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We will do our utmost to complete the war to the bitter end. That, Bix argues, represents a missed opportunity to end the war and spare the Japanese from continued U.S. aerial attacks. After President Roosevelt died on April 12th, 1945, it became Harry Trumans job to decide how to end the war. Therefore, we are publishing an excised version of the entry, with a link to the Byrnes note. Unaware of the findings of Health Division scientists, Groves and Rhea saw the injuries as nothing more than good thermal burns.[75], Documents 94A-B: General Farrell Surveys the Destruction, RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 17, Envelope B, A month after the attacks Groves deputy, General Farrell, traveled to Japan to see for himself the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He wanted to end war in the Pacific without having to invade Japan b. With Truman having ordered a halt to the atomic bombings [See document 78], Marshall wrote on Grove's memo that the bomb was not to be released over Japan without express authority from the President., Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 10-12, 1945, Japans prospective surrender was the subject of detailed discussion between Harriman, British Ambassador Kerr, and Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov during the evening of August 10 (with a follow-up meeting occurring at 2 a.m.). For convenience, Barton Bernsteins rendition is provided here but linked here are the scanned versions of Trumans handwriting on the National Archives website (for 15-30 July). If that failed to persuade Tokyo, he proposed that the United States disclose the secret of the atomic bomb to secure Japans unconditional surrender. Togo asked Sato to try to meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov as soon as possible to sound out the Russian attitude on the declaration as well as Japans end-the-war initiative. Leaflets dropped on cities in Japan warning civilians about the atomic bomb, dropped c. August 6, 1945. The nuclear age had truly begun with the first military use of atomic weapons. To suggest alternatives, they drafted this memorandum about the importance of the international exchange of information and international inspection to stem dangerous nuclear competition. Early the next day, General Anami committed suicide. Along with the ethical issues involved in the use of atomic and other mass casualty weapons, why the bombs were dropped in the first place has been the subject of sometimes heated debate.As with all events in human history, interpretations vary and readings of primary sources can lead to different conclusions. How familiar was President Truman with the concepts that led target planners chose major cities as targets? The Soviets already knew about the U.S. atomic project from espionage sources in the United States and Britain so Molotovs comment to Ambassador Harriman about the secrecy surrounding the U.S. atomic project can be taken with a grain of salt, although the Soviets were probably unaware of specific plans for nuclear use. An important question that Stimson discussed with Marshall, at Trumans request, was whether Soviet entry into the war remained necessary to secure Tokyos surrender. [28], In a report to Stimson, Oppenheimer and colleagues on the scientific advisory panel--Arthur Compton, Ernest O. Lawrence, and Enrico Fermitacitly disagreed with the report of the Met Lab scientists. The documents introduced here were published in Russian for the first time in 1990, and the English version was included in an issue of the Soviet journal International Affairs (1990, no. The events leading up to the dropping of the first atomic bomb can be traced back to 7 th December 1941, when the Japanese attacked the US Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour. While Army Minister Anami tacitly threatened a coup (civil war), the emperor accepted the majority view that the reply to the Potsdam declaration should include only one condition not the four urged by Big Six. Nevertheless, the condition that Hirohito accepted was not the one that foreign minister Togo had brought to the conference. This summary includes an intercepted account of the destruction of Nagasaki. [17], Scientists and officers held further discussion of bombing mission requirements, including height of detonation, weather, radiation effects (Oppenheimers memo), plans for possible mission abort, and the various aspects of target selection, including priority cities (a large urban area of more than three miles diameter) and psychological dimension. The Truman Library has published a helpful collection of archival documents, some of which are included in the present collection. Interested readers will continue to absorb the fascinating historical literature on the subject. A full translation of the surrender offer was circulated separately. Washington, D.C., August 5, 2005 - Sixty years ago this month, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and the Japanese government surrendered to the United States and its allies. This summary included intercepts of Japanese diplomatic reporting on the Soviet buildup in the Far East as well as a naval intelligence report on Anglo-American discussions of U.S. plans for the invasion of Japan. For years debate has raged over whether the US was right to drop two atomic bombs on Japan during the final weeks of the Second World War. [55] On 22 July Marshall asked Deputy Chief of Staff Thomas Handy to prepare a draft; General Groves wrote one which went to Potsdam for Marshalls approval. Dbq help!! On August 6, 1945 the American war plane Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing between 70,000 and 100,000 Japanese. An importanton-line collection focuses on the air-raids of Japanese cities and bases, providing valuable context for the atomic attacks. Read more, The Nuclear Proliferation International History Project is a global network of individuals and institutions engaged in the study of international nuclear history through archival documents, oral history interviews, and other empirical sources. Naval Aide to the President Files, box 4, Berlin Conference File, Volume XI - Miscellaneous papers: Japan, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, On 2 July Stimson presented to President Truman a proposal that he had worked up with colleagues in the War Department, including McCloy, Marshall, and Grew. Vladimir Putin's renewed threat of nuclear war, issued during a bitter and rambling speech, has revived fears that he could drop an atomic bomb on . Hoover proposed a compromise solution with Japan that would allow Tokyo to retain part of its empire in East Asia (including Korea and Japan) as a way to head off Soviet influence in the region. The destruction of two cities and their civilians merely to intimidate Russia seems to be an overtly extreme and vicious act that no rational person would deem just. [26], Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson (Safe File), July 1940-September 1945, box 8, Japan (After December 7/41), A former ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grews extensive knowledge of Japanese politics and culture informed his stance toward the concept of unconditional surrender. 5g. This criminal one-two punch by the US launched the atomic age. [41], RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File 5e (copy from microfilm), An elated message from Harrison to Stimson reported the success of the Trinity Test of a plutonium implosion weapon. This account hints at discussion of the atomic bomb (certain other matters), but no documents disclose that part of the meeting. RG 218, Central Decimal Files, 1943-1945, CCS 381 (6-4-45), Sec. [71]. Russias annexation of Crimea in February 2014 escalated tensions between Washington and Moscow and changed the global perception of Russias role in international politics. Martin Sherwin has argued that the Franck committee shared an important assumption with Truman et al.--that an atomic attack against Japan would `shock the Russians--but drew entirely different conclusions about the import of such a shock. Note: The second page of the diary entry includes a newspaper clipping of the Associated Presss transmission of the Byrnes note. The bombings were the first time that nuclear weapons had been detonated in combat operations. Brewster suggested that Japan could be used as a target for a demonstration of the bomb, which he did not further define. With the Japanese surrender announcement not yet in, President Truman believed that another atomic bombing might become necessary. The intention was to force Japan to surrender, thus avoiding a long war in the Pacific. See also Walker (2005), 316-317. [29]. Bix appears to have moved toward a position close to Hasegawas; see Bix, Japan's Surrender Decision and the Monarchy: Staying the Course in an Unwinnable War,Japan Focus. And on Aug. 6, a bomb would fall on Hiroshima, ultimately killing an. On July 16, the first atom bomb was tested successfully at Alamogordo, N.M. On July 17, Truman sat down to talk with Stalin. 5g (copy from microfilm), As director of Los Alamos Laboratory, Oppenheimers priority was producing a deliverable bomb, but not so much the effects of the weapon on the people at the target. Library of Congress, Curtis LeMay Papers, Box B-36. (Copy from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-AEC), A nuclear weapon of the "Fat Man" type, the plutonium implosion-type detonated over Nagasaki. The U.S. Marine Band provided music for the dinner and for the variety show that was performed by members of the press. Reasons Why the U.S. By 1937 Japan controlled large sections of China and accusations of war crimes against the Chinese people became commonplace. On December 15th, 1945, he delcared that the A-bomb had save one-quarter million American lives. atomic bomb dropped to intimidate russia. The Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson, and I weighed that decision most prayerfully. Secretary of Commerce (and former Vice President) Henry Wallace provided a detailed report on the cabinet meeting where Truman and his advisers discussed the Japanese surrender offer, Russian moves into Manchuria, and public opinion on hard surrender terms. [81], Where he had taken significant responsibility was by making a decision to stop the atomic bombings just before the Japanese surrender, thereby asserting presidential control over nuclear weapons. But it was the opposite, Truman caused the Cold War the moment he dropped the atomic bomb. For Groves and the problem of radiation sickness, see Norris, 339-441, Bernstein, Reconsidering the Atomic General: Leslie R. Groves,Journal of Military History67 (2003), 907-908, and Malloy, A Very Pleasant Way to Die, 513-518 and 539-542. Stimson accepted the language believing that a speedy reply to the Japanese would allow the United States to get the homeland into our hands before the Russians could put in any substantial claim to occupy and help rule it. If the note had included specific provision for a constitutional monarchy, Hasegawa argues, it would have taken the wind out of the sails of the military faction and Japan might have surrendered several days earlier, on August 11 or 12 instead of August 14. At the time, the American people cheered the . One of the major reasons why the atomic bomb was dropped was to save American lives, at least so it is told by many sources. Bernstein, however, notes that Bard later denied that he had a meeting with Truman and that White House appointment logs support that claim. This set of documents concerns the work of the Uranium Committee of the National Academy of Sciences, an exploratory project that was the lead-up to the actual production effort undertaken by the Manhattan Project. 2023 The Wilson Center. When the atomic bomb was dropped, I felt: "This is terrible." Immediately thereafter, it was reported Soviet Russia entered the war. On August 9, 1945, another bomber was in route to Japan, only this time they were heading for Nagasaki with "Fat Man," another atomic bomb. President Truman, who ordered the bomb, defended it as a way to bring about surrender and save U.S. military lives that would have been lost in a ground invasion of Japan. Was there another way to end the war? When the atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, Americans felt both deep satisfaction and deep anxiety, and these responses have coexisted ever since. Nor is it an attempt to substitute for the extraordinary rich literature on the atomic bombings and the end of World War II. Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, Magic Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18. Frightened by the rapid movement of Soviet forces into Manchuria and worried that the army might launch a coup, the peace party set in motion a plan to persuade Hirohito to meet with the cabinet and the Big Six to resolve the stalemate over the response to the Allies. "Nobody should allow themselves to forget the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," declared Sergey Naryshkin on August 5, 2015, at an event at Moscow's State Institute of International Relations commemorating the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings on the Japanese cities. Harriman opined that surrender is in the bag because of the Potsdam Declarations provision that the Japanese could choose their own form of government, which would probably include the Emperor. Further, the only alternative to the Emperor is Communism, implying that an official role for the Emperor was necessary to preserve social stability and prevent social revolution. Three days later, it dropped another on Nagasaki. [77]. Maddox, 102; Alperovitz, 269-270; Hasegawa, 152-153. a. Another statementFini Japs when that [Soviet entry] comes abouthas also been the subject of controversy over whether it meant that Truman thought it possible that the war could end without an invasion of Japan.[45]. Public Reaction to the Atomic Bomb and World Affairs, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, April 1947. While U.S. leaders hailed the bombings at the time and for many years afterwards for bringing the Pacific war to an end and saving untold thousands of American lives, that interpretation has since been seriously challenged. [7], Documents 2A-B: Going Ahead with the Bomb, RG 227, Bush-Conant papers microfilm collection, Roll 1, Target 2, Folder 1, "S-1 Historical File, Section II (1941-1942), The Manhattan Project never had an official charter establishing it and defining its mission, but these two documents are the functional equivalent of a charter, in terms of presidential approvals for the mission, not to mention for a huge budget. To get production going, Bush wanted to establish a carefully chosen engineering group to study plans for possible production. This was the basis of the Top Policy Group, or the S-1 Committee, which Bush and James B. Conant quickly established. The bomb, nicknamed 'Little Boy,' detonated with the force of 15 kilotons of TNT. Brown Papers, box 68, folder 13, Transcript/Draft B, Returning from the Potsdam Conference, sailing on the U.S.S. By James Rothwell 5 October 2022 7:25am. Malloy, A Very Pleasant Way to Die, 531-534. For emphasis on the shock of the atomic bomb, see also Lawrence Freedman and Saki Dockrill, Hiroshima: A Strategy of Shock, in Saki Dockrill, ed.,From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima : the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific, 1941-1945(New York, St. Martins Press, 1994), 191-214. For a review of the debate on casualty estimates, see Walker (2005), 315, 317-318, 321, 323, and 324-325. According to Robert S. Norris, this was the fateful decision to turn over the atomic project to military control.[8]. This 10 July 1945 letter from NKVD director V. N. Merkulov to Beria is an example of Soviet efforts to collect inside information on the Manhattan Project, although not all the detail was accurate. [77], Harry S. Truman Library, President's Secretary's Files, Speech Files, 1945-1953, copy on U.S. National Archives Web Site, On 15 December, President Truman spoke about the atomic bombings in his speech at the annual dinner of the Gridiron Club, organized by bureau chiefs and other leading figures of print media organizations. RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 21 (copies courtesy of Barton Bernstein). Also necessary for those capabilities was the production of a nuclear chain reaction. [69]. By the end of November over ten weapons would be available, presumably in the event the war had continued. Wait a moment and try again. Not altogether certain that surrender was imminent, Army intelligence did not rule out the possibility that Tokyo would try to drag out the negotiations or reject the Byrnes proposal and continue fighting. An article that Bernstein published in 1995, The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered,Foreign Affairs74 (1995), 135-152, nicely summarizes his thinking on the key issues. For detailed background on the Army Air Forces incendiary bombing planning, see Schaffer (1985) 107-127. [44]. Presumably the clarified warning would be issued prior to the use of the bomb; if the Japanese persisted in fighting then the full force of our new weapons should be brought to bear and a heavier warning would be issued backed by the actual entrance of the Russians in the war. Possibly, as Malloy has argued, Stimson was motivated by concerns about using the bomb against civilians and cities, but his latest proposal would meet resistance at Potsdam from Byrnes and other. [7]. At 10:50 a.m., he met with the leadership at the bomb shelter in his palace. Quotation and statistics from Thomas R. Searle, `It Made a Lot of Sense to Kill Skilled Workers: The Firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945,The Journal of Military History55 (2002):103. After a successful test of the weapon, Truman issued the Potsdam Declaration demanding the unconditional surrender of the Japanese government, warning of prompt and utter destruction. Eleven days later, on August 6, 1945, having received no reply, an American bomber called the Enola Gay left the Tinian Island in route toward Japan. In his 1948 memoirs (further amplified in his 1963 memoirs), Eisenhower claimed that he had expressed the hope [to Stimson] that we would never have to use such a thing against an enemy because I disliked seeing the United States take the lead in introducing into war something as horrible and destructive as this new weapon was described to be. That language may reflect the underlying thinking behind Eisenhowers statement during the dinner party, but whether Eisenhower used such language when speaking with Stimson has been a matter of controversy. By the summer, once production plants would be at work, he proposed that the War Department take over the project. J. Samuel Walker has cited this document to make the point that contrary to revisionist assertions, American policymakers in the summer of 1945 were far from certain that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria would be enough in itself to force a Japanese surrender. [24], In a memorandum to George Harrison, Stimsons special assistant on Manhattan Project matters, Arneson noted actions taken at the recent Interim Committee meetings, including target criterion and an attack without prior warning., Henry Stimson Papers, Sterling Library, Yale University (microfilm at Library of Congress), Stimson and Truman began this meeting by discussing how they should handle a conflict with French President DeGaulle over the movement by French forces into Italian territory. The Hiroshima operation was originally slated to begin in early August depending on local conditions. Claypool, 1984) With such motivation to back them, the United States felt justified in dropping the atomic bomb in order to prevent the spread of communism in Europe by intimidating Russia. But how exactly did the bomb help start the Cold War? Still unaware of radiation effects, Truman emphasized the explosive yield. [63]. On August 10, one day after the bombing of Nagasaki, the . The light from the explosion could been seen from here [Washington, D.C.] to high hold [Stimsons estate on Long Island250 miles away] and it was so loud that Harrison could have heard the screams from Washington, D.C. to my farm [in Upperville, VA, 50 miles away][42], RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. In writing to the Soviet leadership, Soviet Ambassador to Japan Iakov Malik included a nine-page report resulting from a trip to Hiroshima and Nagasaki by a group of staff members sent by the Soviet Embassy in September 1945. [5] While the editor has a point of view on the issues, to the greatest extent possible he has tried to not let that influence document selection, e.g., by selectively withholding or including documents that may buttress one point of view or the other. For a useful discussion of the firebombing of Tokyo and the atomic bombings, see Alex Wellerstein, Tokyo vs. Hiroshima,Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog,22 September 2014. John HerseysHiroshima, first published in the New Yorkerin 1946 encouraged unsettled readers to question the bombings while church groups and some commentators, most prominently Norman Cousins, explicitly criticized them. As indicated by the L.D. editors,Toward a Livable World: Leo Szilard and the Crusade for Nuclear Arms Control(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987), xxx-xxv; Sherwin, 210-215. According to a 2006 study by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, while John F. Kennedy was campaigning in 1960 on the idea that there was a "missile gap" between the United States and Russia . Lower image - August 11, 1945, photo by 6th Photo Reconnaissance Group Soviet aircraft had bombed Changchun and Harbin by darkness. With the devastating battle for Okinawa winding up, Truman and the Joint Chiefs stepped back and considered what it would take to secure Japans surrender. That the original copy is missing from Berias papers suggests that he may have passed it on to Stalin before the latter left for the Potsdam conference. This diary entry has figured in the argument that Byrnes believed that the atomic bomb gave the United States a significant advantage in negotiations with the Soviet Union. A directive (right), written by Leslie Groves , approved by President Truman, and issued by Secretary of War Henry Stimson and General of the . The contacts never went far and Dulles never received encouragement to pursue them. [37], RG 165, Army Operations OPD Executive File #17, Item 13 (copy courtesy of J. Samuel Walker), The day after the Togo message was reported, Army intelligence chief Weckerling proposed several possible explanations of the Japanese diplomatic initiative. Bernstein (1995), 144. [27], Commenting on another memorandum by Herbert Hoover, George A. Lincoln discussed war aims, face-saving proposals for Japan, and the nature of the proposed declaration to the Japanese government, including the problem of defining unconditional surrender. Lincoln argued against modifying the concept of unconditional surrender: if it is phrased so as to invite negotiation he saw risks of prolonging the war or a compromise peace. J. Samuel Walker has observed that those risks help explain why senior officials were unwilling to modify the demand for unconditional surrender. On August 9th, 1945, Truman declared that the use of the A-bomb had saved THOUSANDS of American lives. Yet, according to Forrest Pogues account, when Truman asked McCloy if he had any comments, the latter opened up a discussion of nuclear weapons use by asking Why not use the bomb?[30]. [43], Barton J. Bernstein, Truman at Potsdam: His Secret Diary, Foreign Service Journal, July/August 1980, excerpts, used with authors permission.[44]. On 30 October 1961, the Soviet Union detonated the Tsar Bomba nuclear bomb over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in northern Russia. Hirohito asked the leadership to accept the Note, which he believed was well intentioned on the matter of the national polity (by leaving open a possible role for the Emperor). For Eisenhowers statements, seeCrusade in Europe(Garden City: Doubleday, 1948), 443, andMandate for Change(Garden City: Doubleday, 1963), 312-313. [64]. [70]. [15], RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. Through an award winning Digital Archive, the Project allows scholars, journalists, students, and the interested public to reassess the Cold War and its many contemporarylegacies. A blog of the History and Public Policy Program. Under Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bard joined those scientists who sought to avoid military use of the bomb; he proposed a preliminary warning so that the United States would retain its position as a great humanitarian nation. Alperovitz cites evidence that Bard discussed his proposal with Truman who told him that he had already thoroughly examined the problem of advanced warning. For discussion of the importance of this memorandum, see Sherwin, 126-127, and Hershberg, James B. Conant, 203-207. Due to the relations of Russia . [11], Documents 6A-D: President Truman Learns the Secret, G 77, Commanding Generals file no. Eisenhowers son John cast doubts about the memoir statements, although he attested that when the general first learned about the bomb he was downcast. Years of fighting brought the US armed forces closer and closer to Japan as they hopped from one island to another. Barton Bernstein and Richard Frank, among others, have argued that Trumans assertion that the atomic targets were military objectives suggested that either he did not understand the power of the new weapons or had simply deceived himself about the nature of the targets. Also documented are U.S. decisions to target Japanese cities, pre-Hiroshima petitions by scientists questioning the military use of the A-bomb, proposals for demonstrating the effects of the bomb, debates over whether to modify unconditional surrender terms, reports from the bombing missions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and belated top-level awareness of the radiation effects of atomic weapons. Historians have suggested a number of ways in which the atomic bomb might have alienated Stalin- 1. [53], RG 457, Summaries of Intercepted Japanese Messages (Magic Far East Summary, March 20, 1942 October 2, 1945), box 7, SRS 491-547, This Far East Summary included reports on the Japanese Armys plans to disperse fuel stocks to reduce vulnerability to bombing attacks, the text of a directive by the commander of naval forces on Operation Homeland, the preparations and planning to repel a U.S. invasion of Honshu, and the specific identification of army divisions located in, or moving into, Kyushu. We gave them fair warning and asked them to quit. One recommendation shared by many of the scientists, whether they supported the report or not, was that the United States inform Stalin of the bomb before it was used.