Attack on Pearl Harbor

The Attack on Pearl Harbor is presented as the event that brought the United States into the war and as a later touchstone in arguments over how the conflict should be fought. In Harry S. Truman’s response to a demand for continued total war against Japan, the attack’s gravity did not erase the moral distinction between opposing a nation’s leaders and destroying its civilian population.

The Attack as a Justification for Total War

In a letter dated August 9, Truman answered an appeal to keep fighting until Japan accepted unconditional surrender. The appeal cited Pearl Harbor as grounds for refusing to show Japan greater consideration than Germany and argued that the United States should continue using conventional explosives until enough atomic bombs were available. The attack thus served as a powerful justification for treating the war as one in which restraint was no longer warranted.

Truman’s Moral Qualification

Truman acknowledged Japan’s cruelty in warfare but rejected the idea that the United States should imitate it. He regretted the prospect of wiping out whole populations because of their leaders’ obstinacy and said he would not do so unless it was absolutely necessary. His stated aim was to save American lives, while retaining a human concern for Japanese women and children. He also believed Japan might soon surrender after the Soviet Union entered the war.

The Event’s Aftermath in the Account

That night, in a radio address on Potsdam, Truman urged Japanese civilians to leave the industrial cities and save themselves. The account therefore places Pearl Harbor not in a detailed description of the attack itself, but in the later moral argument it helped shape: the attack explained why the United States had entered the war, while Truman’s response distinguished that cause from an unlimited license to inflict civilian suffering.