Re: Sometimes ya just gotta nuke em

[Simon Spero <ses@tipper.oit.unc.edu>]

On Sun, 4 Feb 1996 jamesd@echeque.com wrote:

> 
> After the first nuclear bomb was dropped, the Japanese government
> held a cabinet meeting in which they summoned Nishina, head of the
> atomic program, and asked him if he could duplicate atomic weapons
> within a few months.

Japan's nuclear program effectively ended on April 12th when the 
headquarters were destroyed (by conventional bombs). There program never 
really got very far, lacking both funding and Hungarians :)

> It was certainly true that Japan was defeated, and reasonable people may
> disagree on justice of using nuclear weapons under these circumstances, but
> to claim, as Alperovitz claims, that Japan was on the verge of surrender, 
> is not a mere difference of opinion on the interpretation of the facts, but
> a simple, crude, barefaced, blatant lie.

That's a pretty strong statement; the Japanese government was split into 
two camps, with the hawks slightly in the acendancy. Facts were changing 
on the ground, making it clear that things were about to get a lot worse 
(Stalin was about to enter the war against Japan, supplied were running 
short and gettirng worse (thanks to intercepts); Curtis LeMay had reduced 
just about every city apart from Hiroshima and had command of the air.

All these factors could very well have changed the balance of power 
within the government without the presence of nuclear weapons; no sure 
thing, but not impossible.