Keeping Stalin in the dark
From Clarke Hayes Sir: It is true that the Russians were late in entering the war against the Japanese (Letters, 26 June) but the situation in the Pacific was not as simple as Professor Senn implies.
Truman distrusted Stalin. He did not encourage a rapid Soviet advance into the Pacific theatre, believing that undue Soviet engagement there threatened the region, and Japan in particular. Truman feared a Berlin situation developing in Tokyo or, worse, a full-scale communist insurgency in Japan. So, just two days after the conclusion of the Potsdam conference, the Enola Gay took flight. Attlee had been informed that the atomic bomb was ready: Stalin had not. It is argued, persuasively, that Truman unleashed the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to crush Japan completely before Russian forces engaged substantially with the Japanese, and certainly before they could gain a foothold on the Japanese mainland.
It worked. As every student of the Pacific war knows, `MacArthur-san' ruled Japan singlehandedly as Supreme Commander Allied Powers (Scap) from September 1945 until he was recalled by Truman in 1950 for insubordination. Scap, which was also the term for the occupation administration, wrote the Japanese constitution and, in 1952, elections were held under it; Scap was dissolved and Japan again became a sovereign state. A case of keeping Japan safe for capitalism.
Clarke Hayes
Hastings, East Sussex
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