Reconsidering Truman's claim of 'half a million American lives' saved by the atomic bomb: The construction and deconstruction of a myth

Journal of Strategic Studies

Volumn 22, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 54-95

  Bernstein, Barton J ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0033416239     PISSN: 01402390     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01402399908437744     Document Type: Article

References (178)

1. Harry S. Truman, Notes for Gridiron Dinner talk, 15 Dec. 1945, President's Secretary's File (PSF), Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri.
2. Truman in interview with David Noyes, c.1953-54, Post-Presidential Papers, Truman Library.
3. Truman, Memoirs, Vol. I, Year of Decisions (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1955) p.417.
4. Richard Neustadt, c.1965-70, quoted in Graham Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining The Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown 1971) p.181.
5. Tony Capaccio and Uday Mohan, 'Missing The Target', American Journalism Review (July/Aug. 1995) pp. 18-26; and Tony Capaccio, 'How Many Casualties?' ibid., p.25.
6. Tony Capaccio and Uday Mohan, 'Missing The Target', American Journalism Review (July/Aug. 1995) pp. 18-26; and Tony Capaccio, 'How Many Casualties?' ibid., p.25.
7. Truman, Memoirs (note 3) Vol. 1, pp.415-19.
8. Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. VI, Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin 1953) p.639 (he also estimated 500,000 British dead); Truman, Memoirs (note 3); and Henry L. Stimson, The Decision to Use The Atomic Bomb', Harper's Magazine 194 (Feb. 1947) pp.97-107, and esp. pp.102-6. Ex-Secretary of State James F. Byrnes also cited wartime military estimates of over a million US casualties. Byrnes, All in One Lifetime (NY: Harper 1958) p.286. Truman's 1945 Attorney General, Tom Clark, later offered his own postwar assessment of 'the loss of millions of our soldier boys', implying over a million dead. Tom Clark oral history, p.89, Truman Library.
9. Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. VI, Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin 1953) p.639 (he also estimated 500,000 British dead); Truman, Memoirs (note 3); and Henry L. Stimson, The Decision to Use The Atomic Bomb', Harper's Magazine 194 (Feb. 1947) pp.97-107, and esp. pp.102-6. Ex-Secretary of State James F. Byrnes also cited wartime military estimates of over a million US casualties. Byrnes, All in One Lifetime (NY: Harper 1958) p.286. Truman's 1945 Attorney General, Tom Clark, later offered his own postwar assessment of 'the loss of millions of our soldier boys', implying over a million dead. Tom Clark oral history, p.89, Truman Library.
10. Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. VI, Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin 1953) p.639 (he also estimated 500,000 British dead); Truman, Memoirs (note 3); and Henry L. Stimson, The Decision to Use The Atomic Bomb', Harper's Magazine 194 (Feb. 1947) pp.97-107, and esp. pp.102-6. Ex-Secretary of State James F. Byrnes also cited wartime military estimates of over a million US casualties. Byrnes, All in One Lifetime (NY: Harper 1958) p.286. Truman's 1945 Attorney General, Tom Clark, later offered his own postwar assessment of 'the loss of millions of our soldier boys', implying over a million dead. Tom Clark oral history, p.89, Truman Library.
11. Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. VI, Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin 1953) p.639 (he also estimated 500,000 British dead); Truman, Memoirs (note 3); and Henry L. Stimson, The Decision to Use The Atomic Bomb', Harper's Magazine 194 (Feb. 1947) pp.97-107, and esp. pp.102-6. Ex-Secretary of State James F. Byrnes also cited wartime military estimates of over a million US casualties. Byrnes, All in One Lifetime (NY: Harper 1958) p.286. Truman's 1945 Attorney General, Tom Clark, later offered his own postwar assessment of 'the loss of millions of our soldier boys', implying over a million dead. Tom Clark oral history, p.89, Truman Library.
12. This four- or five-to-one ratio for casualties/fatalities is applied as the implicit criterion by Gen. George A. Lincoln in GAL, 'Memorandum of Comments on 'Ending the Japanese War,' 14 June 1945; and endorsed by Gen. Marshall in Marshall to Stimson, 15 June 1945, Safe File, Records of the Secretary of War, Record Group (RG) 107, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland; with copies also in the Marshall Papers, George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, Virginia. The Marshall Papers were assembled by researchers, drawing from mostly military archives, to provide the materials for historian Forrest Pogue's multi-volume biography of Marshall. Using 1944 and 1945 reports, here are the numbers of dead and other battle casualties (not including missing in action) in some important campaigns for US ground forces in the Pacific: Tarawa (864 and 2,245); Peleliu (1,198 and 4,974); and Saipan (3,049 and 13,069). Health (31 Dec. 1944), box 613, Monthly Progress Reports, Office of the Commanding General, Records of Army Service Forces, RG 160; and also see untitled tables in 'Analysis of US Personnel Casualties Pacific Campaign' folder, Chart Room collection, Record s of the Office of Chief of Naval Operations, RG 38, National Archives II. For later more precise data, see Gilbert Beebe and Michael DeBakey, Battle Casualties: Incidence, Mortality, and Logistic Considerations (Springfield, IL: Charles Thomas 1952) pp.47-57.
13. World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1998 (NY: World Almanac Books 1998) p.161. The almanac's total troop numbers of 14.9 million include women, and obviously many of the men did not participate in battle. These US battle-casualty numbers do not include those missing in action who ultimately returned, nor the 115,000 who were reported as dying from nonbattle situations.
14. Barton J. Bernstein, 'The Myth of Lives Saved by A-bomb', Los Angeles Times, 28 July 1985, Sect. IV, pp.1-2, and slightly revised and footnoted as 'A Postwar Myth 500,000 Lives Saved', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 42 (June/July 1986), pp.38-41; and Rufus Miles Jr, 'Hiroshima The Strange Myth of Half a Million American Lives Saved', International Security 10 (Fall 1985) pp.121-40. Miles, 'Hiroshima', p.139, who generally eschewed archival research, accepted the reliability of Truman's 12 Jan. 1953 letter, and decided, that its high numbers only referred to the 1946 invasion of Honshu. Bernstein's two articles are treated, as a single study.
15. Barton J. Bernstein, 'The Myth of Lives Saved by A-bomb', Los Angeles Times, 28 July 1985, Sect. IV, pp.1-2, and slightly revised and footnoted as 'A Postwar Myth 500,000 Lives Saved', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 42 (June/July 1986), pp.38-41; and Rufus Miles Jr, 'Hiroshima The Strange Myth of Half a Million American Lives Saved', International Security 10 (Fall 1985) pp.121-40. Miles, 'Hiroshima', p.139, who generally eschewed archival research, accepted the reliability of Truman's 12 Jan. 1953 letter, and decided, that its high numbers only referred to the 1946 invasion of Honshu. Bernstein's two articles are treated, as a single study.
16. Barton J. Bernstein, 'The Myth of Lives Saved by A-bomb', Los Angeles Times, 28 July 1985, Sect. IV, pp.1-2, and slightly revised and footnoted as 'A Postwar Myth 500,000 Lives Saved', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 42 (June/July 1986), pp.38-41; and Rufus Miles Jr, 'Hiroshima The Strange Myth of Half a Million American Lives Saved', International Security 10 (Fall 1985) pp.121-40. Miles, 'Hiroshima', p.139, who generally eschewed archival research, accepted the reliability of Truman's 12 Jan. 1953 letter, and decided, that its high numbers only referred to the 1946 invasion of Honshu. Bernstein's two articles are treated, as a single study.
17. Barton J. Bernstein, 'The Myth of Lives Saved by A-bomb', Los Angeles Times, 28 July 1985, Sect. IV, pp.1-2, and slightly revised and footnoted as 'A Postwar Myth 500,000 Lives Saved', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 42 (June/July 1986), pp.38-41; and Rufus Miles Jr, 'Hiroshima The Strange Myth of Half a Million American Lives Saved', International Security 10 (Fall 1985) pp.121-40. Miles, 'Hiroshima', p.139, who generally eschewed archival research, accepted the reliability of Truman's 12 Jan. 1953 letter, and decided, that its high numbers only referred to the 1946 invasion of Honshu. Bernstein's two articles are treated, as a single study.
18. Edward Drea, MacArthur's Ultra: Codebreaking and the War Against Japan, 1942-1945 (Lawrence: U. of Kansas Press 1992) pp.216-25. Also see Drea, 'Previews of Hell', Military History Quarterly 7 (Spring 1995) pp.74-81; and tripartite meeting minutes, 24 July 1945, in Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Conference of Berlin (Potsdam), (Washington DC: GPO 1960) II, p.346; cf. record of tripartite military meeting, 24 July 1945, CAB 99/39, Public Record Office, Kew.
19. Edward Drea, MacArthur's Ultra: Codebreaking and the War Against Japan, 1942-1945 (Lawrence: U. of Kansas Press 1992) pp.216-25. Also see Drea, 'Previews of Hell', Military History Quarterly 7 (Spring 1995) pp.74-81; and tripartite meeting minutes, 24 July 1945, in Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Conference of Berlin (Potsdam), (Washington DC: GPO 1960) II, p.346; cf. record of tripartite military meeting, 24 July 1945, CAB 99/39, Public Record Office, Kew.
20. Edward Drea, MacArthur's Ultra: Codebreaking and the War Against Japan, 1942-1945 (Lawrence: U. of Kansas Press 1992) pp.216-25. Also see Drea, 'Previews of Hell', Military History Quarterly 7 (Spring 1995) pp.74-81; and tripartite meeting minutes, 24 July 1945, in Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Conference of Berlin (Potsdam), (Washington DC: GPO 1960) II, p.346; cf. record of tripartite military meeting, 24 July 1945, CAB 99/39, Public Record Office, Kew.
21. Barton J. Bernstein, 'Truman and the A-Bomb: Targeting Noncombatants, Using the Bomb, and Defending The "Decision"', Journal of Military History 62 (July 1998) pp.551-3; and Bernstein, 'The Struggle Over History: Defining the Hiroshima Narrative', in Philip Nobile (ed.), Judgment at the Smithsonian (NY: Marlowe 1995) pp.178-85. Also see Bernstein, 'Wrong Numbers,' Independent (July 1995) pp.41-4, which contains a few errors.
22. Barton J. Bernstein, 'Truman and the A-Bomb: Targeting Noncombatants, Using the Bomb, and Defending The "Decision"', Journal of Military History 62 (July 1998) pp.551-3; and Bernstein, 'The Struggle Over History: Defining the Hiroshima Narrative', in Philip Nobile (ed.), Judgment at the Smithsonian (NY: Marlowe 1995) pp.178-85. Also see Bernstein, 'Wrong Numbers,' Independent (July 1995) pp.41-4, which contains a few errors.
23. Barton J. Bernstein, 'Truman and the A-Bomb: Targeting Noncombatants, Using the Bomb, and Defending The "Decision"', Journal of Military History 62 (July 1998) pp.551-3; and Bernstein, 'The Struggle Over History: Defining the Hiroshima Narrative', in Philip Nobile (ed.), Judgment at the Smithsonian (NY: Marlowe 1995) pp.178-85. Also see Bernstein, 'Wrong Numbers,' Independent (July 1995) pp.41-4, which contains a few errors.
24. David McCullough, Truman (NY: Simon & Schuster 1992) pp.400-1. McCullough did not footnote the archival location and precise title of his source, but his error (misinterpreting a 4 June 1945 memo, probably by Generals John Hull or Thomas Handy, in the Safe File of the Secretary of War Records) is not difficut to determine. Apparently, McCullough had also overlooked another relevant memo, by Gen. Lincoln on 14 June 1945, also in the Safe File, that also sharply refuted McCullough's erroneous conclusion. Author to McCullough, 29 Aug. 1992. Two years later, when pressed by a journalist, McCullough acknowledged his error. Tony Capaccio, 'How Many Casualties?' (note 5) p.25; and Capaccio, Truman Author Errs on Japan Invasion Casualty Memo', Defense Week, 11 Oct. 1994, pp.1, 8-9.
25. David McCullough, Truman (NY: Simon & Schuster 1992) pp.400-1. McCullough did not footnote the archival location and precise title of his source, but his error (misinterpreting a 4 June 1945 memo, probably by Generals John Hull or Thomas Handy, in the Safe File of the Secretary of War Records) is not difficut to determine. Apparently, McCullough had also overlooked another relevant memo, by Gen. Lincoln on 14 June 1945, also in the Safe File, that also sharply refuted McCullough's erroneous conclusion. Author to McCullough, 29 Aug. 1992. Two years later, when pressed by a journalist, McCullough acknowledged his error. Tony Capaccio, 'How Many Casualties?' (note 5) p.25; and Capaccio, Truman Author Errs on Japan Invasion Casualty Memo', Defense Week, 11 Oct. 1994, pp.1, 8-9.
26. David McCullough, Truman (NY: Simon & Schuster 1992) pp.400-1. McCullough did not footnote the archival location and precise title of his source, but his error (misinterpreting a 4 June 1945 memo, probably by Generals John Hull or Thomas Handy, in the Safe File of the Secretary of War Records) is not difficut to determine. Apparently, McCullough had also overlooked another relevant memo, by Gen. Lincoln on 14 June 1945, also in the Safe File, that also sharply refuted McCullough's erroneous conclusion. Author to McCullough, 29 Aug. 1992. Two years later, when pressed by a journalist, McCullough acknowledged his error. Tony Capaccio, 'How Many Casualties?' (note 5) p.25; and Capaccio, Truman Author Errs on Japan Invasion Casualty Memo', Defense Week, 11 Oct. 1994, pp.1, 8-9.
27. Robert J. Maddox, Weapons For Victory The Hiroshima Decision Fifty Years Later (Columbia: U. of Missouri Press 1995) pp.3-4, 59-62, 117-21. Maddox suggested briefly that Truman, among others, may have exaggerated the numbers, but disregarded that interpretation on other pages of his book. Maddox was relied upon heavily by Donald Kagan, 'Why America Dropped the Bomb', Commentary 100 (Sept. 1995) esp. pp.18-20, on casualty/fatality estimates.
28. Robert J. Maddox, Weapons For Victory The Hiroshima Decision Fifty Years Later (Columbia: U. of Missouri Press 1995) pp.3-4, 59-62, 117-21. Maddox suggested briefly that Truman, among others, may have exaggerated the numbers, but disregarded that interpretation on other pages of his book. Maddox was relied upon heavily by Donald Kagan, 'Why America Dropped the Bomb', Commentary 100 (Sept. 1995) esp. pp.18-20, on casualty/fatality estimates.
29. Robert P. Newman, Truman and the Hiroshima Cult (East Lansing: Michigan State UP 1995) pp.8-11, 17-20; and Newman, 'Hiroshima and The Trashing of Henry Stimson', New England Quarterly 71 (March 1998) pp.5-32.
30. Robert P. Newman, Truman and the Hiroshima Cult (East Lansing: Michigan State UP 1995) pp.8-11, 17-20; and Newman, 'Hiroshima and The Trashing of Henry Stimson', New England Quarterly 71 (March 1998) pp.5-32.
31. D. M. Giangreco, 'Casualty Projections for the US Invasions of Japan, 1945-1946: Planning and Policy Implications', Journal of Military History 61 (July 1997) pp.521-81, and esp. pp.521-2 and 574 for seemingly contradictory judgments on Truman's 500,000 claim. Giangreco's article is careless, and badly flawed in reasoning, conceptualization, research, and citations. It ignored or distorted some earlier scholarship, omitted some relevant archival materials, sometimes offered contorted interpretations of other materials, and uncritically relied upon postwar claims for pre-Hiroshima evidence. Almost any postwar US recollection with high numbers seemed to meet Giangreco's criteria, but low numbers from spring-summer 1945 archival documents were often omitted, minimized, or dismissed. Giangreco's article actually failed to cite a single, high-level archival document from the four months before Hiroshima which yields, in unalloyed form, evidence that Marshall, Stimson, or Truman ever believed, or even received, an estimate by any official of a million battle casualties, let alone 500,000 dead. Giangreco used various deployment, logistical, selective-service, and medical reports to seek to produce conclusions of a million battle casualties, but had to strain that evidence greatly and never systematically and persuasively connected such alleged evidence to establish such beliefs for Marshall, or those above him. At times, Giangreco argued a loosely, and dangerously, supple contention about the army as 'an institution,' which seemed to imply that a belief by any one part of the army was believed by 'the army,' and thus presumably by those at the top. Giangreco's article may merit full-scale analysis because of its popularity in some sectors.
32. For 1990s scholarship critical of very high casualty/fatality numbers, see John Ray Skates, The Invasion of Japan: Alternative to the Bomb (Columbia: U. of South Carolina Press 1994) pp.74-83, 244, 255-7; Peter Maslowski, 'Truman, the Bomb, and the Numbers Game', Military History Quarterly 7 (Spring 1995) pp.103-7; Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (NY: Knopf 1995) pp.516-9, 578-613, and 466 - 70; and J. Samuel Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan (Chapel Hill: UNC Press 1997) pp.38-41, and 116-19, note 10. Sometimes, these studies disputed claims of a million or half-million casualties, and thus by implication also disagreed with the half-million dead claim.
33. For 1990s scholarship critical of very high casualty/fatality numbers, see John Ray Skates, The Invasion of Japan: Alternative to the Bomb (Columbia: U. of South Carolina Press 1994) pp.74-83, 244, 255-7; Peter Maslowski, 'Truman, the Bomb, and the Numbers Game', Military History Quarterly 7 (Spring 1995) pp.103-7; Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (NY: Knopf 1995) pp.516-9, 578-613, and 466 - 70; and J. Samuel Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan (Chapel Hill: UNC Press 1997) pp.38-41, and 116-19, note 10. Sometimes, these studies disputed claims of a million or half-million casualties, and thus by implication also disagreed with the half-million dead claim.
34. For 1990s scholarship critical of very high casualty/fatality numbers, see John Ray Skates, The Invasion of Japan: Alternative to the Bomb (Columbia: U. of South Carolina Press 1994) pp.74-83, 244, 255-7; Peter Maslowski, 'Truman, the Bomb, and the Numbers Game', Military History Quarterly 7 (Spring 1995) pp.103-7; Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (NY: Knopf 1995) pp.516-9, 578-613, and 466 - 70; and J. Samuel Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan (Chapel Hill: UNC Press 1997) pp.38-41, and 116-19, note 10. Sometimes, these studies disputed claims of a million or half-million casualties, and thus by implication also disagreed with the half-million dead claim.
35. For 1990s scholarship critical of very high casualty/fatality numbers, see John Ray Skates, The Invasion of Japan: Alternative to the Bomb (Columbia: U. of South Carolina Press 1994) pp.74-83, 244, 255-7; Peter Maslowski, 'Truman, the Bomb, and the Numbers Game', Military History Quarterly 7 (Spring 1995) pp.103-7; Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (NY: Knopf 1995) pp.516-9, 578-613, and 466 - 70; and J. Samuel Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan (Chapel Hill: UNC Press 1997) pp.38-41, and 116-19, note 10. Sometimes, these studies disputed claims of a million or half-million casualties, and thus by implication also disagreed with the half-million dead claim.
36. Newman, Truman (note 15) pp. 137-45, 185-90; and John Dower, War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War (NY: Pantheon 1986) pp.294-302, 362-5. Also see Saburo Inega, The Pacific War World War II and the Japanese. 1931-45 (NY: Pantheon 1978), trans, by Frank Baldwin.
37. Newman, Truman (note 15) pp. 137-45, 185-90; and John Dower, War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War (NY: Pantheon 1986) pp.294-302, 362-5. Also see Saburo Inega, The Pacific War World War II and the Japanese. 1931-45 (NY: Pantheon 1978), trans, by Frank Baldwin.
38. Newman, Truman (note 15) pp. 137-45, 185-90; and John Dower, War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War (NY: Pantheon 1986) pp.294-302, 362-5. Also see Saburo Inega, The Pacific War World War II and the Japanese. 1931-45 (NY: Pantheon 1978), trans, by Frank Baldwin.
39. Planning Division, Office of Director of Plans and Operations, Army Service Forces, 'Redeployment of the United States Army After The Defeat of Germany Plans, Policies, and Logistical Data Affecting the Army Service Forces', 15 Jan. 1945, as App. 23, in Army Service Forces history; and 'Memorandum for Members of Ad Hoc Commitee on Study of West Coast Problems', 14 March 1945, with App. B, Demobilization Branch, Planning Division, Army Service Forces, 'Survey of Redeployment Forecast Atlantic and Pacific Sections', 14 March 1945, US Army General and Command Staff Library, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, courtesy of librarian Pamela Kontowicz. No proponent of very high casualties/fatalities has cited the Jan. document, with its implicit 774,000, and only Giangreco, 'Casualty Projections', pp.539 and 564 cited the mid-March document. The numbers were formulated to deal with dead and wounded to be replaced (the mid-Jan, report) or evacuated (the mid-March report), so the assumption might well have been that non-evacuated wounded would have further increased these estimated numbers of 43,000 or 40,000 per month over 18 months after the defeat of Germany. The heavy reliance by some analysts for high casualty numbers on a Philadelphia Quartermaster Depot's (alleged) pre-Hiroshima 1945 order of somewhat over 370,000 Purple Hearts and Gen. Douglas MacArthur's medical planner's July 1945 estimate of about 395,000 casualties (125,000 battle and 270,000 nonbattle casualties) in Operation 'Olympic' is not considered in the text for multiple reasons. Among the serious objections, these estimates were considerably short of the 500,000-dead number, they did not reach the upper levels in pre-Hiroshima Washington, the Quartermaster General presumably had no knowledge of campaign planning and likely casualties/fatalities, there is no solid evidence of such a pre-Hiroshima 1945 procurement of Purple Hearts, and also MacArthur's medical planner was very probably inflating his numbers to hedge against possible embarrassing, and distressing, blood shortages. These two sources can not help clinch the case for high-level, pre-Hiroshima beliefs in a million US battle casualties, and the evidence in these two documents may well implicitly undercut the million-battle casualty argument.
40. Joint Staff Planners, 'Pacific Strategy', 25 April 1945, JCS 924/15, file CCS 381 Pacific Ocean Area (6-10-43), Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Record Group (RG) 218, National Archives II. Both Newman, Truman (note 15) pp.7-8, and Giangreco, 'Casualty Projections' (note 16) p.539, published two years after Newman, cited this document's conclusions.
41. Joint Staff Planners, 'Pacific Strategy', 25 April 1945, JCS 924/15, file CCS 381 Pacific Ocean Area (6-10-43), Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Record Group (RG) 218, National Archives II. Both Newman, Truman (note 15) pp.7-8, and Giangreco, 'Casualty Projections' (note 16) p.539, published two years after Newman, cited this document's conclusions.
42. The estimated number of navy men in the two invasions reaching over 960,000 is based partly on extrapolations from the approximately 350,000 sailors involved in the Okinawa operation; from Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, 'Joint Staff Study, Kyushu Island Operation', Naval Archives, Washington Naval Yard, Washington, D.C; and from the explicit number (589,230) in an 15 Aug. 1945 plan for 'Coronet' in Lt. Gen. R. K. Sutherland, 'Staff Study [of] 'Coronet', ' JCS Records. Most proponents of very high casualty/fatality numbers do not discuss the number of sailors manning the fleet in the two invasions, but one high-casualty proponent implicitly places the navy total at under 560,000, so 'over 960,000' seems eminently fair.
43. Joint Staff Planners, 'Pacific Strategy,' 25 April 1945, JCS 924/15.
44. Adm. Ernest King, memo, 'Pacific Strategy', 2 May 1945, JCS 924/16; and note stating that the JCS approved JCS 924/16 on 10 May 1945, all in file CCS 381 Pacific Ocean Area (6-10-45), JCS Records.
45. Joint Strategic Survey Committee, 'Operations Against Japan Subsequent to Formosa', 30 Aug. 1944, JCS 924/2, file 384 Pacific (1-17-43), JCS Records. This document was drawn to my attention by Col. Charles F. Brower IV of the USMA faculty, West Point. Maddox, Weapons (note 14), p. 61 cited the document as a JCS document, and Kagan, 'Why America Dropped the Bomb?' (note 14), quotes it briefly from Maddox. This document bears a JCS number but it is really a JSSC study. Without acknowledging Maddox on this document, Giangreco (note 16), p.535, in citing this document, erred in quoting it and in ascribing authorship to the JPS after getting the JSSC authorship correct a few lines earlier.
46. Joint Strategic Survey Committee, 'Operations Against Japan Subsequent to Formosa', 30 Aug. 1944, JCS 924/2, file 384 Pacific (1-17-43), JCS Records. This document was drawn to my attention by Col. Charles F. Brower IV of the USMA faculty, West Point. Maddox, Weapons (note 14), p. 61 cited the document as a JCS document, and Kagan, 'Why America Dropped the Bomb?' (note 14), quotes it briefly from Maddox. This document bears a JCS number but it is really a JSSC study. Without acknowledging Maddox on this document, Giangreco (note 16), p.535, in citing this document, erred in quoting it and in ascribing authorship to the JPS after getting the JSSC authorship correct a few lines earlier.
47. Joint Strategic Survey Committee, 'Operations Against Japan Subsequent to Formosa', 30 Aug. 1944, JCS 924/2, file 384 Pacific (1-17-43), JCS Records. This document was drawn to my attention by Col. Charles F. Brower IV of the USMA faculty, West Point. Maddox, Weapons (note 14), p. 61 cited the document as a JCS document, and Kagan, 'Why America Dropped the Bomb?' (note 14), quotes it briefly from Maddox. This document bears a JCS number but it is really a JSSC study. Without acknowledging Maddox on this document, Giangreco (note 16), p.535, in citing this document, erred in quoting it and in ascribing authorship to the JPS after getting the JSSC authorship correct a few lines earlier.
48. Brig. Gen. A.J. McFarland, memo for the Joint Strategic Survey Committee, 4 Sept. 1944; and Ensign Hunter to McFarland, 3 Sept. 1944, file CCS 381 Pacific Ocean Area (6-10-43), JCS Records. Maddox, Weapons (note 14) p.61 briefly emphasized this 30 Aug. JSSC document but never mentioned (and perhaps did not know) that it was soon returned to committee (JSSC). Stressing this document, Giangreco, 'Casualty Projections' (note 16) pp.535-9, two years after Maddox, severely erred and misrepresented matters by not reporting (perhaps because he had not done the archival research to learn) that this JSSC study was speedily returned to committee (JSSC), and by contending or implying, incorrectly, that such high numbers were believed by high-level officials into 1945. Giangreco provided no clear 1945 archival evidence for that 'belief interpretation. For about two days after the JSSC document's issue, its ratio of US casualties/fatalities to Japanese was employed in calculations or assumptions, but there is no firm reason to conclude that the ratio was fully accepted then, and no compelling archival evidence to conclude the ratio was accepted after about 1 Sept. 1944. See Lincoln to Handy, 31 Aug. 1944, and Marshall to General Stanley Embick, 1 Sept. 1944, both in Marshall Papers, Marshall Library.
49. Brig. Gen. A.J. McFarland, memo for the Joint Strategic Survey Committee, 4 Sept. 1944; and Ensign Hunter to McFarland, 3 Sept. 1944, file CCS 381 Pacific Ocean Area (6-10-43), JCS Records. Maddox, Weapons (note 14) p.61 briefly emphasized this 30 Aug. JSSC document but never mentioned (and perhaps did not know) that it was soon returned to committee (JSSC). Stressing this document, Giangreco, 'Casualty Projections' (note 16) pp.535-9, two years after Maddox, severely erred and misrepresented matters by not reporting (perhaps because he had not done the archival research to learn) that this JSSC study was speedily returned to committee (JSSC), and by contending or implying, incorrectly, that such high numbers were believed by high-level officials into 1945. Giangreco provided no clear 1945 archival evidence for that 'belief interpretation. For about two days after the JSSC document's issue, its ratio of US casualties/fatalities to Japanese was employed in calculations or assumptions, but there is no firm reason to conclude that the ratio was fully accepted then, and no compelling archival evidence to conclude the ratio was accepted after about 1 Sept. 1944. See Lincoln to Handy, 31 Aug. 1944, and Marshall to General Stanley Embick, 1 Sept. 1944, both in Marshall Papers, Marshall Library.
50. W. B. Shockley to Edward Bowles, 'Proposal for Increasing the Scope of Casualty Studies', 21 July 1945, box 34, Edward Bowles Papers, Library of Congress; and also in Shockley Papers, Stanford University, Stanford, California. Newman, Truman (note 15), pp.18-19, and, two years after Newman, Giangreco, 'Casualty Projections' (note 16) pp.568-9 substantially relied on this document, though Giangreco concluded, correctly, that there was no evidence that this document was considered by Stimson before the atomic bombing. McGeorge Bundy, who substantially 'ghosted' Stimson's 1947 A-bomb article, with its claim of a million-plus US casualties, concluded in the 1990s, when queried, that he had never seen or heard of this document when writing Stimson's article, and Bundy also concluded that Shockley's mechanical analysis would have been dismissed by Stimson, had he seen it, as too unsophisicated to warrant serious consideration. Bundy's 1990s conclusions, partly because they were contrary to his personal interest (to defend Stimson, whom Bundy admired) should not be dismissed, despite the great passage of time between 1946-47 and the 1990s. But no strong argument should be erected on Bundy's conclusions. In general, in assessing evidence, recollections and interview-conclusions contrary to interest merit more serious weight than those in line with interest. This standard for assessing evidence is often misunderstood by A-bomb writers, and Giangreco's article seems especially 'guilty,' even to the point of misunderstanding authors who implicitly employed this standard.
51. W. B. Shockley to Edward Bowles, 'Proposal for Increasing the Scope of Casualty Studies', 21 July 1945, box 34, Edward Bowles Papers, Library of Congress; and also in Shockley Papers, Stanford University, Stanford, California. Newman, Truman (note 15), pp.18-19, and, two years after Newman, Giangreco, 'Casualty Projections' (note 16) pp.568-9 substantially relied on this document, though Giangreco concluded, correctly, that there was no evidence that this document was considered by Stimson before the atomic bombing. McGeorge Bundy, who substantially 'ghosted' Stimson's 1947 A-bomb article, with its claim of a million-plus US casualties, concluded in the 1990s, when queried, that he had never seen or heard of this document when writing Stimson's article, and Bundy also concluded that Shockley's mechanical analysis would have been dismissed by Stimson, had he seen it, as too unsophisicated to warrant serious consideration. Bundy's 1990s conclusions, partly because they were contrary to his personal interest (to defend Stimson, whom Bundy admired) should not be dismissed, despite the great passage of time between 1946-47 and the 1990s. But no strong argument should be erected on Bundy's conclusions. In general, in assessing evidence, recollections and interview-conclusions contrary to interest merit more serious weight than those in line with interest. This standard for assessing evidence is often misunderstood by A-bomb writers, and Giangreco's article seems especially 'guilty,' even to the point of misunderstanding authors who implicitly employed this standard.
52. W. B. Shockley to Edward Bowles, 'Proposal for Increasing the Scope of Casualty Studies', 21 July 1945, box 34, Edward Bowles Papers, Library of Congress; and also in Shockley Papers, Stanford University, Stanford, California. Newman, Truman (note 15), pp.18-19, and, two years after Newman, Giangreco, 'Casualty Projections' (note 16) pp.568-9 substantially relied on this document, though Giangreco concluded, correctly, that there was no evidence that this document was considered by Stimson before the atomic bombing. McGeorge Bundy, who substantially 'ghosted' Stimson's 1947 A-bomb article, with its claim of a million-plus US casualties, concluded in the 1990s, when queried, that he had never seen or heard of this document when writing Stimson's article, and Bundy also concluded that Shockley's mechanical analysis would have been dismissed by Stimson, had he seen it, as too unsophisicated to warrant serious consideration. Bundy's 1990s conclusions, partly because they were contrary to his personal interest (to defend Stimson, whom Bundy admired) should not be dismissed, despite the great passage of time between 1946-47 and the 1990s. But no strong argument should be erected on Bundy's conclusions. In general, in assessing evidence, recollections and interview-conclusions contrary to interest merit more serious weight than those in line with interest. This standard for assessing evidence is often misunderstood by A-bomb writers, and Giangreco's article seems especially 'guilty,' even to the point of misunderstanding authors who implicitly employed this standard.
53. GCM [Marshall] to Miss Nason, n.d. [c.7 Aug. 1945], with 'Size of the Army', n.d. [7 Aug. 1945], Marshall Papers, Marshall Library. Also see McCarthy to Chief of Staff, 10 August 1945, with (unsent) Marshall to Leahy, 10 Aug. 1945, Marshall Papers. In an autumn 1998 letter, scheduled for 1999 publication, Giangrcco cited this 10 Aug. memo but not the document for the 7 Aug. press briefing. If in Aug. 1945, military advisers anticipated over 65,000 hospital patients from mid-1945 remaining into mid-1946, that means that the expected increment of new patients from the military operations on the Japanese homeland was somewhat under 265,000 in stateside hospitals. Extrapolating from 265,000 new patients to August 1945 expectations about total US battle casualties in the two invasions is difficult because of various contingencies, and the detailed archival research is formidable and may not necessarily yield provable conclusions about Marshall's own 7 Aug. 1945 (or slightly earlier) beliefs about likely American battle-casualty totals. For background and actual 1945-46 patient numbers, see Clarence McK. Smith, The Medical Department: Hospitalization and Evacuation, Zone of Interior (Washington DC: GPO 1956) esp. pp.209-13; and for earlier evacuation rates of injured patients to the US (about 7 nonbattle injured to 5 battle injured from the southwest Pacific), see Health (31 July 1944), box 613, RG 160. Also see Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties (note 8) pp.218-68.
54. GCM [Marshall] to Miss Nason, n.d. [c.7 Aug. 1945], with 'Size of the Army', n.d. [7 Aug. 1945], Marshall Papers, Marshall Library. Also see McCarthy to Chief of Staff, 10 August 1945, with (unsent) Marshall to Leahy, 10 Aug. 1945, Marshall Papers. In an autumn 1998 letter, scheduled for 1999 publication, Giangrcco cited this 10 Aug. memo but not the document for the 7 Aug. press briefing. If in Aug. 1945, military advisers anticipated over 65,000 hospital patients from mid-1945 remaining into mid-1946, that means that the expected increment of new patients from the military operations on the Japanese homeland was somewhat under 265,000 in stateside hospitals. Extrapolating from 265,000 new patients to August 1945 expectations about total US battle casualties in the two invasions is difficult because of various contingencies, and the detailed archival research is formidable and may not necessarily yield provable conclusions about Marshall's own 7 Aug. 1945 (or slightly earlier) beliefs about likely American battle-casualty totals. For background and actual 1945-46 patient numbers, see Clarence McK. Smith, The Medical Department: Hospitalization and Evacuation, Zone of Interior (Washington DC: GPO 1956) esp. pp.209-13; and for earlier evacuation rates of injured patients to the US (about 7 nonbattle injured to 5 battle injured from the southwest Pacific), see Health (31 July 1944), box 613, RG 160. Also see Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties (note 8) pp.218-68.
55. GCM [Marshall] to Miss Nason, n.d. [c.7 Aug. 1945], with 'Size of the Army', n.d. [7 Aug. 1945], Marshall Papers, Marshall Library. Also see McCarthy to Chief of Staff, 10 August 1945, with (unsent) Marshall to Leahy, 10 Aug. 1945, Marshall Papers. In an autumn 1998 letter, scheduled for 1999 publication, Giangrcco cited this 10 Aug. memo but not the document for the 7 Aug. press briefing. If in Aug. 1945, military advisers anticipated over 65,000 hospital patients from mid-1945 remaining into mid-1946, that means that the expected increment of new patients from the military operations on the Japanese homeland was somewhat under 265,000 in stateside hospitals. Extrapolating from 265,000 new patients to August 1945 expectations about total US battle casualties in the two invasions is difficult because of various contingencies, and the detailed archival research is formidable and may not necessarily yield provable conclusions about Marshall's own 7 Aug. 1945 (or slightly earlier) beliefs about likely American battle-casualty totals. For background and actual 1945-46 patient numbers, see Clarence McK. Smith, The Medical Department: Hospitalization and Evacuation, Zone of Interior (Washington DC: GPO 1956) esp. pp.209-13; and for earlier evacuation rates of injured patients to the US (about 7 nonbattle injured to 5 battle injured from the southwest Pacific), see Health (31 July 1944), box 613, RG 160. Also see Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties (note 8) pp.218-68.
56. Joint War Plans Committee, 'Details of the Campaign Against Japan', 15 June 1945, JWPC 369/1, file 384 Japan (3 May 1944), JCS Records. Also see Joint Staff Planners, 'Details of the Campaign Against Japan', 9 July 1945, JPS 697/2 in ibid. For a somewhat unsubstantiated critique of this mid-June JWPC study, and a harsh attack on analysts who have used it, see Maddox, Weapons (note 14), p.60. It is unclear whether naval casualties were included in this JWPC study, and no scholar so far has cited 1945 archival evidence that resolves this matter.
57. JWPC, 'Details of the Campaign Against Japan', 15 June 1945.
58. MacArthur to Marshall, 17 June 1945, MacArthur Archives, Norfolk, Virginia. The 105,050 number excluded those wounded, probably about 30,000, who could return to duty. The full casualty estimate for 90 days also included 4,200 nonbattle casualties per month, which brought the total (including 105,050 and about 30,000 battle casualties) to nearly 148,000 casualties (battle and nonbattle) for three months. The 30,000 retum-to-action casualties is calculated from Adm. Nimitz's 'Joint Staff Study Olympic - Change No. 2', 25 June 1945, box 1842, entry 418, War Department and General Staff Records, RG 165, National Archives. For an incorrect contention about MacArthur's casualty estimate, with absolutely no archival support, see William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964 (NY: Dell 1979) p.513. Despite a number of queries to Manchester, he has never been able to provide any 1945 MacArthur source for the peculiar contention, and the contrary archival evidence -from mid-June and early Aug. 1945 - overwhelmingly refutes Manchester's claim and use of an alleged MacArthur quotation.
59. Marshall to MacArthur, 18 June 1945; and MacArthur to Marshall, 18 June 1945, MacArthur Archives. Marshall promptly thanked MacArthur, 19 June 1945, MacArthur Archives. Drea, MacArthur's Ultra (note 11) pp.209-10, perceptively suggested this theme of Marshall's pressure and MacArthur's enthusiasm, and many analysts other than Giangreco (who disregarded it, and came to almost opposite conclusions) rely upon Drea's shrewd interpretation.
60. Minutes of 18 June 1945 White House meeting, in FRUS: Berlin (Potsdam) I, p.906.
61. Ibid, p.905. At this 18 June meeting, Adm. King suggested a number for battle casualties in the first 30 days somewhere between Luzon (31,000) and Okinawa (then placed at 41,700). Minutes of 18 June 1945, p.907. Adm. Chester Nimitz suggested 49,000 US casualties for the first 30 days, but probably not including nonbattle casualties. 'Joint Staff Study Olympic - Change No. 2', 25 June 1945. The origin of the 31,000 estimate is partly suggested by the 30,000 in Lincoln to Hull, 16 June 1945, courtesy of Edward Drea from a microfilm copy of the War Department's Operations Division documents (University Publications of America), reel 25. For uncertainty and unsure suggestions of Leyte (18,000) and Okinawa (then 41,700) as possible models, see Joint Staff Planners, 'Details of the Campaign Against Japan', 16 June 1945, JCS 1388, CCS Japan (6-14-45), JCS Records.
62. Ibid, p.905. At this 18 June meeting, Adm. King suggested a number for battle casualties in the first 30 days somewhere between Luzon (31,000) and Okinawa (then placed at 41,700). Minutes of 18 June 1945, p.907. Adm. Chester Nimitz suggested 49,000 US casualties for the first 30 days, but probably not including nonbattle casualties. 'Joint Staff Study Olympic - Change No. 2', 25 June 1945. The origin of the 31,000 estimate is partly suggested by the 30,000 in Lincoln to Hull, 16 June 1945, courtesy of Edward Drea from a microfilm copy of the War Department's Operations Division documents (University Publications of America), reel 25. For uncertainty and unsure suggestions of Leyte (18,000) and Okinawa (then 41,700) as possible models, see Joint Staff Planners, 'Details of the Campaign Against Japan', 16 June 1945, JCS 1388, CCS Japan (6-14-45), JCS Records.
63. William Leahy diary, 18 June 1945, Library of Congress, Washington DC, and also Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin; and Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman Based on hs Notes and Diaries Made at The Time (NY: Whittlesey House 1950) p.384. Proponents of high-casualty/fatality numbers seldom acknowledge this pre-Hiroshima, 63,000 casualty estimate even in their treatment of the 18 June 1945 meeting. Maddox, Weapons (note 14), pp.3-4, did note it in skewering analysts for using this 63,000 casualty number to shape judgments about Aug. 1945 (the last month of the buildup on Kyushu) and about Nov. 1945 (the date for 'Olympic'), but Maddox entirely omitted that number from his discussion of the 18 June 1945 meeting at the White House on 'Olympic'. Newman, Truman (note 15), p.202, note 44, forthrightly acknowledged the 63,000 estimate.
64. William Leahy diary, 18 June 1945, Library of Congress, Washington DC, and also Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin; and Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman Based on hs Notes and Diaries Made at The Time (NY: Whittlesey House 1950) p.384. Proponents of high-casualty/fatality numbers seldom acknowledge this pre-Hiroshima, 63,000 casualty estimate even in their treatment of the 18 June 1945 meeting. Maddox, Weapons (note 14), pp.3-4, did note it in skewering analysts for using this 63,000 casualty number to shape judgments about Aug. 1945 (the last month of the buildup on Kyushu) and about Nov. 1945 (the date for 'Olympic'), but Maddox entirely omitted that number from his discussion of the 18 June 1945 meeting at the White House on 'Olympic'. Newman, Truman (note 15), p.202, note 44, forthrightly acknowledged the 63,000 estimate.
65. William Leahy diary, 18 June 1945, Library of Congress, Washington DC, and also Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin; and Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman Based on hs Notes and Diaries Made at The Time (NY: Whittlesey House 1950) p.384. Proponents of high-casualty/fatality numbers seldom acknowledge this pre-Hiroshima, 63,000 casualty estimate even in their treatment of the 18 June 1945 meeting. Maddox, Weapons (note 14), pp.3-4, did note it in skewering analysts for using this 63,000 casualty number to shape judgments about Aug. 1945 (the last month of the buildup on Kyushu) and about Nov. 1945 (the date for 'Olympic'), but Maddox entirely omitted that number from his discussion of the 18 June 1945 meeting at the White House on 'Olympic'. Newman, Truman (note 15), p.202, note 44, forthrightly acknowledged the 63,000 estimate.
66. Minutes of 18 June 1945 White House meeting, FRUS: Berlin (Potsdam) I, pp.906-8. For the questionable assumption that Leahy was using the base number of 766,700, see Bernstein, 'Postwar Myth' (note 10), which omitted Leahy's diary report that Marshall estimated 63,000 casualties. The 190,000 figure is somewhat smaller than the infantry total of 208,460 (with maybe 3,000 more to be deducted) for 'Olympic', but perhaps Marshall meant to indicate the infantry numbers. Edward Drea to author, 30 April 1995 generously offered a somewhat different interpretation using the 28 July 1945 'Annex 3a to F[ield] O[rder] 74, Troop List, Sixth Army Troops (Tentative)'. John Toison Papers, American Military History Institute (AMHI), Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Into March 1945, battle casualty rates for the infantry (sometimes with armoured) tended to be four or more times higher than for many other arms of the services. Health (31 May 1945), box 613, Monthly Progress Reports, Records of the Army Service Forces, RG 160. Also see Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties (note 8), pp.36-44 . Strangely, Thomas Allen and Norman Polmar, Code-Name Downfall: The Secret Plan to InvadeJapan - and Why Truman Dropped the Bomb (NY: Simon & Schuster 1995) p.211 call Marshall 'disingenuous' for not using MacArthur's 681,000, and for instead stating 766,700 troops. On 23 June 1945, Col. Max Johnson sent the Chief of Strategy and Planning a 'Brief of Staff Study 'Olympic' (1st edition, 28 May 1945)', JCS Records, describing it as a brief of MacArthur's plan, with 813,548 men (including 22,160 in the air echelon of the Far Eastern Air Force).
67. Minutes of 18 June 1945 White House meeting, FRUS: Berlin (Potsdam) I, pp.906-8. For the questionable assumption that Leahy was using the base number of 766,700, see Bernstein, 'Postwar Myth' (note 10), which omitted Leahy's diary report that Marshall estimated 63,000 casualties. The 190,000 figure is somewhat smaller than the infantry total of 208,460 (with maybe 3,000 more to be deducted) for 'Olympic', but perhaps Marshall meant to indicate the infantry numbers. Edward Drea to author, 30 April 1995 generously offered a somewhat different interpretation using the 28 July 1945 'Annex 3a to F[ield] O[rder] 74, Troop List, Sixth Army Troops (Tentative)'. John Toison Papers, American Military History Institute (AMHI), Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Into March 1945, battle casualty rates for the infantry (sometimes with armoured) tended to be four or more times higher than for many other arms of the services. Health (31 May 1945), box 613, Monthly Progress Reports, Records of the Army Service Forces, RG 160. Also see Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties (note 8), pp.36-44 . Strangely, Thomas Allen and Norman Polmar, Code-Name Downfall: The Secret Plan to InvadeJapan - and Why Truman Dropped the Bomb (NY: Simon & Schuster 1995) p.211 call Marshall 'disingenuous' for not using MacArthur's 681,000, and for instead stating 766,700 troops. On 23 June 1945, Col. Max Johnson sent the Chief of Strategy and Planning a 'Brief of Staff Study 'Olympic' (1st edition, 28 May 1945)', JCS Records, describing it as a brief of MacArthur's plan, with 813,548 men (including 22,160 in the air echelon of the Far Eastern Air Force).
68. Minutes of 18 June 1945 White House meeting, FRUS: Berlin (Potsdam) I, pp.906-8. For the questionable assumption that Leahy was using the base number of 766,700, see Bernstein, 'Postwar Myth' (note 10), which omitted Leahy's diary report that Marshall estimated 63,000 casualties. The 190,000 figure is somewhat smaller than the infantry total of 208,460 (with maybe 3,000 more to be deducted) for 'Olympic', but perhaps Marshall meant to indicate the infantry numbers. Edward Drea to author, 30 April 1995 generously offered a somewhat different interpretation using the 28 July 1945 'Annex 3a to F[ield] O[rder] 74, Troop List, Sixth Army Troops (Tentative)'. John Toison Papers, American Military History Institute (AMHI), Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Into March 1945, battle casualty rates for the infantry (sometimes with armoured) tended to be four or more times higher than for many other arms of the services. Health (31 May 1945), box 613, Monthly Progress Reports, Records of the Army Service Forces, RG 160. Also see Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties (note 8), pp.36-44 . Strangely, Thomas Allen and Norman Polmar, Code-Name Downfall: The Secret Plan to InvadeJapan - and Why Truman Dropped the Bomb (NY: Simon & Schuster 1995) p.211 call Marshall 'disingenuous' for not using MacArthur's 681,000, and for instead stating 766,700 troops. On 23 June 1945, Col. Max Johnson sent the Chief of Strategy and Planning a 'Brief of Staff Study 'Olympic' (1st edition, 28 May 1945)', JCS Records, describing it as a brief of MacArthur's plan, with 813,548 men (including 22,160 in the air echelon of the Far Eastern Air Force).
69. Minutes of 18 June 1945 White House meeting, FRUS: Berlin (Potsdam) I, pp.906-8. For the questionable assumption that Leahy was using the base number of 766,700, see Bernstein, 'Postwar Myth' (note 10), which omitted Leahy's diary report that Marshall estimated 63,000 casualties. The 190,000 figure is somewhat smaller than the infantry total of 208,460 (with maybe 3,000 more to be deducted) for 'Olympic', but perhaps Marshall meant to indicate the infantry numbers. Edward Drea to author, 30 April 1995 generously offered a somewhat different interpretation using the 28 July 1945 'Annex 3a to F[ield] O[rder] 74, Troop List, Sixth Army Troops (Tentative)'. John Toison Papers, American Military History Institute (AMHI), Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Into March 1945, battle casualty rates for the infantry (sometimes with armoured) tended to be four or more times higher than for many other arms of the services. Health (31 May 1945), box 613, Monthly Progress Reports, Records of the Army Service Forces, RG 160. Also see Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties (note 8), pp.36-44 . Strangely, Thomas Allen and Norman Polmar, Code-Name Downfall: The Secret Plan to InvadeJapan - and Why Truman Dropped the Bomb (NY: Simon & Schuster 1995) p.211 call Marshall 'disingenuous' for not using MacArthur's 681,000, and for instead stating 766,700 troops. On 23 June 1945, Col. Max Johnson sent the Chief of Strategy and Planning a 'Brief of Staff Study 'Olympic' (1st edition, 28 May 1945)', JCS Records, describing it as a brief of MacArthur's plan, with 813,548 men (including 22,160 in the air echelon of the Far Eastern Air Force).
70. Minutes of 18 June White House meeting, FRUS: Berlin (Potsdam) I, p.909. There are no verbatim minutes.
71. For the under half a million in intelligence estimates, see Drea, MacArthur's Ultra (note II), pp.203-6; and JWPC, 'Alternatives to Olympic', 4 Aug. 1945, JWPC 397, file 381 Pacific Ocean Area (6-10-43), JCS Records. This JWPC study reported that three-quarters of the Japanese troops on Kyushu had been located in the north earlier in the year, but that about 60 per cent were in the south by mid-summer 1945. The reference in the minutes to 350,000 Japanese troops on Kyushu by Nov. 1945 might be interpreted to mean only southern Kyushu if other sources from April-Aug. 1945 did not make clear that Marshall meant all of Kyushu for the 350,000.
72. For the under half a million in intelligence estimates, see Drea, MacArthur's Ultra (note II), pp.203-6; and JWPC, 'Alternatives to Olympic', 4 Aug. 1945, JWPC 397, file 381 Pacific Ocean Area (6-10-43), JCS Records. This JWPC study reported that three-quarters of the Japanese troops on Kyushu had been located in the north earlier in the year, but that about 60 per cent were in the south by mid-summer 1945. The reference in the minutes to 350,000 Japanese troops on Kyushu by Nov. 1945 might be interpreted to mean only southern Kyushu if other sources from April-Aug. 1945 did not make clear that Marshall meant all of Kyushu for the 350,000.
73. Drea, MacArthur's Ultra (note 11) pp.220-2. After the war, according to Drea, it was apparent that US inferences from Ultra in early Aug. had significantly underestimated the total number of Japanese troops on all of Kyushu. According to Drea, the total proved to have been about 900,000, and not 600,000 men but many of them were poorly trained and equipped. A lower number (735,000) was provided after the war by military analysts, reported in Col. H. V. White, 'The Japanese Plans for the Defense of Kyushu', 31 Dec. 1945, Toison Papers. Strangely, Maddox, Weapons (note 14), p.126, in summarizing Drea's information from the Ultra intelligence of early Aug. 1945, erred badly and reported that the early-August belief, drawn from US intelligence at that time, was that there were 560,000 Japanese troops in southern Kyushu. Apparently, Maddox somehow confused the Aug,-based Ultra numbers for all of Kyushu with those for southern Kyushu, and thus added about 200,000 in the south to the Aug. 1945 conclusion from Ultra. Postwar revelations of Japanese expectations (as reported by Col. White, among others) of substantial destruction of US invading forces, including kamikaze attacks to destroy ten per cent of the US transport craft in 'Olympic', must be interpreted through the prism of mid-1945 Japanese military hopes when Japan was clearly losing the war and its military leaders were struggling to provide optimistic forecasts. Such Japanese military hopes should not be automatically translated into likely developments, nor into high-level US beliefs in mid-summer about Olympic'. Postwar assessments of painful results for the US in the Olympic' operation include Edmund Winslett, 'Defenses of Southern Kyusu', 3 June 1946, Winslett Papers, AMHI; and Lt. Col. Jim Underwood, of Australia, in Denis and Peggy Warner, Sacred Warriors: Japan's Suicide Legions (NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold 1982) pp.299-304, but unfortunately Denis Warner reports that he cannot locate (in his files) Underwood's analysis, so it is impossible for others to assess it. For a very different (but probably hasty) and optimistic estimate of only 75,000-100,000 US casualties in 'Olympic', see Col. R. F. Ennis, 'Use of Atomic Bombs on Japan', 30 April 1945, in ABC 471.6 Atomic (17 Aug. 1946) file, RG 165.
74. Drea, MacArthur's Ultra (note 11) pp.220-2. After the war, according to Drea, it was apparent that US inferences from Ultra in early Aug. had significantly underestimated the total number of Japanese troops on all of Kyushu. According to Drea, the total proved to have been about 900,000, and not 600,000 men but many of them were poorly trained and equipped. A lower number (735,000) was provided after the war by military analysts, reported in Col. H. V. White, 'The Japanese Plans for the Defense of Kyushu', 31 Dec. 1945, Toison Papers. Strangely, Maddox, Weapons (note 14), p.126, in summarizing Drea's information from the Ultra intelligence of early Aug. 1945, erred badly and reported that the early-August belief, drawn from US intelligence at that time, was that there were 560,000 Japanese troops in southern Kyushu. Apparently, Maddox somehow confused the Aug,-based Ultra numbers for all of Kyushu with those for southern Kyushu, and thus added about 200,000 in the south to the Aug. 1945 conclusion from Ultra. Postwar revelations of Japanese expectations (as reported by Col. White, among others) of substantial destruction of US invading forces, including kamikaze attacks to destroy ten per cent of the US transport craft in 'Olympic', must be interpreted through the prism of mid-1945 Japanese military hopes when Japan was clearly losing the war and its military leaders were struggling to provide optimistic forecasts. Such Japanese military hopes should not be automatically translated into likely developments, nor into high-level US beliefs in mid-summer about Olympic'. Postwar assessments of painful results for the US in the Olympic' operation include Edmund Winslett, 'Defenses of Southern Kyusu', 3 June 1946, Winslett Papers, AMHI; and Lt. Col. Jim Underwood, of Australia, in Denis and Peggy Warner, Sacred Warriors: Japan's Suicide Legions (NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold 1982) pp.299-304, but unfortunately Denis Warner reports that he cannot locate (in his files) Underwood's analysis, so it is impossible for others to assess it. For a very different (but probably hasty) and optimistic estimate of only 75,000-100,000 US casualties in 'Olympic', see Col. R. F. Ennis, 'Use of Atomic Bombs on Japan', 30 April 1945, in ABC 471.6 Atomic (17 Aug. 1946) file, RG 165.
75. Drea, MacArthur's Ultra (note 11) pp.220-2. After the war, according to Drea, it was apparent that US inferences from Ultra in early Aug. had significantly underestimated the total number of Japanese troops on all of Kyushu. According to Drea, the total proved to have been about 900,000, and not 600,000 men but many of them were poorly trained and equipped. A lower number (735,000) was provided after the war by military analysts, reported in Col. H.
76. Drea, MacArthur's Ultra (note 11) pp.220-2. After the war, according to Drea, it was apparent that US inferences from Ultra in early Aug. had significantly underestimated the total number of Japanese troops on all of Kyushu. According to Drea, the total proved to have been about 900,000, and not 600,000 men but many of them were poorly trained and equipped. A lower number (735,000) was provided after the war by military analysts, reported in Col. H. V. White, 'The Japanese Plans for the Defense of Kyushu', 31 Dec. 1945, Toison Papers. Strangely, Maddox, Weapons (note 14), p.126, in summarizing Drea's information from the Ultra intelligence of early Aug. 1945, erred badly and reported that the early-August belief, drawn from US intelligence at that time, was that there were 560,000 Japanese troops in southern Kyushu. Apparently, Maddox somehow confused the Aug,-based Ultra numbers for all of Kyushu with those for southern Kyushu, and thus added about 200,000 in the south to the Aug. 1945 conclusion from Ultra. Postwar revelations of Japanese expectations (as reported by Col. White, among others) of substantial destruction of US invading forces, including kamikaze attacks to destroy ten per cent of the US transport craft in 'Olympic', must be interpreted through the prism of mid-1945 Japanese military hopes when Japan was clearly losing the war and its military leaders were struggling to provide optimistic forecasts. Such Japanese military hopes should not be automatically translated into likely developments, nor into high-level US beliefs in mid-summer about Olympic'. Postwar assessments of painful results for the US in the Olympic' operation include Edmund Winslett, 'Defenses of Southern Kyusu', 3 June 1946, Winslett Papers, AMHI; and Lt. Col. Jim Underwood, of Australia, in Denis and Peggy Warner, Sacred Warriors: Japan's Suicide Legions (NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold 1982) pp.299-304, but unfortunately Denis Warner reports that he cannot locate (in his files) Underwood's analysis, so it is impossible for others to assess it. For a very different (but probably hasty) and optimistic estimate of only 75,000-100,000 US casualties in 'Olympic', see Col. R. F. Ennis, 'Use of Atomic Bombs on Japan', 30 April 1945, in ABC 471.6 Atomic (17 Aug. 1946) file, RG 165.
77. Barton J. Bernstein, 'The Alarming Buildup on Kyushu: Would Olympic Have Been Shifted?' (1997-98 unpub. paper).
78. Ibid.
79. These themes are developed more fully in Bernstein, 'Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender: Missed Opportunities, Little-Known Near Disasters, and Modern Memory', Diplomatic History 19 (Spring 1995) pp.236-68.
80. Truman statement, 6 Aug. 1945, in Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S. Truman, 1945 (Washington DC: GPO 1961) pp.197-200. Presidential press secretary Charles Ross, in a memo to himself of 6 Aug. 1945, said that, for Truman, the use of the bomb meant 'the saving of the lives of perhaps a million young Americans', but this statement, in the absence of any similar evidence from then or afterward by Truman or those close to him, very probably constituted Ross's uninformed estimate of the numbers. Ross, untitled memo, internally dated as 6 Aug. 1945, Ross Papers, Truman Library. On Stimson, see Harrison-Bundy Files 74, Records of the Manhattan Engineer District (MED), RG 77, National Archives II; and Stimson to Truman, 30 July 1945, war cable 41011, in George Elsey oral history, Truman Library. To my knowledge, and after considerable research in relevant files, it appears that no available draft of Truman's public statement includes US casualty numbers. News correspondent Robert Nixon, in a 1978 Truman Library oral history, p.317, in a very dubious recollection, claimed that Truman 'said [that he had used the bomb] "to save the lives of a million American boys" who would have been lost if they had to invade the Island of Honshu', and Nixon loosely implied that Truman had said this on the ship coming back in early Aug. 1945 from Potsdam.
81. Truman statement, 9 August 1945, in Public Papers Truman (note 42) p.212.
82. Truman, Notes for Gridiron Dinner talk, 15 Dec. 1945.
83. Truman to Roman Bohnen, 12 Dec. 1946, PSF, Truman Library.
84. Truman, in press conference, 14 Aug. 1947, in Public Papers Truman (note 42) p.381; Truman speech, 28 Oct. 1948, in ibid. (1964) 1948, p.859; and Truman speech, 6 April 1949, in ibid. (1964), 1949, p.200.
85. Truman, in press conference, 14 Aug. 1947, in Public Papers Truman (note 42) p.381; Truman speech, 28 Oct. 1948, in ibid. (1964) 1948, p.859; and Truman speech, 6 April 1949, in ibid. (1964), 1949, p.200.
86. Truman, in press conference, 14 Aug. 1947, in Public Papers Truman (note 42) p.381; Truman speech, 28 Oct. 1948, in ibid. (1964) 1948, p.859; and Truman speech, 6 April 1949, in ibid. (1964), 1949, p.200.
87. Jonathan Daniels, interview with Truman, 12 Nov. 1949, 'Part I: Notes on Interviews,' Jonathan Daniels Papers, Truman Library. It is possible, but unlikely, that Daniels confused casualties with fatalities.
88. William Hillman (ed.), Mr. President (NY: Hill and Wang 1952) p.248. In 1951, Truman also told an aide that top US military advisers before Hiroshima had forecast about 25 per cent casualties in the US invading army of over a million men required to defeat Japan, and Truman also stated that the US battle fatalities could have reached 250,000. Eben Ayers, 'August 4th, Saturday', 6 Aug. 1951, Ayers Papers, Truman Library. Undoubtedly more Truman comments from the presidential years could be cited in this section of this essay, and details would vary, but the general pattern would not appreciably change.
89. Harry S. Truman to James L. Cate, 31 Dec. 1952, PSF, Truman Library.
90. This theme is disputed in, most notably, Alperovitz, Decision (note 17).
91. David Lloyd to Truman, 6 Jan. 1953, PSF, Truman Library.
92. Cf. Giangreco, 'Casualty Projections' (note 16) pp.569-71.
93. Truman to Cate, 12 Jan. 1953, in Wesley F. Craven and James L. Cate (eds.), The Army Air Forces in World War II (U. of Chicago Press 1953) Vol. V, unnumbered pages between pp.712-3.
94. The background of this letter is critically discussed in Bernstein, 'Writing, Righting, or Wronging the Historical Record', Diplomatic History 16 (Winter 1992) pp.163-73, and then in Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) pp.517-20, and disregarded or minimized in Giangreco, 'Casualty Projections', pp.521-2, 569-73. Among pro-Hiroshima authors, Donald Kagan, 'Why America Dropped the Bomb?' Commentary (note 14) p.20 implied some uncertainty about whether Truman's published letter is accurate.
95. The background of this letter is critically discussed in Bernstein, 'Writing, Righting, or Wronging the Historical Record', Diplomatic History 16 (Winter 1992) pp.163-73, and then in Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) pp.517-20, and disregarded or minimized in Giangreco, 'Casualty Projections', pp.521-2, 569-73. Among pro-Hiroshima authors, Donald Kagan, 'Why America Dropped the Bomb?' Commentary (note 14) p.20 implied some uncertainty about whether Truman's published letter is accurate.
96. The background of this letter is critically discussed in Bernstein, 'Writing, Righting, or Wronging the Historical Record', Diplomatic History 16 (Winter 1992) pp.163-73, and then in Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) pp.517-20, and disregarded or minimized in Giangreco, 'Casualty Projections', pp.521-2, 569-73. Among pro-Hiroshima authors, Donald Kagan, 'Why America Dropped the Bomb?' Commentary (note 14) p.20 implied some uncertainty about whether Truman's published letter is accurate.
97. The background of this letter is critically discussed in Bernstein, 'Writing, Righting, or Wronging the Historical Record', Diplomatic History 16 (Winter 1992) pp.163-73, and then in Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) pp.517-20, and disregarded or minimized in Giangreco, 'Casualty Projections', pp.521-2, 569-73. Among pro-Hiroshima authors, Donald Kagan, 'Why America Dropped the Bomb?' Commentary (note 14) p.20 implied some uncertainty about whether Truman's published letter is accurate.
98. American Legion commander William Detweiler television exchange on the Enola Gay controversy, probably Dec. 1994-Jan. 1995.
99. Truman in interview with Noyes, c. 1953-54. Some critics may worry about the reliability of these records of Truman's interviews with his memoir-writing staff, and dictabelts are not available. Yet, the variation on numbers, in view of other evidence, including Truman's signed letters, was not unusual for him. Probably only analysts struggling to minimize or ignore the interview evidence would dismiss it because of the absence of dictabelt confirmation. On the writing of Truman's memoirs, see Webster Schott, 'How the Memoirs Were Written', New Republic 134(19 March 1954) pp.18-19; Herbert Lee Williams, 'I Was Truman's Ghost', Presidential Studies Quarterly 12 (Spring 1982) pp.256-9; and Francis Heller, 'The Writing of the Truman Memoirs', ibid., 13 (Spring 1983) pp.81-4.
100. Truman in interview with Noyes, c. 1953-54. Some critics may worry about the reliability of these records of Truman's interviews with his memoir-writing staff, and dictabelts are not available. Yet, the variation on numbers, in view of other evidence, including Truman's signed letters, was not unusual for him. Probably only analysts struggling to minimize or ignore the interview evidence would dismiss it because of the absence of dictabelt confirmation. On the writing of Truman's memoirs, see Webster Schott, 'How the Memoirs Were Written', New Republic 134(19 March 1954) pp.18-19; Herbert Lee Williams, 'I Was Truman's Ghost', Presidential Studies Quarterly 12 (Spring 1982) pp.256-9; and Francis Heller, 'The Writing of the Truman Memoirs', ibid., 13 (Spring 1983) pp.81-4.
101. Truman in interview with Noyes, c. 1953-54. Some critics may worry about the reliability of these records of Truman's interviews with his memoir-writing staff, and dictabelts are not available. Yet, the variation on numbers, in view of other evidence, including Truman's signed letters, was not unusual for him. Probably only analysts struggling to minimize or ignore the interview evidence would dismiss it because of the absence of dictabelt confirmation. On the writing of Truman's memoirs, see Webster Schott, 'How the Memoirs Were Written', New Republic 134(19 March 1954) pp.18-19; Herbert Lee Williams, 'I Was Truman's Ghost', Presidential Studies Quarterly 12 (Spring 1982) pp.256-9; and Francis Heller, 'The Writing of the Truman Memoirs', ibid., 13 (Spring 1983) pp.81-4.
102. Truman in interview with Robert Harris, c.1953, Post-Presidential Papers, Truman Library.
103. Truman in interview with Morton Royce and William Hillman, c.1953-54, Post-Presidential Papers, Truman Library.
104. Truman in interview, c.1953-54, p.17, Post-Presidential Papers, Truman Library.
105. Memoirs draft No. I (p.429); and Truman, Memoirs, I, Year of Decisions (note 3) p.265. For confusion on this, see Bernstein, 'Myth' (note 10) and its note 5.
106. Memoirs draft No. I (p.429); and Truman, Memoirs, I, Year of Decisions (note 3) p.265. For confusion on this, see Bernstein, 'Myth' (note 10) and its note 5.
107. Memoirs draft No. I (p.429); and Truman, Memoirs, I, Year of Decisions (note 3) p.265. For confusion on this, see Bernstein, 'Myth' (note 10) and its note 5.
108. See Memoirs drafts No. 1 (p.1291 Ka), No. 2 (p.683), and No. 3 (p.304) for Truman, Memoirs, I (ibid.) p.417. Bernstein, 'Myth' (note 10) concluded incorrectly that the fatality number had changed after the first draft, and assumed incorrectly that draft No. 1 (p.429) was part of the series of drafts leading to p.417 in the published memoir. Draft No. 1 (p.429) apparently became the basis for Truman's published p.265 in his memoir, and not Truman's published p.417.
109. See Memoirs drafts No. 1 (p.1291 Ka), No. 2 (p.683), and No. 3 (p.304) for Truman, Memoirs, I (ibid.) p.417. Bernstein, 'Myth' (note 10) concluded incorrectly that the fatality number had changed after the first draft, and assumed incorrectly that draft No. 1 (p.429) was part of the series of drafts leading to p.417 in the published memoir. Draft No. 1 (p.429) apparently became the basis for Truman's published p.265 in his memoir, and not Truman's published p.417.
110. See Memoirs drafts No. 1 (p.1291 Ka), No. 2 (p.683), and No. 3 (p.304) for Truman, Memoirs, I (ibid.) p.417. Bernstein, 'Myth' (note 10) concluded incorrectly that the fatality number had changed after the first draft, and assumed incorrectly that draft No. 1 (p.429) was part of the series of drafts leading to p.417 in the published memoir. Draft No. 1 (p.429) apparently became the basis for Truman's published p.265 in his memoir, and not Truman's published p.417.
111. See Memoirs drafts No. 1 (p.1291 Ka), No. 2 (p.683), and No. 3 (p.304) for Truman, Memoirs, I (ibid.) p.417. Bernstein, 'Myth' (note 10) concluded incorrectly that the fatality number had changed after the first draft, and assumed incorrectly that draft No. 1 (p.429) was part of the series of drafts leading to p.417 in the published memoir. Draft No. 1 (p.429) apparently became the basis for Truman's published p.265 in his memoir, and not Truman's published p.417.
112. Herbert Hoover to Stimson, 15 May 1945, with memo, on ending the war, n.d. [c.15 May 1945], and Hoover to Truman, 'Memorandum on Ending the Japanese War, n.d. [30 May 1945], in Hoover Papers, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, Iowa, and also in Safe File, Secretary of War Records. Truman sent Stimson the second memo, with a request for comments. Hoover had obviously been receiving 'insider' reports from Washington-based editor John O'Laughlin, and they were often a curious admixture of the useful and the misinformed, but there is no evidence that Hoover's very high casualty/fatality numbers came from O'Laughlin. For somewhat differing views on the role of Hoover's numbers in Truman's later thinking, see Maddox, Weapons (note 14) p.61; and Kagan, 'Why America Dropped the Bomb?' (note 14) p.19.
113. Herbert Hoover to Stimson, 15 May 1945, with memo, on ending the war, n.d. [c.15 May 1945], and Hoover to Truman, 'Memorandum on Ending the Japanese War, n.d. [30 May 1945], in Hoover Papers, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, Iowa, and also in Safe File, Secretary of War Records. Truman sent Stimson the second memo, with a request for comments. Hoover had obviously been receiving 'insider' reports from Washington-based editor John O'Laughlin, and they were often a curious admixture of the useful and the misinformed, but there is no evidence that Hoover's very high casualty/fatality numbers came from O'Laughlin. For somewhat differing views on the role of Hoover's numbers in Truman's later thinking, see Maddox, Weapons (note 14) p.61; and Kagan, 'Why America Dropped the Bomb?' (note 14) p.19.
114. Quotation from Lincoln, 'Memorandum of Comments on 'Ending The Japanese War'; and second quotation from Marshall to Secretary of War, 15 June 1945, Safe File, Secretary of War Records. For background, George A. Lincoln Papers, US Military Academy, West Point, New York. Also see Marshall to Stimson, 7 June 1945, saying he was 'in general agreement' with [John Hull?], memo, 4 June 1945, Safe File, which stated, 'the estimated loss of 500,000 lives due to carrying the war to conclusion under our present plan of campaign, is considered to be entirely too high' (emphasis in original). That emphasized phrase would be important, and warrant inclusion in the text of this essay as an important qualifying phrase, if the 14 June memo were not available to provide the general context for interpreting the dismissal by top military analysts of Hoover's alarming numbers. Hoover's two memos assumed that America, unless achieving a conditional surrender or/and depending on Soviet entry into the war, would have to send large armies to fight on the Asian mainland. The 4 June rebuttal recognized that Hoover's assumption of the US massively fighting on the mainland was contrary to planning, but the rebuttal implicitly acknowledged that a change in such planning, with largescale military operations on the mainland, would raise casualty/fatality numbers. It would be very questionable to build support for a high-level Washington belief on half a million dead by emphasising this 4 June rebuttal and omitting the context established by the 14 June rebuttal and Marshall's own 15 June comments endorsing that rebuttal. Significantly, in early July 1945, Stimson seemed to be thinking of the single Nov. invasion and of sustained subsequent battles after 'Olympic', but not specifically of two invasions on the home islands. Yet he also spoke of fighting on several of the home islands. Stimson to Truman, 2 July 1945, with related papers in ASW 387 (Japan), Secretary of War Records. Various drafts of that 2 July memo do not clarify Stimson's precise thinking.
115. R. A. Winnacker to Henry L. Stimson, 12 Nov. 1946, with enclosure (see 'III Redeployment Plans'), Stimson Papers, Yale Univ., New Haven, Connecticut. The exact numbers ranged from 2.523 million in Dec. 1945 to 2.661 million in March and June 1946, though a typographical error listed 1946 as 1945. According to Winnacker's report, the total army size for 1946 was to have been 7.55 million in March and 7.28 million in June 1946.
116. Whitman Bartley, Iwo Jima: Amphibious Epic (Washington DC: GPO 1954) pp.210 and 220-2; and George Garand and Truman Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations (Washington DC: GPO 1971) pp.475-7, and 797, Vol. IV in History of US Marine Corps Operations in World War II. According to this latter source, total American troops involved in the operation numbered over 111,000, and with sailors from the supporting fleet also counted, the total US force exceeded 250,000 men. Despite minor numerical differences between Bartley and Garand/Strobridge, total marine battle casualties were about 23,200 (including battle dead), and total naval battle casualties were about 2,800 (including about 900 dead). Curiously, Army Service Forces, Health (31 May 1945), box 613, Monthly Progress Reports, Records of the Army Service Forces, RG 160, gives 40,000 as the average size of the daily marine battle force, but that number, though also used in Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties, p.48, is significantly at odds with, and much smaller than, other official numbers for the Iwo Jima operation and therefore the Beebe/DeBakey number is not used in the calculations. Beebe and DeBakey were wartime editors of Health. At the 18 June 1945 White House meeting, total US battle casualties for Iwo Jima were placed at only 20,000. FRUS Conference of Berlin (Potsdam), I, p.905.
117. Whitman Bartley, Iwo Jima: Amphibious Epic (Washington DC: GPO 1954) pp.210 and 220-2; and George Garand and Truman Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations (Washington DC: GPO 1971) pp.475-7, and 797, Vol. IV in History of US Marine Corps Operations in World War II. According to this latter source, total American troops involved in the operation numbered over 111,000, and with sailors from the supporting fleet also counted, the total US force exceeded 250,000 men. Despite minor numerical differences between Bartley and Garand/Strobridge, total marine battle casualties were about 23,200 (including battle dead), and total naval battle casualties were about 2,800 (including about 900 dead). Curiously, Army Service Forces, Health (31 May 1945), box 613, Monthly Progress Reports, Records of the Army Service Forces, RG 160, gives 40,000 as the average size of the daily marine battle force, but that number, though also used in Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties, p.48, is significantly at odds with, and much smaller than, other official numbers for the Iwo Jima operation and therefore the Beebe/DeBakey number is not used in the calculations. Beebe and DeBakey were wartime editors of Health. At the 18 June 1945 White House meeting, total US battle casualties for Iwo Jima were placed at only 20,000. FRUS Conference of Berlin (Potsdam), I, p.905.
118. Whitman Bartley, Iwo Jima: Amphibious Epic (Washington DC: GPO 1954) pp.210 and 220-2; and George Garand and Truman Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations (Washington DC: GPO 1971) pp.475-7, and 797, Vol. IV in History of US Marine Corps Operations in World War II. According to this latter source, total American troops involved in the operation numbered over 111,000, and with sailors from the supporting fleet also counted, the total US force exceeded 250,000 men. Despite minor numerical differences between Bartley and Garand/Strobridge, total marine battle casualties were about 23,200 (including battle dead), and total naval battle casualties were about 2,800 (including about 900 dead). Curiously, Army Service Forces, Health (31 May 1945), box 613, Monthly Progress Reports, Records of the Army Service Forces, RG 160, gives 40,000 as the average size of the daily marine battle force, but that number, though also used in Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties, p.48, is significantly at odds with, and much smaller than, other official numbers for the Iwo Jima operation and therefore the Beebe/DeBakey number is not used in the calculations. Beebe and DeBakey were wartime editors of Health. At the 18 June 1945 White House meeting, total US battle casualties for Iwo Jima were placed at only 20,000. FRUS Conference of Berlin (Potsdam), I, p.905.
119. Whitman Bartley, Iwo Jima: Amphibious Epic (Washington DC: GPO 1954) pp.210 and 220-2; and George Garand and Truman Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations (Washington DC: GPO 1971) pp.475-7, and 797, Vol. IV in History of US Marine Corps Operations in World War II. According to this latter source, total American troops involved in the operation numbered over 111,000, and with sailors from the supporting fleet also counted, the total US force exceeded 250,000 men. Despite minor numerical differences between Bartley and Garand/Strobridge, total marine battle casualties were about 23,200 (including battle dead), and total naval battle casualties were about 2,800 (including about 900 dead). Curiously, Army Service Forces, Health (31 May 1945), box 613, Monthly Progress Reports, Records of the Army Service Forces, RG 160, gives 40,000 as the average size of the daily marine battle force, but that number, though also used in Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties, p.48, is significantly at odds with, and much smaller than, other official numbers for the Iwo Jima operation and therefore the Beebe/DeBakey number is not used in the calculations. Beebe and DeBakey were wartime editors of Health. At the 18 June 1945 White House meeting, total US battle casualties for Iwo Jima were placed at only 20,000. FRUS Conference of Berlin (Potsdam), I, p.905.
120. Whitman Bartley, Iwo Jima: Amphibious Epic (Washington DC: GPO 1954) pp.210 and 220-2; and George Garand and Truman Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations (Washington DC: GPO 1971) pp.475-7, and 797, Vol. IV in History of US Marine Corps Operations in World War II. According to this latter source, total American troops involved in the operation numbered over 111,000, and with sailors from the supporting fleet also counted, the total US force exceeded 250,000 men. Despite minor numerical differences between Bartley and Garand/Strobridge, total marine battle casualties were about 23,200 (including battle dead), and total naval battle casualties were about 2,800 (including about 900 dead). Curiously, Army Service Forces, Health (31 May 1945), box 613, Monthly Progress Reports, Records of the Army Service Forces, RG 160, gives 40,000 as the average size of the daily marine battle force, but that number, though also used in Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties, p.48, is significantly at odds with, and much smaller than, other official numbers for the Iwo Jima operation and therefore the Beebe/DeBakey number is not used in the calculations. Beebe and DeBakey were wartime editors of Health. At the 18 June 1945 White House meeting, total US battle casualties for Iwo Jima were placed at only 20,000. FRUS Conference of Berlin (Potsdam), I, p.905.
121. Roy Appleman et al., Okinawa: The Last Battle (Washington, DC: GPO 1948) pp.488-91, in the United States Army in World War II; and Army Service Forces, Health, (30 Sept. 1945), box 613, Monthly Progress Reports, Records of the Army Service Forces. The 170,000 is a rough approximation but intentionally understated number for the 1 April-21 June operation, because official numbers (e.g., 184,750 marines and army men in late April 1945, 227,765 in late May, and 192,790 in late June) included men listed on the rolls but actually in the hospital or recovering without being in the battle ranks. Health (30 Sept. 1945) and Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties (note 8), p.48 give 'estimated average daily strength' or 'estimated average strength' of 120,400, but that number is much lower than other official overall numbers and therefore that Beebe/DeBakey number is not used in the calculations.
122. Roy Appleman et al., Okinawa: The Last Battle (Washington, DC: GPO 1948) pp.488-91, in the United States Army in World War II; and Army Service Forces, Health, (30 Sept. 1945), box 613, Monthly Progress Reports, Records of the Army Service Forces. The 170,000 is a rough approximation but intentionally understated number for the 1 April-21 June operation, because official numbers (e.g., 184,750 marines and army men in late April 1945, 227,765 in late May, and 192,790 in late June) included men listed on the rolls but actually in the hospital or recovering without being in the battle ranks. Health (30 Sept. 1945) and Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties (note 8), p.48 give 'estimated average daily strength' or 'estimated average strength' of 120,400, but that number is much lower than other official overall numbers and therefore that Beebe/DeBakey number is not used in the calculations.
123. Roy Appleman et al., Okinawa: The Last Battle (Washington, DC: GPO 1948) pp.488-91, in the United States Army in World War II; and Army Service Forces, Health, (30 Sept. 1945), box 613, Monthly Progress Reports, Records of the Army Service Forces. The 170,000 is a rough approximation but intentionally understated number for the 1 April-21 June operation, because official numbers (e.g., 184,750 marines and army men in late April 1945, 227,765 in late May, and 192,790 in late June) included men listed on the rolls but actually in the hospital or recovering without being in the battle ranks. Health (30 Sept. 1945) and Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties (note 8), p.48 give 'estimated average daily strength' or 'estimated average strength' of 120,400, but that number is much lower than other official overall numbers and therefore that Beebe/DeBakey number is not used in the calculations.
124. Roy Appleman et al., Okinawa: The Last Battle (Washington, DC: GPO 1948) pp.488-91, in the United States Army in World War II; and Army Service Forces, Health, (30 Sept. 1945), box 613, Monthly Progress Reports, Records of the Army Service Forces. The 170,000 is a rough approximation but intentionally understated number for the 1 April-21 June operation, because official numbers (e.g., 184,750 marines and army men in late April 1945, 227,765 in late May, and 192,790 in late June) included men listed on the rolls but actually in the hospital or recovering without being in the battle ranks. Health (30 Sept. 1945) and Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties (note 8), p.48 give 'estimated average daily strength' or 'estimated average strength' of 120,400, but that number is much lower than other official overall numbers and therefore that Beebe/DeBakey number is not used in the calculations.
125. Roy Appleman et al., Okinawa: The Last Battle (Washington, DC: GPO 1948) pp.488-91, in the United States Army in World War II; and Army Service Forces, Health, (30 Sept. 1945), box 613, Monthly Progress Reports, Records of the Army Service Forces. The 170,000 is a rough approximation but intentionally understated number for the 1 April-21 June operation, because official numbers (e.g., 184,750 marines and army men in late April 1945, 227,765 in late May, and 192,790 in late June) included men listed on the rolls but actually in the hospital or recovering without being in the battle ranks. Health (30 Sept. 1945) and Beebe and DeBakey, Battle Casualties (note 8), p.48 give 'estimated average daily strength' or 'estimated average strength' of 120,400, but that number is much lower than other official overall numbers and therefore that Beebe/DeBakey number is not used in the calculations.
126. Minutes of 18 June White House meeting, FRUS: Conference of Berlin (Potsdam), I, pp.905-9.
127. Winnacker to Stimson, 12 Nov. 1946, with enclosure ('IV Strategic Plans for the Defeat of Japan'), Stimson Papers. For differing estimates of the likely decisiveness of the Tokyo plain operation in producing Japan's surrender, see Joint Staff Planners, 'Details of the Campaign Against Japan', 16 June 1945, JCS 1388; and ibid., 11 July 1945, JCS 1388/4, CCS Japan (6-14-45), JCS Records. Stimson's 2 July 1945 is difficult to interpret in these terms. For planning if Coronet was not decisive, see file ABC 384 Post-Honshu (9 April 1945), RG 165.
128. See, for example, Bernstein, 'Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender' (note 41) pp.227-3. For a sharply dissenting interpretation which stresses American leaders' anti-Soviet motives as the controlling purpose in using the A-bomb, see Alperovitz, The Decision (note 17). The A-bomb literature is critically discussed in, among other places. Bernstein, 'The Struggle Over History Defining the Hiroshima Narrative', pp. 127-256; and J. Samuel Walker, 'The Decision to Use the Bomb A Historiographical Update', in Michael Hogan (ed.), Hiroshima in History and Memory (NY: CUP, 1996), pp.11-37. The next two paragraphs rely partly on Bernstein, 'The Struggle Over History' and 'Understanding the Atomic Bomb' (note 41).
129. See, for example, Bernstein, 'Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender' (note 41) pp.227-3. For a sharply dissenting interpretation which stresses American leaders' anti-Soviet motives as the controlling purpose in using the A-bomb, see Alperovitz, The Decision (note 17). The A-bomb literature is critically discussed in, among other places. Bernstein, 'The Struggle Over History Defining the Hiroshima Narrative', pp. 127-256; and J. Samuel Walker, 'The Decision to Use the Bomb A Historiographical Update', in Michael Hogan (ed.), Hiroshima in History and Memory (NY: CUP, 1996), pp.11-37. The next two paragraphs rely partly on Bernstein, 'The Struggle Over History' and 'Understanding the Atomic Bomb' (note 41).
130. See, for example, Bernstein, 'Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender' (note 41) pp.227-3. For a sharply dissenting interpretation which stresses American leaders' anti-Soviet motives as the controlling purpose in using the A-bomb, see Alperovitz, The Decision (note 17). The A-bomb literature is critically discussed in, among other places. Bernstein, 'The Struggle Over History Defining the Hiroshima Narrative', pp. 127-256; and J. Samuel Walker, 'The Decision to Use the Bomb A Historiographical Update', in Michael Hogan (ed.), Hiroshima in History and Memory (NY: CUP, 1996), pp.11-37. The next two paragraphs rely partly on Bernstein, 'The Struggle Over History' and 'Understanding the Atomic Bomb' (note 41).
131. See, for example, Bernstein, 'Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender' (note 41) pp.227-3. For a sharply dissenting interpretation which stresses American leaders' anti-Soviet motives as the controlling purpose in using the A-bomb, see Alperovitz, The Decision (note 17). The A-bomb literature is critically discussed in, among other places. Bernstein, 'The Struggle Over History Defining the Hiroshima Narrative', pp. 127-256; and J. Samuel Walker, 'The Decision to Use the Bomb A Historiographical Update', in Michael Hogan (ed.), Hiroshima in History and Memory (NY: CUP, 1996), pp.11-37. The next two paragraphs rely partly on Bernstein, 'The Struggle Over History' and 'Understanding the Atomic Bomb' (note 41).
132. See, for example, Bernstein, 'Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender' (note 41) pp.227-3. For a sharply dissenting interpretation which stresses American leaders' anti-Soviet motives as the controlling purpose in using the A-bomb, see Alperovitz, The Decision (note 17). The A-bomb literature is critically discussed in, among other places. Bernstein, 'The Struggle Over History Defining the Hiroshima Narrative', pp. 127-256; and J. Samuel Walker, 'The Decision to Use the Bomb A Historiographical Update', in Michael Hogan (ed.), Hiroshima in History and Memory (NY: CUP, 1996), pp.11-37. The next two paragraphs rely partly on Bernstein, 'The Struggle Over History' and 'Understanding the Atomic Bomb' (note 41).
133. George Harrison to Robert Patterson, 8 Aug. 1945, Harrison-Bundy Files, Records of the Manhattan Engineer District, RG 77, National Archives II.
134. James Forrestal to Harry S. Truman, 8 Aug. 1945, James Forrestal Papers, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, and also in Naval Archives, Navy Yard, Washington, DC; Robert Patterson to Samuel Rosenman, 9 August 1945, with proposed speech attachment, in '9 Aug. 1945' folder, Rosenman Papers, Truman Library; and Henry Stimson Diary, 9 and 10 Aug. 1945, Yale Univ. Library, New Haven, Connecticut; and Bernstein, 'Eclipsed by Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Early Thinking About Tactical Nuclear Weapons', International Security 15 (Spring 1991) pp.149-73. Even after the Imperial Rescript accepting allied surrender terms, there was still some uneasiness about the reaction of the Japanese armed forces. W. J. Sebald, 'Summary of Radio Intelligence', 15 Aug. 1945, Ultra document, Truman Library.
135. James Forrestal to Harry S. Truman, 8 Aug. 1945, James Forrestal Papers, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, and also in Naval Archives, Navy Yard, Washington, DC; Robert Patterson to Samuel Rosenman, 9 August 1945, with proposed speech attachment, in '9 Aug. 1945' folder, Rosenman Papers, Truman Library; and Henry Stimson Diary, 9 and 10 Aug. 1945, Yale Univ. Library, New Haven, Connecticut; and Bernstein, 'Eclipsed by Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Early Thinking About Tactical Nuclear Weapons', International Security 15 (Spring 1991) pp.149-73. Even after the Imperial Rescript accepting allied surrender terms, there was still some uneasiness about the reaction of the Japanese armed forces. W. J. Sebald, 'Summary of Radio Intelligence', 15 Aug. 1945, Ultra document, Truman Library.
136. Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell, Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial (NY: Grosset/Putnam 1995), esp. pp. 179-82 is a challenging work based upon particular psychiatric theory about denial. Even 'softer' use of the concept of self-deception may trouble some A-bomb analysts, and they may offer other interesting formulations to deal with the evidence, but it seems naive to conclude that the entire A-bomb 'story' is unambiguous and that all of Truman's statements should be taken literally because he was remarkably straightforward and uncomplicated, and that there are no contradictions or puzzles. That view seems basically anti-intellectual, and amateurish, because it ignores so much scholarship and historical evidence.
137. See Truman's 'Potsdam Diary,' 25 July 1945, Truman Library; and Truman to Stimson, 13 Nov. 1946 and 31 Dec. 1946, Stimson Papers, Yale Univ. For evidence of partial acknowledgment of the heavy A-bomb targeting of noncombatants, see Truman in 'Discussion,' 11 Feb. 1954, Post-Presidential Papers, Truman Library.
138. These issues of legitimation are discussed variously in, among other places, Bernstein, 'Writing, Righting, or Wronging the Historical Record' (note 54) pp. 163-73; Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) pp.409-570; and Lifton and Mitchell, Hiroshima in America (note 72).
139. These issues of legitimation are discussed variously in, among other places, Bernstein, 'Writing, Righting, or Wronging the Historical Record' (note 54) pp. 163-73; Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) pp.409-570; and Lifton and Mitchell, Hiroshima in America (note 72).
140. These issues of legitimation are discussed variously in, among other places, Bernstein, 'Writing, Righting, or Wronging the Historical Record' (note 54) pp. 163-73; Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) pp.409-570; and Lifton and Mitchell, Hiroshima in America (note 72).
141. See, for example, Uday Mohan and Leo Maley III, 'Orthodoxy and Dissent The American News Media and the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb Against Japan, 1945-1995', in Phil Hammond (ed.), Media Memories: Anglo-American Images of Japan (Washington DC: Cassell 1997) pp. 144-50.
142. Truman to Rudy Stiefel, 5 Sept. 1963, Post-Presidential Papers, Truman Library. Undoubtedly, more Truman comments from the postmemoir years could be cited in this section, and the details would expand, but the general pattern would not appreciably change. For unreliable generalizations and some dubious Truman quotations, see Merle Miller, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman (NY: Berkeley 1973) pp.244-8. Tapes of most of Miller's interviews with Truman are now available at the Truman Library, and see Robert Ferrell's intelligently critical essay on Miller, 'Plain Faking?' American Heritage 46 (May-June 1995) pp.14-16.
143. Truman to Rudy Stiefel, 5 Sept. 1963, Post-Presidential Papers, Truman Library. Undoubtedly, more Truman comments from the postmemoir years could be cited in this section, and the details would expand, but the general pattern would not appreciably change. For unreliable generalizations and some dubious Truman quotations, see Merle Miller, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman (NY: Berkeley 1973) pp.244-8. Tapes of most of Miller's interviews with Truman are now available at the Truman Library, and see Robert Ferrell's intelligently critical essay on Miller, 'Plain Faking?' American Heritage 46 (May-June 1995) pp.14-16.
144. (Probably unmailed) Truman to George Warmer, 23 Sept. 1963, Post-Presidential Papers, Truman Library. Because of possible ambiguity in this letter, here are Truman's words: 'the bombs were dropped to save a half million lives on both sides and twice that many on each side from being maimed for life.'
145. (Unmailed) Truman to Irv Kupcinet, 5 Aug. 1963, Post-Presidential Papers, Truman Library.
146. George Carpozi Jr, 'Hiroshima Plus 20', Pageant (Sept. 1965), Vertical File, Truman Library.
147. Truman to Mrs Haydon Klein, 4 Aug. 1964, Vertical File, Truman Library.
148. Transcript of the conversation between former President Harry S. Truman and Dr Takuo Matsumoto, 5 May 1964, Vertical File, Truman Library.
149. New York World Telegram and Sun, 13 Feb. 1965, copy in Vertical File, Truman Library.
150. Truman to Hon. Tsukasa Nitoguri, chairman of the Hiroshima City Council, 12 March 1958, Post-Presidential Papers, Truman Library.
151. Truman to Cong. Mel Price, 4 April 1958, Post-Presidential Papers, Truman Library.
152. Truman to Nitoguri (note 82). In 1959, Truman told Columbia University students that the atomic bombing had 'stopped the war [and] saved millions of lives', but he did not specify how many in his judgment were US lives. Truman, Truman Speaks (NY: Columbia U. 1960), p.67.
153. Lt. Gen. J.E. Hull to Lt. Gen. Ira Eaker, 13 Sept. 1945; and Eaker to Hull, 14 Sept. 1945, with attachment, Arnold (drafted by Eaker) to FEAF, 14 Sept. 1945, all in OPD 704 ETO, Records of the War Department General Staff. Their final conclusion, seeming to depart substantially from 200,000 US dead and retreating possibly to about half or two-thirds of that number, means that this mid-Sept. 1945 correspondence also undercuts post-Hiroshima claims of a million US casualties. For additional but oblique undercutting, see Carl Spaatz Diary, Spaatz Papers, 11 Aug. 1945, Library of Congress, for evidence that he had been told - probably by Gen. Henry Arnold or Gen. Lauris Norstad of the AAF a few weeks earlier - that the bomb's use would save, in Spaatz's words, 'thousands of American lives'. It would be straining evidence to translate 'thousands' into over about 50,000 dead, and thus over about 250,000 US casualties.
154. Margaret Truman (ed.). Where The Buck Stops The Personal and Private Writings of Harry S. Truman (NY: Warner Books 1989) p.206; but also see p.205 on Marshall's alleged pre-Hiroshima warning of 250,000-500,000 American lives that might be lost. No large interpretation rests on the various claims in that book. Author to Margaret Truman, on more than ten occasions, 1989-99, and most recently on 17 March 1998, 12 Jan. 1999 and 22 Feb. 1999 (not one was answered or even acknowledged); Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) p.558; and Robert Ferrell to author, 5 Feb. 1996. In a remarkably careless book that was probably at least partly 'ghosted' for its putative author, Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman (NY: William Morrow 1973) p.273 asserted that US casualties in the 1945-46 invasions and related military operations were never estimated by 'even the darkest pessimist at more than 750,000 men'.
155. Margaret Truman (ed.). Where The Buck Stops The Personal and Private Writings of Harry S. Truman (NY: Warner Books 1989) p.206; but also see p.205 on Marshall's alleged pre-Hiroshima warning of 250,000-500,000 American lives that might be lost. No large interpretation rests on the various claims in that book. Author to Margaret Truman, on more than ten occasions, 1989-99, and most recently on 17 March 1998, 12 Jan. 1999 and 22 Feb. 1999 (not one was answered or even acknowledged); Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) p.558; and Robert Ferrell to author, 5 Feb. 1996. In a remarkably careless book that was probably at least partly 'ghosted' for its putative author, Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman (NY: William Morrow 1973) p.273 asserted that US casualties in the 1945-46 invasions and related military operations were never estimated by 'even the darkest pessimist at more than 750,000 men'.
156. Margaret Truman (ed.). Where The Buck Stops The Personal and Private Writings of Harry S. Truman (NY: Warner Books 1989) p.206; but also see p.205 on Marshall's alleged pre-Hiroshima warning of 250,000-500,000 American lives that might be lost. No large interpretation rests on the various claims in that book. Author to Margaret Truman, on more than ten occasions, 1989-99, and most recently on 17 March 1998, 12 Jan. 1999 and 22 Feb. 1999 (not one was answered or even acknowledged); Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) p.558; and Robert Ferrell to author, 5 Feb. 1996. In a remarkably careless book that was probably at least partly 'ghosted' for its putative author, Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman (NY: William Morrow 1973) p.273 asserted that US casualties in the 1945-46 invasions and related military operations were never estimated by 'even the darkest pessimist at more than 750,000 men'.
157. Gallup poll, 10-15 Aug. 1945, in George Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1935-1971 (NY: Random 1971) pp.521-2; polls of Sept.-Oct. 1945 and Sept. 1948, in Thomas Graham, American Public Opinion on NATO, Extended Deterrence, and Use of Nuclear Weapons (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1988), pp.81-3.
158. Gallup poll, 10-15 Aug. 1945, in George Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1935-1971 (NY: Random 1971) pp.521-2; polls of Sept.-Oct. 1945 and Sept. 1948, in Thomas Graham, American Public Opinion on NATO, Extended Deterrence, and Use of Nuclear Weapons (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1988), pp.81-3.
159. See, for example, the brief discussion of memoirs from former members of the JCS and others, in Bernstein, 'Understanding the Atomic Bomb' (note 41) pp.265-7; Barton J. Bernstein, 'Ike and Hiroshima Did He Oppose it?' Journal of Strategic Studies 10/3 (Sept. 1987), pp.377-89; and Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction (note 17) pp.1-5; cf. Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) pp.319-65.
160. See, for example, the brief discussion of memoirs from former members of the JCS and others, in Bernstein, 'Understanding the Atomic Bomb' (note 41) pp.265-7; Barton J. Bernstein, 'Ike and Hiroshima Did He Oppose it?' Journal of Strategic Studies 10/3 (Sept. 1987), pp.377-89; and Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction (note 17) pp.1-5; cf. Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) pp.319-65.
161. See, for example, the brief discussion of memoirs from former members of the JCS and others, in Bernstein, 'Understanding the Atomic Bomb' (note 41) pp.265-7; Barton J. Bernstein, 'Ike and Hiroshima Did He Oppose it?' Journal of Strategic Studies 10/3 (Sept. 1987), pp.377-89; and Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction (note 17) pp.1-5; cf. Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) pp.319-65.
162. See, for example, the brief discussion of memoirs from former members of the JCS and others, in Bernstein, 'Understanding the Atomic Bomb' (note 41) pp.265-7; Barton J. Bernstein, 'Ike and Hiroshima Did He Oppose it?' Journal of Strategic Studies 10/3 (Sept. 1987), pp.377-89; and Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction (note 17) pp.1-5; cf. Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) pp.319-65.
163. Undated, unsigned notes (probably by George Elsey), in 1945-46 folder. Atomic Energy, George Elsey Papers, Truman Library. For later implicit denials of massively targeting noncombatants, see Truman to Stimson, 13 Nov. and 31 Dec. 1946, Stimson Papers; but also see Truman, 'Potsdam Diary', 25 July 1945, Truman Library, for a troubling example of likely self-deception before the atomic bombing, and thus of an example where the use of other pre-Hiroshima sources is essential. For a critical but brief discussion of targeting enemy noncombatants, see McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (NY: Random 1988) pp.79-84; and also Bernstein, 'An Analysis of Two Cultures' Writing About the Making and the Using of the Atomic Bombs', Public Historian 12 (Spring 1990) pp.95-100 for a weighing and analysis of the pre- and post-Hiroshima archival evidence.
164. Undated, unsigned notes (probably by George Elsey), in 1945-46 folder. Atomic Energy, George Elsey Papers, Truman Library. For later implicit denials of massively targeting noncombatants, see Truman to Stimson, 13 Nov. and 31 Dec. 1946, Stimson Papers; but also see Truman, 'Potsdam Diary', 25 July 1945, Truman Library, for a troubling example of likely self-deception before the atomic bombing, and thus of an example where the use of other pre-Hiroshima sources is essential. For a critical but brief discussion of targeting enemy noncombatants, see McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (NY: Random 1988) pp.79-84; and also Bernstein, 'An Analysis of Two Cultures' Writing About the Making and the Using of the Atomic Bombs', Public Historian 12 (Spring 1990) pp.95-100 for a weighing and analysis of the pre- and post-Hiroshima archival evidence.
165. Allison, Essence of Decision (note 4) pp.181, and 152-3; and Allison to author, 11 May 1998. A substantially revised version (a second edition) of Allison's book (with Philip Zelikow) is scheduled for publication in 1999, and see its pp.312-3. Allison's original version, written during the US involvement in the Indochina war, displayed a remarkable faith in US government officials and in the likelihood of their being well-intentioned and reasonably candid in interviews, even on major issues engaging their passions and involving their political reputations. Admittedly, Essence did not systematically address the issue of the use of memoirs. Allison's 1971 use of Robert Kennedy's Thirteen Days was usually quite trusting, though occasionally very enterprising and even shrewd, as on the Turkey-Cuba missile swap. More recently, well after Allison's 1971 book, other scholars have suggested doing 'critical oral history,' which usually means discussions in a group with some scholars and at least a handful of former officials, supplemented by archival documents. But there is substantial evidence - at least in the arranged meetings on the Cuban missile crisis - that scholars whose publications had been sharply critical of Kennedy administration policy were not invited to those sessions. Thus, 'critical oral history' may be blighted not by its theory but by its practice - the desire not to unsettle invited former US officials, and to be very respectful of such officials by not sharply pressing them on still-sensitive matters. In operation, such 'critical oral history' might fairly be characterized, and relabeled, as 'friendly critical oral history.' Whether or not such an environment of trust and respect encouraged ex-officials to be more forthcoming, or more successfully witholding, or whether the results were mixed, as seems likely, has been left uncritically discussed in the extant literature.
166. Bernstein, 'Seizing the Contested Terrain of Nuclear History: Stimson, Conant, and Their Allies Explain the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb', Diplomatic History 17 (Winter 1993), pp.35-72; James Hershberg, James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age (NY: Knopf 1993) pp.279-304; and Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) pp.448-71. For a defense of Stimson's 1947 essay, see Newman, 'Hiroshima and the Trashing of Henry Stimson', New England Quarterly (March 1998).
167. Bernstein, 'Seizing the Contested Terrain of Nuclear History: Stimson, Conant, and Their Allies Explain the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb', Diplomatic History 17 (Winter 1993), pp.35-72; James Hershberg, James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age (NY: Knopf 1993) pp.279-304; and Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) pp.448-71. For a defense of Stimson's 1947 essay, see Newman, 'Hiroshima and the Trashing of Henry Stimson', New England Quarterly (March 1998).
168. Bernstein, 'Seizing the Contested Terrain of Nuclear History: Stimson, Conant, and Their Allies Explain the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb', Diplomatic History 17 (Winter 1993), pp.35-72; James Hershberg, James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age (NY: Knopf 1993) pp.279-304; and Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) pp.448-71. For a defense of Stimson's 1947 essay, see Newman, 'Hiroshima and the Trashing of Henry Stimson', New England Quarterly (March 1998).
169. Bernstein, 'Seizing the Contested Terrain of Nuclear History: Stimson, Conant, and Their Allies Explain the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb', Diplomatic History 17 (Winter 1993), pp.35-72; James Hershberg, James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age (NY: Knopf 1993) pp.279-304; and Alperovitz, Decision (note 17) pp.448-71. For a defense of Stimson's 1947 essay, see Newman, 'Hiroshima and the Trashing of Henry Stimson', New England Quarterly (March 1998).
170. Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (NY: Norton 1969); Bernstein, 'Reconsiderng the Missile Crisis Dealing with the Problems of the American Jupiters in Turkey', in James Nathan (ed.), The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited (NY: St Martin's 1992) pp.55-129; Philip Nash, The Other Missiles of October: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Jupiters (Chapel Hill: UNC Press 1997) pp.91-176; and CIA Targets Fidel Secret 1967 Inspector General's Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro (Melbourne Ocean Press 1996) pp. 1-84.
171. Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (NY: Norton 1969); Bernstein, 'Reconsiderng the Missile Crisis Dealing with the Problems of the American Jupiters in Turkey', in James Nathan (ed.), The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited (NY: St Martin's 1992) pp.55-129; Philip Nash, The Other Missiles of October: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Jupiters (Chapel Hill: UNC Press 1997) pp.91-176; and CIA Targets Fidel Secret 1967 Inspector General's Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro (Melbourne Ocean Press 1996) pp. 1-84.
172. Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (NY: Norton 1969); Bernstein, 'Reconsiderng the Missile Crisis Dealing with the Problems of the American Jupiters in Turkey', in James Nathan (ed.), The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited (NY: St Martin's 1992) pp.55-129; Philip Nash, The Other Missiles of October: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Jupiters (Chapel Hill: UNC Press 1997) pp.91-176; and CIA Targets Fidel Secret 1967 Inspector General's Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro (Melbourne Ocean Press 1996) pp. 1-84.
173. Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (NY: Norton 1969); Bernstein, 'Reconsiderng the Missile Crisis Dealing with the Problems of the American Jupiters in Turkey', in James Nathan (ed.), The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited (NY: St Martin's 1992) pp.55-129; Philip Nash, The Other Missiles of October: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Jupiters (Chapel Hill: UNC Press 1997) pp.91-176; and CIA Targets Fidel Secret 1967 Inspector General's Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro (Melbourne Ocean Press 1996) pp. 1-84.
174. Marvin Lichterman.'To The Yalu and Back,' in Harold Stein (ed.), American Civil-Military Relations: A Book of Case Studies (Birmingham: U. of Alabama Press 1963) pp.569-639; Acheson to Harold Stein, 30 Jan. 1957, box 4, Dean Acheson Papers, Yale Univ.; Neustadt, Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership (NY: Signet 1960); Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (NY: Norton 1969) pp.426-78; Acheson to Neustadt, 9 May 1960, and Neustadt to Acheson, 29 July 1960, box 23, Acheson Papers, Yale; and David McLellan, Dean Acheson: The State Department Years (NY: Dodd, Mead 1976) pp.280-94, which drew heavily upon McLellan's March 1968 essay. In all this, perhaps the key document making clear Acheson's strong support (and not doubts or reservations) about the US/UN forces moving toward the Yalu is the minutes of 21 Nov. 1950, which McLellan found in Acheson's papers; these minutes were later published in Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, VII (Washington DC: GPO 1976) pp.1204-8. That document, discovered by McLellan in the 1960s, substantially undercut Acheson's published and interview (and letter) claims, on which many analysts before McLellan's 1976 book, and even after his 1968 essay in the Political Science Quarterly, had trustingly erected their interpretive frameworks.
175. Marvin Lichterman.'To The Yalu and Back,' in Harold Stein (ed.), American Civil-Military Relations: A Book of Case Studies (Birmingham: U. of Alabama Press 1963) pp.569-639; Acheson to Harold Stein, 30 Jan. 1957, box 4, Dean Acheson Papers, Yale Univ.; Neustadt, Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership (NY: Signet 1960); Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (NY: Norton 1969) pp.426-78; Acheson to Neustadt, 9 May 1960, and Neustadt to Acheson, 29 July 1960, box 23, Acheson Papers, Yale; and David McLellan, Dean Acheson: The State Department Years (NY: Dodd, Mead 1976) pp.280-94, which drew heavily upon McLellan's March 1968 essay. In all this, perhaps the key document making clear Acheson's strong support (and not doubts or reservations) about the US/UN forces moving toward the Yalu is the minutes of 21 Nov. 1950, which McLellan found in Acheson's papers; these minutes were later published in Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, VII (Washington DC: GPO 1976) pp.1204-8. That document, discovered by McLellan in the 1960s, substantially undercut Acheson's published and interview (and letter) claims, on which many analysts before McLellan's 1976 book, and even after his 1968 essay in the Political Science Quarterly, had trustingly erected their interpretive frameworks.
176. Marvin Lichterman.'To The Yalu and Back,' in Harold Stein (ed.), American Civil-Military Relations: A Book of Case Studies (Birmingham: U. of Alabama
177. Marvin Lichterman.'To The Yalu and Back,' in Harold Stein (ed.), American Civil-Military Relations: A Book of Case Studies (Birmingham: U. of Alabama Press 1963) pp.569-639; Acheson to Harold Stein, 30 Jan. 1957, box 4, Dean Acheson Papers, Yale Univ.; Neustadt, Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership (NY: Signet 1960); Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (NY: Norton 1969) pp.426-78; Acheson to Neustadt, 9 May 1960, and Neustadt to Acheson, 29 July 1960, box 23, Acheson Papers, Yale; and David McLellan, Dean Acheson: The State Department Years (NY: Dodd, Mead 1976) pp.280-94, which drew heavily upon McLellan's March 1968 essay. In all this, perhaps the key document making clear Acheson's strong support (and not doubts or reservations) about the US/UN forces moving toward the Yalu is the minutes of 21 Nov. 1950, which McLellan found in Acheson's papers; these minutes were later published in Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, VII (Washington DC: GPO 1976) pp.1204-8. That document, discovered by McLellan in the 1960s, substantially undercut Acheson's published and interview (and letter) claims, on which many analysts before McLellan's 1976 book, and even after his 1968 essay in the Political Science Quarterly, had trustingly erected their interpretive frameworks.
178. Marvin Lichterman.'To The Yalu and Back,' in Harold Stein (ed.), American Civil-Military Relations: A Book of Case Studies (Birmingham: U. of Alabama Press 1963) pp.569-639; Acheson to Harold Stein, 30 Jan. 1957, box 4, Dean Acheson Papers, Yale Univ.; Neustadt, Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership (NY: Signet 1960); Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (NY: Norton 1969) pp.426-78; Acheson to Neustadt, 9 May 1960, and Neustadt to Acheson, 29 July 1960, box 23, Acheson Papers, Yale; and David McLellan, Dean Acheson: The State Department Years (NY: Dodd, Mead 1976) pp.280-94, which drew heavily upon McLellan's March 1968 essay. In all this, perhaps the key document making clear Acheson's strong support (and not doubts or reservations) about the US/UN forces moving toward the Yalu is the minutes of 21 Nov. 1950, which McLellan found in Acheson's papers; these minutes were later published in Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, VII (Washington DC: GPO 1976) pp.1204-8. That document, discovered by McLellan in the 1960s, substantially undercut Acheson's published and interview (and letter) claims, on which many analysts before McLellan's 1976 book, and even after his 1968 essay in the Political Science Quarterly, had trustingly erected their interpretive frameworks.