- 80 years ago, the Second World War ended in the Pacific with the first and thus far only use of nuclear weapons in warfare.

The widely popular decision to use the bomb at the time has become fodder for historians to debate in subsequent decades.

Today's guest helps us view the decision to drop the bomb from the perspective of American leaders in that summer of 1945.

He's Fred Borch, this week on "Story in the Public Square".

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) Hello and welcome to "Story in the Public Square", where storytelling meets public affairs.

I'm Jim Ludes from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University.

- And I'm G. Wayne Miller, also with Salve's Pell Center.

- And our guest this week is Fred Borch, a retired US Army colonel, lawyer, and historian who previously led the prosecution of suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay.

He joins us today from Charlottesville, Virginia.

Fred, thank you so much for being with us.

- You are very welcome.

Glad to be here.

- You know, we've been spending a number of episodes this year talking about the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, and we wanted to talk with you today, in particular about President Truman's decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, August 6th and August 9th, respectively, 1945.

But before we get to the actual decision, can you just set the stage for us?

What was the status in the Pacific as the war wound down in Europe through that summer of 1945?

- Okay, well, certainly, the Allies are winning in the Pacific, but remember, for your listeners, Roosevelt dies in April, and President Truman now succeeds, and all of a sudden, Truman has got to figure out, "How do I end this war?"

So the war had ended in Europe in May of 1945.

This is a huge event.

But now how are we going to end the war in the Pacific?

And Truman has gotta make some really, really hard decisions.

And so that's where we are.

I think it's also fair to say that most Americans don't realize this, but a lot of the country was tired of war.

And there were Americans who were beginning to say, "Hey, we've won in Europe, can't we have some sort of a negotiated peace and finish out this Pacific War and get back to life and living as Americans?"

- So, what were the options that Truman had?

Other than dropping atomic weapons, what were the scenarios that Truman had to choose from?

- Well, Truman didn't know about the bomb until Roosevelt died.

And most of the military planners, the Navy, the Army, didn't know about the bomb as an option, So they'd been planning an amphibious invasion of Japan for some time.

This was a huge undertaking.

In fact, probably bigger even than D-Day, June of 1944, because of the logistical challenges involved.

So the bottom line is, until the planners were made aware of the existence of the Manhattan Project and the bombs, we were planning for an amphibious invasion of Japan, and it was going to be a very difficult invasion.

- So Fred, talk about what that invasion would've entailed and what the possible casualties would've been, both for the Americans, but also for the Japanese, and that would include Japanese civilians, of course.

- Well, as your listeners, viewers, probably know, the war in the Pacific was a lot tougher, because the Japanese were usually unwilling to surrender.

Often would fight to the death.

And when American forces invaded Okinawa, they took huge casualties in 1945.

And so the planners correctly assumed that an invasion of the Japanese home islands was going to mean a lot of dead Americans.

No one really knew for sure, but some projections were as high as 250,000 dead and another 4 or 500,000 wounded in action.

I mean, these are horrific numbers.

And probably, the invasion was going to take maybe 24 months.

I think an even bigger issue was not just moving troops to the Pacific, but building the logistical base that was going to launch this invasion.

And there are a number of historians who argue that building the logistical base for the invasion of Japan is akin to moving the entire city of Philadelphia to the Pacific.

Remember also that you're going to ask soldiers who have just survived fighting the Germans in Europe to now go to Asia, to the Pacific, to fight the Japanese.

So there were all sorts of problems.

But I think you've correctly identified the first issue for the planners was, we're gonna have a lot of casualties.

- What about in Japan?

Were there any projections?

I mean, obviously, a lot of people there, military and non-military, would've died as well, and this invasion could have gone on for who knows how long, months, years.

- Yeah, I think that's true.

I think the planners, the Americans, the Allies, anticipated that the Japanese military would fight to the death, and civilians as well, that civilians would be mobilized in some sort of militia force to repel the invaders.

You have to remember that in Japanese history, the Japanese had never lost a war.

And so there's very much this nationalistic feeling that we can do it, we can stop the invasion, or at least really hurt the invaders, so I think that's true.

And not to get too far ahead, but one of the arguments for using the bomb was that it would, in fact, have saved Japanese lives, because if the Japanese surrendered, then they wouldn't have had the casualties that they too would've suffered in an invasion.

- You know, Fred, one of the pieces, obviously, is that, you know, the Allies had demanded unconditional surrender, a phrase that has surprisingly popped back up into popular parlance in the last couple of weeks.

But the Allies had demanded unconditional surrender in both Germany and Japan.

What was the mindset like among the Japanese leadership at this point?

Were they determined to keep fighting indefinitely at any cost?

- I think that really gets you to the real issue here, which is the Allies' insistence on unconditional surrender, something that Roosevelt had promised since Congress had declared war on Japan on December 8th, 1941, really puts everyone in a box.

If you demand unconditional surrender, from the Japanese perspective, that means an occupation, it means disarmament, it means the elimination of militarism, it means democratic reforms, it means punishment of war criminals, and most important, maybe the end of the Emperor.

And this is probably the one thing that the Japanese people and the government are not willing to allow, and that is the Emperor being removed from the throne.

So I think as long as you're demanding unconditional surrender, and the Japanese aren't really sure what that means, and by the way, we are pretty good at not defining that because we wanna keep our options open, so yes, I think the Japanese were determined to fight on.

I also think that they were determined to fight on because they believed that if they could inflict enough casualties on the Allies, that they could perhaps get a negotiated peace.

And I do believe that at this point in the war, the Japanese realize they're losing hope they can get a negotiated peace, but we have to fight on because we're not gonna accept unconditional surrender.

- So Truman ultimately decides to drop the bomb, two bombs.

Talk about what was a reasonable choice for him.

You said that was, you've written that that was a reasonable choice for him.

But give us some more detail.

Why was that a reasonable choice to Truman, and why did he decide to do it?

- So, I think one of the questions that you often hear is, was it necessary to drop the bomb on Japan to end the war?

And my argument for years has been that that's the wrong question.

What you should be asking is, based on everything that Harry Truman knew at the time, was it reasonable for him to use the atomic bombs to end the war?

And I believe that it was, for a couple of reasons, the chief one being saving American lives.

Your listeners, your viewers, have got to remember that Harry Truman had actually seen combat in World War I.

He knew what it was like to fight in a war.

And he has, I think, as the American president, more than anything else, he wants to save American lives and American materiel, but mostly lives.

And so I'm sure Truman said, "Gee, I don't know, but if I can save even a dozen American lives, isn't that what I need to do as the president of the United States?"

And I think that when he looked at the alternatives, the invasion was gonna cost a lot of American lives.

We haven't talked about this yet, but the Navy was all for a blockade.

The idea being that we blockade Japan, cut off its supplies, and maybe then the Japanese will surrender.

Why did the Navy like a blockade?

Because the Navy was worried about tremendous casualties to sailors because of the kamikaze attacks that had been so successful.

I think Truman talked about a blockade with Admiral King and with General Marshall, but decided that a blockade will take a long time, might not still get you to surrender, and I think the bottom line was still, for Truman, "I've got to hold American public opinion together.

How long can I hold the American public into believing that unconditional surrender is the way to go?"

And I guess, no mystery here, the Achilles heel of all military operations in America is public opinion.

You got the public behind you, you're in good shape.

Once the public sours on some sort of military operation, watch out.

So I think that was why Truman ultimately decided saving American lives, not really a good alternative to get the Japanese to the table.

- You know, earlier in my career, when I was a grad student, I spent some time looking at origins of the Cold War in Asia, and one of the things that we spent some time studying was the reality of racism in the American conduct of the war against Japan.

And I think that there's a fairly well documented historical body of evidence about that.

Is there any validity, though, to the notion that Truman used the bomb against Japan because they were Asians, and that racism played some factor in that decision?

- Well, I don't think there's any doubt that there was a lot of racism, and certainly, our treatment of Asians in the '20s, the '30s, certainly supports that.

And unlike the Germans and the Italians who looked like us, the Japanese did not.

But I do not believe that racism played any role at all in Harry Truman's decision.

And certainly there's no evidence of that.

I think it was all about saving American lives, ending the war, and the best way to do it was to use these unproven atomic weapons.

And remember, that although we'd had a bomb detonated in the Manhattan Project, no one had ever had a bomb dropped from a plane, and no one was really sure the impact that that bomb would have.

So I think that based on everything, it's all saving American lives.

And no, on your absolute question, I don't think racism entered into Harry Truman's mind at all.

He wanted to save American lives and end the war.

- When you invoke Clausewitz, I'm reminded too of one of his other pieces of wisdom, which was that, ultimately, war is not about breaking military organizations, it's about breaking the will of the adversary to continue fighting.

And so let's go back to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

140,000 dead between the two bombings.

Was it certain that the Japanese would stop fighting even at that point?

- No, absolutely not.

In fact, after the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Hiroshima, the Japanese were prepared to fight on.

And it was only after the second bomb was dropped that the Emperor himself intervened and said, "No, it's time to surrender."

But there were still military leaders who wanted to fight on.

Now, the Japanese didn't know at the time how many bombs we had.

In fact, we'd used both of the bombs.

Another one probably could have been ready in September, and then maybe a fourth bomb in the spring.

But the Japanese didn't know that.

So yes, I mean, if you're talking about war termination and never start a war without looking, without knowing what it's going to look like at the end, I think it's possible that the Japanese could have said, "Well, let's fight on."

But it was the Emperor who finally forced it.

And you probably know in your history that there was a coup after the Japanese Emperor had decided to surrender, in which some of the militarists decided that we should fight on.

So yes, you're exactly right.

It wasn't a sure thing.

- What do you think sealed the deal, as it were, for the Emperor?

What do you think was it that made him realize that the cause was lost?

- From what I've read, I think the Emperor recognized that Japan as a culture, as a nation, might well be destroyed.

And he, as the Emperor, was not willing to see that happen.

He was willing to take his chances.

And I think that was really at...

The horrific impact of those bombs was such that I think the Emperor said, "We've got to surrender, because otherwise our beautiful nation, our culture, may cease to exist."

- So Fred, we're 80 years from the end of the war, 80 years from the last use of nuclear weapons in war.

What do you think the enduring lessons are here in 2025?

- Well, let me give you a couple of thoughts.

We don't really study a lot of World War II in the Pacific because the war ended so precipitously.

Looked like we were gonna have a big invasion, and we were getting ready to invade Japan, and then boom, everything's over in August of 1945.

So, I think that the lesson at the time was that atomic weapons are probably the future.

But remember, the US was the only country that had the atomic bomb, had a monopoly on it at the time.

So fast forward here 80 years later, there are many more countries that have atomic weapons, and there are others who are beginning to look at developing atomic weapons.

I think this is a bad idea.

Nuclear non-proliferation is where we should go.

But I think the lessons for today are that fortunately, there never has been another use of atomic weapons.

International law continues to say that atomic weapons are legal, but most scholars think that the only legitimate reason that you could ever use a nuclear bomb would be because the existence of your nation state itself was threatened.

So I think that's where we are.

And I think the lessons are, Truman made the right decision, in my opinion, it was a reasonable decision at the time, and I think that today, the Japanese would probably agree that for all the horrors of atomic warfare, Japan is a better place.

- So Fred, we were talking before we're taping this episode, and you mentioned, or you said, that the technology of war has changed over the course of history.

And if you go back to the earliest days, you're talking spears and swords, and now today, the most advanced weapon is an atomic weapon.

So, technology changes, will continue to change.

That's the way the world works.

But, and this is what really stuck in my mind, but human thinking doesn't change that much.

It's static.

How people react to events, whether they're military leaders, political leaders, or ordinary people, that is pretty much set.

You know, our brains have not evolved the way technology has.

Talk about that.

I found that absolutely fascinating and true.

- Well, my point is that tremendous changes of technology over the last 25 years, 50 years, 100 years.

I mean, look at how warfare has already been upended because of the appearance of drones on the battlefield.

I mean, the big lesson from the ongoing war in Ukraine is the power of unmanned aerial vehicles, drones.

But what I argue and what I said to you was that even though technology has changed, the one constant is humans.

That human beings, what makes us happy, angry, sad, upset, is no different than what made our grandparents or our great-great-great grandparents happy, upset, angry.

And so, although history doesn't repeat itself, because human beings are a constant in the unfolding of life and history, that is the one thing that hasn't changed.

And I think my point was, that's why if you're really going to be successful as a diplomat, as a politician, as a person, you've gotta have empathy.

You've got to be able to be empathetic and be able to understand how someone else is thinking about an issue.

- Yeah, it seems to me like that is perhaps the fruit of your lived experience, but also the fruit of some study of history.

And I'm wondering, given all that you've done in your career, where you think we are as a society and the way we value the study of history today.

- Well, (laughs) we don't study history enough.

- Yeah.

- We should study it a lot more.

I think, for example, the United States could have avoided a lot of problems in Afghanistan if we'd studied the experience of the Soviets in Afghanistan and the British in Afghanistan.

Look, I believe in American exceptionalism.

I think America is an exceptional country.

I feel very lucky to live here.

But we've made some mistakes, and we could do a lot better as Americans if we would study history so that we could better understand how other people think about things.

The other thing that I'd leave you with is we don't do enough worst case scenario building.

You know, we go in with a decision, but what we really need to do is decide, what's the worst case here that can happen?

Hey, we think this is gonna work, but what if it doesn't?

So for example, suppose we're not able to destroy the Iranian nuclear program.

What happens next?

What's the worst case scenario?

Have we planned for this?

And I think that's one of the lessons.

And by the way, you should be worst casing everything in your own decisions in life.

- I think that's great advice.

- It is.

- And I gotta tell you, Fred, this has been a great conversation.

We're so grateful to you for spending some time with us.

But that is all the time we have this week for "Story in the Public Square".

If you wanna know more about the show, you can find us at salve.edu/pell-center, where you can always catch up on previous episodes.

He's Wayne, I'm Jim, asking you to join us again next time for more "Story in the Public Square".

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