Mokusatsu: The Translation Blunder That Triggered the Atomic Bomb

Introduction: Beyond the Standard Explanations

The motive behind President Harry Truman's decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan is one of the most debated topics of twentieth-century history. Much attention is often focused on two widely held perspectives: first, that the American government was reluctant to invade the Japanese mainland and, second, that the United States wished to preempt the nuclear arms race by establishing itself as the global leader of "atomic diplomacy." However, popular debates almost always fail to acknowledge that a relatively minor linguistic mishap was the real catalyst behind the series of events leading up to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Despite the larger ideological motivations most often cited by historians, the mokusatsu translation blunder is in fact the historical event that directly triggered the dropping of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Manhattan Project and the Decision to Build the Bomb

The discovery of nuclear fission in the late 1930s made the possibility of a nuclear bomb a reality. The United States initiated the Manhattan Project in order to develop the weapon before another country could. President Roosevelt authorized the atomic program in 1941, and Berkeley physicist Robert Oppenheimer helped lead and oversee the design and manufacturing of the bomb. The project was kept entirely secret from the American public. Indeed, when Truman became president upon Roosevelt's death, even he did not know of the project's existence and had to be briefed on it when he took office.

Deliberations about what to do with the bomb were mainly focused on its use as a powerful deterrent. Einstein, for example, had written to Roosevelt in the days following the discovery of nuclear fission arguing that the United States should build an atom bomb in order to deter Germany — a letter he later regretted writing after witnessing the devastation it enabled.² But the bomb did not ultimately serve as a deterrent against Germany. Instead, it became a show of force for the entire world, particularly for Russia. While the victims were Japanese — a fact that no doubt pleased Stalin — the demonstration was one of showmanship: Truman wanted to display his "new weapon of unusual destructive force" and give the world a vivid example of American superiority in arms.³

Many historians and public figures have claimed the bombs were dropped to avoid a land invasion of the Japanese mainland and the further American casualties such an invasion would entail. For many years following the end of World War II, this served as the official justification of the American government. Former Secretary of War Henry Stimson, perhaps the most influential figure in the decision to drop the bomb, wrote an article in the February 1947 edition of Harper's Magazine defending the U.S. military's actions in the Pacific. In it, he carefully laid out estimates from the intelligence section of the War Department regarding Japan's military strength as of July 1945:

"In the home island, slightly under 2,000,000; in Korea, Manchuria, China proper and Formosa, slightly over 2,000,000; in French Indochina, Thailand, and Burma, over 200,000; in the East Indies area, including the Philippines, over 500,000; in the by-passed Pacific islands, over 100,000. The total strength of the Japanese Army was estimated at about 5,000,000 men."

With the benefit of hindsight, Stimson acknowledged that these estimates were later confirmed by official Japanese records, further legitimizing the U.S. government's belief that an Allied victory in Japan was not an absolute certainty as of July 1945.⁴

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Stimson, Henry. "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb." Harper's Magazine: 97–107.

Shigenori, Togo. The Cause of Japan. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956.

"Japan Officially Turns Down Allied Surrender Ultimatum." The New York Times, 28 July 1945.

Secondary Sources

Bernstein, Barton J. "The Perils and Politics of Surrender: Ending the War with Japan and Avoiding the Third Atomic Bomb." Pacific Historical Review: 1–27.

"Potsdam and the Final Decision." The Manhattan Project — An Interactive History. U.S. Department of Energy. Web. 28 Jan 2016.

Stone, Oliver, and Peter Kuznick. The Untold History of the United States. New York: Gallery Books, 2013.

Suzuki, Taketo. "The Atomic Bomb: Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki." 1990.

Wainstock, Dennis. The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb: Hiroshima and Nagasaki: August 1945. New York: Enigma Books, 2011.