Hiroshima in America, were the American people told the truth, in the creation of that national consensus described by Theoharis as existing by 1950?
The essay in response to this question should be 4 double-spaced pages in length, and contain citations in ‘scientific notation’ form for quoted and paraphrased materials — example: (Lifton/Mitchell, p.29) or (Hiroshima, p.29). Note: there is no need of a bibliography or ‘works cited’ page because students will be using only materials available within the course! I need someone who has the book Hiroshima in America by Robert Jay Lifton & Greg Mitchell because only in text citation is allowed for the essay and it has to be from this book.
Here is the Essay Question and brief summary about the question. You can find the question at the very bottom.
As described in Gar Alperovitz’s Atomic Diplomacy, at the time of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki there was a significant and persistent opposition to that bombing from within the narrow community of individuals aware of the Manhattan Project whose patriotism was above reproach. However, five years later and still to the present, that same criticism would be viewed as heresy or worse, participated in exclusively by malcontents or worse. The characteristics of this perspective were identified by historian Alan Theoharis in the following quotation:
“Indeed by 1950 many Americans had come to believe that: (1) the Soviet Union had a definite strategy for the eventual communization of the world; (2) Soviet actions directly threatened the security of the United States; (3) that threat could assume the form of direct aggression or subversion; (4) the basic impetus to any revolutionary or radical political change was a Moscow- directed Communist conspiracy; (5) superior military power was essential to achieving peace and security; (6) a diplomacy of compromise and concession was in effect a form of appeasement and betrayal; (7) American objectives were altruistic and humanitarian; (8) the United States – because omnipotent – could shape the world to conform to American ideals and principles; (9) the God-fearing United States had to triumph over godless communism; (10) international options were clear-cut and definable in terms of good versus evil; (11) the U.S. confrontation with the Soviet Union demanded not only the containment of Soviet expansion but the liberation of ‘enslaved peoples;’ and (12) Communist leaders whether in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, or China, lacked a popular base of support and were able to remain in power only through terror and subversion.”
The Truman Doctrine began the American pursuit of communist containment. Since that time this doctrine has been extended to a global policy (NSC-68); however, though that policy has been the consensus policy of the United States Government officially since 1947, it was developed in the knowledge that the American people would not have consented to the U.S.’s intervention in Greece unless it was presented as a global threat, which would, in the words of Republican Senator Arthur Vandenburg, “Scare the hell out of the American people.” As one historian has stated the case, “while it is gratifying to think that the government has believed it necessary to lie to the American public while conducting dubious policies, it is much less flattering that it has been so easy.”
Considering the consensus agenda outlined in the Theoharis quotation above, evaluate the extent to which the public’s knowledge of truth in America’s ‘free society’ has been the foundation of that created popular consensus on the national public policy surrounding the time from the use of the Atomic Bomb to the Truman Doctrine (March, 1947). Though the implications of this question may extend to present events, please confine your analysis to the period from the use of the bomb on Hiroshima to the Truman Doctrine using evidence available from lecture and Lifton/Mitchell’s Hiroshima in America. The essay is not to be a referendum on whether or not the bomb should have been used, but rather how that use and the policies founded as a consequence of the bomb were presented to create a national consensus on foreign policy. Basically, were the American people told the truth, in the creation of that national consensus described by Theoharis as existing by 1950?
Note: Though analogies can serve as an encouragement to analysis, they can never stand as a replacement for it. Please avoid analogies, and stick to the evidence available, and your evaluation of it!