Harry Truman, Hiroshima and the Necessity Defense

Harry Truman, Hiroshima and the Necessity Defense

by Kary Love

913 words

“How sharper than a serpents tooth it is to have a thankless child.” 

So King Lear teaches parents. I, unlike Lear, have been blessed with thankful children. One of my daughters rented for her mother’s birthday a “place” (so she said) in Key West, Florida, also known as the “Conch Republic” for its aspirational secession from the USA. Her mom had been caring for her 97-year-old mother for several years and really needed a rest and recuperation break.

We arrived late on Saturday night and I had not checked the place out so I was in for a shock when I woke up Sunday Morning for my daily Constitutional hike. I exited the gate and directly across the street was the “Harry Truman Key West White House.” I had been reading about recent state court cases (in Chicago) where peaceable protesters against the genocide in Gaza had raised the necessity defense. Because I had spent decades trying to raise the necessity defense in US Federal Courts on behalf of peaceable prayers against nuclear bombs on US military arsenals carrying overkill capacity of exterminating the humans on earth more than 30 times, I of course started thinking: “Would Harry Truman be able to raise the necessity defense before the Throne Of Judgment for his Hiroshima or Nagasaki A-bombing in support of his petition to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?” And so my morning walk turned into a thought experiment. 

Now I am not a christian because “loving your enemies” is way too tough a call for a weak reed such as me. But Harry T claimed he was a dyed-in-the-wool believer who had taken Jesus as his savior. So, given what Jesus Christ preached in Galilee I wondered—how did Harry expect to “enter the kingdom of Heaven” after nuking Hiroshima and following it up with Nagasaki, neither city being military targets but civilian cities mostly occupied by children, women and the elderly, as most military-age men were already in the Japanese Imperial Army on the verge of defeat?

The necessity defense is recognized in American law. In sum the argument is: one has the privilege to commit a lesser, or minor crime, in order to prevent a greater crime. There are other technicalities bolted on by various courts over time, but that is the key question. For example, a sailor, such as me, with a boat full of landlubbers gets hit by an unpredicted gale out on the open sea. Desperately seeking safety for my passengers, I head to shore. I see a dock plastered with “Do Not Trespass” signs and skulls and crossbones threatening “violators will be persecuted” er, prosecuted. 

Fearing the hurricane like wind and waves are going to sink my boat and drown the little children on board, I decide I have no choice but to commit trespass in order to avoid the greater crime of drowning children. So I dock. The kids live and everything is copacetic til the dock owner calls the cops and maybe ICE (on the black and brown kids on board).

In such a case I can argue (in state courts) the “defense of necessity” made me do it. And often juries acquit if such prosecutions get so far. Most necessity defenses even in state court fail because juries often do not like it when somebody “takes the law into their own hands.” Of course all human laws were made by someone taking the law into their own hands way back in the dawn of civilization, when human law emerged from the law of the jungle. But modern people have learned to bow to the law made by legislatures and enforced by police to the point of absurdity and often abandon their own judgment, deferring to their “betters” who got elected to legislatures.

So, back to Harry. He is charged with mass murder of kids, women and old people, and seeks to defend his petition to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Can he successfully argue “necessity” (assuming arguendo god rejects the idea that “just war” justifies any crimes committed during war; not even human law does that). Will Harry win his case before the “Throne of Judgment?” On my walk I imagined Harry was prosecuted by Lucifer and was rejected by every major law firm who refused to take up his defense. Finally, out of desperation to give Harry a fair trial, god appointed Jesus as “attorney for the damned.” 

I don’t know how such a case would turn out, though much recent evidence suggests the A-bombings were not justified by “military necessity,” and Harry actually used the A-bombings to scare off the USSR from expansionist planning because only the US of A had the A-bomb. If the latter is correct, I suspect god would not buy the argument the necessity defense was successful because USSR’s expansionist plans versus USA’s similar hopes seems merely an argument about which robber should control a territory. It reminds me of the Dylan tune “Masters of War” which concludes even “Jesus would never forgive what you do,” concerning the builders of weapons of mass destruction.

Anyway, I do not have an answer for you; you have to decide whether Harry Truman has god on his side. (Thanks Bob) As for me, I am grateful to have thankful children. And I am writing a play: Harry Truman, Hiroshima and the Necessity Defense” to more fully explore the question.

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Kary Love, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Michigan attorney who has defended nuclear resisters and many others in court for decades.