The American People and the Use of Atomic Bombs On Japan: The 1940s
1974; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 36; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/j.1540-6563.1974.tb00003.x
ISSN1540-6563
Autores Tópico(s)Japanese History and Culture
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes1. The following writers suggest there was considerable controversy over the use of the bomb: Rudolph A. Winnacker, “The Debate About Hiroshima,”Military Affairs, XI (Spring 1947), 25‐30; New York Times, Hiroshima Plus 20 (New York, 1965), 111. Other observers suspect that the American public did not debate the problem very profoundly or for very long. See Margaret Smith Stahl, “Splits and Schisms: Nuclear and Social,” (doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1946), 3‐7, 123‐26; Gabriel A. Almond, The American People and Foreign Policy (New York, 1950), 107‐09; Janet Besse and Harold D. Lasswell, “Our Columnists on the A‐Bomb,”World Politics, III (Oct. 1950), 78.2. Memo. William D. Hassett to War Department, Aug. 10, 1945, GF, Harry S. Truman Papers (Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Mo.); National Service Board for Religious Objectors, “Public Reaction to Atomic Bomb,” Oct. 5, 1945, Box 2, Robert M. Hutchins Papers (University of Chicago).3. American Institute of Public Opinion (AIPO) poll, Aug. 26, 1945, Public Opinion Quarterly, IX (Fall 1945), 385.4. “Fortune Survey: Use of Atomic Bomb,”Fortune, XXXII (Dec. 1945), 305; Fortune poll, Nov. 30, 1945, Public Opinion Quarterly (Fall 1945), 530. Neither age, sex, nor education were crucial variables, according to the Gallup poll, although slightly higher percentages of men and college educated people approved the bomb's use. In contrast, the Fortune Survey demonstrated that the better educated favored more restraint in using the bomb, but almost 30 per cent of the poor ‐ presumably the less well educated ‐ endorsed massive destruction. Negroes, who tended to follow “a pattern similar to the well‐to‐do,” constituted one major exception among the poor.5. Appearing first as a long article in the New Yorker, “Hiroshima” was subsequently published as a book. Although Hersey himself did not condemn the use of the bomb, his graphic portrayal of the experience of atomic attack prompted some Americans to re‐examine their consciences. For the most complete discussions of the background and response to “Hiroshima,” see Michael John Yavenditti, “American Reactions to the Use of Atomic Bombs on Japan, 1945‐1947,” (doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1970), 356‐71; John Luft and W. M. Wheeler, “Reaction to John Hersey's ‘Hiroshima,’”Journal of Social Psychology, XXVIII (Aug. 1948), 135‐40.6. “Fortune Survey: Use of Atomic Bomb,” 309; Fortune poll, Nov. 30, 1945, Public Opinion Quarterly, IX (Winter 1945‐46), 533. The poll further indicated that 8.4 per cent believed the bomb did not shorten the war at all, while 9.9 per cent said it shortened the war by one month or less.7. Editorial, Louisville Courier‐Journal, Aug. 17, 1945; Editorial, Portland Oregonian, Nov. 4, 1945; United States Atomic Energy Commission, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Washington, 1954), 667.8. Lawrence S. Wittner, Rebels Against War: The American Peace Movement, 1941‐1960 (New York, 1969), 17‐124; Richard Polenberg, War and Society: The United States, 1941‐1945 (Philadelphia, New York and Toronto, 1972), 131‐36.9. AIPO poll, Feb. 19, 1945, Public Opinion Quarterly, IX (Spring 1945), 95. Evidence from a subsequent Fortune poll suggests that even after Germany's surrender, most Americans still favored the total defeat of Japan. In June 1945 Fortune asked a hypothetical question: if Japan proposes to surrender on the condition that the United States not send an occupation army to Japan, should America accept the offer? Of those responding, 84.1 per cent favored beating Japan on her own homeland to secure total victory, while only 9.5 per cent favored accepting a possible peace offer as stated in the question posed by Fortune. (Fortune poll, June 1, 1945, Public Opinion Quarterly, IX [Summer 1945], 249.)10. X.Y.Z. to New Yorker, n.d., New Yorker Papers (In the personal possession of John Hersey); Editorial, Chicago Daily Tribune, Aug. 26, 1945.11. Philip Morrison, “The Laboratory Demobilizes,”Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, II (Nov. 1, 1946), 5; F. G. Tyrrell, “Is the Use of the Atomic Bomb Justified?”Vital Speeches, XI (Oct. 1, 1945), 767‐68. See also George E. Hopkins, “Bombing and the American Conscience During World War II,”Historian, XXVIII (May 1966), 451‐73.12. Editorial, Chicago Daily Tribune, Aug. 7, 1945. See also John F. Sembower, “Democracy and Science Fused by the Atomic Bomb,”Antioch Review, V (Winter 1945‐46), 493‐500.13. Wittner, Rebels Against War, 104. See also Office of Public Opinion Research (OPOR) poll, Sept. 16, 1943, Public Opinion Quarterly, VII (Winter 1943), 448; National Opinion Research Center (NORC) polls, Feb. 4, 11, 1945, ibid., IX (Spring 1945), 93‐94; AIPO poll, June 11, 1945, ibid. (Summer 1945), 246.14. AIPO poll, Dec. 20, 1944, ibid., VIII (Winter 1944‐45), 588.15. AIPO poll, Aug. 26, 1945, ibid., IX (Fall 1945), 389; AIPO poll, Jan. 17, 1945, ibid. (Spring 1945), 94.16. Demo Sailor to Editor, Honolulu Star‐Bulletin, Sept. 14, 1945.17. Editorial, Atlanta Constitution, Sept. 1, 1945. See also Yavenditti, “American Reactions to the Use of Atomic Bombs on Japan, 1945‐1947,” 252‐54.18. Edgar A. Guest, “Atomic Bomb,”Detroit Free Press, Sept. 17, 1945. See also Lucia Ramsay Maxwell, “Bomb,”National Republic, XXXIII (Nov. 1945), back cover; Norman Corwin, “14 August,”Untitled and Other Radio Dramas, by Norman Corwin (New York, 1945, 1947), 499.19. Thomas F. Opie to Editor, Christian Century, LXIII (Mar. 27, 1946), 400; K. Z. Morgan, “The Responsibility of the Church in the Atomic Age,” manuscript, Box 1, Paul S. Henshaw Papers (University of Chicago).20. Marquis Childs, in Washington Post, Aug. 20, 1945. See also Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky, “Atomic Bomb Hysteria,”Reader's Digest, XLVIII (Feb. 1946), 126.21. Norman Thomas, in Progressive, Mar. 10, 1947, 11; Richard L. Strout, in Christian Science Monitor (Pacific Edition), Aug. 11, 1945; Commission on the Relation of the Church to the War in the Light of the Christian Faith, Atomic Warfare and the Christian Faith (New York, 1946), 11.22. Karl T. Compton, “If the Atomic Bomb Had Not Been Used,”Atlantic Monthly, CLXXVIII (Dec. 1946), 56; italics his.23. Henry L. Stimson, “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,”Harper's, CXCVI (Feb. 1947), 106.24. Arthur H. Compton, “The Moral Meaning of the Atomic Bomb,”Toward a Better World, ed., William Scarlett (Philadelphia and Toronto, 1946), 164‐66; Lester Nurick, “The Distinction Between Combatant and Non‐Combatant in the Law of War,”American Journal of International Law, XXXIX (Oct. 1945), 680‐97; E. C. Stowell, “Laws of War and the Atomic Bomb,”ibid., 784‐88.25. Editorial, Chicago Sun, Aug. 9, 1945. See also Louis Ridenour, “What is the Crime of War?”Saturday Review of Literature, XXIX (Nov. 2, 1946), 16; U. S. Senator Elbert D. Thomas, “Morals,”Air Affairs, I (Mar. 1947), 413‐15.26. Social Science Research Council, Public Reaction to the Atomic Bomb and World Affairs: A Nation‐Wide Survey of Attitudes and Information (Ithaca, 1947), 83.27. No polling service cited, Public Opinion Quarterly, X (Spring, 1946), 106. Americans were more ambivalent about the bomb than this summary suggests. Polls also showed that most Americans believed the United States would fight another war within ten to twenty‐five years and that atomic bombs would be dropped on American cities in such a war. NORC poll, Mar. 1946, ibid., XI (Fall 1947), 489; NORC poll, May 18, 1946, ibid., X (Summer 1946), 247; AIPO poll, Aug. 3, 1947, ibid., XI (Fall 1947), 489; AIPO poll, Sept. 26, 1947, ibid. (Winter 1947‐48), 665; NORC poll, Jan. 26, 1947, ibid. (Summer 1947), 278.28. See especially Social Science Research Council, Public Reaction to the Atomic Bomb and World Affairs, 97, Table 5.29. “The Atomic Bomb,”Commonweal, XLIII (Aug. 31, 1945), 468‐69; David Lawrence, “What Hath Man Wrought!”U. S. News, XIX (Aug. 17, 1945), 38; Raymond G. Swing, radio broadcast for the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), Aug. 23, 1946, Box 31, Raymond Gram Swing Papers (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division).30. Maj. Don Jackson, “Atomic Bomb: What Next?”Christian Science Monitor Magazine, Oct. 13, 1945, 5; Editorial, New York Herald Tribune, Aug. 13, 1945; Dr. J. R. Oppenheimer, in New York Times, Aug. 9, 1945.31. David Lawrence, “Where Is the Faith?”U. S. News, XIX (Oct. 23, 1945), 35; Hanson W. Baldwin, in New York Times, Aug. 7, 1945.32. Walter Simmons, in Chicago Daily Tribune, Mar. 27, 1946; Andrew Headland, in Stars and Stripes (Pacific Edition), Mar. 11, 1946, Mar. 12, 1947.33. “In a Hollow Tree,”Time, L (Aug. 18, 1947), 23. See also “Do‐Se‐Do,”ibid., XLVIII (Dec. 2, 1946), 36; “The Peace City,”Life, XXIII (Sept. 1, 1947), 39‐42.34. Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey, “The Fight Over the A‐Bomb,”Look, XXVII (Aug. 13, 1963), 23; Col. Edgar F. G. Swasey, Press Security Guidance: “Atomic Bomb,” 22 Aug. 1945, OF, Truman Papers (microfilm used and cited through the courtesy of Martin Sherwin, Ithaca, N.Y.); Col. K. D. Nichols to Paul S. Henshaw, n.d., Box 1 Henshaw Papers; Suggested Press Release attached to Memo. Major General A. D. Surles to Charles G. Ross, 13 Sept. 1945, OF, Truman Papers (microfilm used and cited through the courtesy of Martin Sherwin, Ithaca, N.Y.).35. Shortly after the Hiroshima attack, newspapers carried a brief article by Dr. Harold Jacobson, a scientist who worked briefly on the Manhattan Project. Jacobson expressed alarm about the dangers of residual radiation and radioactive fallout, and he claimed that Hiroshima would probably remain uninhabitable for seventy years. Under pressure from federal agents, Jacobson subsequently issued a partial retraction. See Yavenditti, “American Reactions to the Use of Atomic Bombs on Japan, 1945‐1947,” 297‐99; Robert Jay Lifton, Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (New York, 1967), 71n.36. William L. Laurence, in New York Times, Sept. 12, 13, 1945; “Atomic Footprint,”Time XLVI (Sept. 17, 1945), 68; Senate Hearings Before the Special Committee on Atomic Energy. 79 Cong., 1 and 2 Sess. (Washington, 1945, 1946), 508‐13.37. Raymond G. Swing, radio broadcast for ABC, Aug. 9, 1946, Box 31, Swing Papers; Dwight Macdonald, “The Bomb,”Politics, III (Sept. 1945), 257‐58.38. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman. Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President April 12 to December 31, 1945. 1945 (Washington, 1961), 197‐200, 203‐14.39. Robert T. Bean to New Yorker, Sept. 8, 1946, New Yorker Papers.40. Knebel and Bailey, “The Fight Over the A‐Bomb,” 23; Leo Szilard, “Reminiscences,” eds., Gertrud Weiss Szilard and Kathleen R. Winsor, The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 1930‐1960, eds., Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn (vol. II of Perspectives in American History [1968]), 133, 130, n. 60.41. American occupation authorities seized an allegedly gruesome documentary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made by the Japanese; an edited version of it became available for Americans viewing only in 1970. This documentary was returned in 1967 to the Japanese government, which released an edited version of it for viewing on Japanese television beginning April 20, 1968. (San Francisco Chronicle, May 18, 1967; San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle, Ap. 14, 21, 1968; Lifton, Death in Life, 453‐56.)42. The two most often quoted USSBS studies were Japan's Struggle to End the War (Washington, 1946) and Summary Report (Pacific War) (Washington, 1946). For a more extensive analysis of the content and impact of the USSBS studies, see Yavenditti, “American Reactions to the Use of Atomic Bombs on Japan, 1945‐1947,” 348‐56.43. See particularly the extensive correspondence in Box 12, Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) Papers (Swarthmore College). See also John Nevin Sayre, “Vindication and Responsibility,”Fellowship, XI (Sept. 1945), 151‐52; A. J. Muste, Not By Might (New York, 1947), 42‐43; Muste for FOR to Albert Einstein, May 28, 1946, Box 34, National Committee on Atomic Information (NCAI) Papers (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division). The FOR Papers reveal that despite these denunciations, some pacifists, including A. J. Muste, executive secretary of the FOR, tried to convert the atomic scientists to pacifism and to involve them in a general disarmament movement. See also Wittner, Rebels Against War, 175‐76.44. Although President Truman denied the accuracy of newspaper reports that said he was “excited and happy over the results of the atomic bombing,” the numerous atomic bomb casualties did not outwardly distress him. (Robert G. Nixon, in Seattle Post Intelligencer, Aug. 7, 1945; Harry S. Truman, Memoirs: Year of Decisions [Garden City, 1955], I, 421; Harry S. Truman to Lew Wallace, Aug. 9, 1945, OF, Truman Papers.) He wrote privately: “When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast.” (Truman to S. M. Cavert, Aug. 11, 1945, ibid. [microfilm used and cited through the courtesy of Martin Sherwin, Ithaca, N.Y.].) Truman agreed with one correspondent that by using the bomb on Hiroshima, “[i]t does seem as if retribution had overtaken the imperial line of Japan.” (Truman to Dr. Charles D. Hart, Aug. 11, 1945, ibid.; see also Hart to Truman, Aug. 7, 1945, ibid.)45. Major Claude H. Eatherly, pilot of the weather plane on the Hiroshima raid, apparently became bitter because he was not selected to drop one of the atomic bombs. He subsequently persuaded one of his crewmen to write a letter home, presumably informing the world of the part played by Eatherly and his crew at Hiroshima. (William Bradford Huie, The Hiroshima Pilot. Pocket Book Edition [New York, 1965], 36; Chicago Sun, Sept. 30, 1945.) Eatherly became a cause célèbre in pacifist and anti‐war circles in the 1950s and 1960s. He received international publicity as the “Hiroshima Pilot,” whose remorse and guilt feelings led him to commit a series of petty crimes because he subconsciously desired punishment for his greater crime at Hiroshima. Although there is no definitive account of the Eatherly case, William Bradford Huie argues effectively that Eatherly never expressed genuine guilt feelings for the atomic bombings; and that he mainly adopted the pose of remorse and guilt to attract to himself in the 1950s the world attention and fame denied to him in 1945 ‐ and incidentally to escape punishment for his petty crimes. (Huie, The Hiroshima Pilot, passim; for an attempted rebuttal of Huie, see Ronnie Dugger, Dark Star: Hiroshima Reconsidered In the Life of Claude Eatherly [London, 1967], passim.)46. Captain Ellis M. Zacharias, Secret Missions: The Story of an Intelligence Officer (New York, 1946), 321‐89; Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (New York, 1964), 260‐61; Col. Bonner Fellers, USA, Ret., “Hirohito's Struggle to Surrender,”Reader's Digest, LI (July 1947), 90‐95.47. On the pre‐Hiroshima debate, see especially Alice Kimball Smith, “Behind the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,”Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, XIV (Oct. 1958), 288‐312; Alice Kimball Smith, A Peril and a Hope: The Scientists' Movement in America, 1945‐1947 (Chicago, 1965), 3‐72; Len Giovannitti and Fred Freed, The Decision To Drop The Bomb (New York, 1965); Herbert Feis, The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II (Princeton, 1966); Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., The New World, 1939‐1945, Vol. I of A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (University Park, Pa., 1962).48. “The Atom Bomb Scientists Report, Report No. 3: Death of Hiroshima,” undated KOB radio script, Box 22, Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Papers (University of Chicago); Edward Teller with Allen Brown, The Legacy of Hiroshima (Garden City, 1962), 18, 22; Smith, A Peril and a Hope, 78.49. Stahl, “Splits and Schisms: Nuclear and Social,” 388, Table XVIII. Only 3.6 per cent of all the scientists opposed dropping atomic bombs on Japanese cities under any circumstances. Mrs. Stahl's tables do not make clear whether this demonstration was to be coupled with a warning that the bomb would be used on Japanese citites if Japan still refused to surrender. (Ibid., 389, Table XIX.)50. “Before Hiroshima,”Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, I (May 1, 1946), 1.51. Philip Morrison, who had worked at Los Alamos, and a few other atomic scientists actually visited the atomic bombed cities, but none of them employed these first‐hand observations to denounce using the bomb. Morrison may have possessed inner doubts about the atomic bombings, but he and other scientists found reports of the devastation useful to generate American public concern over the future control of the bomb. (Senate, Hearings Before the Special Committee on Atomic Energy, 233‐41; Philip Morrison, “If the Bomb Gets Out of Hand,”One World or None, eds., Dexter Masters and Katharine Way [New York, 1946], 1‐6; Arthur H. Compton, “Atomic Energy As a Human Asset,”Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, XC [Jan. 29, 1946], 71 ff.)52. “The Guilty Men,”Time, XLVI (Nov. 5, 1945), 27; Louis Falstein, “Men Who Made the A‐Bomb,”New Republic, CXIII (Nov. 26, 1945), 708.53. Smith, A Peril and a Hope, 77. See also Laura Fermi, Atoms in the Family: My Life With Enrico Fermi (Chicago, 1954), 245.54. “Atomic Physics In Civilization by J. Robert Oppenheimer ‐ The Present Crisis: Atomic Weapons,” manuscript of address, incorrectly dated Ap. 30, 1945, Box 29, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Papers (University of Chicago). See also Robert R. Wilson, “The Atomic Age: Cooperation or Annihilation?”Saturday Review of Literature, XXVIII (Dec. 22, 1945), 14‐15; Wittner, Rebels Against War, 148‐50.55. On the NCAI, see especially Smith, A Peril and a Hope, 323‐30 and the files of the NCAI in the Library of Congress.56. See the following in the NCAI Papers: Correspondence concerning “One World Or None,” Boxes 34, 36; D. Melcher to Miss Helen Steinbarger, Jan. 10, 1946, Box 18; Speechnotes for “World Control of Atomic Energy,” written and directed by Robert B. Wallace, dated Jan. 2, 1946, Box 18.57. The author was unable to find sufficient material that would permit generalizations about the reactions of American Jews.58. Justus Lawler, Nuclear War ‐ the Ethic, the Rhetoric, the Reality: A Catholic Assessment (Westminster, Md., 1965), 11.59. Edgar R. Smothers, S.J., “An Opinion On Hiroshima,”America, LXXVII (July 5, 1947), 379.60. Reverend Cyprian Emanual, O.F.M., The Ethics of War (Washington, 1932), 3‐21.61. Ibid., 43.62. Ibid., 45; John C. Ford, S.J., “The Morality of Obliteration Bombing,”Theological Studies, V (Sept. 1944), 261‐309; James M. Gillis, “The Atom Bomb,”Catholic World, CLXI (Sept. 1945), 451; “Horror and Shame,”Commonweal, XLII (Aug. 24, 1945), 443‐44.63. Reverend Wilfrid Parsons, S.J., “The Ethics of Atomic War,”Peace in the Atomic Age, ed., The Catholic Association For International Peace (New York, 1947), 12‐13.64. Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America to Truman, Aug. 9, 1945, OF, Truman Papers; Roy L. Smith, “In My Opinion: Military Mathematics Must Be Revised,”Christian Advocate, CSS (Sept. 27, 1945), 3; “America's Atomic Atrocity,”Christian Century, LXII (Aug. 29, 1945), 974‐76; “The Atomic Bomb,”Christianity and Society, X (Fall 1945), 3‐4; Gabriel Courier, ed., “News Digest of the Month,”Christian Herald, LXVIII (Oct. 1945), 9; “Atomic Bombs,”Baptist Standard, LVII (Aug. 23, 1945), 3; “He Could Not Thank God For the Atomic Bomb Victory!”Missions, XXXVI (Oct. 1945), 424.65. Reinhold Niebuhr, “Our Relations to Japan,”Christianity and Crisis, V (Sept. 17, 1945), 5‐6; confidential source.66. Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, “The Relation of the Church to the War In the Light of the Christian Faith,”Social Action, X (Dec. 15, 1944), 68.67. Atomic Warfare and the Christian Faith, 12. The report took its name from Robert Calhoun, the chairman of the commission.68. Richard M. Fagley to Muste, Sept. 5, 1945, Box 12, FOR Papers.69. The only hint of partisanship emerged on rare occasions when a Republican inquired about the truth of rumors that suggested the atomic bomb had been available for use sooner than August 6, 1945, but had been withheld for political reasons. General Leslie R. Groves, overall supervisor of the Manhattan Project, adamantly denied there was any substance to such rumors. House, Hearings Before Committee on Military Affairs, 79 Cong., 1 Sess. (Washington, 1945), 28.70. For typical conservative reaction, see “Atomic Bomb,”National Republic, XXXIII (Nov. 1945), 11; Editorial, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 28, 1945; Editorial, New York Daily News, Nov. 2, 1945. Richard Lee Strout, who wrote the T.R.B. column for the liberal New Republic and who worked as a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, was annoyed by the secrecy surrounding the decision to use the bomb. (T.R.B., “Atomic Anxieties,”New Republic, CXIII [Aug. 20, 1945], 222.)71. Max Lerner, in PM, Aug. 21, 1945. See also Charles G. Bolte, “The Last War Front,”Nation, CLXI (Aug. 25, 1945), 175, 177; Bruce Bliven, “The Bomb and the Future,”New Republic, CXIII (Aug. 20, 1945), 210‐12; Editorial, PM, Aug. 7, 1945.72. Raymond Gram Swing, In the Name of Sanity (New York, 1946), 74‐75; Swing, radio broadcast for ABC, Dec. 13, 1946, Box 31, Swing Papers; Norman Cousins and Thomas K. Finletter, “A Beginning for Sanity,”Saturday Review of Literature, XXIX (June 15, 1946), 5‐8; Milton Mayer, in Progressive, May 20, 1945, Mar. II, Dec. 16, 1946. For the few examples of conservative opposition to the atomic bombings, see David Lawrence, “The Right to Kill,”U.S. News, XIX (Oct. 5, 1945), 35; David Lawrence, “Let's Rebuild Hiroshima,”ibid., XX (Mar. 1, 1946), 27; Editorial, Chicago Daily Tribune, Aug. 11, Dec. 81, 1945, July 27, 1946, Aug. 23, 1947.73. Thomas's views were shared by other spokesmen for the Socialist Party. See especially Editorial, Call, Aug. 13, Oct. 8, 1945; Harry Paxton Howard, in ibid., Aug. 20, 1945; Jack Armor, in ibid., Oct. 14, 1946.74. Norman Thomas, in Progressive, Mar. 10, 1947. For another version of this argument, see Helen Mears, Mirror For Americans (Boston, 1948), 62‐107.75. On Thomas, see especially Thomas, in Call, July 2, 23, Aug. 20, 27, Sept. 17, 1945; Thomas, Appeal to the Nations (New York, 1947), 18‐40; Murray B. Seidler, Norman Thomas: Respectable Rebel (Syracuse, 1961), 229‐30; Barnard K. Johnpoll, Pacifist's Progress: Norman Thomas and the Decline of American Socialism (Chicago, 1970), 248‐49.76. David A. Shannon, The Socialist Party of America, A History. Quadrangle Books Edition (Chicago, 1967), 256; Winner, Rebels Against War, 50. Very few articles appeared in Communist publications concerning the use of the bomb. Michael Gold, the prominent Communist writer, feared that the United States might suffer in the eyes of the world by introducing the new weapon. Endorsing the bomb's use in a war against fascism, militarism, and imperialism, the Daily Worker and the New Masses attempted to minimize the bomb's contribution to Japan's defeat by emphasizing instead the military role of the Chinese Communists and the Soviet Union. (Mike Gold, in Daily Worker, Nov. 5, 1945; Editorial, ibid., Aug. 9, 1945; Colonel T., “Strategy That Licked Japan,”New Masses, LVI [Aug. 28, 1945], 6‐7.)77. “Editorial,”Politics, III (Aug. 1945), 225‐27; Macdonald, “The Bomb,” 257‐60; Macdonald, “Reply By the Editor,”ibid. (May 1946), 141.78. Macdonald, “The Bomb,” 258. See also Macdonald, “The Root is Man,” Part Two, ibid. (July 1946), 195‐96.79. “Editorial,” 225; Macdonald, “The Bomb,” 259; Macdonald, “The Root is Man,” Part One, ibid. (Ap. 1946), 91‐115.80. Lewis Mumford, “Gentlemen: You Are Mad!”Saturday Review of Literature, XXIX (Mar. 2, 1946), 5; Mumford, Values for Survival (New York, 1946), 78‐79, 83, 94. See also Mumford, The Condition of Man (New York, 1944), 343‐423.81. Mumford, “Atom Bomb: ‘Miracle,’ or Catastrophe,”Air Affairs, II (July 1948), 328.82. Space does not permit citation of the extensive literature that figured in the 1950s and 1960s discussion of the atomic bombings. For preliminary bibliography, see Yavenditti, “American Reactions to the Use of Atomic Bombs on Japan, 1945‐1947,” 403‐04, n. 2‐5.Additional informationNotes on contributorsMichael J. YavendittiThe author is Assistant Professor of History at Alma College.
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