[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 137 (Wednesday, September 6, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12746-S12748]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


 COMMEMORATION OF THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FORMAL SURRENDER OF THE 
                            EMPIRE OF JAPAN

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise to offer my thoughts on the occasion 
of the 50th anniversary of the formal surrender of the Empire of Japan 
and the end of World War II.
  Mr. President, September 2, 1995, marked the day, 50 years ago, that 
the Empire of Japan signed documents of surrender aboard the U.S.S. 
Missouri in Tokyo Bay, formally ending World War II. It is fitting that 
America commemorated the anniversary of this most pivotal event in 
human history--the victory of the free world over three irredeemable 
regimes in which human evil was institutionalized and directed toward 
world conquest: Germany's naziism, Italy's fascism, and Japan's 
militaristic imperialism.
  In the 2,194 days of World War II, more than 50 million human beings 
lost their lives. This horrific total includes nearly 300,000 Americans 
killed in combat, six million Jews murdered in Europe, and one million 
Chinese slain in the Japanese rape of Nanking.
  Fifty years ago, a vicious war had finally ended, but ancient cities 
lay in ruins. Mighty armies had been vanquished. Proud cultures had 
been decimated. But today, one overriding truth has gradually become 
clear: Though much was lost, far more has since been gained.
  In the European theater, World War II saw the indescribable bravery 
of American teenagers at Normandy and Pointe du Hoc, and the 
unfathomable butchery of the Third Reich. In the Pacific, the hallowed 
places of valor, suffering, and self-sacrifice continue to echo down 
the halls of American history: Bataan, Corregidor, Midway, Iwo Jima, 
Okinawa.
  The vast scope of World War II encompassed the final cavalry charge 
and the first wartime use of the atomic bomb. It is fitting and proper 
that, 50 years after the end of this conflict, all Americans quietly 
reflect upon the meaning of the war, and, in particular, upon the 
awesome destructive power unleashed by these bombs dropped on Hiroshima 
and Nagasaki from a U.S. Air Force B-29, killing 200,000. This act of 
American servicemen, done in our name, does not make them--or us--
warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier, sailor, and aviator above all 
yearn for peace--even while obeying all moral and reasonable orders of 
civilian leaders--because he or she endures the greatest fear and 
anguish from war.
  Mr. President, our ongoing national debate over the propriety of 
America's use of these weapons reflects an active national moral 
conscience. It is an indication that Americans continue to care about 
what was done by their Government in their name. It signals our 
appreciation that national choices have moral consequences for which 
all Americans are responsible. In the case 

[[Page S 12747]]
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, these consequences continue to reverberate 
through American and world history.
  Fifty years after the fact, it is difficult to recapture the national 
mood and historical context of August 1945. The temptation of latter-
day historians is to narrowly focus on only these two events--as 
destructive and horrible as Hiroshima and Nagasaki were--apart from the 
historical context in which they occurred. This is sometimes done with 
the intent to advance a particular agenda or political point of view. 
This tendency, known as historical revisionism, was recently seen in 
the controversy over the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian, and in 
the debate over changing ``V-J Day'' to ``Victory in the War of the 
Pacific,'' to avoid offending Japanese sensitivities.
  Hiroshima and Nagasaki cannot be accurately assessed in the abstract. 
These events are directly linked to Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Bataan, and, of 
course, Pearl Harbor, where the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial bears silent 
witness to the memory of 1,177 American sailors who died on the morning 
of December 7, 1941. The average age of the 1,102 who, to this day, 
remain entombed in the Arizona's watery grave, is 18. These teenaged 
sailors were heroes before they were men.
  Some armchair historians, safely ensconced in ivory towers, issue 
moral condemnations of the very acts of war that saved American lives 
and, in large measure, preserved their freedom to issue those 
condemnations. They enjoy the benefits of freedom--particularly, the 
freedom to dissent--with little appreciation of its costs. They don't 
adequately appreciate that freedom is not free, but has been purchased 
with the blood of young Americans whose names they will never know. In 
re-writing the events that preserved their freedom, and the freedom of 
much of the world, they engage in more than dubious scholarship; they 
dishonor the memory of those of whom General MacArthur said, ``they 
fought and died * * * and left the air singed with their honor.''
  A credible historian must endeavor to learn the lessons of history. 
To learn these lessons, he or she must know the facts on which the 
lessons are based.
  Mr. President, to fairly evaluate Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the 
historian must strive to see the world as Truman saw it, and to fully 
embrace the objective facts that he confronted. In this evaluation, all 
are entitled to their own opinions; none are entitled to their own 
facts. And facts can be stubborn things. What were the facts on which 
Truman based his fateful decision to use the atomic bomb?
  Truman, as Commander in Chief, was responsible, not only for 
determining and prosecuting military strategy, but also for the lives 
of his troops. As a World War I combat veteran, he knew well the 
brutality of war, and regarded his duty to minimize American casualties 
to be a sacred moral obligation. One can only imagine the firestorm of 
criticism if, in 1947, it was revealed that America had a weapon--no 
matter how destructive or horrible--that just might have saved American 
lives had it been used. George Elsey, a young naval intelligence 
officer in constant contact with Truman prior to and at the time the 
decision was made, believes that ``the answer is impeachment.''
  Truman knew well the high cost already paid in taking back the 
Pacific islands: Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Midway. At Iwo Jima--
where, in the immortal words of Adm. Chester Nimitz, ``uncommon valor 
was a common virtue''--more marines were killed than in the entire 
Korean war.
  And then, there was Okinawa, the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War 
and the last great engagement of World War II. Okinawa demonstrated 
with brutal clarity how viciously the Japanese would fight to defend 
their home islands. Nearly 190,000 Army and Marine combat troops and an 
armada of 1,200 ships--second in size only to the Normandy invasion--
began the assault. In less than three months of battle, 12,000 
Americans were killed, a total representing nearly 25 percent of all 
the American deaths from 9 years of war in Vietnam. A 19-year-old 
soldier wrote of the butchery of Okinawa in his last letter home 2 days 
before he was killed: ``the fear is not so much of death itself * * * 
[as it is] the terror and anguish and utter horror in the final moments 
that precede death in this battle.''
  The losses suffered by American ships and sailors at Okinawa remain 
the greatest in world naval history: 30 ships sunk, 368 damaged, and 
more than 5,000 sailors killed by kamikaze attacks during a battle 
fought after it was clear to the world that Japan had lost the war.
  Mr. President, using Iwo Jima and Okinawa as a measure, according to 
a Pentagon briefing received by Truman, a minimum of 250,000 and as 
many as 600,000 American lives would be lost in an invasion of the home 
islands, predicted to be fought out for over a year, island by island, 
beach by beach, cave to cave, and, in the end, hand to hand. Douglas 
MacArthur and Winston Churchill both estimated that one million allied 
soldiers would be killed in an invasion of Honshu, Hokkaido, Shikoku, 
and Kyushu, the Japanese home islands.
  The Pentagon predicted 20,000 Americans would die in the first month 
alone. For Truman, this potential human cost was intolerable. If there 
was a way--any way--to avoid such bloodshed, it seemed worth taking. 
Historian David McCollough said the explanation for why Truman used the 
bomb was one word: ``Okinawa. He wanted to stop the killing.''
  I believe this one fact, standing alone, fully justified Truman's 
decision to use the atom bomb on Japan: Not one American life was lost 
in an invasion of the heavily fortified home islands of the Empire of 
Japan.
  Additional facts also support Truman's decision. Some revisionists 
argue that the bomb was unnecessary because Japan was planning to 
surrender. This is plainly refuted by the facts. Three days after the 
Enola Gay dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, killing 70,000 people and 
virtually destroying the city, the Chief of Staff of the Japanese Army, 
Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu, assured the Supreme War Council meeting in Tokyo 
that his troops could ``turn back the invading American force and get 
better terms than the unconditional surrender'' demanded by the Allies. 
On August 9, in a meeting in his bomb shelter, Umezu was interrupted by 
an officer who announced that a second nuclear weapon had been dropped 
on Nagasaki. The General's response: ``I can say with confidence that 
we will be able to destroy the major part of an invading force.''
  The Japanese leadership was caught between a realization of the 
inevitability of defeat and their cultural tradition in which suicide 
was honorable, and surrender was sacrilege. They did not want a 
negotiated peace. They chose, instead, to commit national suicide. As 
the Japanese War Minister, General Anami, said, ``would it not be 
wondrous for this whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful 
flower?''
  Emperor Hirohito's war-ending statement confirmed the role the atomic 
bombs played in ending the war. Hirohito cited the atomic bomb, which 
Japan was then hurriedly developing, in his taped broadcast to the 
nation announcing Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945. ``The enemy has 
begun to employ a most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is 
indeed incalculable. To continue would result in the collapse and 
obliteration of the Japanese nation.''
  So, in assessing whether the atomic bomb was needed to shorten the 
war and to save the lives of American and Allied soldiers, let us not 
forget: The surrender of Japan did not occur until 5 days after the 
second atomic bomb was dropped.
  Americans must not glorify in what was done at Hiroshima and 
Nagasaki, but neither should we apologize for it. It is indeed a 
paradox of the 20th century that the weapons of war are, at times, 
necessary to end war, to prevent war, and to advance the cause of 
peace. But, in view of the war's end and the 50 year peace that has 
ensued, Pacific war veterans can take pride in just that.
  In August 1995, Japan is endowed with political stability and is a 
thriving nation of human freedom and enterprise. The rubble of war has, 
phoenix-like, arisen from the ashes as an international center of 
democracy, culture, and learning. It is a historical aberration that 
the vanquished of August 1945 arguably benefited more than the victors. 
World War II freed the Japanese and German people from evil, 
destructive regimes and re-directed their national potential in ways 
that have brought their people, and the world, 

[[Page S 12748]]
unquantifiable economic, political, and cultural benefits. Japan, with 
few natural resources, now produces over 10 percent of the world's 
goods and services, and has become our friend and ally, our partner in 
peace and economic enterprise, a source of stability in the bustling 
Pacific rim, and a major engine of international commerce.
  So, as we commemorate the 50 years of peace and stability that began 
at the end of World War II, let us not forget the ultimate sacrifice 
made by 300,000 young American soldiers, sailors, and aviators who 
accomplished the redemption of the Earth.
  Surely, these young men and women from Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, 
Missouri, and every other State of the Union, realized the risks they 
ran and the ultimate price that they might pay. But they also knew 
that, while the price of freedom is high, the price of oppression is 
far higher. With the courage of this conviction, they willingly offered 
their lives to defend transcendent principle and to preserve the 
promise of freedom for fellow human beings born and yet unborn. They 
fought for neither power nor treasure, and the only foreign land they 
now revere lies beneath countless crosses and Stars of David where 
their fallen comrades rest.
  America's World War II veterans embody all that is strong, noble and 
true about this Nation. They and their departed friends--and all others 
who have protected the United States in peacetime and in war--served as 
good soldiers and good citizens. Their high standard of allegiance has 
enriched our national consciousness and has cultivated and sustained a 
sense of purpose and patriotism in Americans across this great land. In 
selflessly laying their lives on the line, they helped ensure that, 
throughout the world, the strong are just, the weak secure, and the 
peace preserved for generations to come.
  Mr. President, in this year of commemoration, I know I share the 
sentiments of all Americans in saying to World War II veterans and 
their families: I salute you. Your country thanks you. God bless each 
of you.


                          ____________________