Arch Taylor looks at US interpretations and uses of the attacks on Pearl Harbor and later on Hiroshima as an example of our "subversion of values"

Witherspoon Issues Analyst Gene TeSelle reviews his book
[9-28-05]

In Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, and Beyond: Subversion of Values, Arch B. Taylor, Jr., who served as a Presbyterian minister in Japan for over thirty years, looks at two key events — the beginning and the end of the war in the Pacific. He has had many reasons to look at the relations between the two countries during the Second World War — and at the many questions they have raised with each other, and with themselves, from then until now.

He begins by pointing out that Japan has never apologized for Pearl Harbor, and that most US leaders have defended the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as militarily necessary and a justified retaliation for Japan's sins.

Taylor summarizes the issues early in the book (p. 3),

To most Americans, "Pearl Harbor" symbolizes that Americans are a virtuous people who are forced to self-defense only when perfidious enemies attack us. "Hiroshima" symbolizes that the application of destructive power can accomplish desirable ends, and the greater the power the greater the accomplishment.

That is the logic that prevails today. President Bush in his second inaugural address in 2005 evoked images of innocent American victimhood and the righteous use of American power for the good of all.

Relying chiefly on Robert B. Stinnett's Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor (Simon & Schuster, 2000), Taylor surveys the evidence that FDR, wanting to get the US into the war in Europe, enticed the Japanese attack through a series of provocations; that the Japanese codes had already been broken and the location of its fleet northwest of Hawaii was known; and that the commanders in Hawaii, Kimmel and Short, were kept uninformed so that the attack would occur and they could be made scapegoats.

Much of this is bound to be controversial, although there has been amazingly little informed rebuttal. One bothersome issue is why an attack would be provoked in the Pacific, when the basic motivation was to go to the aid of Britain against Hitler (in fact, one of Hitler's inexplicably blunders was to declare war on the US a few days after Pearl Harbor, thus bringing the US into his war when it might not have done so on its own initiative).

But the hypothesis is a credible one. Democracies do not go to war unless they are attacked. After South Carolina seceded from the Union, Lincoln did not dare start hostilities. Instead he resupplied Fort Sumter, putting the Confederates in a dilemma; they had to attack or look weak. If we suppose that FDR had thoughts along these lines, it does not mean that he foresaw the drastic losses in ships, planes, and personnel that actually occurred.

The way the war with Japan was ended has been even more contentious. Taylor reminds us that a key player like Henry Stimson initially condemned Britain's saturation bombing of German cities, then changed his attitude and approved the fire-bombing of Tokyo, supported the dropping of the A-bombs, but then told a friend,

I think the full enumeration of the steps in the tragedy will excite horror among friends who heretofore thought me a kindly-minded Christian gentleman but who will, after reading this, feel I am cold-blooded and cruel (p. 28).

Taylor carefully traces the chronology: the determination of Harry Truman (following FDR's lead) to drop the bomb; knowledge that Japan was really unable to defend itself; refusal to open the way for negotiations; gratitude for the ending of the war, accompanied by shock at the way it was done (Time said that it "created a bottomless wound in the living conscience of the race").

There was a total military clampdown on reporting about bomb damage, creating a silence that was overcome by John Hersey's Hiroshima, first published in the New Yorker in August, 1946. It was after this that defenders of the bomb put forth the argument that thousands of US troops would have died in an amphibious assault on Japan. Taylor's wry comment is that it is ironic that veterans would want to credit the bomb for a victory that had already been achieved by soldiers and sailors in combat (p. 25).

He goes on to remind us that MacArthur and the occupying forces rebuffed the genuinely progressive elements in Japan; pretended that Emperor Hirohito had no responsibility for the war when everyone knew this was not true; rehabilitated several war criminals so that they could become political leaders; channeled funds to the Liberal Democratic party which still holds power; and eventually got their permission for permanent US bases in Japan — and covert permission to bring nuclear weapons into the country.

The overall thrust of the book is suggested by its subtitle: there has been a subversion of the values that Americans like to imagine they support, and these two "bookend" events of the Second World War are only a sample of the perversions wrought in US foreign policy through the decades.

Setting these and other events in biblical context, Taylor takes as his theme God's message to Samuel when the people of Israel desire a king like all the nations (1 Sam 8:11-20). The verb "take," he notes, is used ten times to list all the things that a king is likely to do. He goes through the biblical story, contrasting people with nations (states would actually be a more accurate term). Through their actions, the people of Israel become one more nation or state. And yet there is the promise that the nations will beat their spears into pruning hooks (Isa 2:4, Mic 4:3). Jesus and especially Paul broadened the concept of people to include all the nations, the goyim. Let them all think of themselves as God's people, Taylor says; otherwise they will keep on doing what the nations have always done (pp. 73, 76, 91, 95).

Arch Taylor has been active with Witness for Peace and the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship. It is not a surprise, then, that he ends the book by mentioning that nonviolence ended the dictatorial regimes in Eastern Europe and enabled people in the Philippines to replace Marcos. In an appendix he suggests Christian and interreligious vows of nonviolence, a statement of forgiveness over Pearl Harbor, and a petition for forgiveness over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then he offers a list of organizations and printed resources for peacemaking.

The book can be ordered From Arch Taylor, 2200 Greentree N. #1200, Clarksville, IN 47129. Price: $10 including postage (check only); 5 copies to same address, $9 each.