The Written Word
for August 9, 2000

Today is the 55^th anniversary of the detonation of an atomic Bomb at Nagasaki, Japan, killing over 100,000 people. Three days ago it was the 55^th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.

The debate about the need to drop these bombs will continue forevermore. The essential reason, of course, was that it would end the war – so it was said and so it proved to be - and avoid the bloodbath that was certain to occur if an invasion of Japan was needed. Many question this theory, though, saying that Japan was already, to all intents and purposes, beaten. What is for sure is that President Harry S Truman showed no hesitation and said that it never cost him a minutes sleep.

I’m not sure where I come down on with this issue. I have visited Hiroshima, its Atomic Bomb Museum, its Peace Park and I’ve seen Atom Bomb Dome, the mechano set like remains of the only building left standing. I’ve seen the piece of granite with the shadow of a man etched on it by the sudden flame, a piece of granite that was once a step of a bank where the man had been sitting waiting for the bank to open. I’ve reflected on the fact that Hiroshima was not a military target and that the most military thing about it was the nearby Allied prisoner-of-war camp. The bomb was dropped in the middle of rush hour, a time certain to cause the maximum number of civilian deaths.

Yet … were there even more lives saved by reason of the fact that Japan surrendered a few days later? We’ll never know.

What we do know, however, is what happens when you use a nuclear weapon. Granted that these two bombs were like firecrackers compared to what exists today, the fact remains that the world has seen two nuclear explosions that were for real.

The value of this has been enormous. During the cold war we had the theory of MAD – mutually assured destruction. Except it was more than just a theory, it had practical evidence to back it up.

Might we have had a nuclear war had not such a demonstration of power occurred?

Who’s to know? But we do have some historical experience to go on. In 1914 there was, with one exception, no indicator of what a modern war would be like. The last dust-up, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 was all but over after the initial battle at Sedan. The Crimean War, more than a half a century previous, still involved, in the main, clashes on horseback.

The exception was the American Civil War but because it didn’t happen in Europe, where the lesson was most needed, it was ignored.

When was started in August of 1914 it was assumed that it would all be over by Christmas. Crowds burst into the capitals of London, Paris and Berlin cheering like mad in patriotic fervor. Men had not known what modern war was so they had to have one to find out what it was like.

If Hiroshima and Nagasaki did nothing else, they showed the world a taste of what nuclear war would look like and perhaps in this backhanded, macabre way, kept the world from blowing itself up.