ABSTRACT CHANGING PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS ON THE ATOM THOMAS ANTHONY BACKUS

Transcription

1 ABSTRACT CHANGING PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS ON THE ATOM BY THOMAS ANTHONY BACKUS This thesis will argue that throughout the twentieth century, American interest concerning the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II has waxed and waned in correlation with significant events, such as the Castle Bravo thermonuclear test in 1952 and the ban on atmospheric nuclear testing in Furthermore, because of the social effects of the 1968 Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, American public opinion began to shift from largely positive to more mixed responses. Finally, this shift in attitudes has remained until the present, most prominently being exhibited in the 1995 controversy surrounding the proposed Enola Gay exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum. 1

2 INTRODUCTION The detonation of the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 marked the beginning of the American public s consciousness with atomic affairs. In the immediate aftermath of their use, many members of the American public viewed the bombs as a speedy alternative to a bloody invasion of the Japanese home islands. However, this response was not universal. Others argued that because Japan was militarily defeated by August 1945, the bombs were not dropped on Japan to end the war, but rather to send a strong diplomatic message to the Soviet Union. 1 Still others saw the bombings as inhumane, and labeled them as unnecessary. Even today, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains a highly controversial decision. 2 This thesis argues that since 1945, public opinion regarding the atomic bombings of Japan has shifted largely due to the 1968 Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. Admittedly, previous events had begun to change public opinion from overwhelming support to a more critical viewpoint; however, the Tet Offensive, in which the North Vietnamese Army launched a massive counter attack against American and South Vietnamese forces, became the catalyst needed to fuel criticism regarding the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with nuclear weapons in general. To record this pattern of change from 1945 to 1995, this thesis examines articles published in five newspapers: the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Santa Fe New Mexican, and the Washington Post. The first three newspapers present wide regional perspectives. The Santa Fe New Mexican reflects the perspective of the state responsible for the construction of the bomb. The Washington Post portrays the viewpoint of the nation s capital. The chronicle of these newspaper archives reveals two important stances. First, it illustrates how the public s views about the use of nuclear weapons evolved, and secondly, how discourse on the use of the bomb has changed from time to time and region to region. These papers will be used as a proxy to reflect the public s views. This thesis also includes an examination of secondary sources relating to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with cultural studies of the American public. Literature regarding this controversial decision has been written since the end of World War II. Because the United States government restricted travel to post-war Japan, the American public obtained information regarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki from government sources only. It was not until 1946, with the publication of reporter John Hersey s book Hiroshima that the first breaks in this narrative began to appear. Hersey s work which focused on six Japanese citizens, was the first to detail the human effects of the Hiroshima bomb. Books in subsequent years, such as Hiroshima Diary by Michihiko Hachiya, echoed Hersey s reportage and emphasized Japanese individuals, rather than the military aspects of the bombing. Secondly, in 1948, British physicist PMS Blackett published the book Fear, War and the Bomb: Military and Political Consequences of Atomic Energy. In it, he wrote the now famous quote: The dropping of the atomic bombs was not so much the last military act of the Second World War, as the first major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia now in 1 In August 1945, Japan was militarily defeated, but the leadership could not unanimously agree to surrender. See Japan s Longest Day, Pacific War Research Society (New York, Kodansha USA, 2005). 2 Bruce Stokes, 70 Years After Hiroshima, Opinions Have Shifted on Use of Atomic Bomb, Pew Research Center, accessed February 26, 2016, 2

3 progress. 3 Blackett s work pointed to the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), a study conducted by the United States military concerning the effectiveness of strategic bombing during the war. He argued that the atomic bombs were directed not at Japan, but were a diplomatic warning to an increasingly belligerent Soviet Union. This often controversial viewpoint would later be argued by Gar Alperovitz, in his 1965 book, Atomic Diplomacy. With the publication of Alperovitz book and the cultural effects of the Vietnam War, the revisionist cadre of scholars began to gain significant momentum. In contrast, those who maintained that the atomic bombs were dropped to end World War II became labeled as traditionalist, and included historians such as Martin Sherwin, author of A World Destroyed and J. Samuel Walker, author of Prompt and Utter Destruction. The debate between revisionist and traditionalist scholars escalated in the 1990s, with the Smithsonian Museum s proposed Enola Gay exhibit. For many, historian Richard Frank s work Downfall: The End of the Japanese Imperial Empire was the definitive volume that discounted the revisionist viewpoint. Frank extensively argued that alternatives to the atomic bombs carried no guarantee that they would end the war. 4 To this day, the debate between traditionalist, revisionist and those in opposition to the bombings has not been resolved. Regarding cultural studies of the American public, prominent historian Paul Boyer s work, By the Bomb s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age examines public attitudes towards the atom from A more expansive study can be found in Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial by Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell. In addition, History Wars by Edward Linenthal and Tom Engelhardt provides an in-depth study of the controversy surrounding the Smithsonian Museum s proposed exhibit on the fiftieth anniversary of World War II. Chapter One focuses on the American public s immediate responses to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and concludes with the detonation of the first Soviet atomic bomb in Chapter Two examines the early years of the Cold War, from the 1950s to the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty in Chapter Three illustrates the period from during which American involvement in Vietnam drastically changed public opinion. In Chapter Four, the focus shifts to the later years of the Cold War from , paying special attention to the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Chapter 5 concludes with the 50 th anniversary of World War II and the subsequent controversy over the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum. Three themes are evident throughout this time period. First, the passage of time has greatly affected the development of the historical narrative itself. Initially, the development of the atomic bomb and its use against the Japanese was viewed as a story of American triumph and can-do attitude. This narrative remained largely dominant for twenty years until around the time of the Vietnam War, when many young Americans began to question the government s authority and decisions. By the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, the support for nuclear weapons had less political or military justification. The public felt relief that a scourge to all humanity had subsided. The critique of the government and criticism of the military culminated in the 1995 controversy surrounding the Smithsonian Museum s proposed exhibit on the Enola Gay. The generation who had come of age during the Vietnam War had learned to examine the American government and military under a much more critical lens. In addition, some argued that the 3 PMS Blackett, Fear, War and the Bomb: Military and Political Consequences of Atomic Energy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1949), Richard Frank, Downfall: The End of the Japanese Imperial Empire (New York: Random House, 1999),

4 exhibit had succumbed to prevailing attitudes emphasizing the Japanese casualties of the bombing, rather than it being a triumph of science. After the Smithsonian released an updated exhibit that simply contained the airplane, interest in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki events began to decrease once again although the public perception of the bombing remained steadfast. Secondly, the public s fear of the atom has changed dramatically since Initially, many people held the belief that a nuclear war would be survivable if adequate precautions were taken, such as building a fallout shelter. Additionally, nuclear power plants were viewed as an unlimited source of clean energy. With the development of more powerful weapons in the 1950s, and the subsequent knowledge of nuclear fallout, the American public became increasingly aware that there was nowhere to hide. Even if one were to survive a nuclear attack, the threat of radiation became the primary concern. Finally, government censorship played a predominant role in the public s perception of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With the coming of the Cold War, the United States government considered it necessary to conceal information regarding the effects of radiation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was not until the 1954 detonation of Castle Bravo, which was approximately one thousand times larger than the bomb dropped over Hiroshima, that radiation became a primary concern of the American people. Because of the sheer scale of the detonation and its aftermath effects, the United States government was no longer able to conceal the true effects of radiation from the American public. This distrust of the government regarding radiation, along with a misunderstanding of its effects, still continues to this day. In conclusion, the American public s perceptions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has experienced periods of interest and disinterest correlating with significant events throughout the twentieth century. Admittedly, while public support of the government and military had been slowly eroding prior to the 1960s, the Tet Offensive was the spark needed to fuel criticism concerning atomic matters. CHAPTER 1: AMERICA S INTRODUCTION TO THE ATOMIC AGE: In the last months of World War II, the military regarded the atomic bomb as a rapid way to bring the war to a close, and to send a strong diplomatic message of intimidation to the Soviet Union. 5 Because of the timing of the Hiroshima explosion, only the evening editions of newspapers such as the Santa Fe New Mexican and New York Times published articles on the day the bomb was dropped. These initial articles did not go into any detail about the atomic bomb, but only described it as having the explosive power of 2,000 B-29 Superfortress bombers. Furthermore, the articles asserted that radiation was not a concern. Articles that were not official United States Army statements such as the one published in the Chicago Tribune, described the bomb triumphantly, stating that the power of the sun was harnessed to make the new bomb and its use represented the birth of a new age. 6 The demand for the Santa Fe New Mexican was so high that the newspaper press broke, and replacement parts had to be flown in by airplane. 7 This high demand is evident in the headline: Now They Can be Told Aloud These Stoories [sic] of the Hill the typing error apparently forgotten in the rush to print the story. The Santa Fe New Mexican ran additional 5 Michael Dobbs, Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill and Truman (New York: Vintage Books, 2012), Atomic Bomb Story: Tell How Deadly Weapon Was Developed. Chicago Tribune, August 7, 1945, accessed February 10, 2016, 7 Jon Hunner, Inventing Los Alamos: The Growth of an Atomic Community (University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 2004), 74. 4

5 articles describing Los Alamos Laboratory as a secret city and that now the secret can be told. 8 For the residents of Los Alamos, the program to create the atomic bombs had been top secret and the dropping of the bombs meant lifting the veil of secrecy. The New York Times article was similar to the Santa Fe New Mexican, emphasizing the military necessity of the bomb and the lifting of secrecy at Los Alamos. However, the New York Times did mention that those who worked on the Manhattan Project were soberly aware of the tremendous responsibility involved. 9 Surprisingly, the article described some of the first dissenting voices regarding the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima, arguing that the bomb was unnecessary against an enemy that was already militarily defeated. One spokesman argued Why bother with psychological warfare against an enemy that already is beaten and hasnt't sense enough to quit and save herself from utter doom? 10 The unnamed spokesman echoed the sentiments of some critics that it was pointless to continue to bomb an enemy who was defeated. The next morning, almost every American newspaper contained articles covering Hiroshima. The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune ran headlines such as First Atomic Bomb Dropped on Japan, and Atomic Bomb Story: Tell How Deadliest Weapon was Developed. In the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, the articles were reprints of Associated Press articles written by Lawrence. There was still no mention of radiation, and no photographs existed of the bombed. Initially, the bomb was labelled as a scientific achievement that saved thousands of American lives. 11 Unsurprisingly, early news articles described the destruction caused by the atomic bombs, but no mention of radiation. They made it clear to label the bombs as a necessary evil to end World War II, and an effective alternative to a bloody invasion of the Japanese home islands. It would not be until the mid -1950s and 1960s, as more knowledge of radiation became apparent that perceptions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would begin to change. 8 Now They Can be Told Aloud These Stoories of the Hill. Santa Fe New Mexican, August 6, 1945, accessed February 9, 2016, 9 First Atomic Bomb Dropped on Japan; Missile is Equal to 20,000 Tons of TNT; Truman Warns foe of a Rain of Ruin. New York Times, August 6, 1945, accessed February 8, 2016, 10 Ibid. 11 PBS, Announcing the Bombing of Hiroshima, Accessed February 26, 2016, 5