17 thoughts on “Everytime I think I know everything, I watch this stuff”
Often many liberals will opine about Henry Wallace with a “What if” observation. But I question if Wallace could have defeated Thomas Dewey in ’48. Because in ’44, in picking a Democratic VP nominee, Harry Truman was the balancing force at that convention over that question or pick, and the continual balancing force towards an additional victory in ’48, which later stopped Dewey – and even with the side presidential candidacies in 1948 of Wallace and Strom Thurman.
And if Wallace, absent Truman, cannot defeat Dewey in ’48, then what is there to assume that a Dewey presidency would have fostered a better relationship with the Soviet Union after WWII and an absence of a developing Cold War, than the Truman presidency?
I also enjoyed the final comments in this piece on American students’ knowledge of American history. One can only wonder how a greater focus on work force development education is suppose to address this deficit in our current educational system in America.
However, I was encouraged, on an other note, that Board Member-elect Mickelson did omit the words of WFD in here comments on election night as well as her more recent comments on Inside Keloland, but only time will tell….
EC, Wallace was the popular choice in 44. As popular as Roosevelt himself. Had he been nominated he would have been president after Roosevelts death. No bomb. No Cold War. Easy victory in 48. Just my opinion, but I believe the events that led to the end of WW II would bear out what I believe.
WP, “no bomb” sounds great, but the alternative is a WWII which lasts into ’46 or ’47 because of the contracted land war on the Japanese mainland which would have resulted in the absence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with an additional 100000 to 150000 American casualties. And I question if a President H. Wallace would have been so popular after all of that.
Dewey’s momentum in ’48 had to do with fatigue over Democratic dominance in our national politics and Truman was the perfect person to stop Dewey’s momentum and hold onto the White House for Dems at that time.
The “bomb” was inevitable regardless of who dropped it first. And the Cold War was an inevitable reality just as the Continual War today is a replacement for the Cold War as the Cold War was for WWII. The problem is not who is president, rather the problem is the military-industrial complex regardless of who is president. We can do all we want to wish that this or that person should have been president, but until we deal with the M-I problem nothing will really change for the good.
Oliver Stone is in the same basket as Infowars and Newsmax. Literally fabricated garbage that not worth listening or reading.
Oliver Stone’s ‘Apocalypse Now’ isn’t mentioned. I feel it best describes US war zones policy. It’s a commercial war we send the poor to as soldiers. They stay stoned and kill everything. Meanwhile, rich corporations build expensive inferior war material that ends up with the enemy or dumped into the ocean. It’s not a US goal to win. The rich get richer from defense investments. The poor get taxed. Their children end up killed or imprisoned. The medals you see on a general are fiction. He’s never left DC but does deserve a medal for carrying all that weight on his chest. If you wonder why the enemy will sacrifice troops 10 to 1 and why terrorists have a strong conviction, it’s because the US is a monster overseas. When we’re attacked and loose half our wealth and population we’ll understand. Meanwhile, our economy stays healthy because of foreign wars where we come and go putting bombs in bomb holes.
“the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.… in being the first to use it, we…adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.â€
~ Adm. William Leahy, President Truman’s Chief of Staff
“the Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell, because the Japanese had lost control of their own air.â€
~Commanding General US Army Air Forces, Henry “Hap†Arnold
“the atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan…â€
~Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet
“the first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment…. It was a mistake to ever drop it…. [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it…â€
Adm. William “Bull†Halsey Jr., Commander of the US Third Fleet
Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, for his part, stated in his memoirs that when notified by Secretary of War Henry Stimson of the decision to use atomic weapons, he “voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.â€
“the atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.â€
~Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay, head of the Twenty-First Bomber Command
The following is the source for Warren’s comments:
If the atomic bomb had no influence or was not necessary to quickly force the surrender of Japan in the late summer of ’45, then why did it take two droppings, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, before the Japanese surrendered?
And if the fear of Soviet intervention in the Pacific after the fall of Germany and Italy necessitated the dropping of the atomic bombs, as the aforementioned article asserts and I agree with, then how can that premise be accepted if Japan was already defeated with or without the use of the two atomic bombs?
The taking of Okinawa in July of 1945 cost us over 14000 Allied lives even though they (or us) had air superiority. One can only image what the taking of the main island of Japan would have cost the Allied forces and there are estimates that it would have been between 100000 to 150000. And since my father was station there, at that time, perhaps I have a bias attitude about this or a vested interest, but without Truman’s decision who is to say that my father and many of his buddies would have survived, and in turn, would I be here today to comment on this?
Keep in mind, that Truman had many contemporaries who were at odds with him throughout his presidency – including Eisenhower and Curtis Le May, with the latter Le May being the same Le May who ran with George Wallace later in 1968.
I find Nimitz’s comment interesting, because atomic capability at that time was used as a way to serve a political and societal message more than a military impact to effect a result. And we can debate whether it should have been dropped or merely demonstrated in the Pacific Ocean for the Japanese leaders to witness, but its purpose then was to expedite a surrender more than to destroy a capability.
And as far as Halsey’s comment is concerned, I question it. Because the leading scientist with the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer, was opposed to the dropping of the bomb and most scientist thought it was being built to be used against Germany and not Japan, and after the fall of Germany many of the MP scientist lost an interest in the utility of the bomb beyond the Trinity test in New Mexico in July of 1945.
Your link was equally good though. As far as your father participating in a Japanese land invasion? Unlikely as evidenced by the remarks of our own commanders. Two atomic bomb droppings were just icing on a cake to a nation that had already lost hundreds of thousands of Civilian lives to fire bombings. The real reason Japan surrendered when it did was because of Russia’s entry into the war.
From January 1944 until August 1945, the U.S. dropped 157,000 tons of bombs on Japanese cities, according to the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey. It estimated that 333,000 people were killed, nearly all civilians, including the 80,000 killed in the Aug. 6 Hiroshima atomic bomb attack and 40,000 in Nagasaki three days later. Other estimates are significantly higher. Fifteen million of the 72 million Japanese were left homeless. It is also notable that 12 of the victims of the Hiroshima bomb were 12 American POW’s. EC, what would you have to say today if your father had been one of these 12?
Warren, I wouldn’t have anything to say, because I wouldn’t be here.
I cannot dispute the brutality of that war as you evidenced with your stats nor would I want to try.
However, my father, who spent four years in the Pacific from 1941 until 1945, often spoke of how they were told that the invasion of the main island was next after Okinawa – as further evident by the military strategy of the island hopping and taking by the US in the Pacific in that war.
None of the Generals and Admirals that you referenced from your comments dispute the possibility of an eventual land invasion of the main island of Japan.
And you mention many horrific, but true stats of that war. But what about the invasion of Okinawa, where 77000 Japanese soldiers died, 14000 Allied soldiers died, and 145000 civilians died from that invasion with many Japanese civilians committing suicide instead of surrendering to Allied forces? Do you really think that those Japanese citizens and soldiers on the main island were of a different fabric? I do not think so. Or how about the fact that up until the mid to late 1970s, that Japanese soldiers were still being found on remote islands in the Pacific, who were still fighting, or thinking they were fighting the War?…. I serious question if Japan was ready to surrender in August of 1945 prior to the two drops.
I don’t doubt that Russia’s eventual involvement in the Pacific theatre played a part in the use of the bomb. But if the fear of Russia caused or would have caused the surrender of Japan, then why did it take two drops to garner the surrender, or better yet any drops? And if Japan was ready to surrender, prior to the first drop, because it was militarily incapacitated, then why does the Russian fear matter? if a suing of peace could possibly have pre-empted such a fear in the absence of a Japanese plausible deterrent?
Don’t get me wrong, I am not an advocate of protractive atomic or nuclear use, but given the realities of a possible invasion of the main island of Japan and the possible further complexities of a Russian element in that theatre in 1945, the criticism towards Truman should be towards the use of the bomb on the main island versus the dropping of the bomb in the Pacific for the Japanese to witness – and not whether the bomb was necessary relative to an invasion of the main island to end the war and prevent a greater Soviet hegemony in that region of the world.
You also have to keep in mind, that the advent of the bomb scared many members of the brass in our military for one other reason too. And that reason, prior to the creation of the Triad defense system, was one from a turf war perspective between the different elements of the armed forces, where the idea of a atomic capability appeared to make the need for ships, cavalries, and infantry obsolete. And this reality later played a part in the creation of the Triad defense system, in order, to placate all elements of our armed forces.
And it was this placating along with the animosity that many of Trumans contemporaries had towards Truman, in time and place, that are the real reasons that lead to the criticism of Trumans decision to drop the bomb.
I also think that some of the criticism against Truman for dropping the bomb comes from the fact that a Democratic President in a democratic society did it first; and this especially bothers liberal elements within the Party who tend to be the least militaristic in our political society. So there becomes this innate notion, both consciously and unconsciously, to dispute Truman’s decision by liberals especially. But I am not confident at all, that the war would have ended soon in August of 1945 without America’s resolve and demonstration of its capability. Perhaps the bomb should have been explode in the ocean and not on land on top of people, both soldiers and civilians, but because it was use from day one, I think it is a major reason why it has not been used since. Else, the development of the atomic or nuclear capability, which I believe was inevitable, would have led to a mentality, in my opinion, that the bomb is just an other weapon, which could have led to even a greater use of it in the future with more than one side having the capability, that could have more easily have unfolded a full blown nuclear exchange between nations and most likely those nations would have been the US and the Soviets, especially after the advent of ICBM capability…. Because sometimes, or often actually, if you survive a bad car accident early in life, then you learn to be a better drive the rest of your life. But if you luck out early in life with a lot of close calls, then you often miss the lesson that needs to be heeded and eventually fate catches up with you, and odds say that you probably will not survive that act of fate….
Truman made the decision. The soviets had their eye on Japan. He had to react. After Roosevelt died, it was important to reset government with peace. Ending the war with surrender worked well. Until after the two bombs were dropped I don’t think the US realized how powerful this weapon was. I’ve heard estimates that a million lives were saved because Japan ended without a ground assault. Post war, our economy took off. We entered WW2 late without financial loss like other allies. History is what it is. How the US prospered and became the top world power was because of how the war played out. What amazes me is how war torn Japan and Great Britain quickly recovered. Germany not so much but they eventually prospered. Switzerland stayed out somehow.
That’s because Switzerland is nearly impossible to attack. I have often said if I had to leave the United States, the only other country I would live in is either Switzerland or New Zealand. Switzerland is also a direct democracy, which I admire.
Often many liberals will opine about Henry Wallace with a “What if” observation. But I question if Wallace could have defeated Thomas Dewey in ’48. Because in ’44, in picking a Democratic VP nominee, Harry Truman was the balancing force at that convention over that question or pick, and the continual balancing force towards an additional victory in ’48, which later stopped Dewey – and even with the side presidential candidacies in 1948 of Wallace and Strom Thurman.
And if Wallace, absent Truman, cannot defeat Dewey in ’48, then what is there to assume that a Dewey presidency would have fostered a better relationship with the Soviet Union after WWII and an absence of a developing Cold War, than the Truman presidency?
I also enjoyed the final comments in this piece on American students’ knowledge of American history. One can only wonder how a greater focus on work force development education is suppose to address this deficit in our current educational system in America.
However, I was encouraged, on an other note, that Board Member-elect Mickelson did omit the words of WFD in here comments on election night as well as her more recent comments on Inside Keloland, but only time will tell….
EC, Wallace was the popular choice in 44. As popular as Roosevelt himself. Had he been nominated he would have been president after Roosevelts death. No bomb. No Cold War. Easy victory in 48. Just my opinion, but I believe the events that led to the end of WW II would bear out what I believe.
WP, “no bomb” sounds great, but the alternative is a WWII which lasts into ’46 or ’47 because of the contracted land war on the Japanese mainland which would have resulted in the absence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with an additional 100000 to 150000 American casualties. And I question if a President H. Wallace would have been so popular after all of that.
Dewey’s momentum in ’48 had to do with fatigue over Democratic dominance in our national politics and Truman was the perfect person to stop Dewey’s momentum and hold onto the White House for Dems at that time.
The “bomb” was inevitable regardless of who dropped it first. And the Cold War was an inevitable reality just as the Continual War today is a replacement for the Cold War as the Cold War was for WWII. The problem is not who is president, rather the problem is the military-industrial complex regardless of who is president. We can do all we want to wish that this or that person should have been president, but until we deal with the M-I problem nothing will really change for the good.
Oliver Stone is in the same basket as Infowars and Newsmax. Literally fabricated garbage that not worth listening or reading.
Oliver Stone’s ‘Apocalypse Now’ isn’t mentioned. I feel it best describes US war zones policy. It’s a commercial war we send the poor to as soldiers. They stay stoned and kill everything. Meanwhile, rich corporations build expensive inferior war material that ends up with the enemy or dumped into the ocean. It’s not a US goal to win. The rich get richer from defense investments. The poor get taxed. Their children end up killed or imprisoned. The medals you see on a general are fiction. He’s never left DC but does deserve a medal for carrying all that weight on his chest. If you wonder why the enemy will sacrifice troops 10 to 1 and why terrorists have a strong conviction, it’s because the US is a monster overseas. When we’re attacked and loose half our wealth and population we’ll understand. Meanwhile, our economy stays healthy because of foreign wars where we come and go putting bombs in bomb holes.
“the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.… in being the first to use it, we…adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.â€
~ Adm. William Leahy, President Truman’s Chief of Staff
“the Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell, because the Japanese had lost control of their own air.â€
~Commanding General US Army Air Forces, Henry “Hap†Arnold
“the atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan…â€
~Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet
“the first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment…. It was a mistake to ever drop it…. [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it…â€
Adm. William “Bull†Halsey Jr., Commander of the US Third Fleet
Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, for his part, stated in his memoirs that when notified by Secretary of War Henry Stimson of the decision to use atomic weapons, he “voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.â€
“the atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.â€
~Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay, head of the Twenty-First Bomber Command
The following is the source for Warren’s comments:
https://www.commondreams.org/views06/0806-25.htm
If the atomic bomb had no influence or was not necessary to quickly force the surrender of Japan in the late summer of ’45, then why did it take two droppings, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, before the Japanese surrendered?
And if the fear of Soviet intervention in the Pacific after the fall of Germany and Italy necessitated the dropping of the atomic bombs, as the aforementioned article asserts and I agree with, then how can that premise be accepted if Japan was already defeated with or without the use of the two atomic bombs?
The taking of Okinawa in July of 1945 cost us over 14000 Allied lives even though they (or us) had air superiority. One can only image what the taking of the main island of Japan would have cost the Allied forces and there are estimates that it would have been between 100000 to 150000. And since my father was station there, at that time, perhaps I have a bias attitude about this or a vested interest, but without Truman’s decision who is to say that my father and many of his buddies would have survived, and in turn, would I be here today to comment on this?
Keep in mind, that Truman had many contemporaries who were at odds with him throughout his presidency – including Eisenhower and Curtis Le May, with the latter Le May being the same Le May who ran with George Wallace later in 1968.
I find Nimitz’s comment interesting, because atomic capability at that time was used as a way to serve a political and societal message more than a military impact to effect a result. And we can debate whether it should have been dropped or merely demonstrated in the Pacific Ocean for the Japanese leaders to witness, but its purpose then was to expedite a surrender more than to destroy a capability.
And as far as Halsey’s comment is concerned, I question it. Because the leading scientist with the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer, was opposed to the dropping of the bomb and most scientist thought it was being built to be used against Germany and not Japan, and after the fall of Germany many of the MP scientist lost an interest in the utility of the bomb beyond the Trinity test in New Mexico in July of 1945.
EC, actually my link would have been this article
https://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-us-really-bombed-hiroshima/
Your link was equally good though. As far as your father participating in a Japanese land invasion? Unlikely as evidenced by the remarks of our own commanders. Two atomic bomb droppings were just icing on a cake to a nation that had already lost hundreds of thousands of Civilian lives to fire bombings. The real reason Japan surrendered when it did was because of Russia’s entry into the war.
From January 1944 until August 1945, the U.S. dropped 157,000 tons of bombs on Japanese cities, according to the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey. It estimated that 333,000 people were killed, nearly all civilians, including the 80,000 killed in the Aug. 6 Hiroshima atomic bomb attack and 40,000 in Nagasaki three days later. Other estimates are significantly higher. Fifteen million of the 72 million Japanese were left homeless. It is also notable that 12 of the victims of the Hiroshima bomb were 12 American POW’s. EC, what would you have to say today if your father had been one of these 12?
Warren, I wouldn’t have anything to say, because I wouldn’t be here.
I cannot dispute the brutality of that war as you evidenced with your stats nor would I want to try.
However, my father, who spent four years in the Pacific from 1941 until 1945, often spoke of how they were told that the invasion of the main island was next after Okinawa – as further evident by the military strategy of the island hopping and taking by the US in the Pacific in that war.
None of the Generals and Admirals that you referenced from your comments dispute the possibility of an eventual land invasion of the main island of Japan.
And you mention many horrific, but true stats of that war. But what about the invasion of Okinawa, where 77000 Japanese soldiers died, 14000 Allied soldiers died, and 145000 civilians died from that invasion with many Japanese civilians committing suicide instead of surrendering to Allied forces? Do you really think that those Japanese citizens and soldiers on the main island were of a different fabric? I do not think so. Or how about the fact that up until the mid to late 1970s, that Japanese soldiers were still being found on remote islands in the Pacific, who were still fighting, or thinking they were fighting the War?…. I serious question if Japan was ready to surrender in August of 1945 prior to the two drops.
I don’t doubt that Russia’s eventual involvement in the Pacific theatre played a part in the use of the bomb. But if the fear of Russia caused or would have caused the surrender of Japan, then why did it take two drops to garner the surrender, or better yet any drops? And if Japan was ready to surrender, prior to the first drop, because it was militarily incapacitated, then why does the Russian fear matter? if a suing of peace could possibly have pre-empted such a fear in the absence of a Japanese plausible deterrent?
Don’t get me wrong, I am not an advocate of protractive atomic or nuclear use, but given the realities of a possible invasion of the main island of Japan and the possible further complexities of a Russian element in that theatre in 1945, the criticism towards Truman should be towards the use of the bomb on the main island versus the dropping of the bomb in the Pacific for the Japanese to witness – and not whether the bomb was necessary relative to an invasion of the main island to end the war and prevent a greater Soviet hegemony in that region of the world.
You also have to keep in mind, that the advent of the bomb scared many members of the brass in our military for one other reason too. And that reason, prior to the creation of the Triad defense system, was one from a turf war perspective between the different elements of the armed forces, where the idea of a atomic capability appeared to make the need for ships, cavalries, and infantry obsolete. And this reality later played a part in the creation of the Triad defense system, in order, to placate all elements of our armed forces.
And it was this placating along with the animosity that many of Trumans contemporaries had towards Truman, in time and place, that are the real reasons that lead to the criticism of Trumans decision to drop the bomb.
I also think that some of the criticism against Truman for dropping the bomb comes from the fact that a Democratic President in a democratic society did it first; and this especially bothers liberal elements within the Party who tend to be the least militaristic in our political society. So there becomes this innate notion, both consciously and unconsciously, to dispute Truman’s decision by liberals especially. But I am not confident at all, that the war would have ended soon in August of 1945 without America’s resolve and demonstration of its capability. Perhaps the bomb should have been explode in the ocean and not on land on top of people, both soldiers and civilians, but because it was use from day one, I think it is a major reason why it has not been used since. Else, the development of the atomic or nuclear capability, which I believe was inevitable, would have led to a mentality, in my opinion, that the bomb is just an other weapon, which could have led to even a greater use of it in the future with more than one side having the capability, that could have more easily have unfolded a full blown nuclear exchange between nations and most likely those nations would have been the US and the Soviets, especially after the advent of ICBM capability…. Because sometimes, or often actually, if you survive a bad car accident early in life, then you learn to be a better drive the rest of your life. But if you luck out early in life with a lot of close calls, then you often miss the lesson that needs to be heeded and eventually fate catches up with you, and odds say that you probably will not survive that act of fate….
Truman made the decision. The soviets had their eye on Japan. He had to react. After Roosevelt died, it was important to reset government with peace. Ending the war with surrender worked well. Until after the two bombs were dropped I don’t think the US realized how powerful this weapon was. I’ve heard estimates that a million lives were saved because Japan ended without a ground assault. Post war, our economy took off. We entered WW2 late without financial loss like other allies. History is what it is. How the US prospered and became the top world power was because of how the war played out. What amazes me is how war torn Japan and Great Britain quickly recovered. Germany not so much but they eventually prospered. Switzerland stayed out somehow.
That’s because Switzerland is nearly impossible to attack. I have often said if I had to leave the United States, the only other country I would live in is either Switzerland or New Zealand. Switzerland is also a direct democracy, which I admire.
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_weber.html