A Horror Story

At 8.16 a.m. precisely on Monday, August 6th 1945, the first atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. As a result something like 78,000 people were killed instantly. Another 139,830, most of whom must be presumed to have perished, were listed as missing, and 36,425 were injured. These figures are from a recently surveyed report by the Japanese Welfare Ministry.

A recently published book, No High Ground, by Knebel and Bailey (Weidenfeld and Nicholson (21s.), purports to tell the secret history of the planning and dropping of this bomb. To those already painfully aware of the inhuman machinations of capitalist politics, in or out of war, none of the revelations will come as a big surprise. All too easily we remember the Passchendaeles, the Stalingrads and the Koreas—battlefields to which our rulers were prepared to despatch thousands to their deaths in the defence of their interests. Nonetheless the atomic act of annihilation deserves singling out both for its unique horror and for some of its lessons.

There are those naive enough to imagine that the sole blame and responsibility for the first atomic bomb rested with Truman. But long before, in 1944, Roosevelt and Churchill advised by their high military officers, had already ticketed Japan as the probable recipient of the first bomb. “Germany had been crossed off as a possibility and intelligence believed that the tottering Nazi regime would collapse long before that ” (P. 89). At this time the project was so secret that not even Truman, Vice-President though he was, had any knowledge of the atomic bomb.

What real choice Truman had is revealed by the words of the oragniser of the production of the bomb, General Groves. “The President was like a little boy on a toboggan. He never had an opportunity to say ‘we will drop the bomb ‘. All he could do was say ‘no’. Any political leader who refused to drop it would have been ‘crucified’ if American lives had subsequently been lost in an invasion of Japan “. (P. 243 and 244.)

Speaking of lost lives, the Japanese rulers (many of whom are still hale and hearty to-day) had no less compunction in sending thousands of their subjects to their doom. “We must not rest a single day in our war effort. . . . We must bear in mind that the annihilation of the stubborn enemy is our road to revenge. . . . We must subjugate all difficulties and pain, and go forward to battle for our Emperor “. This, the last insult, is part of a proclamation issued by the Japanese cabinet AFTER the dropping of the bomb. Before this, too, the Japanese cabinet had rejected a demand for surrender knowing that the Americans had made preparations to unleash an unparalleled assault on their mainland and that this would inevitably result in very high casualty rates. “Top priority,” they declared, “was to be given to defence ” (P, 9). What the Americans were able to do at will, and without the atom bomb, is illustrated by the following: —

“On the night of March 9, sixteen square miles of Tokyo were set ablaze by the B-29’s. Two thousand tons of incendiary bombs fired the city as though it were a forest in the American West. 78,000 were killed “. (P. 98).

But what would the Americans in their turn have done if the atom bomb had been a spluttering dud? In anticipation of this possibility they had a full-scale plan to hand to invade the Japanese mainland in which 100,000 casualties seemed likely to be, to one observer, a conservative estimate. Exaggeration? “In all, three quarters of a million men could be involved. Hospitals in the Philippines, the Marianas and Okinawa were to have 54,000 beds ready. Twelve hospital ships would be off-shore when the first wave landed. At each beachhead, would be an L.S.T. loaded with whole blood”. (P. 8 and 9.)

The pathetic manner in which the men of science knuckled under to their political masters is also well illustrated. Their role of subservience to the needs of capitalism, irrespective of the call of their consciences, is made clear. From the time when Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist, confided to a friend that in Denmark the uranium atom had been split with a release of energy calculated to be a million times as powerful as that from an equal amount of high explosive, all the scientists involved showed themselves completely unable to effect any control over the ultimate purpose and use of this new “Frankenstein”. The scientific advisers came to the same conclusions as political advisors.

In April 1945, Secretary of State Stimson urged Truman to appoint a committee to advise him on atomic policy. This in turn appointed a scientific advisory panel with the leading atomic scientists on it. This committee was asked to prepare a report on the possibility of an atomic bomb explosion. They advised that the bomb be dropped on Japan as soon as possible, WITHOUT specific warning, and that it be delivered on a target susceptible to maximum blast damage. It was obvious that many civilians would be killed (see P. 105). Two billion dollars had been spent in secret. It was imperative to see if the thing worked.

Whether an atomic bomb explosion would bring Japan to its knees was, to the American leaders, a moot point and as their military forces were up to their necks in mud and blood on the Pacific Islands at the time they were not prepared to bank on it. Besides, supposing the bomb was a failure? This would put new heart into the Japanese leaders and place them in a better bargaining position. Far better to drop the bomb for if it were a failure no one would be the wiser and pressure could be continued as before on orthodox military lines. This was the policy laid down by the Allied leaders and no qualms of conscience on the part of any scientists could make them change it. If you sup with the Devil. . . .

Then again another factor had begun to loom large. It was the Russian Bear, who was beginning to demand too much and was generally making a nuisance of himself. This was the period of the Potsdam conference. Germany was defeated and Europe was a political vacuum. Would not this new “firecracker” help to tame this growling animal and curb his appetite for the loot of Europe and the Far East? Is this conjecture? Again our authors come to the rescue. On the eve of the Hiroshima explosion Truman was on his way back from Potsdam aboard ship. On being asked if he had made a deal with Stalin he replied that “if the Russians had been somewhat difficult at Potsdam it did not matter because the United States had now developed an entirely new weapon of such force and nature that we did not need the Russians—or any other nation” (P. 3.) Such is the raw material of capitalist politics—carnage, horror, destruction, misery, pain, annihilation.

In their description of the aftermath of the Hiroshima explosion the authors give us the following cameo. “A fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl suddenly popped up alongside our boat and as we offered her our hand to pull her on board, the front of her face suddenly dropped off as though it were a mask. The nose and other facial features suddenly dropped off with the mask, leaving only a pink, peach-like face front with holes where the eyes, nose and mouth used to be. As the head dropped under the surface, the girl’s black hair left a swirling black eddy”. (P. 186.)

A horror story? Yes, it is the horror story of a society based upon class ownership of the resources of production, whose aim is to supply a ruling class with profits, privilege and power for the preservation of which they are prepared to destroy, mutilate, lay waste and, if necessary, annihilate.
M. JUDD.