Upon becoming president, Harry Truman learned of the Manhattan Project, a secret scientific effort to create an atomic bomb. As McCloy observed the most contentious issue was whether the proclamation should include language about the preservation of the emperor: This may cause repercussions at home but without it those who seem to know the most about Japan feel there would be very little likelihood of acceptance.. According to Hasegawa, Hirohito had become convinced that the preservation of the monarchy was at stake. The possibility of modifying the concept of unconditional surrender so that it guaranteed the continuation of the emperor remained hotly contested within the U.S. government. Historians Herbert Feis and Gar Alperovitz raised searching questions about the first use of nuclear weapons and their broader political and diplomatic implications. Japanese kamikaze pilots could turn planes into guided missiles. Stimson did not always have Trumans ear, but historians have frequently cited his diary when he was at the Potsdam conference. 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. In later years, those who knew both thought it unlikely that the general would have expressed misgivings about using the bomb to a civilian superior. The National Security Archive is committed to digital accessibility. Within days after the bombing of Hiroshima, U.S. military intelligence intercepted Japanese reports on the destruction of the city. The First Nuclear Strikes and their Impact, XI. Hasegawa, 105; Alperovitz, 67-72; Forrest Pogue,George C. Marshall: Statesman, 1945-1959(New York: Viking, 1987), 18. [66], Takashi Itoh, ed., Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 926-927 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima], As various factions in the government maneuvered on how to respond to the Byrnes note, Navy Minister Yonai and Admiral Tagaki discussed the latest developments. RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5, This review of Japanese capabilities and intentions portrays an economy and society under tremendous strain; nevertheless, the ground component of the Japanese armed forces remains Japans greatest military asset. Alperovitz sees statements in this estimate about the impact of Soviet entry into the war and the possibility of a conditional surrender involving survival of the emperor as an institution as more evidence that the policymakers saw alternatives to nuclear weapons use. The material reproduced here gives a sense of the state of play of Foreign Minister Togos attempt to secure Soviet mediation. If the Japanese decided to keep fighting, G-2 opined that Atomic bombs will not have a decisive effect in the next 30 days. Richard Frank has pointed out that this and other documents indicate that high level military figures remained unsure as to how close Japan really was to surrender. Did President Truman make a decision, in a robust sense, to use the bomb or did he inherit a decision that had already been made? The George Washington University However, the Department of the Interior opposed the disclosure of the nature of the weapon. Robert J. Maddox has cited this document to support his argument that top U.S. officials recognized that Japan was not close to surrender because Japan was trying to stave off defeat. In a close analysis of this document, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, who is also skeptical of claims that the Japanese had decided to surrender, argues that each of the three possibilities proposed by Weckerling contained an element of truth, but none was entirely correct. 4 (copy from microfilm), General Groves prepared for Stimson, then at Potsdam, a detailed account of the Trinity test. See also Malloy, A Very Pleasant Way to Die, 539-540. The 70th anniversary of the event presents an opportunity to set the record straight on five widely held myths about the bomb. The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki features a letter written by Luis Alvarez, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, on August 6, 1945, after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. In fact, after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, the Japanese military's Information Division, in charge of media control, intended to announce that the bomb was an atomic one. Atomic Bomb Dbq Essay - 961 Words | Internet Public Library At their first meeting after the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, Stimson briefed Truman on the scale of the destruction, with Truman recognizing the terrible responsibility that was on his shoulders. Frank, 286-287; Sherwin, 233-237; Bernstein (1995), 150; Maddox, 148. 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. However, as soon as the Allied occupation of Japan came into force on September 19, the strict press code imposed by the General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, as well as the above-mentioned self-censorship imposed by the Japanese press, caused a delay in the way the atomic bombings were reported upon in Japan. With Japan close to capitulation, Truman asserted presidential control and ordered a halt to atomic bombings. Despite its. Barton J. Bernstein and Martin Sherwin have argued that if top Washington policymakers had kept tight control of the delivery of the bomb instead of delegating it to Groves the attack on Nagasaki could have been avoided. (Photo from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-AEC), The polar cap of the "Fat Man" weapon being sprayed with plastic spray paint in front of Assembly Building Number 2. With Secretary of War Stimson presiding, members of the committee heard reports on a variety of Manhattan Project issues, including the stages of development of the atomic project, problems of secrecy, the possibility of informing the Soviet Union, cooperation with like-minded powers, the military impact of the bomb on Japan, and the problem of undesirable scientists. In his comments on a detonation over Japanese targets, Oppenheimer mentioned that the neutron effect would be dangerous to life for a radius of at least two-thirds of a mile, but did not mention that the radiation could cause prolonged sickness. We picked a couple of cities where war work was the principle industry, and dropped bombs. This summary includes an intercepted account of the destruction of Nagasaki. Consistent with his earlier attempts, Stimson encouraged Truman to find ways to expedite Japans surrender by using kindness and tact and not treating them in the same way as the Germans. Library of Congress . 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. Soviet forces in the east had attacked in the neighbourhood of Gradekovo, where the railroad from Vladivostok crosses the frontier. Moreover, the atrocities of the bombs were not made graphically public to the Japanese people until August 6, 1952, when Asahi Graphpublished the issue titled Genbaku higai no shokkai (the first publication of the damages of the atomic bomb). 5, 27-35 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi], The Byrnes Note did not break the stalemate at the cabinet level. [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. The message that the bombings sent to the world was that whoever possessed those special weapons would prove to be politically superior, thus turning such weapons into the passport to survive and potentially win the Cold War. 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. Because the Japanese population was far from surrendering and would fight to their death, so an invasion would be costly in human lives. The traditional argument was that Stalin was angry because Truman did not tell him about the Atomic Bomb. The conventional justification for the atomic bombings is that they prevented the invasion of Japan, thus saving countless lives on both sides. Atomic Bomb Dbq - 1222 Words | 123 Help Me For a review of the debate on casualty estimates, see Walker (2005), 315, 317-318, 321, 323, and 324-325. [1]. According to Merkulov, two fissile materials were being produced: element-49 (plutonium), and U-235; the test device was fueled by plutonium. 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. Third update - August 7, 2017, For more information, contact: 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 further consideration of Tokyo and more likely targets at the time, see Alex Wellerstein, Neglected Niigata,Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog, 9 October 2015. [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. 24, tab D, Soon after he was sworn in as president following President Roosevelts death, Harry Truman learned about the top secret Manhattan Projectfrom briefingsbySecretary of War Stimson and Manhattan Project chief General Groves (who went through the back door to escape the watchful press). The ban on the public use of the phrase was officially lifted when the war ended on August 15, which prompted Hiroshimas local newspaper, the Chgoku Shimbun, to print a few photos of the destroyed city on August 23. Bernstein, introduction,Toward a Livable World, xxxvii-xxxviii. The Soviet Union and the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Photo from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-AEC), An overview of the destruction of Hiroshima [undated, circa August-September 1945]. 1-127. [15]. An article that Bernstein published in 1995, The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered,Foreign Affairs74 (1995), 135-152, nicely summarizes his thinking on the key issues. 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. Some will want to read declassified primary sources so they can further develop their own thinking about the issues. Victims who looked healthy weakened, for unknown reasons and many died. Compton raised doubts about the recommendations but urged Stimson to study the report. [72]. The United States, along with other countries, criticized Japanese aggression but shied away from any economic or military punishments. Frank and Hasegawa divide over the impact of the Soviet declaration of war, with Frank declaring that the Soviet intervention was significant but not decisive and Hasegawa arguing that the two atomic bombs were not sufficient to change the direction of Japanese diplomacy. This account hints at discussion of the atomic bomb (certain other matters), but no documents disclose that part of the meeting. The United States decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima was a diplomatic measure calculated to intimidate the Soviet Union in the post- Second-War era rather than a strictly military measure designed to force Japan's unconditional surrender. [59a]. With the goal of having enough fissile material by the first half of 1945 to produce the bombs, Bush was worried that the Germans might get there first. He believed that casualties would not be more than those produced by the battle for Luzon, some 31,000. Bernstein (1995), 146. 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. Copy of How Should We Remember the Dropping of the A-Bomb? Docs.pdf 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. The last remark aggravated Navy Minister Yonai who saw it as irresponsible. Experts: How Powerful, Widespread Is Fallout From a Nuclear Bomb? Alperovitz argues that the possibility of atomic diplomacy was central to the thinking of Truman and his advisers, while Bernstein, who argues that Trumans primary objective was to end the war quickly, suggests that the ability to cow other nations, notably the Soviet Union was a bonus effect. (Photo from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-BT), Ground view of Nagasaki before and after the bombing; radiuses in increments of 1,000 feet from Ground Zero are shown. In what Stimson called the letter of an honest man, Oswald C. Brewster sent President Truman a profound analysis of the danger and unfeasibility of a U.S. atomic monopoly. Colonel John Stone, an assistant to commanding General of the Army Air Forces Henry H. Hap Arnold, had just returned from Potsdam and updated his boss on the plans as they had developed. [18], On May 14 and 15, Stimson had several conversations involving S-1 (the atomic bomb); during a talk with Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, he estimated that possession of the bomb gave Washington a tremendous advantageheld all the cards, a royal straight flush-- in dealing with Moscow on post-war problems: They cant get along without our help and industries and we have coming into action a weapon which will be unique. The next day a discussion of divergences with Moscow over the Far East made Stimson wonder whether the atomic bomb would be ready when Truman met with Stalin in July. Togo could not persuade the cabinet, however, and the Army wanted to delay any decisions until it had learned what had happened to Hiroshima. Former Secretary of War Henry Stimson found the criticisms troubling and published an influential justification for the attacks inHarpers. [61], Documents 73A-B: Ramsey Letter from Tinian Island, Library of Congress, J. Robert Oppenheimer Papers, box 60, Ramsey, Norman.

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