America, Asia and the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Race and the Containment of China, 1945-1965

这项研究将导致出版一本书，研究美国在远东的核历史，从1945年对日本使用原子弹到1965年美国在越南战争中大规模部署军队。该书旨在探讨广岛和长崎原子弹爆炸的遗产，以及随后美国在远东和太平洋的核政策，以促进美国与亚洲国家和社会之间的关系。通过展示从美国和英国广泛的档案来源获得的大量新的文件证据，研究将表明美国人如何认识到过度依赖核武器来遏制亚洲的共产主义威胁和压力会带来严重的政治后果。美国观察家们开始相信，这些问题的根源在于亚洲人普遍认为对日本使用核武器具有种族因素，因为人们认为美国更愿意对非白人敌人使用这种大规模杀伤性武器。美国再次表现出准备对亚洲人民使用核武器的迹象，使情况更加复杂。在1950年末朝鲜战争最激烈的时候，中国的干预在华盛顿引起了恐慌。杜鲁门召开了一次记者招待会，他透露正在考虑使用原子弹，这引发了亚洲报纸的恐慌社论，以及印度等重要亚洲国家的反美情绪。1954年至1955年和1958年的两次台海危机以及美国在太平洋进行大气层核试验时，美国官员也在监视这种反应。1954年在比基尼环礁进行氢弹试验后，放射性尘埃意外扩散，马歇尔岛民和日本拖网渔船船员受伤，这些都加深了人们的印象，即亚洲人被单独列为核受害者，美国对该地区人民的生活和福利漠不关心。在过去的几年里，多年来一直研究种族在冷战期间美国政策中的作用，特别是战后美国社会种族主义的普遍存在如何阻碍美国政府试图吸引摆脱殖民主义的非白人世界的支持。拟议的研究建立在这项工作的基础上，强调美国决策者如何相信许多亚洲人已经把原子弹视为“白色人的武器”（这是那个时期的常用短语），这是美国实行种族双重标准的又一表现。该研究表明，对亚洲舆论反应的担忧如何影响了美国对该地区可能在有限战争中使用核武器的态度，并使美国与日本等主要盟国的关系复杂化，美国国务院在20世纪50年代有效地否决了部署核武器，以及与印度等不结盟国家的关系。该研究得出结论，美国已经摆脱了对核武器的依赖，以应对远东的有限共产主义侵略，并发展了1965年在越南展示的有限战争的常规能力。与此同时，美国官员也在对中国在1964年10月首次试验成为核大国作出反应，这对整个亚洲都有影响。通过分析美国对反1945年后亚洲的核感觉为美国外交和国防政策的制定和实施开辟了新的解释，这是冷战关键时期的共识。

The proposed research will lead to the publication of a book examining US nuclear history in the Far East between the use of the atomic bomb against Japan in 1945, and the large-scale deployment of American forces in Vietnam War during 1965. The book aims to explore the legacy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as subsequent American nuclear policies in the Far East and Pacific, for the relations between the United States and Asian states and societies. Through its presentation of much new documentary evidence, obtained from a wide range of archival sources in the United States and Britain, the research will show how Americans came to perceive that an excessive reliance on nuclear weapons to contain Communist threats and pressures in Asia carried with it serious political consequences. Many of these problems had their origins, American observers came to believe, in the widespread Asian perception that the use of nuclear weapons against Japan had a racial dimension, in that the United States was felt to be more willing to use such weapons of mass destruction against a non-white enemy. This was compounded by the number of occasions when the United States once again appeared ready to use nuclear weapons against Asian peoples. During the height of the Korean War in late 1950, as Chinese intervention caused near panic in Washington, President Harry S. Truman held a press conference where he revealed that use of the atomic bomb was under consideration, prompting a rush of alarmed editorials in Asian newspapers and much anti-American feeling in crucial Asian states such as India. Anxious US officials monitored such reactions, as they also did during, for example, the two Taiwan Straits crises of 1954-55 and 1958, and while the US conducted atmosphere nuclear tests in the Pacific. The accidental spread of fall-out following the test of a hydrogen bomb at Bikini atoll in 1954, and the injuries then suffered by Marshall islanders and the crew of a Japanese fishing trawler helped to reinforce the impression that it was Asians who were singled out as nuclear victims, and that the United States was callously indifferent to the lives and welfare of the peoples of the region.There has been a growing body of scholarship over the last few years which has studied the role of race in US policies during the Cold War, and particularly how the prevalence of racism in post-war US society was an impediment for American governments trying to attract support from the non-white world emerging from colonialism. The proposed research builds on this work by highlighting how American policymakers believed that many Asian peoples had come to regard the atomic bomb as a 'white man's weapon' (a common phrase from the period), which was one more manifestation of the racial double-standards practised by the United States. The research shows how concern over the reactions of Asian opinion influenced US attitudes to the possible use of nuclear weapons in limited war in the area, and complicated US relations with key allies such as Japan, where the State Department effectively vetoed the deployment of nuclear weapons in the 1950s, and with non-aligned states such as India. The research concludes when the United States had moved away from a reliance on nuclear weapons to respond to limited Communist aggression in the Far East with the development of the conventional capacities for limited war that were seen on display in Vietnam by 1965. At the same time, American officials were also engaged in reacting to the emergence of China as a nuclear power with its first test in October 1964, with all the repercussions this held for Asia as a whole.By analysing the significance of US readings of anti-nuclear feeling in Asia in the years after 1945 for the formulation and conduct of US foreign and defence policy the research opens up new interpretations and understandings for a crucial period of the Cold War.