Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [320]
There was, in other words, no provision for a political pause between the first bomb and the second, to enable the Japanese to consider their position. This was a morally unattractive aspect of the process. Hiroshima was named primary objective nominally because it was a strategic port, but chiefly because it was untouched by LeMay’s fire-raisers, and thus would provide a convincing nuclear test site. In Europe, the RAF’s Bomber Command had sometimes sought undamaged cities for the same reason—to measure the effectiveness of new techniques of destruction. There is little doubt that Hiroshima would already have been devastated by the Twentieth Air Force had it not been deleted from American fire-raising lists after its appointment as birthplace, or rather death place, of the nuclear age.
The question of whether Soviet operations in Manchuria were still desirable continued to loom large in Truman’s mind. Once more he invited the opinions of Stimson and Marshall. The chief of staff responded that a Russian invasion was now superfluous. The mere fact of Moscow’s massive deployment on the Manchurian border had deterred the Japanese from moving their Guandong Army. Since, however, the Soviets could take Manchuria whenever they chose, Marshall could see no merit in a formal American policy change. It seemed better to admit the Russians to the Japanese empire in accordance with conditions agreed with the U.S., rather than watch them flood into China on their own terms. Stimson agreed. It is significant to notice that, even at this late stage, Marshall was sceptical about whether atomic bombs would precipitate Japan’s surrender. Months earlier, America’s foremost soldier had declared that the decision about whether and how to use them must be made by the nation’s political rather than military leadership. In July, he continued to focus his own attention upon what Soviet and American armies might do, rather than upon the mission of Colonel Tibbets.
On 24 July, Truman approved the final text of what became known as the Potsdam Declaration. Some suggestions made by Churchill were incorporated. The prime minister had also agreed, with a readiness close to insouciance, that the Americans should thereafter drop atomic bombs without further consultation with Britain. In this, he recognised political reality; yet also, perhaps, he revealed the limits of his understanding about the manner in which this vast event would change the world. A final British attempt to incorporate a modification of unconditional surrender was rejected, as was a new plea by Stimson for more specific assurances about the preservation of the imperial dynasty.
Between Truman’s departure from Washington and the issue of the declaration, the success of the atomic bomb test caused the document to assume a changed significance. Stalin, as well as some Americans, assumed that all three Allied leaders in Potsdam would sign a common document, which would also become the Soviet Union’s declaration of war on Japan. Yet now that a direct causal link was intended between the document, its rejection, and unilateral American detonation of the bomb, the U.S. delegation had no desire to share its declaration with the Soviet Union.
On 25 July, Truman recorded in his diary: “This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. Of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop this terrible bomb on the old capital [Kyoto] or the new [Tokyo].”