The United States and the Second World War: New Perspectives on Diplomacy, War, and the Home Front

11. Hiroshima and the U.S. Peace Movement: Commemoration of August 6, 1948–1960

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c h a p t e r e l e v e n ........................................................... hiroshima and the u.s. peace movement: commemoration of august 6, 1948–1960 Rieko Asai For more than 60 years, Americans have showed remarkable ambiguity concerning the use of the atomic bomb during World War II. In the immediate postwar years, there emerged triumphal narratives, which maintained that the atomic attack on Japan ended the ferocious war and saved numerous American lives that would have been lost in the event of a U.S. invasion. Although a majority of Americans accepted this discourse, concerned minorities expressed grave antagonism and publicly criticized the use of atomic weapons as a moral wrong and a strategic mistake. Later, during the 1960s, diplomatic historians challenged the mainstream narrative through their analysis of historical circumstances surrounding the decision to use the bomb in 1945. Although many disapproved of the socalled leftist historians, the debate between the orthodox and revisionist camps is one of the few scholarly debates that the general public pays attention to.1 The Enola Gay controversy in 1995 highlighted the fierce rivalry between the competing narratives.2 This chapter attempts to examine the role that the U.S. peace movement played in shaping the public memory of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Peace protestors led the dissent against U.S. nuclear weapons policies, and these protestors clearly used the memory of Hiroshima to strengthen their position. Although there are many studies on the public memory of Hiroshima, the views of antinuclear activists have not been fully explored by scholars. Researchers such as Lifton, Mitchell, and Boyer argue that while activists strongly challenged the nuclear arms race and invoked Hiroshima as a symbol of the nuclear threat, they avoided criticizing the use of the bomb in 1945.3 In general, scholars who specialize in the history of the nuclear disarmament movement have not paid close attention to antinuclear activists’ views on the decision to use the bomb against Japan.4 Taking these scholarly works into consideration, this chapter deals with the public commemoration of August 6, known as Hiroshima Day. The date has offered an excellent opportunity for Americans to remember that tragic event in 1945. Since the end of the war, peace activists as well as peace-minded people have held observances every year on August 6 to mark the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Especially in the early 1960s and early 1980s when the anti-nuclear weapons movement flourished, many peace groups and individuals conducted demonstrations, rallies, vigils, and so on. These commemorations succinctly show how the U.S. peace movement formulated the collective memory of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. This chapter particularly pays attention to public commemorations held from the late 1940s through the early 1960s, when the nuclear disarmament movement experienced great ebbs and flows. Closely examining the style of commemoration as well as its content, the chapter shows how peace activists marked this anniversary and memorialize the Hiroshima bombing, as well as what kind of messages they intended to convey to other Americans . Yoneyama argues that possessing and showing each person’s own memories is inseparably linked to ‘‘questions of power and autonomy.’’5 How did peace activists present Hiroshima while resisting the dominant discourse? This study also explores how international and domestic issues affected how peace groups commemorated the anniversary of the bombing. Furthermore, it examines the media’s role in shaping the commemorations by investigating how media bias influenced the way in which activists observed the anniversary.6 This work demonstrates that meanings other than that of a symbol of nuclear dangers have been attached to Hiroshima since the late 1940s, but Hiroshima as a symbol of nuclear menace came to dominate activists’ rhetoric in the early 1960s. The chapter concludes by following the process of the dehistoricization of Hiroshima up to the 1980s and contemplating its meaning in relation to the formation of the public memory of Hiroshima. 334 : Hiroshima and the U.S. Peace Movement commemoration of hiroshima as a world movement The essential part of the public memory of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was largely formulated in the very early phase of the Cold War and has been generally uncontested. Most researchers point out that the official narrative given by American political leaders was decisive in forming the public memory of Hiroshima. The first influential official narrative was President Harry...