Poll: Six in 10 Americans expect new world war

updated 4:49 p.m. ET July 23, 2005

WASHINGTON - Americans are far more likely than the Japanese to expect another world war in their lifetime, according to AP-Kyodo polling 60 years after World War II ended. Most people in both countries believe the first use of a nuclear weapon is never justified.

Those findings come six decades after the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The war claimed about 400,000 U.S. troops around the world, more than three times that many Japanese troops and at least 300,000 Japanese civilians.

Out of the ashes, Japan and the United States forged a close political alliance. Americans and Japanese now generally have good feelings about each other.

But people in the two countries have very different views on everything from the U.S. use of the atomic bomb in 1945, fears of North Korea and the American military presence in Japan.

Some of the widest differences came on expectations of a new world war.

Already started?
Six in 10 Americans said they think such a war is likely, while only one-third of the Japanese said so, according to polling done in both countries for The Associated Press and Kyodo, the Japanese news service.

“Man’s going to destroy man eventually. When that will be, I don’t know,” said Gaye Lestaeghe of Freeport, La.

Some question whether that war has arrived, with fighting dragging on in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of the U.S. campaign against terrorism.

“I feel like we’re in a world war right now,” said Susan Aser, a real estate agent from Rochester, N.Y.

The Japanese were less likely than Americans to expect a world war, less worried about the threat from North Korea and less inclined to say a first strike with nuclear weapons could be justified.

“The Japanese people take peace for granted,” said Hiroya Sato, 20, of Tokyo. “The Japanese people are not interested in things like war.”

Atomic controversy
President Truman decided to try to end the war by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki three days later.

Bob Caron / USAF via AP file A tall column of smoke billows 20,000 feet above Hiroshima, Japan, after the first atomic bomb strike by American forces on Aug. 6, 1945. This picture was taken by Bob Caron, tail gunner of the Enola Gay, the B-29 aircraft that dropped the bomb.

The first two atomic bombs killed tens of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; thousands more gradually died with severe radiation burns. Those bombings led to Japan’s announcement on Aug. 15 that it would surrender.

Two-thirds of Americans say the use of atomic bombs was unavoidable. Only 20 percent of Japanese felt that way and three-fourths said it was not necessary. Just one-half of Americans approve of the use of the atomic bombs on Japan.

Bob Garapedian, an 81-year-old retiree from Colchester, Conn., was preparing to fly fighter planes over the planned invasion of Japan when the war ended. Asked whether using the atomic bomb was appropriate, he said without hesitation: “Absolutely!”

But military instructor Hugh “D.J.” Carlen, who lives near Fort Knox, Ky., said: “I don’t think we really needed to do it. We darn near had the country starved to death. We could have effected a blockade.”

Skepticism about the bombings is widespread in Japan.

“I often hear the bombings were not necessary,” said Toyokazu Katsumi, a 27-year-old engineer from Yokohama. “They just wanted to experiment with them.”

For 63-year-old Masashi Muroi of Tokyo, the attacks with atomic bombs “were mass, indiscriminate killings and perhaps violated international law.”

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