced to surrender. Hiroshima seems to me the classic case." This type of claim eventually prompted historian Robert P. Newman, a supporter of the bombings, to say "there can be justified terror, as there can be just wars."

Certain scholars and historians have characterized the atomic bombings of Japan as a form of "state terrorism". This interpretation centers around a definition of terrorism as the targeting of innocents to achieve a political goal. As Frances V. Harbour points out, the meeting of the Target Committee in Los Alamos on 10 and 11 May 1945 suggested targeting the large population centers of Kyoto or Hiroshima for a "psychological effect" and to make "the initial use sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized." As such, Professor Harbour suggests the goal was to create terror for political ends both in and beyond Japan. However, Burleigh Taylor Wilkins has written that it stretches the meaning of "terrorism" to include wartime acts.

Historian Howard Zinn writes: "if 'terrorism' has a useful meaning (and I believe it does, because it marks off an act as intolerable, since it involves the indiscriminate use of violence against human beings for some political purpose), then it applies exactly to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." Zinn cites the sociologist Kai Erikson who states that:

The attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not 'combat' in any of the ways that word is normally used. Nor were they primarily attempts to destroy military targets, for the two cities had been chosen not despite but because they had a high density of civilian housing. Whether the intended audience was Russian or Japanese or a combination of both, then the attacks were to be a show, a display, a demonstration. The question is: What kind of mood does a fundamentally decent people have to be in, what kind of moral arrangements must it make, before it is willing to annihilate as many as a quarter of a million human beings for the sake of making a point?

The just war theorist Michael Walzer argues that while taking the lives of civilians can be justified under conditions of 'supreme emergency', the war situation at that time did not constitute such an emergency and was influenced by the U.S. demand for an unconditional Japanese surrender.

Tony Coady, Frances V. Harbour, and Jamal Nassar also view the targeting of civilians during the bombings as a form of terrorism.

Richard A. Falk, professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University has written in detail about Hiroshima and Nagasaki as instances of state terrorism. He writes "The graveyards of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the number-one exhibits of state terrorism... Consider the hypocrisy of an Administration that portrays Qaddafi as barbaric while preparing to inflict terrorism on a far grander scale.... Any counter terrorism policy worth the name must include a convincing indictment of the First World variety.". He writes elsewhere that:

Undoubtedly the most extreme and permanently traumatizing instance of state terrorism, perhaps in the history of warfare, involved the use of atomic bombs against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in military settings in which the explicit function of the attacks was to terrorize the population through mass slaughter and to confront its leaders with the prospect of national annihilation....the public justification for the attacks given by the U.S. government then and now was mainly to save lives that might otherwise might have been lost in a military campaign to conquer and occupy the Japanese home islands which was alleged as necessary to attain the war time goal of unconditional surrender.... But even accepting the rationale for the atomic attacks at face value, which means discounting both the geopolitical motivations and the pressures to show that the immense investment of the Manhattan Project had struck pay dirt, and disregarding the Japanese efforts to arrange their surrender prior to the attacks, the idea that massive death can be deliberately inflicted on a helpless civilian population as a tactic of war certainly qualifies as state terror of unprecedented magnitude, particularly as the United States stood on the edge of victory, which might well have been consummated by diplomacy. As Michael Walzer puts it, the United States owed the Japanese people 'an experiment in negotiation,' but even if such an initiative had failed there was no foundation in law or morality for atomic attacks on civilian targets.

Steven Poole, author of Unspeak (2006), states in Chapter 6 (entitled 'Terror'), page 130 that:

'Remember that people killed by terrorism are not the people the perpetrators wish to persuade. They are exemplars, bargaining chips. There is a disconnect between victims and audience; the violence is a warning to people other than those targeted. (The writer Brian Jenkins has sumed up this fact in the catchphrase 'terrorism is theatre': a US Army lieutenant colonel went one better, telling a reporter in Baghdad in 2003: 'terrorism is grand theater') Unfortunately this, too, is true of many government actions. Consider the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945...the bombings were designed as an awful demonstration: to instill such fear in the Japanese government that they would surrender. The bomb thus spoke thus: Give up or there'll be more where this came from. It also sent a powerful message to a secondary audience: Joseph Stalin. On this measure, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are, by many orders of magnitude, the greatest acts of terrorism in history.'

Japanese nuclear weapons program undeveloped

Main article: Japanese nuclear weapons program

Post war claims that the Japanese nuclear research and development efforts were near completion, and therefore justified an attack, were not true. This position has been refuted by historians, who have found that the Japanese nuclear program was comparably undeveloped, even in comparison to the German nuclear energy project.

A review of this theory by Department of Energy employee Roger M. Anders appeared in the journal Military Affairs:

"Journalist Wilcox' book describes the Japanese wartime atomic energy projects. This is laudable, in that it illuminates a little-known episode; nevertheless, the work is marred by Wilcox's seeming eagerness to show that Japan created an atomic bomb. Tales of Japanese atomic explosions, one a fictional attack on Los Angeles, the other an unsubstantiated account of a post-Hiroshima test, begin the book. (Wilcox accepts the test story because the author [Snell], 'was a distinguished journalist'). The tales, combined with Wilcox's failure to discuss the difficulty of translating scientific theory into a workable bomb, obscure the actual story of the Japanese effort: uncoordinated laboratory-scale projects which took paths least likely to produce a bomb."

Nagasaki bombing unnecessary

The black marker indicates "ground zero" of the Nagasaki atomic bomb explosion.

The second atomic bombing, on Nagasaki, came only three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, when the devastation at Hiroshima had yet to be fully comprehended by the Japanese. The lack of time between the bombings has led some historians to state that the second bombing was "certainly unnecessary", "gratuitous at best and genocidal at worst", and not jus in bello. In response to the claim that the atomic bombing of Nagasaki was unnecessary, Maddox wrote:

"Some historians have argued that while the first bomb might have been required to achieve Japanese surrender, dropping the second constituted a needless barbarism. However, the record shows otherwise. American officials believed more than one bomb would be necessary because they assumed Japanese hard-liners would minimize the first explosion or attempt to explain it away as some sort of natural catastrophe, which is precisely what they did. In the three days between the bombings, the Japanese minister of war, for instance, refused even to admit that the Hiroshima bomb was atomic. A few hours after Nagasaki, he told the cabinet that 'the Americans appeared to have one hundred atomic bombs... they could drop three per day. The next target might well be Tokyo.'"

Jerome Hagen indicates that War Minister Anami's revised briefing was partly based on interrogating captured American B-29 pilot Marcus McDilda. Under torture, McDilda reported that the Americans had 100 atomic bombs, and that Tokyo and Kyoto would be the next atomic bomb targets. Both were lies; McDilda was not involved or briefed on the Manhattan Project and simply told the Japanese what he thought they wanted to hear.

One day before the bombing of Nagasaki, the Emperor notified Foreign Minister Shigenori Tōgō of his desire to "insure a prompt ending of hostilities". Togo wrote in his memoir that the Emperor "warned [him] that since we could no longer continue the struggle, now that a weapon of this devastating power was used against us, we should not let slip the opportunity [to end the war] by engaging in attempts to gain more favorable conditions." The Emperor then requested Togo to communicate his wishes to the Prime Minister.

Racism and dehumanization

Historian James J. Weingartner sees a connection between the American mutilation of Japanese war dead and the bombings. According to Weingartner both were partially the result of a dehumanization of the enemy. "[t]he widespread image of the Japanese as sub-human constituted an emotional context which provided another justification for decisions which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands." On the second day after the Nagasaki bomb, President Truman had stated: "The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him like a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true".

Impact on surrender

See also: Soviet–Japanese War (1945) § Importance and consequences

On the question of what role the bombings played in Japan's surrender, there are varied opinions, ranging from the bombings being the deciding factor, to the bombs being a minor factor, to the entire question being unknowable.

That the bombings were the decisive factor in ending the war was the mainstream position in the United States from 1945 through the 1960s, and is termed by some the "traditionalist" view, or pejoratively as the "patriotic orthodoxy."

Others argue that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria was instead primary or decisive. In the US, this view has been particularly advanced by Robert Pape and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, and found convincing by some, while criticized by others.

Robert Pape also argues that:

"Military vulnerability, not civilian vulnerability, accounts for Japan's decision to surrender. Japan's military position was so poor that its leaders would likely have surrendered before invasion, and at roughly the same time in August 1945, even if the United States had not employed strategic bombing or the atomic bomb. Rather than concern for the costs and risks to the population, or even Japan's overall military weakness vis-a-vis the United States, the decisive factor was Japanese leaders' recognition that their strategy for holding the most important territory at issue—the home islands—could not succeed."

In some Japanese writing about the surrender, the Soviet entry into the war is considered the primary reason or equal with the atomic bombs in many accounts, while others, such as the work of Sadao Asada, give primacy to the atomic bombings, particularly their impact on the emperor. The primacy of the Soviet entry as a reason for surrender is a long-standing view among some Japanese historians, and has appeared in some Japanese junior high school textbooks.

The argument about the Soviet role in Japan's surrender is connected to the argument about the Soviet role in America's decision to drop the bomb: both emphasize the importance of the Soviet Union, while the former argues that Japan surrendered to the US out of fear of the Soviet Union, and the latter argues that the US dropped the bombs to intimidate the Soviet Union.

Still others have argued that war-weary Japan would likely have surrendered regardless, due to a collapse of the economy, lack of army, food, and industrial materials, threat of internal revolution, and talk of surrender since earlier in the year, while others find this unlikely, arguing that Japan may well have, or likely would have, put up a spirited resistance.

The Japanese historian Sadao Asada argues that the ultimate decision to surrender was a personal decision by the emperor, influenced by the atomic bombings.

Atomic diplomacy

A further argument, discussed under the rubric of "atomic diplomacy" and advanced in a 1965 book of that name by Gar Alperovitz, is that the bombings had as primary purpose to intimidate the Soviet Union, being the opening shots of the Cold War. Along these lines some argue that the US raced the Soviet Union and hoped to drop the bombs and receive surrender from Japan before a Soviet entry into the Pacific war. However, the Soviet Union, the US and Great Britain came to an agreement at the Yalta Conference on when the Soviet Union should join the war against Japan, and on how the territory of Japan was to be dismembered at the end of the war.

Others argue that such considerations played little or no role, the US being instead concerned with the defeat of Japan, and in fact that the US desired and appreciated the Soviet entry into the Pacific war, as it hastened the surrender of Japan. In his memoirs Truman wrote: "There were many reasons for my going to Potsdam, but the most urgent, to my mind, was to get from Stalin a personal reaffirmation of Russia's entry into the war against Japan, a matter which our military chiefs were most anxious to clinch. This I was able to get from Stalin in the very first days of the conference."

See also

• Hiroshima, a book
• Nuclear disarmament

Further reading

• Allen, Thomas B. and Polmar, Norman (1995). Code-Name Downfall: The Secret Plan to Invade Japan And Why Truman Dropped the Bomb. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-80406-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Concludes the bombings were justified.

• Alperovitz, Gar (1995). The Decision To Use The Atomic Bomb And The Architecture Of An American Myth. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-44331-2.

Weighs whether the bombings were justified or necessary, concludes they were not.

• Bernstein, Barton J. (Editor) (1976). The Atomic Bomb: The Critical Issues. Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-09192-8. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)

Weighs whether the bombings were justified or necessary.

• Bird, Kai and Sherwin, Martin J. (2005). American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-41202-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

"The thing had to be done", but "Circumstances are heavy with misgiving."

• Butow, Robert (1954). Japan's Decision to Surrender. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0460-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Explains the conflicts and debates within the Japanese government from the onset of World War II until surrender. Concludes the bombings were justified.

• Feis, Herbert (1961). Japan Subdued: The Atomic Bomb and the End of the War in the Pacific. Princeton University Press.
• Frank, Richard B. (1999). Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. Random House. ISBN 0-679-41424-X.
• Fussell, Paul (1988). Thank God For The Atom Bomb, And Other Essays. Summit Books. ISBN 0-345-36135-0.
• Grayling, A. C. (2006). Among the Dead Cities. Walker Publishing Company Inc. ISBN 0-8027-1471-4.

Philosophical/moral discussion concerning the Allied strategy of area bombing in World War II, including the use of atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

• Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi (2005). Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. Belknap Press. ISBN 0-674-01693-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Argues the bombs were not the deciding factor in ending the war. The Russian entrance into the Pacific war was the primary cause for Japan's surrender.

• Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi (17 August 2007). "The Atomic Bombs and the Soviet Invasion: What Drove Japan's Decision to Surrender?". Japan Focus. Retrieved 17 June 2012.

Here he sharpens his earlier view that the Russian entrance into the Pacific war was the primary cause for Japan's surrender.

• Maddox, Robert James (1995). Weapons for Victory: The Hiroshima Decision. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 0-8262-1562-9.

Author is a diplomatic historian who favors Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs.

• Newman, Robert P. (1995). Truman and the Hiroshima Cult. Michigan State University Press. ISBN 0-87013-403-5.

An analysis critical of postwar opposition to the atom bombings.

• Nobile, Philip (Editor) (1995). Judgement at the Smithsonian. Marlowe and Company. ISBN 1-56924-841-9. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)

Covers the controversy over the content of the 1995 Smithsonian Institution exhibition associated with the display of the Enola Gay; includes complete text of the planned (and canceled) exhibition.

• Takaki, Ronald (1995). Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb. Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-83124-7.
• Wainstock, Dennis D. (1996). The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-95475-7.

External links

• Reflections of a Far East Prisoner of War on the use of the atomic bombs
• Annotated bibliography on the decision to use the atomic bombs on Japan—The Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
• Unconditional Surrender, Demobilization, and the Atomic Bomb by Michael D. Pearlman U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-1352
• "The Obliteration of Hiroshima", Stephen R. Shalom (from New Politics, vol. 6, no. 1 (new series), whole no. 21, Summer 1996)
• Hiroshima: the 'White Man's Bomb' revisited: Dropping the Bomb on Japan was the final act of a bitter race war in the Pacific. by Mick Hume, Spiked, 2 August 2005. Abridged version of a 1995 article in Living Marxism.
• Yuki Tanaka and Richard Falk, "The Atomic Bombing, The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal and the Shimoda Case: Lessons for Anti-Nuclear Legal Movements", The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 44-3-09, 2 November 2009.
• Record of private talk between Winston Churchill and Generalissimo Stalin after the Plenary Session on 17 July 1945 at Potsdam
• The Enola Gay Controversy - About - Overview
• International Peoples' Tribunal on the Dropping of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• "The Decision To Use The Atomic Bomb; Gar Alperovitz And The H-Net Debate".
• Dietrich, Bill (1995). "Pro and Con on Dropping the Bomb". Seattle Times.
• MacLaren, Don (1998). "Troubling memories of the past", "Better to bomb than blockade". The Japan Times.