Truman and the Bomb: the Untold Story by D. M. Giangreco

Author:D. M. Giangreco [Giangreco, D. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS027100 HISTORY / Wars & Conflicts / World War II / General
Publisher: Potomac Books

The Rise of Revisionism and “Atomic Diplomacy”

The orthodox consensus came under assault in the mid-1960s against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. The book that did the most to shift the nature of the discussion and, at least in academic circles, tilt the scales against Truman was Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam by Gar Alperovitz, who mounted a direct assault on America’s use of the atomic bomb by insisting that it was used not for military but rather diplomatic reasons and that its real target was not Japan, the country that was attacked, but the Soviet Union, presumably an American ally at the time. Specifically, Alperovitz argued that in the summer of 1945 the Japanese were prepared to surrender if granted terms permitting them to keep their emperor, that Truman and his top advisors knew it, and that Washington deliberately withheld those terms, instead demanding unconditional surrender and ignoring Japanese efforts to end the war. Washington’s “two overriding considerations” for bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki were to keep the Soviet Union out of the war in the Far East, thereby limiting its postwar gains in that region, and to pressure Moscow to moderate its demands and accommodate American concerns regarding postwar Eastern Europe. This “atomic diplomacy” in turn precipitated the Cold War.7

Atomic Diplomacy was not an easy read. In formulating what may be called the hard-line revisionist position on the bombing of Hiroshima, Alperovitz laced his 275-page narrative with more than 1,400 endnotes. In many paragraphs almost every sentence has a citation; many sentences have two. After a while the clutter of notes seems like a swarm of gnats that must be swatted away so one can get at the text itself. Still, by their sheer number and density, the notes gave Atomic Diplomacy a scholarly veneer that impressed many readers, and, although it debuted to mixed reviews, the book was enthusiastically welcomed by enough historians on the political left to set in motion a process that eventually put the Hiroshima decision on the defensive. In some vocal circles Atomic Diplomacy quickly achieved iconic status.

The enthusiasm was misplaced. Some commentators, including several prominent Cold War revisionists, pointed out that Alperovitz either lacked any evidence to back up his claims or had stretched the meager evidence he cited beyond its breaking point. Eventually a few historians dug deeper—most notably and comprehensively Robert James Maddox, whose critique of Atomic Diplomacy appeared in 1973. Maddox found that Alperovitz’s footnotes could not be trusted. For example, Maddox pointed out that Alperovitz misled his readers about the context of important statements. Thus, while Alperovitz tells his readers that in April 1945 Truman said the Soviets could “go to hell” if they did not make concessions regarding the composition of the Polish government, an accurate reading of the relevant primary sources shows Truman was referring to a possible Soviet boycott of the founding conference of the United Nations if Stalin did not get his way on Poland, in which case the United States would proceed with the conference while the Soviets could “go” elsewhere.

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