Why the U.S. used on Japan

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dominate world market for exploitation and profits?"

SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 1985 "Clocks all over Hiroshima were fixed forever at 8:15. The heat emanating from the fireball lasted a fraction of a second but was so intense (almost 300,000 degrees centigrade) that it melted the surface of granite within a thousand yards of ground zero-directly under the burst.

"All over the center of the city numerous silhouettes were imprinted on walls. On Yorozuyo Bridge 10 people left permanent outlines of themselves on the railing and the tar-paved surface. "

-from "The Rising Sun""

Books, New York, 1971.

On Aug. 6, 1945—exactly 40 years ago-a horrible new age was ushered in when a U.S. B29 bomber dropped the first atomic bomb on the people of Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, on Aug. 9, this horror was repeated when the United States dropped another bomb on the men, women, and children of Nagasaki.

In a fraction of a second, the lives of over 250,000 people were snuffed out. For hundreds of thousands of others—who suffered a slow, agonizing death from the radiation effects of the two bombs-it must have seemed that those who died immediately from the blast were indeed fortunate.

The people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still suffering from their legacy of being the first victims of a new age. Cancer rates and stillbirths in these cities are the highest in Japan.

The reason for Hiroshima The final act of World War II, perpetrated against a nation that was already militarily defeated and suing for peace, was also the opening curtain on what the U.S. victors hoped would become the "American Century,' a period of complete dominance of the world by U.S. capitalism.

In the last analysis, World War II was fought to decide this question: Which capitalism-German, Japanese, U.S., French, or British-would dominate the world market for exploitation and profits?

Over 50 million people died to settle this question. Hundreds of millions more were left maimed and homeless. Ironically, working people throughout the world, who were asked to make tremendous sacrifices in the fight for "peace and democracy,' now live in a world where the threat of nuclear annihilation an everyday of life.

The dropping of the Abomb-with no warning whatsoever to the Japanese-was a political not a military decision. It was not done to save the lives of G.I's who might be lost during an invasion of the Japanese mainland, as U.S. authorities later claimed.

Recent revelations show that the United States destroyed Hiroshima to demonstrate to the world, especially the Soviet Union, that this country possessed a new weapon of tremendous destructive potential and would not hesitate to use it.

Prior to the first successful test of the A-bomb—at Alamogordo, N.M., on July 16, 1945—the United States had wanted the Soviet Union to join the war against Japan. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Stalin promised Roosevelt and Churchill that the Soviet Union would declare war on Japan three months after the surrender of Nazi Germany.

But the United States changed its strategy once it knew that it possessed a weapon that could end the war almost immediately after it "dropped one or two on Japan, as one U.S. general put it. The United States believed it could use the A-bomb to force a Japanese surrender before the Soviet Union entered the war.

President Truman, who heard about the success of the test at Alamogordo while at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, later wrote with unreserved glee about the vision of "the end of the war in one or two violent shocks.... Moreover, we would not need the Russians."

The last thing that Truman wanted was the Soviet Union invading Manchuria and thus posing an obstacle to American "interests" in postwar China. Such an invasion would only The ruins of Hiroshima after the blast. benefit Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Red Army, who up to then had borne the main burden of fighting the one-million strong Japanese occupation forces.

The U.S. imperialists knew that despite the betrayals and misleadership of Stalin and the Soviet bureaucracy-and even despite Stalin's real wishes-the introduction of the Soviet Red Army into Manchuria would unleash the forces of the Chinese Revolution. The Soviet Union in its degenerated form still represented the socialist revolution.

Even before World War II had ended, Truman and the "Which capitalism would class he represented were planning World War III! Could it be more than coincidence that the second A-bomb was dropped on Nagasaki exactly one day after the Soviet Union declared war against Japan?

"A shock action"

Former Assistant War Secretary John McCloy, who was present at high-level discussions where the decision to bomb Japan was made, recently revealed that prior to the Nazi surrender the United States also planned to use the A-bomb against Germany. McCloy gives us an illuminating picture of the "humanitarian" characteristics of the U.S. ruling class.

"They were talking about what they call a shock action." he told a reporter for United Press International. "And the reason they wanted a shock action was to bring about a surrender. And that's why they chose a spot that was close to a civilian population. They deliberately chose Nagasaki Hiroshma."

Other sources reveal that several U.S. tacticians expressed reservations about the use of the A-bomb. General Dwight D. Eisenhower-who after he became president contemplated using nuclear weapons in Korea and Vietnamsaid that dropping the bomb was "completely unnecessary" against an already-defeated Japan. He stated that the bomb was "no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives."

The head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General George C. Marshall, on the other hand, favored using the bomb. But Marshall hoped it wouldn't have to be dropped because it would "tip-off" the Russians to the new power possessed by the United States and be less of a deterrent after the war.

For both Eisenhower and Marshall the decision about whether to use the atomic bomb was purely tactical. But several of the scientists who had actually worked on the development of the bomb cited humanitarian grounds for their concern about its use.

Dr. James Franck, a refugee from Nazi Germany and a Nobel-Prize physicist, was one of a group of A-bomb researchers who were against using the new weapon without first warning Japan about its potential destructiveness. They recommended a demonstration in an unpopulated area or sending photos of the Alamogordo test to the Japanese government.

Franck and seven other scientists submitted a memo to what was called the Interim Committee, a body of civilian and scientific advisers who frequently met with Truman and the Military Chiefs of Staff.

The memo stated: "If the United States were the first to release this new means of indiscriminate destruction upon mankind, she would sacrifice public support throughout the world, precipitate the race for armaments, and prejudice the possibility of reaching an international agreement on the future control of such weapons."

Pushed again to the abyss U.S. presidents from both the Democratic and Republican parties threatened to unleash nuclear weapons no less than eight times since the end of World War II. American working people, unfortunately, discovered how close the human race has been pushed to the nuclear abyss only through the memoirs of former presidents and their advisers.

In an interview July issue of Time magazine, former President Richard Nixon-the "Mad Bomber" of Hanoi in 1972—revealed that he contemplated using nuclear weapons at least four times. Nixon, who was elected in 1968 because he said he had a "secret plan" for ending the Vietnam War, only now told the public that what he meant was "ending Vietnam!"

Nixon also admitted that he considered using nuclear bombs in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, in the 1971 India-Pakistan War, and during a Soviet-Chinese border dispute. These new revelations can be added to an already long list of instances when the U.S. imperialists seriously contemplated repeating what they did to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For example:

• Eisenhower entertains using nuclear weapons against Chinese troops during the Korean War in 1953.

• Nixon, as vice president, advocates the use of a nuclear bomb against the Vietnamese liberation forces surrounding French troops at Dienbienphu in 1954.

• Kennedy alerts and mobilizes for all-out nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

• Johnson sends experts to Vietnam to study the feasibility of using nuclear weapons during the siege of Khe Sahn in 1968.

• Reagan asserts that a "limited nuclear war is winnable."

These examples weren't just threats. And in most cases, the American people had no idea they were made until many years later. These options were seriously considered by the U.S. ruling class for the same reason they were utilized against Japan-to protect the interests of a decaying social system.

It can be said with absolute certainty that the only force that stayed the hands of Nixon and his predecessors was the vision of the reaction of working people throughout the world to these acts of barbarism. But the U.S. ruling class continues today to try to ensure its supremacy by means of a newly constructed missile system ringing Europe and the Pacific Basin.

The question of the survival of the human race-today threatened by Reagan and tomorrow by his Democratic and Republican party successors-was posed by Leon Trotsky as long ago as 1934. "History is bringing humanity face to face with the volcanic eruption of U.S. imperialism" he pointed out.

Today-in the words of Trotsky-humanity is faced with capitalism in its death agony, the convulsions of which pose the choice of either socialism or barbarism.

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HIROSHIMA ANNIVERSARY