From: "Heather Glaisyer" <heather-AT-teknopunx.co.uk>
Subject: Hiroshima
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2002 17:42:30 +0100


we had a well good debate about Hiroshima on v-nv recently, here are some of
the posts I kept for future reference, they are in the archivesb dated
around sept 24 02, thread Chocolate, Conquest, the Draft, etc. I find the
subject deeply interesting-can it be true that they had no option? informed
sources say yes-I can't believe it.
H

I wrote......

> >  Are you saying
> > that it is not true that Tokyo was making gestures
> > of a willingness to
> > surrender?

Fitz responded........

>Tokyo was NOT making it obvious that they were willing
>to surrender. There were certainly those members of
>government who were so inclined, but they had to be
>very cautious - if the Army, who controlled the
>government, heard about it, they would have been
>asassinated - as had happened before. Word WAS passed
>to the Russians that they might be willing to
>negotiate a surrender, but the Russians, still bitter
>over Port Arthur, declined to pass the word on while
>telling the Japanese that it had, indeed, been
>communicated to the Allies and refused.

I was under the impression that America had broken the Japanese code (as
well as the German and Russian codes) and was indeed aware of these
messages being transmitted.

Is this wrong?

Louis

The above is based, in part, on the following...........

REJECTED OVERTURES
After the war, the world learned what U.S. leaders had known by early 1945:
Japan was militarily defeated long before Hiroshima; it had been trying for
months, if not for years, to surrender; and the U.S. had consistently
rebuffed these overtures. A May 5 cable, intercepted and decoded by the
U.S., dispelled any possible doubt that the Japanese were eager to sue for
peace. Sent to Berlin by the German ambassador in Tokyo, after he talked to
a ranking Japanese naval officer, it read: Since the situation is clearly
recognized to be hopeless, large sections of the Japanese armed forces
would not regard with disfavor an American request for capitulation even if
the terms were hard.
As far as is known, Washington did nothing to pursue this opening. Later
that month, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson almost capriciously dismissed
three separate high-level recommendations from within the administration to
activate peace negotiations. The proposals advocated signaling Japan that
the U.S. was willing to consider the all-important retention of the emperor
system; i.e., the U.S. would not insist upon unconditional surrender.

Stimson, like other high U.S. officials, did not really care in principle
whether or not the emperor was retained. The term unconditional surrender
was always a propaganda measure; wars are always ended with some kind of
conditions. To some extent the insistence was a domestic consideration not
wanting to appear to appease the Japanese. More important, however, it
reflected a desire that the Japanese not surrender before the bomb could be
used. One of the few people who had been aware of the Manhattan Project
from the beginning, Stimson had come to think of it as his bomb, my secret,
as he called it in his diary. On June 6, he told President Truman he was
fearful that before the A-bombs were ready to be delivered, the Air Force
would have Japan so bombed out that the new weapon would not have a fair
background to show its strength. In his later memoirs, Stimson admitted
that no effort was made, and none was seriously considered, to achieve
surrender merely in order not to have to use the bomb.

And that effort could have been minimal. In July, before the leaders of the
U.S., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union met at Potsdam, the Japanese
government sent several radio messages to its ambassador, Naotake Sato, in
Moscow, asking him to request Soviet help in mediating a peace settlement.
His Majesty is extremely anxious to terminate the war as soon as possible
..., said one communication. Should, however, the United States and Great
Britain insist on unconditional surrender, Japan would be forced to fight
to the bitter end.

On July 25, while the Potsdam meeting was taking place, Japan instructed
Sato to keep meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Molotov to impress the
Russians with the sincerity of our desire to end the war [and] have them
understand that we are trying to end hostilities by asking for very
reasonable terms in order to secure and maintain our national existence and
honor (a reference to retention of the emperor).

Having broken the Japanese code years earlier, Washington did not have to
wait to be informed by the Soviets of these peace overtures; it knew
immediately, and did nothing. Indeed, the National Archives in Washington
contains U.S. government documents reporting similarly ill-fated Japanese
peace overtures as far back as 1943.

Thus, it was with full knowledge that Japan was frantically trying to end
the war, that President Truman and his hardline secretary of state, James
Byrnes, included the term unconditional surrender in the July 26 Potsdam
Declaration. This final warning and expression of surrender terms to Japan
was in any case a charade. The day before it was issued, Harry Truman had
al- ready approved the order to release a 15 kiloton atomic bomb over the
city of Hiroshima.

from http://burn.ucsd.edu/caq53.htm

HIROSHIMA: NEEDLESS SLAUGHTER, USEFUL TERROR
by William Blum

Originaly published in Covert Action Quarterly........


>Truman stated publicly at Yalta that weapons of mas
>destruction would be used if the Japanese didn't
>surrender. He made sure that a copy of his statement
>was given to the Japanese.

Fitz.........

Do you mean this Proclamation from Potsdam?

Or something else?

Louis.........



Proclamation Calling for the Surrender of Japan, Approved by the Heads of
Government of the United States, China and the United Kingdom

(1) We, the President of the United States, the President of the National
Government of the Republic of China and the Prime Minister of Great
Britain, representing the hundreds of millions of our countrymen, have
conferred and agree that Japan shall be given an opportunity to end this
war.

(2) The prodigious land, sea and air forces of the United States, the
British Empire and of China, many times reinforced by their armies and air
fleets from the west are poised to strike the final blows upon Japan. This
military power is sustained and inspired by the determination of all the
Allied nations to prosecute the war against Japan until she ceases to
resist.

(3) The result of the futile and senseless German resistance to the might
of the aroused free peoples of the world stands forth in awful clarity as
an example to the people of Japan. The might that now converges on Japan is
immeasurably greater than that which, when applied to the resisting Nazis,
necessarily laid waste to the lads, the industry and the method of life of
the whole German people. The full application of our military power, backed
by our resolve, will mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the
Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the
Japanese homeland.

(4) The time has come for Japan to decide whether she will continue to be
controlled by those self-willed militaristic advisers whose unintelligent
calculations have brought the Empire of Japan to the threshold of
annihilation, or whether she will follow the path of reason.

(5) Following are our terms. We will not deviate from them. There are no
alternatives. We shall brook no delay.

(6) There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of
those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on
world conquest, for we insist that a new order of peace, security and
justice will be impossible until irresponsible militarism is driven from
the world.

(7) Until such a new order is established and until there is convincing
proof that Japan's war-making power is destroyed, points in Japanese
territory to be designated by the Allied shall be occupied to secure the
achievement of the basic objectives we are here setting forth.

(8) The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese
sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu,
Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine.

(9) The Japanese military forces, after being completely disarmed, shall be
permitted to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead peaceful
and productive lives.

(10) We do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or
destroyed as a nation, but stern justice shall be meted out to all war
criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners.
The Japanese government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and
strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom
of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the
fundamental human rights shall be established.

(11) Japan shall be permitted to maintain such industries as will sustain
her economy and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind, but not
those industries which would enable her to re-arm for war. To this end,
access to, as distinguished from control of raw materials shall be
permitted. Eventual Japanese participation in world trade relations shall
be permitted.

(12) The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn form Japan as
soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been
established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese
people a peacefully inclined and responsible government.

(13) We call upon the Government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional
surrender of all the Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and
adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for
Japan is prompt and utter destruction.

Potsdam July 26, 1945

Harry S Truman
Winston Churchill
by H. S. T.
President of China


Seems this is a repeating problem for the US................

On the question of what was the US aware, and in particular - what was
Truman aware of, BEFORE dropping the bombs, I give you .........

http://www.nuclearfiles.org/docs/togo-sato-index.html

And here is the Editors note for the page.........

>It has not been possible to establish the precise extent to which the
>United States Delegation at the Berlin Conference was aware of the
>contents of the papers of Japanese origin printed in this section.... The
>contents of certain of those papers were know to United States officials
>in Washington, however, as early as July 13 (see Walter Millis, ed., The
>Forrestal Diaries (New York, 1951), p. 74; cf. pp. 75-76) and information
>on Japanese peace maneuvers was received by Secretary of War Henry L.
>Stimson at Babelsberg on July 16.... It has also been determined that a
>series of messages of Japanese origin on this subject was received by the
>United States Delegation during the course of the Berlin Conference and
>that these messages were circulated at Babelsberg to some members of the
>President's party. Furthermore, in a conference on January 24, 1956,
>between Truman and members of his staff and Department of State
>historians, Truman supplied the information that he was familiar with the
>contents of the first Japanese feeler (i.e., the proposal contained in
>document No. 582) before Stalin mentioned it to him at Babelsberg...and
>that he was familiar with the contents of the second Japanese peace feeler
>(i.e., the approach reported in document No. 1234) before Stalin brought
>it to the attention of Truman and Attlee at the Tenth Plenary Meeting of
>the Berlin Conference on July 28....


I apologize to all who find this whole thing an exercise in "endless
redaction and definition", but I am bound and determined to either confirm
what I believe about the dropping of the atom bombs OR correction the
misinformation I have been operating under. I could be wrong and if I am I
want to know about it. And from the looks of the amount of data that I am
finding that is posted on the Internet, not to mention the bibliography of
all that isn't, I am not alone in this desire.


--- L A Hazard <lahazard-AT-bellsouth.net> wrote:
> I wrote......
>
> > >  Are you saying
> > > that it is not true that Tokyo was making
> gestures
> > > of a willingness to
> > > surrender?
>
> Fitz responded........
>
> >Tokyo was NOT making it obvious that they were
> willing
> >to surrender. There were certainly those members of
> >government who were so inclined, but they had to be
> >very cautious - if the Army, who controlled the
> >government, heard about it, they would have been
> >asassinated - as had happened before. Word WAS
> passed
> >to the Russians that they might be willing to
> >negotiate a surrender, but the Russians, still
> bitter
> >over Port Arthur, declined to pass the word on
> while
> >telling the Japanese that it had, indeed, been
> >communicated to the Allies and refused.
>
> I was under the impression that America had broken
> the Japanese code (as
> well as the German and Russian codes) and was indeed
> aware of these
> messages being transmitted.
>
> Is this wrong?


Yes, it is incorrect - The US had broken the Naval
code, only. The Japanese offerto surrender was passed
to the Russians via a note from the Japanese
ambassador in Moscow, to the Soviet Foriegn Secretary.

No matter how good the Enigma de-coder worked, it
couldn't read mail.
>
> Louis
>
> The above is based, in part, on the
> following...........
>
> REJECTED OVERTURES
> After the war, the world learned what U.S. leaders
> had known by early 1945:
> Japan was militarily defeated long before Hiroshima;

Japan was militarily defeated by February, 1943, but
this was not an acceptable view of the world with hte
Japanese military types who controlled the government
under Tojo. To even mention defeats such as Midway was
seen as sedition and treason.

You might be amused to know that one of the most
outspoken opponants to war with he US was Admiral
Yamamoto - the man who planned and ordered the attack
on Pearl harbor. Pretty much the Imperial Navy was
opposed to the War, the Army wasn't, and controlled
the government - and thus decided that there would be
a war. Once the orders were given that this is what
was decided, the Navy went along because it was
unthinkable in the Japanese culture that they would
refuse - obedience to authority is a major part of the
Japanese psyche in those days.


> it had been trying for
> months, if not for years, to surrender; and the U.S.
> had consistently
> rebuffed these overtures. A May 5 cable, intercepted
> and decoded by the
> U.S., dispelled any possible doubt that the Japanese
> were eager to sue for
> peace. Sent to Berlin by the German ambassador in
> Tokyo, after he talked to
> a ranking Japanese naval officer, it read: Since the
> situation is clearly
> recognized to be hopeless, large sections of the
> Japanese armed forces
> would not regard with disfavor an American request
> for capitulation even if
> the terms were hard.


This simply confirms what I said about the Imperial
Navy, and had absolutely no binding effect (or even
knowledge thereof) on the part of the Army which
controlled the government.

A such, this merely says what the Navy had been saying
all along anyway, and had nothing whatsoever to do
with what the government would or would not do. To say
hat this was a serious overture for peace and
capitulation is misleading, since it wasn't. It was an
expression of opposition to the war by people who had
opposed the war from the beginning.




> As far as is known, Washington did nothing to pursue
> this opening. Later
> that month, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson almost
> capriciously dismissed
> three separate high-level recommendations from
> within the administration to
> activate peace negotiations. The proposals advocated
> signaling Japan that
> the U.S. was willing to consider the all-important
> retention of the emperor
> system; i.e., the U.S. would not insist upon
> unconditional surrender.
>
> Stimson, like other high U.S. officials, did not
> really care in principle
> whether or not the emperor was retained. The term
> unconditional surrender
> was always a propaganda measure; wars are always
> ended with some kind of
> conditions. To some extent the insistence was a
> domestic consideration not
> wanting to appear to appease the Japanese. More
> important, however, it
> reflected a desire that the Japanese not surrender
> before the bomb could be
> used.

If this were true, then there would have been no
planning and implimentation of Operation Olympic.
Since we know for a fact that Olympic did, in fact,
exist, and was in the process of building up to
implimentation before the bomb was dropped, we thus
know that the above statement is not correct.

You might also consider that if an invasion of the
home islands was not the long term plan of the Allied
military, then the long and bloody campaign for
Okinawa would not have been fought at all, as Okinawa
was useful to the allies only as the launching point
for Olympic - the US already had taken Saipan, Guam,
an Tinian, where he B-29's were based out of, and Iwo
Jima in the Bonin Islands, as the support position en
route between the air bases and the home islands.




One of the few people who had been aware of
> the Manhattan Project
> from the beginning, Stimson had come to think of it
> as his bomb, my secret,
> as he called it in his diary. On June 6, he told
> President Truman he was
> fearful that before the A-bombs were ready to be
> delivered, the Air Force
> would have Japan so bombed out that the new weapon
> would not have a fair
> background to show its strength. In his later
> memoirs, Stimson admitted
> that no effort was made, and none was seriously
> considered, to achieve
> surrender merely in order not to have to use the
> bomb.

The only realistic alternative to not using the bomb
was Olympic. The above is also quite misleading since
nobody, not even those who designed the bomb such as
Oppenheimer, were sure that the thing would work in
the first place! For Stintson to have made such
beliefs realstic, he would have had to have had a
better grasp of theoretical nuclear physics than the
world's leading physicists who designed and built the
bomb.


>
> And that effort could have been minimal. In July,
> before the leaders of the
> U.S., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union met at
> Potsdam, the Japanese
> government sent several radio messages to its
> ambassador, Naotake Sato, in
> Moscow, asking him to request Soviet help in
> mediating a peace settlement.
> His Majesty is extremely anxious to terminate the
> war as soon as possible
> ..., said one communication. Should, however, the
> United States and Great
> Britain insist on unconditional surrender, Japan
> would be forced to fight
> to the bitter end.
>
> On July 25, while the Potsdam meeting was taking
> place, Japan instructed
> Sato to keep meeting with Russian Foreign Minister
> Molotov to impress the
> Russians with the sincerity of our desire to end the
> war [and] have them
> understand that we are trying to end hostilities by
> asking for very
> reasonable terms in order to secure and maintain our
> national existence and
> honor (a reference to retention of the emperor).
>
> Having broken the Japanese code years earlier,
> Washington did not have to
> wait to be informed by the Soviets of these peace
> overtures; it knew
> immediately, and did nothing.

the joint declaration by Roosevelt and Churchill at
Casablanca was for unconditional surrender. An retreat
from that position would have only encouraged the
Japanese to fight on for more favorable terms, since
they would believe that it was their force of arms
that had caused such a diplomatic withdrawal. Its the
way things like that work. "Lets fight even harder and
see what additional concessions we can get".



Indeed, the National
> Archives in Washington
> contains U.S. government documents reporting
> similarly ill-fated Japanese
> peace overtures as far back as 1943.
>
> Thus, it was with full knowledge that Japan was
> frantically trying to end
> the war, that President Truman and his hardline
> secretary of state, James
> Byrnes, included the term unconditional surrender in
> the July 26 Potsdam
> Declaration.

Had already been done in 1943 at Casablanca, and later
at Tehran. Truman wasn't saying anything that hadn't
already been said by others.

This final warning and expression of
> surrender terms to Japan
> was in any case a charade. The day before it was
> issued, Harry Truman had
> al- ready approved the order to release a 15 kiloton
> atomic bomb over the
> city of Hiroshima.
>
> from http://burn.ucsd.edu/caq53.htm
>
> HIROSHIMA: NEEDLESS SLAUGHTER, USEFUL TERROR
> by William Blum


Blum's interpretation, selective as it is by ignoring
everything else that was going on around it reminds me
of similiar conclusions to events - such as the Warren
Commission.


F





----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Carroll" <coweatman-AT-riseup.net>
To: <anarchy-list-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October 05, 2002 5:11 PM
Subject: Re: new US law on israel (or carp's need to feel special)


hi. i lurk. i don't think i've ever said anything on this list before.

i have to do an independent research project for college.  i'm considering
either doing it on the government's manipulation of public opinion following
hiroshima, or doing it on the israel-palestine conflict.   what are some
good
resources/books on israel, especially some from a more radical
(lefty/anarcho
(not to start the "are anarchists leftists or not" debate)) perspective?

matt