Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

by John W. Dower

President Truman also found a receptive audience in Japan when he declared that the invention of the atomic bomb reflected what could be accomplished by a free society. Science could flourish only under a “spirit of freedom.”21 Japanese scientists, many of them trained in Europe and the United States, applauded this new commitment. One of the first contingents of American scientists to arrive in Japan encountered a wonderful expression of these sentiments in the form of this makeshift notice, handwritten in English on brown wrapping paper and affixed to the front door of a major oceanographic institute outside of Tokyo: This is a marine biological station with her history of over sixty years. If you are from the Eastern Coast, some of you might know Woods Hole or Mt. Desert or Tortugas. If you are from the West Coast, you may know Pacific Grove or Puget Sound Biological Station. This place is a place like one of these. Take care of this place and protect the possibility for the continuation of our peaceful research. You can destroy the weapons and the war instruments But save the civil equipments for Japanese students When you are through with your job here Notify to the University and let us come back to our scientific home