Inferno - Max Hastings [407]
Maj. Gen. Leslie Groves, directing the Manhattan Project, was committed to utilisation of the new weapons at the earliest possible date. He was wholly untroubled by the agonising of such scientists as Edward Teller, who wrote almost despairingly to a colleague: “I have no hope of clearing my conscience. The things we are working on are so terrible that no amount of protesting or fiddling with politics will save our souls.” The only issue that was significantly discussed was whether a demonstration of the bomb, rather than its use against an urban target, might achieve the desired effect. Following a 14–16 July weekend of intense debate among a panel of scientists led by Robert Oppenheimer, they reported: “Those who advocate a purely technical demonstration would wish to outlaw the use of atomic weapons, and have feared that if we use the weapons now our position in future negotiations will be prejudiced. Others emphasize the opportunity of saving American lives by immediate military use, and believe that such use will improve the international prospects … We find ourselves closer to these latter views; we can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”
Even Teller convinced himself—by no means foolishly—that the best hope for the future of mankind lay in a live demonstration that would show the world the unspeakable horrors unleashed by the use of such weapons. The atomic enterprise had a momentum of its own, which only two developments might have checked. First, Truman could have shown extraordinary enlightenment and decreed that the bomb was too terrible to be employed; more plausibly, the Japanese might have offered their unconditional surrender. Yet through mid-summer 1945, intercepted secret cable traffic, as well as Tokyo’s public pronouncements, showed obdurate Japanese rejection of such a course.
Objectively, it was plain to the Allies that Japan’s defeat was inevitable, for both military and economic reasons, and thus that the use of atomic weapons was unnecessary. But the prospect of being obliged to continue addressing pockets of fanatical resistance all over Asia for months, if not years, was appalling. A belief persisted in Tokyo that stalwart defence of the home islands could yet preserve Japan from accepting absolute defeat. Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu, chief of the Japanese general staff, fantasised in characteristically flatulent terms in a May newspaper article: “The sure path to victory in a decisive battle lies in uniting the resources of the Empire behind the war effort; and in mobilising the full strength of the nation, both physical and spiritual, to annihilate the American invaders. The establishment of a metaphysical spirit is the first essential for fighting the decisive battle. An energetic commitment to aggressive action should always be emphasised.” A staff officer, Maj. Yoshitaka Horie, delivered a current-affairs talk to army cadets which precipitated a reprimand from an officer of the Army Education Directorate, who said: “Your lectures are so depressing that officers who hear them will start losing the will to fight. You must end on a high note, assuring them that the Imperial Army is still in fighting mood.”
Some of those who are today most critical of the use of the bombs ignore the fact that for every day the war continued, prisoners and slaves of the Japanese empire in Asia continued to die in the thousands. Perversely, the Allies might have done more to confound Japan’s militarists by publicly announcing that they did not intend to invade the mainland, but instead to continue starving and bombing the Japanese people until they surrendered, than by preparing for Olympic. Truman’s greatest mistake, in protecting