Letters to The Times : ‘Machiavelli and the Enola Gay’

George Will’s article (Editorial Pages, July 15), “Machiavelli and the Enola Gay,” summarizes the common wisdom justifying the decision to open the Atomic Age at the expense of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is not an easy subject; it has been thoroughly and well argued from many viewpoints. Since I had an indirect personal involvement in the event, I have often wrestled with myself from both sides of the subject.

In August, 1945, I was a young Army officer on Luzon in the Philippines, preparing to stage for the first invasion of Japan--the Olympic operation scheduled for December, 1945. The mission of the ordnance bomb disposal squad, which I commanded, was to accompany the third wave of assault troops and to clear an area of all unexploded ammunition so that the advanced corps command post could move in. It is safe to say that the probability was extremely high that I was destined to be one of the million or so U.S. (and Australian and New Zealand and other) casualties that Will projects.

The immediacy of the Japanese capitulation was both startling and wonderful. However, I have come to regard the cost to mankind as exorbitant. The question is whether the only way to achieve this prompt capitulation was the road chosen.

In spite of the obvious benefits to me from the choice, I am convinced that a well-planned, publicized and executed non-lethal demonstration could have also been overwhelming in its impact and would have spared my life without the additional sacrifice of 200,000 others, equally deserving of a few more years in the sun.

What concerns me about Will’s article, however, is not that he takes a position contrary to mine (I’m used to that, and admire him as one of the better spokesmen of the right) but rather some of his subliminal messages.

First, Will understands Machiavelli, and paraphrases his philosophy accurately. It disturbs me to see Machiavelli legitimized as an appropriate U.S. tradition and heritage, especially in light of current Administration policies in Central America.

Second, Will implicitly endorses the “numbers game” of many strategic planners, which uses human lives as counters. I’m not sure why the fact that more lives were destroyed in the fire bombings of Japanese cities makes the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki more appropriate.

Finally, it was really a cheap shot and totally irrelevant to bring Julius and Ethel Rosenberg into the article. This seriously disappointed me; I consider Will to be a much better journalist.

In summary, I hope the United States can establish and implement a national policy that does not require a “mental capacity for violence.” I think that a legitimate exercise of reasonable power can be appropriate, but that a diplomatic process that recognizes and respects the needs and rights of other sovereign peoples will usually make force unnecessary, and should be our priority.

CRAIG WILLIAMS

Huntington Beach

I was shocked at Will’s description of the bombing of Hiroshima as “a deed profoundly Machiavellian and moral.” My own opinion is that it was a callous and counterproductive act of terrorism.

Will bases his claim on somebody’s estimate that, without this bombing, the United States would have had to invade Japan and suffer a loss of 210,000 lives plus about 10 times that many lives of the Japanese. It’s a neat theory but one that is impossible to prove.

The numbers themselves have varied wildly over the past 40 years. The largest uncertainty was the very shaky assumption that an invasion would be necessary. A good appraisal of the Japanese situation in the summer of 1945 would have shown that Japan was incapable of continuing the war, was cut off from her sources of supply, had no defense against the B-29 bombing raids and was absolutely no threat to the United States.

Her industry had been destroyed. Her last hope of supplies from the mainland was gone when the Russian army, in the largest land battle of the war, destroyed the Japanese Manchurian army. Gen. Curtis LeMay had estimated that Japan would be ready to surrender by September of 1945 without any invasion. Japanese Prince Koneye and Prime Minister Suzuki later said that the B-29 raids had already made surrender necessary. Writer R.J. Ovary in his book, “The Air War 1939-1945,” states that many Japanese leaders had been moving toward surrender since the early part of 1945.

Granted, there was room for differences of opinion on the need for invasion. However, the most logical and moral course should have been obvious; to continue the blockade and attacks on military-industrial targets in order to keep Japan under pressure while giving her time to reach a decision to surrender. This would have cost relatively little and left us with a claim to civilized conduct.

Machiavelli would have approved. He may have been cold-blooded, but he was not stupid. But the United States used the new nuclear bomb to snuff out the lives of 80,000 people in Hiroshima, a city of virtually no military importance. As a consequence, we now have the distinction of being the only country in the world with a demonstrated willingness to use nuclear weapons exclusively against civilian populations.

We can find excuses for those who made the terrible decision. The pressure and passion created by the war. Failure to correctly evaluate the military situation. Desire to test the nuclear weapon. But it is nonsense to attempt to elevate such motives to the level of a profoundly moral act.

BRENT SMITH

Manhattan Beach

Will wondered about the spiritually transforming effect the Atomic Age may have had on man. Let me quote: “ . . . it would be extravagant to say that the new technology of mass destruction has had such a transforming effect . . . Why should it have? Conventional munitions on the ground at Verdun killed many more people than nuclear weapons have.”

After having fought in the trench warfare of World War I, my grandfather is alive today, happy, and has never talked about it to me. I don’t know exactly why.

The Battle of Verdun lasted eight months and the total number of casualties is near 500,000 men. Fighting each other. The atomic bombings of Japan killed less than half that number and each bomb explodes in less than a millionth of a second. A scientific crew and a plane crew against a city of civilians.

So the number of deaths differ. What makes it incomprehensible to some that the manner in which these incredible death tolls occur is more significant than the sheer numbers?

Horrors equivalent to months of trench warfare can occur so easily and so quickly; it must have a deep spiritual effect,. it does transforms us. In a way that leaves my grandfather with no words.

LAWRENCE SINCICH

Torrance

In 1943-44 my father served in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a tail gunner on a B-17 bomber. He completed his required 33 missions over Germany, during which he participated in raids over Hanover, Berlin, and the oil fields of Ploesti, Romania.

The bombardier died during one of these raids. Twice his plane made forced landings on the European continent. My father received a Purple Heart after receiving shrapnel wounds, and years later lost part of his hearing because of injuries suffered during the war. After he was cycled back to the States, his plane was lost over the Channel with all hands.

My father was retrained, on B-29s, for the coming invasion of Japan. The war ended with the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki just as his training was ending.

That was a nasty business over there, and I am saddened by the lives lost in the war on both sides. From my father’s experiences over Germany, I sometimes wonder if he would have survived an invasion of Japan.

My father returned home at war’s end in 1945, and I was born in 1947. Isn’t it ironic that though the atomic bombs over Japan killed many, perhaps they also saved many. Like my father. Maybe the atomic bombs allowed me to be born. Maybe the bombs allowed other sons and daughters of Japan and the United States to be born in the years following the war.

My point is that in the question of our dropping the atom bombs on Japan, we are faced not with a simple subtraction of human life, but actually an equation including both additions and subtractions.

WILLIAM R. STERMER

Oxnard