As Aug. 6 approaches each year, I cannot help wondering how my best friend perished in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. Possibly, like many other children, he was burned to death under a collapsed school, where I found the scattered, burned bones of children a few days after the bombing. He was just one of millions of people who had been driven into an impossible situation, with no choice but to die in a war that Japan started.
The Hiroshima bombing was a tragedy in the final chapter of the war. I have been asking if it could have been avoided. Two events were decisive: The first was the rejection by the Japanese government of the Potsdam Declaration of July 26, 1945 -- the ultimatum calling for Japan's unconditional surrender -- on the ground that it could prevent preservation of the emperor system. Maintenance of the Establishment was considered more important than the lives of the people.
The second event was the death of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. According to a study by Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell, Roosevelt had discussed with certain individuals whether the bomb should be held up only as a threat. He and investment banker Alexander Sachs had explored, as an alternative, dropping the first bomb so that it could be viewed by representatives of neutral nations, and the second bomb on an island off the coast of Japan following a proper warning.