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Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima & Beyond: Subversion of Values
by Arch B. Taylor Jr.
98 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #05-0981; ISBN 1-4120-6080-x; US$14.50, C$17.00, EUR12.00, £8.50
''The nuclear bombing of Japan was not needed to end the war. What it says about the soul of America is the real story. This book should be read by everyone,'' says Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator of
The attack on Pearl Harbor and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki define for many Americans the momentous twentieth century. The evil Japanese empire attacked innocent Americans and forced us into an unwanted war. As payback we ended the war with the Bomb, and at the same time we prevented the loss of millions of lives that an invasion of Japan would have cost. We believe that we fight only when enemies attack us, and that by imposing overwhelming power we accomplish great good.
Skilled researchers using previously classified documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) now tell us that President Franklin D. Roosevelt followed a careful strategy to entice Japan to attack Pearl Harbor to get us into World War II. Soon after the bombs incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, authorities learned that Japan was on the brink of defeat and would have surrendered without the Bomb. Our government concealed the evidence and led us to believe that this terrible weapon made deadly invasion unnecessary, and therefore the Bomb is really good.
Author Taylor describes how this flawed self-image of America as innocent victim accomplishing good by overwhelming power subverted moral and ethical values. We are on course that many people see as imperialistic and threatening to ourselves and to the world. Taylor brings to bear a Christian biblical perspective on this condition and offers suggestions for healing.
Arch B. Taylor, Jr. is an ordained Presbyterian minister who served for over thirty years in Japan and taught Bible at Shikoku Gakuin University. After retirement he went on short delegations twice to Nicaragua, with Witness for Peace and Habitat for Humanity, and once to Israel/Palestine wth Presbyterian Peace Fellowship and Christian Peacemaker Teams.
Arch Taylor writes about a very important subject. His story about Hiroshima and Nagasaki must be told over and over again. The U.S. nuclear bombing of Japan was not needed to end the war. What it says about the soul of America is the real story. This book should be read by everyone.
Bruce Gagnon, Global Network Against Weapons and Power in Space, www.space4peace.com.
I certainly agree with your estimate of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I am with you in trying to spread a culture of non-violence in our violent times.
Howard Zinn, Columnist, author of People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present.
In retrospect, what may have seemed to be a good thing at the time may not be viewed as good at all. Some people are raising questions about the atomic blasts in Japan. It is important for us to listen to those critics because if we make mistakes in history and do not learn from them, we are apt to repeat them. This book is worthy of serious consideration to help us in the process.
Tony Campolo, PhD, Eastern University, author of Speaking My Mind: The Radical Evangelical Prophet Tackles the Tough Issues Christians Are Afraid to Face.
To most Americans, "Pearl Harbor" symbolizes that Americans are a virtuous people who are forced to self-defence 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. Ever since then, we have set our national policy on a course detrimental to our true national interests that poses a threat to the planet. Far from accomplishing good, nuclear weapons make it possible for human beings to destroy all life. [page 3]
Even though so many Americans instinctively link Pearl Harbor and
Hiroshima in their minds as the start and the finish of the Pacific War,
these two events are, in a real sense, incomparable. Though Pearl Harbor
did start the war, Hiroshima, far from ending it, introduced a new
paradigm into the culture of war: nuclear weapons with preternatural
destructive power. These weapons can destroy not only those against whom
they are used, but also those who use them, indeed all human life on
earth. [page 54]
In the North Garden of the United Nations Headquarters building in New York City there stands the bronze sculpture by Soviet artist Evgeny Buchetich presented by the government of the USSR in 1959. It depicts a man wielding a hammer in one hand to make a plowshare out of a sword, which he holds in the other. The inscription reads: "Let us beat our swords into ploughshares." Underlying these words is a biblical text that is found in two different places in the Old Testament, Isaiah 2.4 and Micah 4.3: "[God] shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." It seems ironical that the eastern superstate placed this idealistic icon on the ground of the western superstate, during the time when both were more likely to have been beating plowshares into swords against each other. Now the surviving superstate seems more bent than ever on starving the national budget for peaceful purposes such as health, housing, education, and other human services, in order to bloat a so-called defense budget that already surpasses the total military expenses of all the other nations of the world. Nations will keep on doing what nations always do, until people appreciate and assert their divine nature as children of God and begin to act on that nature. [page 68]
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