1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:04,930 President Harry S. Truman's decision to use atomic weapons against the Japanese cities 2 00:00:04,930 --> 00:00:11,009 of Hiroshima and Nagasaki proved to be one of the most controversial decisions in American history. 3 00:00:12,160 --> 00:00:17,830 As the years have passed, the controversy has only intensified. More and more people 4 00:00:17,830 --> 00:00:23,710 -- both in America and abroad -- have condemned both President Truman and America for that 5 00:00:23,710 --> 00:00:24,210 decision. 6 00:00:24,710 --> 00:00:29,970 But this criticism is based on limited historical knowledge of both the situation Truman confronted 7 00:00:29,970 --> 00:00:32,410 and the basis for his decision. 8 00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:36,060 Such flawed analysis has been aided by the unfortunate 9 00:00:36,070 --> 00:00:38,830 influence of some very bad history, 10 00:00:38,830 --> 00:00:43,220 such as that written by members of the so-called "atomic diplomacy" school. 11 00:00:43,220 --> 00:00:48,220 These historians disgracefully alleged that Truman proceeded to drop two 12 00:00:48,230 --> 00:00:54,530 atomic bombs on a Japan, which he knew was on the verge of surrender, so as to intimidate 13 00:00:54,530 --> 00:01:01,510 the Soviet Union in the already developing Cold War. That specious interpretation must 14 00:01:01,510 --> 00:01:03,660 be refuted fully. 15 00:01:03,660 --> 00:01:10,660 Truman sought to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two major military/industrial targets, to 16 00:01:10,750 --> 00:01:17,150 avoid an invasion of Japan, which Truman knew would mean, in his words, quote, 17 00:01:17,150 --> 00:01:22,370 "an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other," end quote. 18 00:01:22,370 --> 00:01:25,920 His assumptions were entirely legitimate. 19 00:01:25,930 --> 00:01:32,560 By July of 1945 the Japanese had been subjected to months of devastating attacks by American 20 00:01:32,560 --> 00:01:38,780 B-29s, their capital and other major cities had suffered extensive damage, and the home 21 00:01:38,780 --> 00:01:45,720 islands were subjected to a naval blockade that made food and fuel increasingly scarce. 22 00:01:45,720 --> 00:01:50,620 Japanese military and civilian losses had reached approximately three million and there 23 00:01:50,620 --> 00:01:55,100 seemed no end in sight. Despite all this, however, 24 00:01:55,100 --> 00:02:04,080 Japan's leaders and especially its military clung fiercely to notions of Ketsu-Go ("decisive battle"). 25 00:02:04,080 --> 00:02:11,360 In fact, the Japanese government had mobilized a large part of the population into a national militia which would 26 00:02:11,370 --> 00:02:15,100 be deployed to defend the home islands. 27 00:02:15,100 --> 00:02:21,750 Confirming the Japanese determination to fight on is the fact that even after the use of 28 00:02:21,750 --> 00:02:28,750 atomic bombs against both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military still wanted to pursue 29 00:02:28,850 --> 00:02:30,390 that desperate option. 30 00:02:30,390 --> 00:02:36,630 The atomic bombs forced Emperor Hirohito to understand clearly, 31 00:02:36,630 --> 00:02:44,100 and in a way his military leaders refused to comprehend, that the defense of the homeland was hopeless. 32 00:02:45,380 --> 00:02:51,790 It took the unprecedented intervention of a Japanese emperor to break the impasse in 33 00:02:51,790 --> 00:02:58,590 the Japanese government and finally order surrender. It was only the dropping of the 34 00:02:58,590 --> 00:03:05,290 atom bombs that allowed the emperor and the so-called peace faction in the Japanese government 35 00:03:05,290 --> 00:03:08,550 to negotiate an end to the war. 36 00:03:08,550 --> 00:03:16,020 All the viable alternate scenarios to secure American victory -- all would have meant significantly 37 00:03:16,020 --> 00:03:19,580 greater American and allied casualties 38 00:03:19,580 --> 00:03:24,000 and much higher Japanese civilian and military casualties. 39 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:27,540 According to American military estimates at the time, 40 00:03:27,540 --> 00:03:31,239 those numbers would have been well above one million. 41 00:03:31,239 --> 00:03:38,239 Hard as it may be to accept, Japanese losses would have been far greater without the bombs. 42 00:03:39,260 --> 00:03:44,160 And the overall casualties would also have included thousands of Allied prisoners of 43 00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:49,980 war whom the Japanese planned to execute in case of invasion. 44 00:03:49,980 --> 00:03:56,380 Truman's use of the bomb should be seen as his choosing the least awful of the options 45 00:03:56,380 --> 00:03:58,500 available to him. 46 00:03:58,510 --> 00:04:05,340 Even in retrospect, far removed from the pressures that Truman faced in 1945, his critics can 47 00:04:05,340 --> 00:04:12,340 offer no serious and convincing proposal regarding a viable and less costly alternative. 48 00:04:12,980 --> 00:04:16,540 The judgment of history is clear and unambiguous: 49 00:04:17,240 --> 00:04:19,280 the atomic bombs shortened the war, 50 00:04:19,280 --> 00:04:26,600 averted the need for a land invasion, saved countless more lives on both sides of the blood-soaked 51 00:04:26,610 --> 00:04:33,069 conflict than they cost, and ended the Japanese brutalization of the conquered peoples of 52 00:04:33,069 --> 00:04:34,520 Asia. 53 00:04:34,520 --> 00:04:41,520 Given the alternatives, what would any moral person have done in Truman's position? 54 00:04:43,580 --> 00:04:50,580 I'm Father Wilson Miscamble, Professor of History at Notre Dame, for Prager University.