
A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015) - pmoriarty
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33755182
======
someperson
On this historic day (exactly 75 years to the day since the August 9 1945
atomic bombing of Nagasaki) we should take a moment to understand more about
our shared history.

> But he was also behind the internment of more than 100,000 Japanese
> Americans because, as Mr Stimson put it, "their racial characteristics are
> such that we cannot understand or trust even the citizen Japanese".

The internment of Japanese-Americans is a blight on United States history [1],
as is the gold rush era Chinese Exclusion Act [2] ("the first law implemented
to prevent all members of a specific ethnic or national group from
immigrating" to the United States), as was the 1950s "Red Scare" [3] (where
accusations of being Communist spies were made without evidence.)

As the United States enters into a (likely multi-decade long) second Cold War
and potential painful economic decoupling, it's worth knowing this history so
that the real problems the United States has identified with the Chinese
Communist Party can be addressed in accordance to the values the United States
exposes.

Especially with the presumption of innocence (innocent until proven guilty)
when it comes to individual people's lives, and the principle that everybody
is created equal.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's recent "Distrust and Verify" [4]
reformulation (of a famous Russian proverb) should definitely be applied
widely to counter the Chinese Communist Party threat, but great care must be
taken to ensure America's core values are always respected. Cold Wars are very
dangerous and vastly increase the risk of nuclear escalation, so it's vital we
all understand what's at stake.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust,_but_verify](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust,_but_verify)

~~~
Ma8ee
You write like there are dangers that the US might forget or lose their
values, like innocent until proven guilty or that everybody is created equal.

The US has never lived up to those. Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp (I hope no
one forgot about that one) or all the tragic events that ignited the BLM
movement are just current examples.

~~~
someperson
I don't disagree that the values of the United States have always been an
aspiration rather than actual reality.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that "All men are created equal" in 1776 as part of the
United States' founding principles, but it took until 1865 for slavery to even
be abolished in the United States. He even owned slaves himself and famously
bore 6 children with his slave, Sally Hemings. As recently as 155 years ago in
the United States, you could own people as property, and 70 years ago black
people couldn't drink out of the same drinking fountain as white people.

The US has always been a work in progress, and it's better to have some kind
of aspirational set of values (like presumption of innocence and equality)
that we should try and make sure our societies are living up to.

~~~
Ma8ee
Of course you should have aspirations! But many people seems to think that the
US is this shining light of enlightenment and democracy in the world that,
just a little bit, at a few occasions, forgotten they way.

But that is just not true. From slavery, Jim Crow, internment camps, McCarthy,
Vietnam, killing of “enemy combatants”, etc. You have never been even close to
the way.

~~~
barrenko
Trust me, to many non-Americans US remains the sole idea of a free country,
whatever happened over there so far.

~~~
Ma8ee
I can think of several west-European countries that are better models (even
though none are completely without faults).

~~~
pageandrew
Economic prosperity does not necessarily equal freedom.

~~~
Ma8ee
I wasn’t foremost considering economic prosperity. I’d say you are more free
in Western Europe too.

------
freeopinion
I grew up with a cold war era US-centric understanding of why Hiroshima and
Nagasaki had to happen. I get those arguments, Later I was taught a very
different, also compelling, rationale for Nagazaki from a Japanese
perspective. I get that argument, too.

I'm USian, so of course I like any argument that puts the US on the right side
of history. But as that moment gets more and more into the past, and we lose
the context of culture, etc of that time, what is left is that the US
intentionally killed thousands of civilians to demonstrate military prowess
and intimidate the opposition.

I've been taught the nuances. I've accepted them and perhaps even clung to
them. As time passes, even USians might feel less need to keep the memory of
those nuances alive. But the horror of that action doesn't go away.

I grew up learning about Christopher Columbus, and Pocahontas and Thomas
Jefferson, and all the narrative we learned decades ago. Especially lately
there has been a lot different version of much of those stories. Some see
people and actions of the past as heroic, others see them as hideous.

I do not personally condemn decision makers of WWII. I am grateful for the
sacrifices of past generations. But the fact remains that the US is the only
country in the history of the world that has ever used a nuclear weapon in
anger. That is extremely humbling.

~~~
im_down_w_otp
I, like you, learned all the rationalizations that got to be written in
history by the victor.

The point at which most of it started to unravel for me was when I learned
that the United States had a whole spate of atomic bombs they were scheduling
to drop if Imperial Japan didn't surrender. We think of it as two because
that's all the further we got, but if things had gone a little differently it
would have been six, eight, etc.

A willingness to cause that kind of unprecedented basically indiscriminate
devastation, well it forced me to look at the events that actually did happen
through a very different lens.

~~~
mardifoufs
That's a pretty absurd take. I mean, of course the bombing wouldn't have
stopped if there was no surrender...considering that was the whole point of
using nuclear bombs in the first place. I can't understand how 2 nuclear bombs
can be considered to be worse than the millions of deaths a land invasion of
Japan would have led to. I absolutely understand why the Americans weren't
willing to risk a conventional land war in Japan, considering the insanely
bitter Japanese resistance in Okinawa.

 _Everything_ indicated that Japan and it's civilian population was willing to
fight off an invasion at all costs, through the bitter end. The Americans
witnessed that absolute suicidal fanaticism in every single battle they've had
with the Japanese whether they were military or civilians. What's actually
"rationalization" is to pretend the Americans didn't try everything to
convince the Japanese to capitulate or to push for the disproven theory that
Japan was about to surrender anyways. I get that it's hard for some to
acknowledge that the US has ever done anything good, but there are already
tons of valid reasons to dislike America. This absolutely isn't one of them.

Btw in ww2, history seems to have been written mostly by the _losers_ who
pushed for the omnipresent "underdog" narratives that are usually nothing more
than outright historical revisionism . The Japanese white washing of their ww2
history or the german generals post war memoirs that started numerous myths
about the Werhmacht are proof of that. Ironically, one of those narratives is
the tired maxim that history is supposedly written by the winners, which is a
pretty convenient way for the losers to make their revisionism more
compelling.

~~~
brabel
> I can't understand how 2 nuclear bombs can be considered to be worse than
> the millions of deaths a land invasion of Japan would have led to.

You should definitely try to understand that. Perhaps if the bombs had been
targeted at LA or NY by Germans (who would certainly be as correct as you are
that doing that would've saved millions of lives in a potential invasion of
the USA by Germany once it was done in Europe) it would be easier for you to
understand that the potential for a future, prolongued military battle in no
way can be used as a justification for immediately killing hundreds of
thousands of civillians.

~~~
mardifoufs
I'm not european or american so no, I don't have a preference for who gets
nuked. Yet, there is a huge difference between Japan and Germany. The german
army was acting like a "regular army", that surrendered when it was hopeless
and did not have a religious desire to fight until the very end even if
suicide is necessary. Germany civilians were also not prone to join the army
in that bitter resistance until the end and weren't trained to fight with
bamboo spears if necessary. Also, the conquest of germany wasn't planned to
cause 1m american casualties and 5-10m japanese civilian and military
casualties and didn't require a contested landing that would have dwarfed the
one on DDay.

Again, it's pure non sense to advocate that those numbers would have been
better than 2 nuclear bombs because... at least it was conventional? And why
can't an assessment of the potential casualties be used as a justification?
Because that just sounds like grandstanding that completely ignore the reality
of the war in the pacific.

Not only that, but Germany was _still_ planned to be a target if it hadn't
surrendered by the time the bombs were ready. So yes, it could have happened,
but only the japanese were willing go fight until the very end. They had to be
shown that they would not die in a honorable resistance against the us forces,
but instead will simply get nuked with no chance of fighting or retaliating.

~~~
kubanczyk
Nope. The German command didn't act normally in this respect. They were in
hopeless situation since June 1944 (Operation Bagration) and continued to kill
and die for nonsensical reasons. They only surrendered after Hitler killed
himself.

~~~
mardifoufs
Sure, the high command was delusional or had nothing to lose, but for the most
part german units surrendered in massive numbers throughout 1945 especially to
the western allies. Same for germany cities, where civilians usually put up 0
resistance and were revelieved to see the war end. There is no comparison
possible imo, just look at the number of japanese war prisoners vs those from
germany

------
hhua_
One less known fact is that one of the advisors to US army back in WWII is Dr
Liang Sicheng
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liang_Sicheng](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liang_Sicheng).
He is the father of modern Chinese architecture. He recommended that the
Americans military authorities spare the ancient Japanese cities of Kyoto and
Nara.

He married with another legend Lin Huiyin, whose niece Maya Lin later designed
Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Lin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Lin)

~~~
someperson
The fact this claim has been at the top of this Hacker News thread for hours
piqued my interest. So I did some research.

I read the New York Times "Overlooked" obituary for Dr Liang Sicheng but found
no reference to this event. [1]. The closest thing I could find was [2] which
writes the following (and links to a currently-unavailable article hosted on
the government of China mouthpiece China Daily):

> During World War II, as Japan occupied Beijing and most of coastal China,
> Liang Sicheng was working in Sichuan. According to Luo Zhewen, a former
> student who frequently assisted Liang Sicheng in his research, Liang heard
> that the Allied forces were planning on bombing Japan and Japanese-
> controlled areas in China. Liang began drawing up a map of the major Chinese
> cities occupied by Japan as well as Japan’s former capitals, Nara and Kyoto
> to help American military planners avoid destroying important historic sites
> and buildings. Liang then traveled to Chongqing, the wartime capital of the
> Republic of China, and passed the maps to the US Army liaison stationed
> there.

The NYT article suggests Dr. Liang Sicheng was later in life sent to re-
education as a counterrevolutionary of Maoist China, but that he has had his
reputation revived by the CCP which turn him into a folk hero. I don't doubt
that he passed on maps and messages to the US Army in the hope of sparing
culturally important sites from bombing, but without further evidence the
claim that he was an advisor to the US military that convinced them to spare
Kyoto and Nara appears overblown.

I am happy to be convinced if independent historians believe Liang Sicheng had
a part to play in the decision, but right now this claim feels like highly-
upvoted CCP propaganda.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/obituaries/overlooked-
lin...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/obituaries/overlooked-lin-huiyin-
and-liang-sicheng.html)

[2] [https://radiichina.com/did-chinese-architect-liang-
sicheng-s...](https://radiichina.com/did-chinese-architect-liang-sicheng-save-
the-historic-sites-of-kyoto/)

~~~
pmachinery
> I am happy to be convinced if independent historians believe Liang Sicheng
> had a part to play in the decision, but right now this claim feels like
> highly-upvoted CCP propaganda.

Even for HN this is ridiculously paranoid.

~~~
someperson
I'm not saying the users upvoting are shills, just that the claim appears
amplified and disseminated through through CCP's official propaganda outlet
(China Daily is "owned by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of
China")

~~~
pmachinery
> I'm not saying the users upvoting are shills

Ah okay, sorry, I thought that's what you meant.

------
toto444
An interesting fact that you may not know about is that Von Neumann was
involved in the decision :

"Von Neumann, four other scientists, and various military personnel were
included in the target selection committee that was responsible for choosing
the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the first targets of the
atomic bomb. Von Neumann oversaw computations related to the expected size of
the bomb blasts, estimated death tolls, and the distance above the ground at
which the bombs should be detonated for optimum shock wave propagation and
thus maximum effect. The cultural capital Kyoto, which had been spared the
bombing inflicted upon militarily significant cities, was von Neumann's first
choice,[131] a selection seconded by Manhattan Project leader General Leslie
Groves. However, this target was dismissed by Secretary of War Henry L.
Stimson.[132]"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann)

------
Hokusai
I see how hard we are still trying to rationalize such a despicable act as the
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"We choose not to destroy cultural value" seems a compassion argument until
one realizes that the atomic bomb murdered more civilians that a conventional
attack would have killed. To try to justify the attack, to talk about the
process, the decisions, removes a very important part of the discussion. And
that is the consequences on the civil population.

I accept that talking about strategies and politics make sense. But, to remove
any human consideration from the discussion only makes us one step closer to
repeat the horrific acts of the past.

As we have seen so recently, facts do not change people's minds, but feelings
do. To talk about the effects on the population, to talk about the suffering
will help people to change their minds about using atomic bombs.

~~~
slightwinder
> until one realizes that the atomic bomb murdered more civilians that a
> conventional attack would have killed

The conventional bombings on Tokyo killed more people than any atomic bomb.

~~~
Hokusai
> The conventional bombings on Tokyo killed more people than any atomic bomb.

Tokyo had at the time a population of 1.1 million and 90,000 to 100,000 dead
on the bombing of March 10th 1945.

Hiroshima had at the time a population of 255,000 and 66,000 dead caused by
the atomic bomb.

You are right. It would have been way worse if the USA has attacked a more
populated area. The situations is no less horrific because it.

~~~
slightwinder
Speculation. Hiroshima was choosen to demonstrate the max destructive power.
If tokyo would have been a better candidate, they probably would have gone
with it.

And Tokyo is not a city, but a region. It has naturally more population
because of it's far bigger area. Whether population at the time was also
denser than in hiroshima back then, do you have data for this?

Anyway, the point is that it doesn't matter which tool you use. The death toll
depends more on the effort and will you put in, than on the bomb you use.

~~~
fomine3
> Hiroshima was choosen to demonstrate the max destructive power. If tokyo
> would have been a better candidate, they probably would have gone with it.

Tokyo was not chosen because it's too important to nuke. Demonstrate isn't the
only criteria.

~~~
slightwinder
Well, no. Tokyo was already attacked before, and had significant destruction
received already. And some cities of tokyo even were on the initial list of
targets with strategic value for the atomic bomb. If anything they did not
choose it because is was not important enough.

In the end they decided the target mainly by effective damage (physical as
also psychological), which ruled out already attacked areas and left only a
handful cities. Of those hiroshima was the best, because of size and the
surrounding mountains, which made the best setup for effective demonstrating
the power of the atomic bomb.

------
pmoriarty
More details here:

[http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/08/08/kyoto-
misconceptio...](http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/08/08/kyoto-
misconception/)

------
brzezmac
Japanese did their fair share of disgusting things during WWII and occupation
of China, Korea, but the article sounds like and old joke about a mugger who
says he saved a girl today. He didn't mug her, so that counts as a save.

------
cageface
Even overflowing with tourists Kyoto is a magical place. I'm not religious at
all but standing in those beautiful temples and shrines I can't help but be
moved by them. Destroying them would have been a tragic mistake.

------
082349872349872
Some discussion of nuclear targeting criteria (with refs):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24072478](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24072478)

------
lordgeek
great story, thanks for finding this!

------
postit
“Saved” - I love how American portraits their war crimes.

