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Twilight of the Bomb

Posted by samzenpus on from the I-am-become-death-the-destroyer-of-worlds dept.

merbs writes: On the 70th anniversary of the first nuclear bomb, Motherboard's Brian Merchant toured its crater with one of the last living Manhattan Project scientists. Here's the inside story of the road to the bomb, with the 90-year-old Murray Peshkin—the youngest man to work on the Project that built the bomb, and the first to set foot in its crater. From the story: "There are still nine nuclear nations that, between them, have stockpiled 16,300 weapons. And this network of decades-old nuclear armaments, some of which are still aimed at various strategic choke points around the globe, leaves civilizational scale death-becoming a technical possibility. Before all that, though, the atom bomb was one of the most successful science experiments of all time. It was the product of billions of dollars in government spending, hundreds of the world’s top scientists working in concert, in secret, in a city built from scratch in the desert, and a bygone patriotism united by common, Manichean cause: stop Hitler, defeat the Japanese."

18 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. It is what it is by TWX · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The United States is very good at estimating military casualties. It's necessary when war is waged on a huge scale, and good numbers are needed if the war effort is to be as efficient as possible.

    The United States had a million Purple Hearts manufactured to award to the soldiers expected to be killed or wounded in action in the invasion of Japan. They're still using that stock today, after Korea, after Vietnam after Grenada, after Panama, after Afghanistan, after Iraq.

    Even at the highest estimated death toll, less than a quarter of the number of people died due to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as would have been killed or wounded on just the American side of a full invasion of Japan.

    Murray Peshkin does not have to take pride in his work, but he should not feel that he is party to a war crime either.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    1. Re:It is what it is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Murray Peshkin does not have to take pride in his work, but he should not feel that he is party to a war crime either

      Lets not be deluded. Killing 80 000 civilians in one go (and many many more because in the aftermath of the bomb ) is a war crime. Curtis LeMay was man enough to recognise that strategic bombing, that is the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets to break the will of the enemy was a war crime. And he would have ended as a criminal had he not been on the victorious side. History and law is written by the victors always. And many times this skews the moral analysis of the events.

    2. Re:It is what it is by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Lets not be deluded. Killing 80 000 civilians in one go (and many many more because in the aftermath of the bomb ) is a war crime.

      It is only a crime if you lose...

      No, that isn't sarcasm... it is the truth... what is a "crime" is determined by the winner...

      There are really no rules in war, either you win, in which case anything you did is ok, or you lose, in which case it doesn't matter how nice you were about it...

    3. Re:It is what it is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Killing 80 000 civilians in one go (and many many more because in the aftermath of the bomb ) is a war crime

      Not necessarily. Consider the situation that existed during WWII. The entire populations and economies of the belligerent nations were fully mobilized in service of the war effort. This full mobilization and total commitment gave rise to the term "Total War". In such cases every person, whether wearing the uniform and fighting, or working to produce war materials or otherwise assisting the war effort is arguably a legitimate target. During WWII this would have included virtually the entire adult population of every nation fighting. Strategic bombing was not a precisely targeted instrument, but as long as the focus of the bombing raids wasn't the preschool outside of town it was arguably legitimate.

    4. Re:It is what it is by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There was a belief though that the US only had the resources for a single bomb. The US expected an instant surrender, but it took time for the realization of what happened to sink in as much of the damage was similar to that of fire bombing and direct damage from the blast was not as large as damage from the ensuing fires. Ie, it looked like a repeat of the Tokyo attacks in some ways, which definitely cemented the view of the US as evil aggressors for targeting civilians directly.

      Flip things around. If the Germans had gotten the bomb first and dropped one over the top of New York City would the US have surrendered?

    5. Re:It is what it is by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It took two nuclear weapons to convince Japan to surrender.

      No, it didn't. Japan was close to surrender anyway. The government felt that the situation was hopeless and a negotiated surrender would be the best option. The military was still holding out, but even they knew that there was little chance of reaching a stalemate by that point. Moves were afoot to negotiate with the US over terms, and of course the US knew that because some members of the Japanese government were talking to them to see what kind of deal might be possible.

      Of course we can never know for sure if Japan would have surrendered without the bombs, but that in itself is a false dichotomy. A demonstration of the bomb, with Japanese military officials invited to see it, was considered by the US. It's hard to justify why that was not even tried first, before moving directly to the bombing of civilians.

      The reason was simply that the US wanted to know the effects of atomic weapons on cities full of civilians, because it assumed that in the future other countries would also develop the bomb and might attack them with it. That's why they did two in quick succession, to test two different bomb designs. Again, if you disagree you have to justify the use of a second bomb only three days later, before the Japanese had time to really understand what had happened and make the political moves necessary to surrender.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    6. Re:It is what it is by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Interesting

      As always the situation is never as simple as people like and hindsight is 20/20. The US was waging an incredibly bloody war against the Japanese and wanted it over. Fast, and while Japan was close to surrender, the military was still holding out, and that, after all is the important bit.They also had a new superweapon they wanted to test (though the practical effects were really no worse than the massed bomber raids). It was also clear that while the bomber raids were incredibly damaging, they didn't seem to induce surrender.

      But, it's not just that.

      They needed Japan to surrender RIGHT NOW, because their other allies, the Communists, were busy overrunning everything in their path, and the US government really did not want Japan to become a Communist sattelite state, so they needed immediate, unconditional surrender, so that it was done and dusted by the time the communist armies could arrive.

      It was never as simple as just wanting tosee how good it was on civillian populations.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    7. Re:It is what it is by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 4, Insightful

      the firebombing of Dresden and other European cities and the nukes on Japan were truly barbaric acts, purposefully designed to kill large numbers of civilians, each of these events slaughtered hundreds of thousands of civilians in a very short time.

      Perhaps, but you weren't fighting in 1941... you didn't see and experience Germany on the rise, sweeping over most of Europe, seemingly unstoppable...

      The West at that time was quite frightened of Germany and was willing to do whatever it took to stop them, including firebombing cities.

      Even in 1944 when it appeared we were winning, there were small signs that Germany might have an edge and make a comeback... The V1 and V2, the ME-262, the ME-163, and other weapons that were way beyond anything we had.

      It is so easy, in 2015, to judge what was done 70 year ago, but since you didn't live through it, you really have no idea what it was like... My Grandfather fought for Canada in WWII and he has shared many stories with me, and I've talked to other vets over the years who also served... their viewpoint is worth far more than your Monday Morning Quarterback take on it...

    8. Re:It is what it is by Rei · · Score: 4, Interesting

      We're not talking about playing Monday Morning Quarterback. There's a ton of revisionist history that happened after the war trying to pretend that everyone was in agreement about using nuclear weapons on cities and that it would have prevented millions of deaths from a ground war in the home islands with Japan. But that's just not the reality. The US's military leaders themselves were split over the use of the bomb. Some were adamantly opposed to using it on cities - among them, they were split further into groups who wanted to use it only on enemy troops, and groups that wanted to only use it as a pre-arranged "this is what you've coming if you don't surrender" demonstration to back up the Potsdam declaration. Likewise, official military casualty estimates were all over the board - yes, they ranged upwards of a million or more, but also down to the tens of thousands. There were many who were convinced that Japan was just getting ready to surrender. Even among those who wanted to bomb Japanese cities there was sometimes expressed a fear that Japan was about to surrender, insomuch as they wanted to be able to get a final show of force in to put the US in a better negotiation position vs. the Soviets after the war.

      After the war, the US launched the Strategic Bombing Survey to determine how effective the various tactics used in both theatres were at achieving their objectives - everything from attacks against oil infrastructure to the atomic bombs. It made use of vast numbers of interviews and the huge troves of documents captured after the war to be able to get a comprehensive view. The report indicated that the atomic bombs had no impact on the voting of Japan's war council - the division of votes between the hawks and doves remained exactly the same before and after the attacks. All that did change was that it pushed up the urgency in the emperor's schedule. Japan's war council had already agreed to surrender on June 26th, albeit with terms (although half of the council was already willing to accept unconditional surrender). The emperor prepared a mission involving his son to go out with instructions from the council to negotiate a conditional surrender, but was secretly instructed to accept unconditional surrender if it was the only option available. The mission was pushed back due to the Potsdam conference, which ultimately issued the Potsdam declaration on July 26. The emperor twice broke his customary silence with the War Council during this period, once before and once after the bombings, speaking in favor of accepting the Potsdam terms; it was becoming increasingly hard for the War Council to say no. It's important to remember what Japan had already lived through - the main reason for example that an atomic bomb wasn't used on Tokyo was because Tokyo was already a steaming mass of rubble (the bombing report actually refers to the possibility of a bomb being dropped "on the remains of Tokyo"). The bombing survey concluded, "It is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."

      It's understandable that Americans would want to whitewash this history away, to feel that they had "no choice" but to willingly kill hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children by design. And the only way to argue that would be to argue that they saved far more people that they killed, and that everyone was in agreement that this brutality would be necessary. But this is unfortunately not reality. US leadership was highly, and often bitterly divided on the issue, and the US's own postwar study concluded that it was not necessary.

      A curious sidenote raises a big question mark in the history books on how much Truman actually knew what he was signing onto. He repeatedly made statements to the effect of, and wrote in his diary, that while he felt the US should

      --
      I'll never forget the last thing grandma said to me before she died: "What are you doing in here with that knife?!?"
    9. Re:It is what it is by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 5, Informative

      The Japanese were NOT close to surrender. You know who was close to surrender? The same Emperor who allowed his troops to run wild, again and again, without restraining them. The surrender depended on HIM making a stand, after he had failed and failed again to do so. Even after the Japanese military itself had murdered leader after leader who took any kind of conciliatory position. It's bizarre how these people just show up with one thought: AMERIKKKA BAD and will not be dissuaded from this conclusion. Suddenly everyone's an expert historian. Funny these historians never seem to run across any contrary facts.

      As late as surrender time-even after the A-bombs had been dropped-a staff lieutenant colonel, related to the War Minister himself, was fervently convinced that even if the whole Japanese race were all but wiped out, its determination to preserve the National Polity would be forever recorded in the annals of man; whereas a people who sacrificed their will upon the altar of physical existence could never deserve resurrection. It would be useless for the people to survive the war, anyhow, if the structure of the State itself were destroyed. It was better to die than to seek ignominious "safety".

      At a climactic last Imperial Conference, War Minister Anami was still talking about going on with the war, of meting out a terrible blow to the enemy and achieving a good opportunity to end the war. Japan must press forward courageously, seeking Life in Death: certain victory was not assured, but neither was utter defeat. The terrain was working in favor of the defenders, and so was the inflexible national unity. But just in case a massive blow against the enemy proved not possible, it seemed appropriate for the name of Nippon to be inscribed forever in history by the annihilation of her 100 million loyal subjects, etc., etc. And tears welled into the eyes of the earnest War Minister.

      When the Emperor, by a thrilling act of personal courage, opted for peace-and surrender-he too was weeping. He reminded his stunned auditors that ever since the outbreak of the war there had been frequent cases when Army and Navy actions differed from plans. Now the armed forces were preparing for decisive battle in the homeland and were claiming that the prospects of victory were satisfactory.

      He was profoundly troubled, continued the Emperor. What would happen if Japan plunged into decisive battle under such circumstances? The entire race would be obliterated, and this would be a betrayal of the trust of ancestors and the duty toward posterity, lest Japan never again rise. Continuation of the war, then, could only serve to cripple Japan, extinguish civilization, and bring misfortune to mankind.

      The Japanese Emperor's decision to end the war, under enormous external and internal pressure, obviated the American landings and the hemorrhage that was bound to occur soon on the beaches of Miyazaki, Satsuma, and Ariake. Not only would five US ground divisions, etc., be saved from the destruction at sea which the Japanese resolutely promised them, but untold thousands of Japanese would not die either-such as squadrons of kamikaze pilots and sailors with one way tickets to the shrine of heroes at Yasukuni; or the women and children clutching pitiful staves and bamboo spears.
      -- Dr. Alan C. Coox, "Olympic vs. Ketsu-Go", Marine Corps Gazette, August 1965, Vol. 49, No. 8.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    10. Re:It is what it is by Nidi62 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Of course we can never know for sure if Japan would have surrendered without the bombs, but that in itself is a false dichotomy. A demonstration of the bomb, with Japanese military officials invited to see it, was considered by the US. It's hard to justify why that was not even tried first, before moving directly to the bombing of civilians.

      Yes we can. The attempted coup by members of the military after it became known that the Emperor was contemplating surrender after the bombs were dropped shows that there were those perfectly willing to continue fighting even though there was no hope of defeat. The fact that you had Japanese soldiers walking out of jungles 10, 20, 40 years after the war; the countless islands where, out of 15000-20000 defenders you had survivors numbering less than 100; when Japanese soldiers would clutch primed grenades to head or chest sitting next to a loaded rifle or placing the muzzle of their rifle into their mouths at the first sight of a US Marine rather than risk a dishonorable surrender gives argument to the fact that plenty of Japanese would have willingly continued to fight, with many more following them along the path to death and destruction.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    11. Re:It is what it is by david_thornley · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Only one bomb had been tested, and just because one implosion bomb carefully hand-built by top people exploded well (the estimates of the yield before Trinity varied wildly) didn't mean the next would.

      Hiroshima contained the headquarters for the Army charged with the defense of the southern Home Island. It was a legitimate military target. (Under international law, it was the Japanese responsibility to remove military targets from civilian areas, not US responsibility to not bomb anywhere there were civilians.)

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  2. There is an illusion today among younger people... by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is an illusion today among younger people that somehow our world isn't full of evil people, that another Hitler or Stalin won't emerge, that world peace is at hand and that only small regional conflicts far away will happen in the future.

    WWI was supposed to be "the war to end all wars", and it was horribly out done by WWII just 20 years later. We've had, more or less, 70 years of world peace since then, depending on how you look at it (there were a whole lot of regional wars during that time).

    I don't like nuclear weapons, I hate them, they are horrible things that I wish had no use. But if wishes were fishes we'd all eat for free, and wishing for them to all go away misses the point. If just one evil power has them, then we all need them, or rather, a few reasonable and responsible powers need them.

    Oh sure, the total number might go down, we might get down to 1,000 each for Russia and the US, maybe 300 for UK and France, etc. But we just aren't going to zero. The genie is out of the bottle and you can't invent it.

  3. Stunning Drop-Off in War Deaths Since by Kunedog · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This whole vid is well worth your time (seriously, make a note to watch the whole thing today if you haven't), but the last section (starting at 14:20) is particularly striking in how few war deaths have occured since the invention (and rapid development/manufacture) of nuclear weapons.

  4. False dichotomy of the guilty conscience by foreverdisillusioned · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Every time, every time this knee-jerk excuse comes out. As if we had exactly two options in the entire universe. Because if we didn't nuke them or immediately invade them then... what? They were poised to invade California?

    Give me a fucking break. There more than two options on the table. For example, they considered an option to invite Axis observers to watch as little boy was harmlessly detonated in the desert, but they turned it down because they were eager to see what kind of damage the thing would do in the real world. I'm not out to vilify the USA here--the rules of war were different back then and no one hands were clean (certainly not the Japanese.) The atomic bombs weren't the worse thing that happened in the war, and on the whole I think we behaved better than the Axis powers. And our ultimate aims were obviously much more noble.

    But this brainlessly patriotic excuse is just so fucking pathetic. I could grant all of the premises, including the false dichotomy. So, for the sake of argument, I concede Hiroshima. And now... what of Nagasaki? Three fucking days later? Because their initial response to Hiroshima was almost an unconditional surrender but there was some question marks about the dispensation of their emperor, that justified another nuke?

    It was wrong. Get over it. Jefferson was a great president even if he fucked up on slavery. And WWII was a good war even if we were clearly, at times, more ruthless than we had to be. But 70+ years later, this intellectual dishonesty is pointless and downright embarrassing--no different than the stubborn Japanese refusals to fully acknowledge their atrocities in China.

  5. A most successful betrayal by AHuxley · · Score: 4, Informative

    Re " It was the product of billions of dollars in government spending, hundreds of the world’s top scientists working in concert, in secret, in a city built from scratch in the desert, and a bygone patriotism united by common, Manichean cause: stop Hitler, defeat the Japanese.""
    Japan was defeated, seeking a way to surrender into 1945 and the US had a 2 versions of a new weapon to test on undamaged, populated cities.
    The "experiment" part was to find two cities that still remained intact in Japan.
    The US "patriotism" was a cover to stop a re emerging France and the helpful UK from placing conditions or laws on US mil and civilian nuclear expansion after 1945.
    The US did not want to have to share any control with the UK or be forced to pay some France patent for early nuclear work.
    The UK wanted to offer a lot of tech to the US but for that early deal wanted equal say in nuclear use, policy and profits after the war.
    The only secret was how the UK was cut of out late design work and had to race to secure its own methods, experts and designs before the US removed UK top staffs clearances.
    Thankfully the UK had Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... who was able to secure the UK manufacture, design and raw materials away from the US just in time.
    The UK had its MAUD Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... later used the Tube Alloys codename https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and with Canadian help was able to break free of US nuclear restrictions.
    Churchill's Bomb: A Hidden History of Science, War and Politics (Friday 20 September 2013)
    http://www.theguardian.com/boo...
    The main lesson the UK, Canada, Australia and France learned was that the US would take their early nuclear work and ideas but it was a one way deal.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  6. But the false dichotomy is still there by foreverdisillusioned · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm pretty skeptical of those numbers (I'm also skeptical that the Japanese disengagement happened as fast as you imply), but I'll concede all of that for the moment--this is still a false dichotomy. You're still begin from the conclusion "the second bombing was justified, because otherwise X" and working your way backwards. It's simply not intellectually honest.

    Think about it for five seconds and see if you can come up with an alternative that doesn't vaporize 40,000 civilians. Here's one: let's say we drop the second bomb on top of Mount Fuji. Just to bluff and say "hey look, we've got so many of these damn things we can waste 'em, just to give you a show." I do believe that would have made our point pretty clear. Nuking another major civilian population 3 days later is simply not necessary by any stretch of the imagination, even if we concede all kinds of stuff up front.

    (I hope I don't have to reiterate disclaimers into every post: yes, I understand it was a different time with different rules and a far different enemy than anything we've faced recently. The point isn't to beat ourselves up about it; the point is simply to have the moral and mental clarity to call a spade a spade.)

  7. MacArthur, Nimitz, Eisenhower, etc All Opposed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The list of military leaders who thought the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unnecessary if not outright barbaric is quite long.

    Some choice quotes from that link which itself is a summary of a much more thorough analysis.

    "[T]he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender..."
    -- Admiral William D. Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff

    "The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan..."
    -- Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet

    "I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives..."
    --- President Dwight D. Eisenhower (then General Eisenhower)

    "The war might have ended weeks earlier, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."
    -- General Douglas MacArthur