This essay analyzes Robert James Maddox's article "The Biggest Decision: Why We Had to Drop the Atomic Bomb," which presents the justifications behind President Truman's order to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Drawing on Japanese military policy, casualty estimates, and Cold War strategic concerns, the essay examines why Truman concluded the bombs were necessary. Key considerations include Japan's declared intention to fight to the last, disputed casualty projections for a land invasion, the risk of Soviet diplomatic involvement in the Pacific, and the Japanese military's refusal to acknowledge the atomic nature of the first bomb.
Robert James Maddox's article "The Biggest Decision: Why We Had to Drop the Atomic Bomb" presents a number of nuanced reasons why President Truman ultimately gave the order for the atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. Maddox offers persuasive justifications for Truman's decision, drawing largely on an examination of evidence from the Japanese side. Japanese military policy appears to have necessitated the American military response, as various facts on the public record indicate.
Maddox notes first that the Japanese were in a position to continue hostilities for a relatively long time. He observes that in 1945 "the Japanese had more than 2,000,000 troops in the home islands, were training millions of irregulars, and for some time had been conserving aircraft that might have been used to protect Japanese cities against American bombers." In other words, Japan was preparing for an American invasion it intended to repel with as much force as could be mustered.
On June 8, 1945, a Japanese government conference adopted a document entitled "The Fundamental Policy to Be Followed Henceforth in the Conduct of the War." Its stated policy, as quoted by Maddox, was that the Japanese would "prosecute the war to the bitter end in order to uphold the national polity, protect the imperial land, and accomplish the objectives for which we went to war." As Maddox notes darkly, "Truman had no reason to believe that the proclamation meant anything other than what it said."
Truman's own justification, given in his memoirs and reported by Maddox, was that 500,000 American lives would have been lost in an invasion of Japan, making the use of nuclear weapons justified as a means of preventing that toll. Truman's figures have since been criticized as self-serving. Critics have pointed to a report from the Joint War Plans Committee that estimated roughly 40,000 potential American deaths — though the total climbed to nearly 200,000 "casualties" in the military sense when the wounded and missing in action were included.
Yet this dispute seems like a mere quibble because, as Maddox notes, "when the bombs were dropped, fighting was still going on in the Philippines, China, and elsewhere." With America war-weary, even the lower estimate might have been more than Truman could ask the public to bear, particularly with a re-election campaign to consider.
"Japan's Soviet outreach and American strategic concerns"
Truman's decision was based more on close observation of, and intelligence regarding, the Japanese. Their expressed military policy indicated an intention to prolong the conflict as long as possible in the event of an invasion. Truman himself estimated that American losses would be heavy; in any case, American infantry deaths were occurring elsewhere — in the Philippines and in China — even as the bombs were dropped. Indeed, one Japanese soldier, the famous Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, hiding in the jungles of the Philippines, would continue fighting for as long as possible and did not surrender until 1974, which may say something about the accuracy of Truman's estimate of Japanese military determination.
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