Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Between Rock and a Hard Place.
Just to start briefly: As some know, this is a subject that I have explored in hundreds of articles, and in four books, since 1984, and now in an award-winning film “The Atomic Bowl” that started streaming on PBS.org and PBS apps this week (you can easily watch it via links here), plus: a companion e-book.
Having closely followed and studied American responses to the atomic bomb attacks on Japan (even co-authored a book with Robert Jay Lifton titled “Hiroshima in America”), I have to say that polling on this subject has always been very spotty. What has emerged has generally attested to very strong support in the months and first years after, then a slow decline but still fairly strong or clear majority backing last time I checked.
This week, however, , the venerable Pew Research operation has released a new survey taken in June with what I’d call somewhat encouraging results. In a rare step, they did not just ask yes or no but broke results down by gender and age.
Still, I wish they had asked the question of support for Hiroshima bombing and Nagasaki bombing separately instead of the usual “Hiroshima and Nagasaki” together.
In any event here are a few highlights, directly from Pew:
In a 2015 Pew Research Center survey, also conducted on the phone, 56% of Americans said the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified, while 34% said it was not. Unlike in the new survey, the 2015 survey question did not include an explicit “Not sure” response option.
Of course, I would argue that if the question about the Nagasaki bombing was asked separately the results would be interesting. Perhaps more opposition but more likely much more “not sure” (given low awareness among Americans going back, well, almost 80 years). Perhaps my new PBS film will change that, a bit, and you can watch now.
A breakdown of the new poll, again directly from Pew:
»Gender
Men are more likely than women to say the bombings were justified (51% vs. 20%). Women are more likely than men to say the bombings were not justified (36% vs. 25%). Women are also about twice as likely as men to say they aren’t sure (43% vs. 22%).
»Age
Americans ages 65 and older (48%) are more likely than adults in younger age groups to say the bombings were justified. Adults under 30, meanwhile, are considerably more likely to say the bombings were not justified than to say they were justified (44% vs. 27%).
»Party and ideology
About half of Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party (51%) say the bombings were justified, but views differ considerably by ideology. Around six-in-ten conservative Republicans (61%) say the bombings were justified, while a much smaller share (14%) say they were not. Moderate and liberal Republicans, by contrast, are about equally likely to say the use of the bombs was justified as to say it was not justified (35% vs. 31%).
Democrats and Democratic leaners are more likely to say the bombings were not justified than to say they were justified (42% vs. 23%). Liberal Democrats are particularly likely to see the use of the atomic bomb as unjustified – 50% say this.
And ultimately:
Today, most Americans (69%) say the development of nuclear weapons has made the world less safe. Far fewer (10%) say this has made the world safer, according to the Center’s new survey, which was fielded prior to U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June.
Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including “Hiroshima in America,” and the recent award-winning The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood – and America – Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and has directed three documentary films since 2021, including two for PBS (plus award-winning “Atomic Cover-up”). He has written widely about the atomic bomb and atomic bombings, and their aftermath, for over forty years. He writes often at Oppenheimer: From Hiroshima to Hollywood.
