On 2/25/07, ken hanly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
As long as the US did it the Americans would never think of these attacks as terrorism. Was the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima terrorism to Americans?
It's been very slow progress, and to this day probably a majority of white folks -- minus Jews -- of America approve of the atomic bombing. IMHO, it's whiteness not religion that tends to bring down people's moral and political intelligence in America. . . . <http://www.alvernia.edu/cgi-bin/mt/text/archives/bernsteinbomb.txt> Barton J. Bernstein, "Truman and the A-Bomb: Targeting Noncombatants, Using the Bomb, and Defending the Decision,," Journal of Military History 62.3 (July 1998): 547-570 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . But in the first nineteen years after Hiroshima, most Americans did not notice this criticism. They continued very strongly to endorse the 1945 atomic bombings, though the immediate post-Hiroshima support of 85 percent approval (with 10 percent disapproval),44 dropped somewhat in the 1950s and early 1960s. Nevertheless, nineteen years after Hiroshima, despite earlier postwar dissents from Herbert Hoover, former Under Secretary of State Joseph Grew, physicist Edward Teller, U.S. News (later U.S. News and World Report) editor David Lawrence, Atomic Energy Commission head Lewis Strauss, USSBS vice chairman Paul Nitze, theologian Reinhold Niebuhr,4s and other notables, the 1945 use of the atomic bombs was not a broadly contested matter or of much concern to most Americans. The matter seemed settled and the answers obvious. In ways that Truman probably never foresaw, attitudes changed in later years, and certainly historians have sharply argued since the mid1960s, and the work of Gar Alperovitz (whose books do not appear on Ferrell's "recommended reading" list), about the use of the bombs on Japan in 1945. Over the years, the support for the 1945 use of the A-bombs has dropped considerably, and the opposition has grown appreciably. By 1995, when Ferrell was probably completing this useful book, approval had fallen to 59 percent, disapproval had risen to 35 percent, and America was deeply divided-by race, gender, age, and income-on this issue.46 In mid-1995, African Americans substantially disapproved (57 percent "anti" and 31 percent "pro") of the atomic bombings of Japanese cities, while whites overwhelmingly (64 percent to 31 percent) approved. A near-majority of American women (47 percent) disapproved of the atomic bombings of Japanese cities and 40 percent approved, while men overwhelmingly (74 percent) approved, with only 23 percent disapproving. Young adults divided almost equally (46 percent "pro" to 49 percent "anti"), while the elderly, who had lived through World War II, overwhelmingly (80 percent to 15 percent) approved. A near-majority of the comparatively poor (49 percent to 44 percent) approved, while the comparatively wealthy overwhelmingly approved of the 1945 atomic bombings (69 percent to 27 percent).47 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44. Poll of 10-15 August 1945, in The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1935-1948 (New York: Random House, 1972), 1: 521-22. 45. See, for example: Herbert Hoover, memorandum, 8 August 1945, John O'Laughlin file, and Hoover to Bonner Fellers, 12 March 1947, Fellers file, Hoover Papers, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, Iowa; Joseph Grew to Henry Stimson, 12 February 1947, Joseph Grew Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.; "Was A-Bomb A Mistake?" U.S. News and World Report 60 (15 August 1960): 75-76 (Teller), 71-73 (Strauss); David Lawrence, "The Right to Kill," U.S. News 19 (5 October 1945): 38-39; and Reinhold Niebuhr to James Conant, 12 March 1947, Reinhold Niebuhr Papers, Library of Congress. Of this group, only Hoover apparently did not clearly express his objections in public. See Harry Elmer Barnes, "Hiroshima: Assault on a Beaten Foe," National Review, 10 May 1958, 442-43; and "RIP," ibid., 29 March 1958, 296. 46. Gallup poll, 20-22 July 1995, courtesy of Roper Center. The percentages do not add up to 100 percent because of the omission here of the "no opinion" responses. In slight contrast to the July 1995 poll, the 2-5 December 1994 poll results, before the Enola Gay/Smithsonian controversy had greatly heated up, were 55 percent approval and 39 percent disapproval, but the breakdown by various demographic categories sometimes differed more substantially between early December 1994 and mid-July 1995 than the overall shift of four percentage points would suggest. In late November 1994, in a separate question, Americans, when asked if they would have dropped the atomic bomb first or have instead first "tried some other way to force the Japanese to surrender," answered by a near-majority (49 percent to 44 percent) that they would have first sought "some other way." Gallup poll, 28-29 November 1994, courtesy of Roper Center. A substantial majority of women, of African Americans, and of Hispanics, by approximately two-to-one ratios for each group, selected "some other way" first. In contrast, whites split evenly, but men, by nearly two to one, would have first dropped the bomb. Unfortunately, this poll did not specify "other" ways, nor note that the heavy conventional bombing and the strangling naval blockade, both of which began well before August 1945, could be defined as such an "other" way or ways. 47. Gallup poll, 20-22 July 1995. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
