Part 18 (1/2)

Some historians have questioned whether Suzuki indeed used these words in this context. Yet if there is doubt about the exact language, it is undisputed that the j.a.panese government agreed to make no positive response to the Declaration. The U.S. a.s.sociated Press reported on 27 July: ”The semi-official j.a.panese Domei news agency stated today that Allied ultimatum to surrender or meet destruction would be ignored.” The emperor himself seems to have made no attempt to question Suzuki's posture. Hirohito has so often been credited with a role as j.a.pan's princ.i.p.al peacemaker that it is important to emphasise his rejection of the Potsdam terms. If the emperor had intervened decisively at this point, rather than a fortnight later, all that followed might have been averted. As it was, this hesitant, inadequate divinity continued to straddle the fence, wanting peace yet still recoiling from acknowledgement of his nation's defeat, and history took its course.

From Moscow, Amba.s.sador Sato continued to bombard Tokyo with imprecations to face reality. ”There is no alternative but immediate unconditional surrender if we are to try to make America and England moderate and to prevent [Russia's] partic.i.p.ation in the war,” he cabled on 30 July. Foreign Minister Togo replied on 2 August, urging patience: ”It is difficult to decide on concrete peace terms all at one stroke.” He reported, however, that the emperor was closely following developments in Moscow, while Suzuki and the army's leaders explored the question of whether the Potsdam Declaration offered scope for negotiation. American naval intelligence a.n.a.lysts of the Magic decrypts on the declaration reported: ”There is a disposition (or determination) of finding in its terms a sufficiently effective emollient for tortured pride which still rebels at the words 'unconditional surrender'.”

It is unknown whether Truman read these decrypts or this a.n.a.lysis on his way back from Potsdam. The final conference session took place on 1 August. Stalin left Berlin that day, and the U.S. president early the following morning. Truman had already approved the text of a public statement to be issued in his name when the bomb was dropped. In his eyes, all that now mattered was that the j.a.panese government refused to respond positively to the Potsdam Declaration. Indeed, the earlier Magic intercepts between Sato and Togo had made Tokyo's rejection certain, since the foreign minister explicitly ruled out unconditional surrender. For weeks past, use of the bomb had been almost inevitable. It now became absolutely so.

Many people of later generations and all nationalities have viewed the dropping of atomic weapons on j.a.pan as events which, in their unique horror, towered over the war as a dark mountain bestrides the plain. In one sense this perception is correct, because the initiation of the nuclear age provided mankind with unprecedented power to destroy itself. Until the bombs had exploded, however, full understanding of their significance was confined to a few score scientists. To grasp the context in which the commitment to bomb Hiros.h.i.+ma was made, it seems necessary to acknowledge the cacophony amidst which all those involved, the political and military leaders of the U.S., were obliged to do their business. These were men in their fifties and sixties, weary after years of perpetual crisis such as world war imposes, bombarded daily with huge dilemmas.

Europe was in ruins and chaos, the Western Allies striving to contend with Stalin's ruthlessness and greed, Britain's bankruptcy, the starvation of millions. Each day brought to the desks of Truman, Stimson, Marshall and their staffs projections relating to the invasion of the j.a.panese homeland. The U.S. found itself obliged to arbitrate upon the future of half the world, while being implored to save as much as possible of the other half from the Soviets, even as war with j.a.pan continued and mankind recoiled in horror from newsreel films of Hitler's death camps. What could be done about Poland, about millions of displaced persons? About escaping n.a.z.i war criminals and civil war in Greece? Could power in China be shared? Might the rise of the Communists in Italy and France be checked? j.a.pan's beleaguered Pacific garrisons continued to resist even though the Allies initiated no major operations against Hirohito's armies overseas after June 1945. The British were preparing to land in Malaya. Almost every day, LeMay's Superfortresses set forth from Guam and Saipan to incinerate more j.a.panese cities. Carrier aircraft strafed and bombed the home islands. Casualty lists broadcast grief to homes all over the U.S. and Britain. Apprehension overhung the fate of many thousands of Allied prisoners in j.a.panese hands.

In judging the behaviour of those responsible for ordering the atomic attacks, it seems necessary to acknowledge all this. The bomb was only the foremost of many huge issues with which these mortal men, movingly conscious of their own limitations, strove to grapple. In the course of directing a struggle for national survival, all had been obliged to make decisions which had cost lives, millions of lives, of both Allied servicemen and enemy soldiers and civilians. Most would have said wryly that this was what they were paid for. The direction of war is never a task for the squeamish. The U.S. had already partic.i.p.ated in bombing campaigns which killed around three-quarters of a million German and j.a.panese civilians, and to which public opinion had raised little objection. It is much easier to justify the decision to drop the atomic bombs than the continued fire-raising offensive of the Twentieth Air Force. ”The preoccupation845 of the historians' debate with the necessity of using the bomb,” Lawrence Freedman and Saki Dockrill have written wisely, ”has meant that it has been judged strategically against the prospective invasion [of j.a.pan], rather than the actual air bombardment under way at the time and with which it was unavoidably linked in the minds of policy-makers.” of the historians' debate with the necessity of using the bomb,” Lawrence Freedman and Saki Dockrill have written wisely, ”has meant that it has been judged strategically against the prospective invasion [of j.a.pan], rather than the actual air bombardment under way at the time and with which it was unavoidably linked in the minds of policy-makers.”

Poison gas was the only significant weapon available to the wartime Allies which was not employed against the Axis. Roosevelt opposed this for moral, or rather propagandistic, reasons; the British chiefly on the pragmatic grounds that the Germans might retaliate against their homeland. As discussed above, the Americans began the war with moral scruples about bombing civilians, but by 1945 had abandoned them. It is a delusion of those who know nothing of battle, to suppose that death inflicted by atomic weapons is uniquely terrible. In truth, conventional sh.e.l.ls and bombs dismember human bodies in the most repulsive fas.h.i.+on. The absolutism of atomic destruction merits humanity's horror, and indeed terror, more than the nature of the end which it inflicts upon individuals.

Most of those involved in the atomic decision recognised war, the homicidal clash of belligerents, as the root evil from which mankind should spare itself. After living for years with the b.l.o.o.d.y consequences of global conflict, they were less sensitive than modern civilians to specific refinements of killing. Many people whose deaths are described in this book would have found nothing uniquely pitiable about the manner in which Hiros.h.i.+ma's and Nagasaki's inhabitants perished, even if they might have been appalled by the scale.

From the inception of the Manhattan Project, it was a.s.sumed by all but a few scientists that if the device was successful, it would be used. Some people today, especially Asians, believe that the Allies found it acceptable to kill 100,000 j.a.panese in this way, as it would not have been acceptable to do the same to Germans, white people. Such speculation is not susceptible to proof. But given Allied perceptions that if Hitler and his immediate following could be removed, Germany would quickly surrender, it is overwhelmingly likely that if an atomic bomb had been available a year earlier, it would have been dropped on Berlin. It would have seemed ridiculous to draw a moral distinction between ma.s.sed attacks on German centres of population by the RAF and USAAF with conventional weapons, and the use of a single more ambitious device to terminate Europe's agony.

Curtis LeMay regarded the Hiros.h.i.+ma and Nagasaki raids merely as an addition-a redundant and unwelcome addition-to a campaign which his B-29s had already won. LeMay had not the slightest moral qualms about the atomic attacks, but was chagrined that they diminished the credit given to his conventional bomber force for destroying j.a.pan. In late June, he predicted that the Twentieth Air Force would render the enemy incapable of continuing the war after 1 October 1945. ”In order to do this,” said Arnold, ”he had to take care of some 30 to 60 large and small cities.” LeMay had accounted for fifty-eight when events rendered it unnecessary to test his prophecy to fulfilment. In the minds of those conducting the war against j.a.pan, the mission of the Enola Gay Enola Gay represented only a huge technological leap forward in the campaign already waged for months by the fire-raisers. represented only a huge technological leap forward in the campaign already waged for months by the fire-raisers.

One further military point should be made. From August 1945 onwards Truman and other contemporary apologists for the bomb advanced the simple argument, readily understood by the wartime generation of Americans, that it rendered redundant an invasion of j.a.pan. It is now widely acknowledged that Olympic would almost certainly have been unnecessary. j.a.pan was tottering and would soon have starved. Richard Frank, author of an outstanding modern study of the fall of the j.a.panese empire, goes further. He finds it unthinkable that the United States would have accepted the blood-cost of invading Kyushu, in light of radio intelligence about j.a.panese strength.

Like any ”counter-factual,” it is hard to accept this proposition as an absolute. The prospect of the Kyushu landings was wholly unwelcome to America's military and political leaders.h.i.+p. Yet in the summer of 1945 Marshall, for one, was committed to keeping open an invasion option-possibly of northern Honshu-partly because he questioned whether the bomb's impact would be conclusive. The U.S. chief of staff recognised the wisdom of Churchill's view that ”all things are always846 on the move simultaneously...One has to do the best one can, but he is an unwise man who thinks there is any on the move simultaneously...One has to do the best one can, but he is an unwise man who thinks there is any certain certain way of winning this war...The only plan is to persevere.” So much that is today apparent was then opaque. So many forces were in play, the impacts of which were unclear. way of winning this war...The only plan is to persevere.” So much that is today apparent was then opaque. So many forces were in play, the impacts of which were unclear.

At the beginning of August 1945, most of MacArthur's officers believed that they would would have to invade j.a.pan, and even some of those in Was.h.i.+ngton privy to the atomic secret and to impending Russian intervention thought they have to invade j.a.pan, and even some of those in Was.h.i.+ngton privy to the atomic secret and to impending Russian intervention thought they might might have to do so. It was impossible to be sure what an enemy nation which had displayed a resolute commitment to ma.s.s suicide might do, when confronted with the last ditch. A 27 July U.S. naval intelligence a.n.a.lysis of j.a.pan's behaviour, written with full access to Magic decrypts, was circulated to all Was.h.i.+ngton's top policy-makers: ”Her unwillingness to surrender have to do so. It was impossible to be sure what an enemy nation which had displayed a resolute commitment to ma.s.s suicide might do, when confronted with the last ditch. A 27 July U.S. naval intelligence a.n.a.lysis of j.a.pan's behaviour, written with full access to Magic decrypts, was circulated to all Was.h.i.+ngton's top policy-makers: ”Her unwillingness to surrender847 stems primarily from the failure of her otherwise capable and all-powerful Army leaders to perceive that the defenses they are so a.s.siduously fas.h.i.+oning actually are utterly inadequate...Until the j.a.panese leaders realize that an invasion cannot be repelled, there is little likelihood that they will accept any peace terms satisfactory to the Allies.” Invasion was not a direct alternative to the bomb, but on 1 August 1945, who could be sure what might have to be done if the bomb was not dropped? stems primarily from the failure of her otherwise capable and all-powerful Army leaders to perceive that the defenses they are so a.s.siduously fas.h.i.+oning actually are utterly inadequate...Until the j.a.panese leaders realize that an invasion cannot be repelled, there is little likelihood that they will accept any peace terms satisfactory to the Allies.” Invasion was not a direct alternative to the bomb, but on 1 August 1945, who could be sure what might have to be done if the bomb was not dropped?

So much for military context. What of the political decision? The most obvious question is that of whether j.a.pan might have behaved differently if the Potsdam Declaration had explicitly warned of atomic bombs. The answer, almost certainly, is no. If America's leaders found difficulty in comprehending the unprecedented force they were about to unleash, the j.a.panese were unlikely to show themselves more imaginative. More than that, the war party in Tokyo, which had crippled j.a.pan's feeble diplomatic gropings, was committed to acceptance of national annihilation rather than surrender. If LeMay's achievement in killing 200,000 j.a.panese civilians and levelling most of the country's major cities had not convinced the likes of General Anami that surrender was inevitable, there is no reason to suppose that a mere threat of atomic bombardment would have done so.

The princ.i.p.al beneficiary of a warning, even if unheeded, would have been Harry Truman. His decision to insist upon unconditional surrender can be justified for reasons offered above. j.a.pan had done nothing in China and South-East Asia throughout its occupation, or in the prison camps of its empire, to make any plausible moral claim upon terms less rigorous than those imposed upon Germany. j.a.pan would certainly have used atomic weapons if it possessed them. The nation had gambled upon launching a ruthless war of conquest. The gamble had failed, and it was time to pay. It would have well served Truman's historic reputation, however, to have been seen to offer j.a.pan an opportunity to escape nuclear retribution before this was administered. The Potsdam Declaration was a statement of honourable Allied objectives. It was a sham ultimatum, however, because it failed plausibly to describe the nature of the vague sanction which it threatened in the event of non-compliance. The words ”prompt and utter destruction” meant much to American drafters, nothing at all to j.a.panese readers.

Why was no explicit warning given? Because the dropping of the bomb was designed to deliver a colossal shock, not only to the j.a.panese people but also to the leaders of the Soviet Union. Marshall said to Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, head of the British Military Mission in Was.h.i.+ngton: ”It's no good warning them. If you warn them there's no surprise. And the only way to produce shock is surprise.” This was precisely the same justification offered by the j.a.panese military to the emperor in 1941 for declining to give the U.S. notice of its intention to go to war before attacking Pearl Harbor. j.a.pan bears overwhelming responsibility for what happened at Hiros.h.i.+ma and Nagasaki, because her leaders refused to acknowledge that their game was up. However, the haste with which the U.S. dropped the bomb as soon as it was technically viable reflected aforementioned technological determinism, together with political fears focused upon the Russians, as much as military imperatives related to j.a.pan. It is possible to support Truman's decision not to stop the dropping of the bomb, while regretting his failure to offer warning of its imminence.

LATE ON 6 August 1945, a Top Secret signal flashed from the Twentieth Air Force to Was.h.i.+ngton, where the time difference caused it to be read just before midnight the previous day: ”Subject: Bombs Away 6 August 1945, a Top Secret signal flashed from the Twentieth Air Force to Was.h.i.+ngton, where the time difference caused it to be read just before midnight the previous day: ”Subject: Bombs Away848 Report 509 SBM 13 Flown 6 August 1945...1 a/c bombed Hiros.h.i.+ma visually thru 1/10 cloud with good results. Time was 052315Z. No flak or E/A opposition.” This was followed almost immediately by a second signal: ”Alt.i.tude: 30,200 feet...Enemy air opposition: Nil...Bombing Results: Excellent.” Report 509 SBM 13 Flown 6 August 1945...1 a/c bombed Hiros.h.i.+ma visually thru 1/10 cloud with good results. Time was 052315Z. No flak or E/A opposition.” This was followed almost immediately by a second signal: ”Alt.i.tude: 30,200 feet...Enemy air opposition: Nil...Bombing Results: Excellent.”

”Little Boy,” ”an elongated trash can with fins” in the words of one of Enola Gay Enola Gay's crew, scrawled with rude messages for Hirohito, exploded 1,900 feet above Hiros.h.i.+ma's s.h.i.+ma Hospital, 550 feet from its aiming point. Tibbets, a supremely professional bomber pilot, described this simply as ”the most perfect AP I've seen in this whole d.a.m.n war.” The 8,900-pound device created temperatures at ground zero which reached 5,400 degrees and generated the explosive power of 12,500 tons of TNT. All but 6,000 of the city's 76,000 buildings were destroyed by fire or blast. The j.a.panese afterwards claimed that around 20,000 military personnel and 110,000 civilians died immediately. Though no statistics are conclusive, this estimate is almost certainly exaggerated. Another guesstimate, around 70,000, seems more credible.

The detonation of ”Little Boy,” the mushroom cloud which changed the world, created injuries never before seen on mortal creatures, and recorded with disbelief by survivors: the cavalry horse standing pink, stripped of its hide; people with clothing patterns imprinted upon their flesh; the line of schoolgirls with ribbons of skin dangling from their faces; doomed survivors, hideously burned, without hope of effective medical relief; the host of charred and shrivelled corpses. Hiros.h.i.+ma and its people had been almost obliterated, and even many of those who clung to life would not long do so. As late as June 1946, an official press release from the Manhattan Project a.s.serted defiantly: ”Official investigation of the results849 of atom bomb bursts over the j.a.panese cities...revealed that no harmful amounts of persistent radio-activity were present after the explosions.” Yet even at that date, thousands more stricken citizens of Hiros.h.i.+ma were still to perish. of atom bomb bursts over the j.a.panese cities...revealed that no harmful amounts of persistent radio-activity were present after the explosions.” Yet even at that date, thousands more stricken citizens of Hiros.h.i.+ma were still to perish.

Truman received the news aboard Augusta Augusta, four days out from England on his pa.s.sage home from Potsdam, as he was lunching with members of the cruiser's crew: ”Big bomb dropped on Hiros.h.i.+ma August 5 at 7:15 p.m. Was.h.i.+ngton time. First reports indicate complete success which was even more conspicuous than earlier test.” The beaming president jumped up and told Augusta Augusta's skipper: ”Captain, this is the greatest thing in history.” At Truman's behest, the officer carried the signal to Byrnes, eating at another table, who said, ”Fine! Fine!” Truman then addressed crewmen in the mess: ”We have just dropped a new bomb on j.a.pan which has more power than 20,000 tons of TNT. It has been an overwhelming success!” The president's delight was apparently unburdened by pain or doubt. He simply exulted in a national triumph. Here was a vivid demonstration of the limits of his own understanding of what had been done. Sailors crowded around the president, asking the question on the lips of millions of Allied soldiers, sailors and airmen across the world: ”Does this mean we can go home now?”

In the U.S., first reaction to Hiros.h.i.+ma was overwhelmingly enthusiastic. The British emba.s.sy in Was.h.i.+ngton reported: ”The lurid fantasies850 of the comic strips seemed suddenly to have come true. Headlines sagged under the weight of the drama and the superlatives they had to carry.” There was much unseemly flippancy, for American skins had been thickened by forty-four months of war. The Was.h.i.+ngton Press Club produced a sixty-cent ”atomic c.o.c.ktail.” A newspaper cartoonist depicted Truman presiding over an angelic gathering of his advisers, each sprouting wings as they contemplated a bowl of split atoms on the table. The caption read: ”The Cabinet meets to discuss sending an amba.s.sador to Mars.” At Los Alamos, scientist Otto Frisch recoiled from the exuberance of colleagues who telephoned the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe to book tables for a celebration. of the comic strips seemed suddenly to have come true. Headlines sagged under the weight of the drama and the superlatives they had to carry.” There was much unseemly flippancy, for American skins had been thickened by forty-four months of war. The Was.h.i.+ngton Press Club produced a sixty-cent ”atomic c.o.c.ktail.” A newspaper cartoonist depicted Truman presiding over an angelic gathering of his advisers, each sprouting wings as they contemplated a bowl of split atoms on the table. The caption read: ”The Cabinet meets to discuss sending an amba.s.sador to Mars.” At Los Alamos, scientist Otto Frisch recoiled from the exuberance of colleagues who telephoned the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe to book tables for a celebration.

Among some ordinary people news of the bomb prompted not triumphalism, but the darkest reflections. A letter to the New York Times New York Times described Hiros.h.i.+ma as ”a stain on our national life. When the exhilaration of this wonderful discovery has pa.s.sed, we will think with shame of the first use to which it was put.” British housewife Nella Last recorded in her diary how she and her Lancas.h.i.+re neighbour received the news: ”Old Joe called upstairs described Hiros.h.i.+ma as ”a stain on our national life. When the exhilaration of this wonderful discovery has pa.s.sed, we will think with shame of the first use to which it was put.” British housewife Nella Last recorded in her diary how she and her Lancas.h.i.+re neighbour received the news: ”Old Joe called upstairs851, brandis.h.i.+ng the Daily Mail Daily Mail: 'By Goy, la.s.s, but it looks as if some of your daft fancies and fears are reet. Look at this.' I've rarely seen Jim so excited-or upset. He said: 'Read it-why, this will change all t'world. Ee, I wish I was thutty years younger and could see it aw.'” Mrs. Last, however, reacted very differently: ”I felt sick-I wished I was thirty years older, and out of it all...This atomic bomb business is so dreadful.”

Senator Edwin Johnson of Colorado declared that the bombs proved that universal military training was stupid. President Roosevelt's widow, Eleanor, said it showed the importance of goodwill visits such as Soviet trades unionists were then making to the United States. Leaders of the oil and coal industries issued statements rea.s.suring stockholders that for the foreseeable future the new discovery would have little effect on existing fuels. Some left-wingers demanded that atomic patent rights and means of production should remain controlled by Congress, and not be allowed to fall into the hands of large oil or munitions combines. To the embarra.s.sment even of many capitalists, the prospect of an end of hostilities caused the New York Stock Exchange to fall sharply. A correspondent of the London Sunday Times Sunday Times wrote: ”It is always unedifying when moneyed interests are revealed as benefiting or believing themselves to benefit more from war than from peace.” wrote: ”It is always unedifying when moneyed interests are revealed as benefiting or believing themselves to benefit more from war than from peace.”

Some senior U.S. soldiers in the Philippines were disgruntled to find themselves facing financial loss of a different kind. One of their number had returned from a liaison mission to the Marianas shortly before, reporting that Twentieth Air Force officers had created a $10,000 pool, to bet that the war would end before October. Since MacArthur's people knew that Olympic was not scheduled until November, some hastened to accept the air force wager. ”From what we knew852 and the way it looked to us, that was an easy bet to win. We started taking up the $10,000, but we didn't get very far with it,” Krueger's G3, Clyde Eddleman, wrote ruefully. ”...The next thing we knew Hiros.h.i.+ma disappeared.” and the way it looked to us, that was an easy bet to win. We started taking up the $10,000, but we didn't get very far with it,” Krueger's G3, Clyde Eddleman, wrote ruefully. ”...The next thing we knew Hiros.h.i.+ma disappeared.”

A British corporal of Fourteenth Army in Burma, George MacDonald Fraser, noted: ”It is now widely held853 that the dropping of atomic bombs was unnecessary because the j.a.panese were ready to give in...I wish those who hold that view had been present to explain the position to the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d who came howling out of a thicket near the Sittang, full of spite and fury, in that first week of August. He was half-starved and near naked, and his only weapon was a bamboo stave, but he was in no mood to surrender.” that the dropping of atomic bombs was unnecessary because the j.a.panese were ready to give in...I wish those who hold that view had been present to explain the position to the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d who came howling out of a thicket near the Sittang, full of spite and fury, in that first week of August. He was half-starved and near naked, and his only weapon was a bamboo stave, but he was in no mood to surrender.”

Nowhere was relief at the dropping of the bomb more intense and heartfelt than in prison camps throughout the j.a.panese empire. Yet even among those for whom Hiros.h.i.+ma promised deliverance, a few displayed more complex emotions. Lt. Stephen Abbott's closest friend, Paul, a devout Christian, entered their bleak barrack room in j.a.pan and said: ”Stephen-a ghastly thing has happened854.” He described the destruction of Hiros.h.i.+ma, as reported on the radio, then knelt in prayer. Eighteen months later, Abbott wrote a letter for publication in The Times The Times, citing his own status as a former POW, and arguing that a demonstration of the bomb would have sufficed: ”The way it has been used has not only provided a significant chapter for future j.a.panese history books but has also convinced the people of j.a.pan that the white man's claim to the ethical and spiritual leaders.h.i.+p of the world is without substance.”

PRESIDENT T TRUMAN'S statement to the world, approved before he left Potsdam, declared that the fate of Hiros.h.i.+ma represented a just retribution for Pearl Harbor: ”It was to spare the j.a.panese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of 26 July was issued at Potsdam...If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.” This time there could be no doubt in the minds of j.a.pan's leaders about exactly what the president's words portended. More atomic bombs would follow ”Little Boy.” Other cities would share the fate of Hiros.h.i.+ma. statement to the world, approved before he left Potsdam, declared that the fate of Hiros.h.i.+ma represented a just retribution for Pearl Harbor: ”It was to spare the j.a.panese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of 26 July was issued at Potsdam...If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.” This time there could be no doubt in the minds of j.a.pan's leaders about exactly what the president's words portended. More atomic bombs would follow ”Little Boy.” Other cities would share the fate of Hiros.h.i.+ma.

Yet the extraordinary aspect of j.a.panese behaviour in the wake of the 6 August bombing was that the event seemed to do almost nothing to galvanise j.a.panese policy-making, to end the prevarication which was already responsible for so much death. The emperor and prime minister learned of the attack only after a lapse of some hours. First reports spoke of ”the complete destruction of Hiros.h.i.+ma and unspeakable damage inflicted by one bomb with unusually high effectiveness.” At least one senior officer immediately guessed that this was an atomic device, as was soon confirmed by intercepted American radio broadcasts. Other army commanders remained sceptical, however, and saw nothing in the news to soften their implacable opposition to surrender. General Anami, the war minister, privately acknowledged that this was a nuclear attack, and dispatched an investigating team to Hiros.h.i.+ma. He proposed, however, that the government should take no action before hearing its report, which would not be available for two days. Hiros.h.i.+ma at first rendered some ministers more committed, rather than less, to resisting unconditional surrender.

Foreign Minister Togo dispatched a message to Amba.s.sador Sato in Moscow, seeking urgent clarification of the Soviet att.i.tude. Togo went to the Imperial Palace on the morning of 8 August. Hirohito told him that, in the new circ.u.mstances, ”My wish is to make such arrangements as to end the war as soon as possible.” Togo was asked to convey this message to Prime Minister Suzuki. Even now, however, the emperor was vague about means. He certainly did not urge immediate acceptance of the Potsdam terms. The j.a.panese government failed to adopt the course which could almost certainly have saved Nagasaki from destruction: a swift communication to the Americans declaring readiness to quit. Once again, we know why why this did not happen: because the decision-making process was so slow, the war party so resolute. But again, also, the question should be asked: how many days of stubborn enemy silence should the U.S., never the most patient society on earth, have been expected pa.s.sively to endure? this did not happen: because the decision-making process was so slow, the war party so resolute. But again, also, the question should be asked: how many days of stubborn enemy silence should the U.S., never the most patient society on earth, have been expected pa.s.sively to endure?

In Moscow, on 7 August Russia's media reported nothing about events in Hiros.h.i.+ma. All that day Stalin remained incommunicado. It is a.s.sumed that the Soviet leader was stunned by the news, and fearful that j.a.pan would immediately surrender. But Amba.s.sador Sato's urgent request to meet Molotov showed that this was not so. j.a.pan was still in the war. It was not, after all, too late for the Soviet Union to achieve its objectives. Sato was granted an appointment with Molotov for the evening of 8 August. Stalin meanwhile conducted meetings with a Chinese delegation led by T.V. Soong, Chiang's prime minister and brother-in-law, which was still stubbornly resisting endors.e.m.e.nt of some of the terms agreed by Roosevelt at Yalta. j.a.pan's leaders went to bed in Tokyo on the night of 8 August expecting to hear news from Moscow next morning about Sato's meeting with Molotov. This they did, but in a form drastically divergent from their expectations.

When Sato entered the foreign minister's office, Molotov brushed aside his greetings, invited him to sit, and read aloud the terms of his nation's declaration of war. Since j.a.pan had rejected the Potsdam Declaration, said the Russian, ”the Allies approached the Soviet Union with a proposal to join in the war against j.a.panese aggression and thereby shorten the length of the war, reduce the number of victims, and a.s.sist in the prompt re-establishment of general peace.” Russia accepted the Allied proposals, to save the j.a.panese people ”from the same destruction as Germany had suffered.” Less than an hour later, Molotov informed the British and American amba.s.sadors that, in fulfilment of its obligations, his country had declared war on j.a.pan. Harriman expressed the grat.i.tude and pleasure of the U.S., for he could do nothing else. A few hours later, shortly after Truman in Was.h.i.+ngton heard news of the Soviet action, Bock's Car Bock's Car took off from Tinian for Nagasaki. took off from Tinian for Nagasaki.