NP: Journalists and the Bomb

[Doug Millison]

History  News  Service

August 1, 2000

FOR IMMEDIATE USE -- AUGUST 6 IS HIROSHIMA ANNIVERSARY

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Journalists and the Bomb

By Uday Mohan and Leo Maley III
History News Service

         Every August, the American news media note the anniversary of one
of the most important events of the twentieth century--the atomic bombing
of two Japanese cities. Most reporters and commentators who write about
Hiroshima and Nagasaki uncritically support the popular assumption that the
use of atomic bombs was absolutely necessary to end the war and save
American lives. Many journalists also proclaim the widely-held but mistaken
notion that only untrustworthy "revisionists" or members of the
irresponsible 1960s generation have criticized the atomic bombings.
         If the news media's uncritical acceptance of mass violence wasn't
disturbing enough, its fondness for name-calling and half-baked historical
theorizing threatens to prematurely close the debate on a deeply disturbing
moment in American history.
         American news analysts once knew better. In fact, many influential
journalists concluded in 1945 and soon after that the use of the atomic
bomb was both immoral and unnecessary. Even those with close ties to
military and political leaders didn't hesitate to go public with their
critical views. Consider the following:
         David Lawrence, the conservative editor of U.S. News & World
Report, wrote within days of the Hiroshima bombing that Japanese surrender
had appeared inevitable for weeks. The claim of "military necessity," he
argued, rang hollow. Official justifications would "never erase from our
minds the simple truth that we . . . did not hesitate to employ the most
destructive weapon of all times indiscriminately against men, women and
children."
         A few months later, one of the most popular radio commentators
during the war years, Raymond Swing, declared in an ABC broadcast that the
Japanese had been "looking for an opportunity to surrender, and the
testimony of various Japanese leaders indicates that some other excuses
would have been found at an early date even if the atomic bomb had not been
dropped."
         Henry Luce, the owner of Time, Life, and Fortune magazines, raised
critical questions about the atomic bombings in the late 1940s. In a 1948
speech Luce stated: "If, instead of our doctrine of 'unconditional
surrender,' we had all along made our conditions clear, I have little doubt
that the war with Japan would have ended soon without the bomb explosion
which so jarred the Christian conscience."
         Hanson Baldwin, military editor of The New York Times, a graduate
of the U.S. Naval Academy and a staunch cold warrior, argued in a 1950
Atlantic Monthly article that ". . . the Japanese would have surrendered
even if the bomb had not been dropped, had the [Allied declaration at
Potsdam] included our promise to continue the Emperor upon his throne."
         On the day of his retirement in 1953, Washington Post editor Herb
Elliston was asked by his newspaper, "Any regrets, now that you're out from
under the daily deadline pressure?" Elliston replied, "Oh yes, plenty. One
thing I regret is our editorial support of the A-bombing of Japan. It
didn't jibe with our expressed feeling [before the bomb was dropped] that
Japan was already beaten."
         In 1960 Walter Lippmann, perhaps the most respected and influential
newspaper commentator of all time, added his voice to the list of prominent
media dissenters when he remarked on a CBS television program, "Japan was
ready for surrender before we dropped the bombs. And in my view, we should
have negotiated a surrender before we dropped them. One of the things I
look back on with the greatest regret, as an American, is that we were the
ones that first dropped atomic bombs."
         In his 1991 memoir another New York Times journalist, the Presidential
Medal of Freedom and Pulitzer Prize winner James Reston, explained that
"the diplomatic course was inadequately explored before the military
strategy was accepted."
         These are but some of the prominent media voices that were once
critical of America's use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They
appear in stark contrast to the now common media stereotype that opposition
to the atomic bombings emerged only in the 1960s, or that critics must,
necessarily, be pacifists, "revisionists," or disgruntled members of the
Sixties generation.
         Renewed notice of the mostly forgotten comments of such influential
news analysts of an earlier generation should prompt today's journalists to
rethink their uncritical acceptance of the conventional wisdom they so
often dish out to the public on Hiroshima anniversaries. Only in this way
will Americans be able to honestly and critically confront one of the most
disturbing episodes in our nation's past.

Uday Mohan and Leo Maley III are graduate students at American University
and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, respectively. They research
and write about Hiroshima and American culture.

[Uday Mohan (Department of History, American University), c/o 2428 19th
St., NW, #3, Washington, DC 20009; phone: (202) 265-8251; e-mail:
udaym at igc.org. Leo Maley III, Department of History, Herter Hall,
University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003; phone:
(413)256-4799; e-mail: maley at history.umass.edu.]