Did US nuke Hiroshima, Nagasaki to advance ‘imperialistic goals’?

Imperialistic ambitions?

Most of all, what must be understood about the inordinate resources applied to creating the world’s first nuclear bomb by the United States was less to do with defeating Japan in World War II and more to do with ensuring US world domination in the aftermath. This was the view held by the Soviet Union’s Marshal Zhukov, who in his memoirs reflected that, “It was clear already then that the US Government intended to use the atomic bomb for the purpose of achieving its imperialist goals.”

The intended message was certainly received loud and clear in Moscow, as within days of the bomb being dropped the Soviets embarked on a crash program to develop their own bomb, thus joining a nuclear arms race that over ensuing decades saw untold money and resources given over to researching and developing ever more destructive bombs and missiles that could have been applied to curing disease, ending hunger, poverty and creating a world founded on peace and justice rather than the one we have known and know today, punctuated by war, conflict, mistrust and fear.

For the men who actually flew the mission to drop the world’s first atomic bomb, known as ‘Little Boy’, over Hiroshima, the sight and spectacle was something they would never forget. Abe Spitzer, a radioman on an accompanying aircraft, described it as “a dozen colors, all of them blindingly bright, and in the center the brightest of all, a gigantic red ball of flame that seemed larger than the sun.” Meanwhile, the co-pilot o the Enola Gay itself, Robert Lewis, wrote in his flight log: “My God! What have we done?’

For those on the ground, words such as ‘spectacle’ do not come close to describing the unimaginable horror they experienced. Hiroshima at that time was a city of approximately 300,000 civilians, 43,000 soldiers and 45,000 Korean slave laborers. There were also several thousand Japanese-Americans living in the city, mostly children whose parents had been interned in the United States. Thousands were killed instantly, completely incinerated, while an estimated 140,000 died as a result of the bomb by the end of the year from their injuries or radiation poisoning. By 1950 this figure had increased to 200,000.

The scale of the destruction and carnage did not concern US President Harry S Truman, however, who upon receiving news of the mission while dining aboard the USS Augusta, is said to have jumped up from the table and exclaimed,“This is the greatest thing in history.”

Perhaps the words of Japanese poet, Sankichi Toge, who survived Hiroshima, offer a more apt description of the event than those of President Truman. In his poem titled ‘August Sixth’, Sankichi writes:

How could I ever forget that flash of light!
In an instant thirty thousand people disappeared from the streets;
The cries of fifty thousand more
Crushed beneath the darkness…

Then, skin, hanging like rags,
Hands on breasts:
Treading upon shattered human brains…

Years later, towards the end of his presidency, Truman hosted a private dinner attended by Britain’s Winston Churchill, the wartime prime minister. At one point, according to Truman’s daughter, Churchill turned to the president and said,“Mr. President, I hope you have your answer ready for the hour when you and I stand before St. Peter and he says, ‘I understand you two are responsible for putting off those atomic bombs. What have you got to say for yourselves?’”

There is no record of Truman’s response.

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John Wight has written for newspapers and websites across the world, including the Independent, Morning Star, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, London Progressive Journal, and Foreign Policy Journal. He is also a regular commentator on RT and BBC Radio. He wrote a memoir of the five years he spent in Hollywood, where he worked in the movie industry prior to becoming a full time and activist and organizer with the US antiwar movement post-9/11. The book is titled Dreams That Die and is published by Zero Books. John is currently working on a book exploring the role of the West in the Arab Spring. You can follow him on Twitter @JohnWight1

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

This article was published at RT and is reprinted with permission.