President Harry S. Truman’s decision to drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945 was “inhumane and horrific,” Russia claimed on Monday.
“Today marks 73 years since the inhumane and horrific A-bombing of [Hiroshima] — not a military target but a city full of civilians incl[uding] women & children,” the Russian Embassy in South Africa tweeted. “6 August 1945 will forever remain a tragic date in human history. Such tragedy should never be ignored or forgotten.”
U.S. officials decided to strike Hiroshima in order to make a “spectacular” display of American power and break Japan’s willingness to continue the war; by that logic, the success of that mission depended on destroying a major urban area, although the Truman administration made sure to strike a city with military targets.
“The human and material destruction would be obvious,” Capt. William Parsons, associate director of Los Alamos Ordnance Division, argued at various points in the debate, per the Atlantic. “The reaction of observers to a desert shot would be one of intense disappointment.”
Air Force bombers dropped leaflets on Hiroshima urging civilians to evacuate. “We are determined to destroy all of the tools of the military clique which they are using to prolong this useless war,” the messages warned. “But, unfortunately, bombs have no eyes. So, in accordance with America’s humanitarian policies, the American Air Force, which does not wish to injure innocent people, now gives you warning to evacuate the cities named and save your lives.”
That the criticism from Russia comes from the former Cold War rival’s diplomats in South Africa is perhaps a sign of Russian efforts to maintain goodwill at the expense of the United States in that country.
“South Africa is important to Russia’s quest to push back at the U.S.-led international order,” as a recent report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace noted. “Yet by trying to pull South Africa away from Western norms and encourage its backsliding on rule of law, free market principles, and democratic practices, Moscow hopes South Africa can be part of a coalition of rising powers willing to challenge the Western-dominated international system.”
The decision to use nuclear weapons to end the war with Japan has diminished in popularity among Americans in recent years, as then-President Barack Obama all but apologized for the attack during a 2016 visit to Hiroshima.
“We have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again,” Obama said. “Some day, the voices of the hibakusha will no longer be with us to bear witness. But the memory of the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, must never fade. That memory allows us to fight complacency. It fuels our moral imagination. It allows us to change.”
