Feedback | 6 August 2005

The evil of Hiroshima

Andrew Kenny’s article on the blessedness of dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima had an unpleasant whiff of 1945 propaganda (‘Giving thanks for Hiroshima’, 30 July). He seems to base his views on his own visits to Hiroshima in modern times, and on the opinions of British people who in 1945 were fed the lie that unless the bomb had been dropped, the war would have continued with great loss of life. A more dispassionate historical understanding suggests that the reason the Americans dropped the bomb when they did was to prevent the Russians entering and dominating the Pacific theatre of war. It had nothing to do with the blustering rhetoric of Japanese army officers saying they would force everyone to fight on to the end. It was Albert Einstein in 1946 who stated that the bomb was ‘precipitated by a desire to end the war in the Pacific by any means before Russia’s participation.