The atomic bomb, the cold war, and the Soviet threat

Monthly Review, Dec, 1989 by Alan G. Nasser

How must Stalin have perceived Truman's menacing swagger at Potsdam after the president had received the report of the Alamogordo test? Stimson described the situation in his diary: "[Churchill] told me |Now I know what happened to Truman yesterday. I couldn't understand it. When he got to the meeting after having read this report he was a changed man. He told The Russians just where they got on and off, and generally bossed the whole meeting. . . .'" Lord Alanbrooke's diary entry at Potsdam describes Churchill's stance: |[Churchill] had absorbed all the minor [sic] American exaggerations and . . . was completely carried away. . . . We now had something on our hands which would redress the balance with the Russians. The secret of this explosive and the power to use it . . . now we could say, |If you insist on doing this or that well. . . .' And then where are the Russians!"

Alperovitz makes a conclusive case that the decision to bomb Japan was in fact centrally connected to Truman's and Byrnes's confrontational approach to the Soviet Union. We now know, for example, that none of Truman's military advisors thought that the use of the bomb was either necessary or desirable. Generals Eisenhower and MacArthur opposed the use of the bomb, as did Admiral Leahy, Truman's Chief of Staff. All of the best intelligence estimates available to Truman and his advisors, including key intercepted Japanese cables referring to terms of surrender, indicated that the use of the bomb was not necessary to end the war. During the seven weeks preceding Hiroshima, the U.S. government was barraged by powerful evidence that Japanese morale and power had drastically deteriorated and that Japanese leaders wanted to end the war but to save face if possible. Stimson noted in his diary that "the Japanese had broadcast their offer to surrender through every country in the world." Moreover, all the best intelligence estimates available to Truman and his closest advisors indicated that a U.S. invasion was as unnecessary as the use of the atomic bomb. The Soviets were scheduled to declare war against Japan on August 15, and intelligence sources were unanimous that this would precipitate a surrender without an invasion. Truman's diary entries show that he concurred with this analysis. Yet he made no effort to test this estimate; use of the bomb was a foregone conclusion.

The U.S.'s atomic threats and breaking of the Yalta agreements must have stricken terror in the Soviet leadership and made them feel that they had no alternative but to impose a tighter hold on the states within their security zone.

The mainstream response to this is that Soviet "expansionism" would have dictated strong-arm tactics in Eastern Europe irrespective of U.S. behavior. But the relevant historical facts, consistently withheld from the public, strongly suggest otherwise. Stalin's behavior immediately after the war was strikingly conciliatory. Churchill remarked in his memoirs that Stalin had "strictly and faithfully" adhered to his pledge not to aid the Greek Communists. And even in much of the eastern border area the Soviets were prepared to live with substantial capitalism and some form of capitalist democracy as long as these governments remained friendly to the Soviets in defense and foreign policies.