Open Document. Stimsons account of the events of 10 August focused on the debate over the reply to the Japanese note, especially the question of the Emperors status. The last major battle, the fight for Okinawa, lasted almost three months and took more than 100,000 Japanese and American lives. Due to the relations of Russia . Interested in producing the greatest psychological effect, the Committee members agreed that the most desirable target would be a vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers houses. Bernstein argues that this target choice represented an uneasy endorsement of terror bombing-the target was not exclusively military or civilian; nevertheless, workers housing would include non-combatant men, women, and children. Hasegawa, 105; Alperovitz, 67-72; Forrest Pogue,George C. Marshall: Statesman, 1945-1959(New York: Viking, 1987), 18. For the extensive literature, see the references in J. Samuel Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan,Third Edition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016) at 131-136, as well as Walkers, Recent Literature on Trumans Atomic Bomb Decision: A Search for Middle Ground,Diplomatic History29 (April 2005): 311-334. 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. 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 . Sean Malloy, `A Very Pleasant Way to Die: Radiation Effects and the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb against Japan,Diplomatic History36 (2012), especially 523. The initial radiation from the detonation would be fatal within a radius of about 6/10ths of a mile and injurious within a radius of a mile. In accordance with the dinners rules that reporters are never present, Trumans remarks were off-the record. Hiroshima - view of Hiroshima Castle and surroundings; See Janet Farrell Brodie, Radiation Secrecy and Censorship after Hiroshima and Nagasaki,The Journal of Social History48 (2015): 842-864. This point is central to Alperovitzs thesis that top U.S. officials recognized a two-step logic: relaxing unconditional surrender and a Soviet declaration of war would have been enough to induce Japans surrender without the use of the bomb. 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. [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 non-specialist staff sent to observe these effects, their biased premise, and the markings on the documents all suggest that the report was from the beginning meant to anticipate and align with Stalins intention to downplay the importance of the United States atomic bomb while pushing the Soviet Unions own nuclear project forward. [1], Ever since the atomic bombs were exploded over Japanese cities, historians, social scientists, journalists, World War II veterans, and ordinary citizens have engaged in intense controversy about the events of August 1945. See Malloy, A Very Pleasant Way to Die, 541-542. There were battles and military posts in surprising places. Maddox, 102; Alperovitz, 269-270; Hasegawa, 152-153. A U.S. War Department photograph of Hiroshima after the atomic bombing, undated. Pressure from Secretary of War Stimson had already taken Kyoto off the list of targets for incendiary bombings and he would successfully object to the atomic bombing of that city. Updated National Security Archive Posting Marks 75thAnniversary of the Atomic Bombings of Japan and the End of World War II, Extensive Compilation of Primary Source Documents Explores Manhattan Project, Eisenhowers Early Misgivings about First Nuclear Use, Curtis LeMay and the Firebombing of Tokyo, Debates over Japanese Surrender Terms, Atomic Targeting Decisions, and Lagging Awareness of Radiation Effects, First update - April 27, 2007 Historian believed that there are two different possibilities. [51] Togos private position was more nuanced than Suzukis; he told Sato that we are adopting a policy of careful study. That Stalin had not signed the declaration (Truman and Churchill did not ask him to) led to questions about the Soviet attitude. The bombings were the first time that nuclear weapons had been detonated in combat operations. The editor has closely reviewed the footnotes and endnotes in a variety of articles and books and selected documents cited by participants on the various sides of the controversy. 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. A. Zolotarev, ed., Sovetsko-Iaponskaia Voina 1945 Goda: Istoriia Voenno-Politicheskogo Protivoborstva Dvukh Derzhav v 3040e Gody (Moscow: Terra, 1997 and 2000), Vol. Eisenhowers son John cast doubts about the memoir statements, although he attested that when the general first learned about the bomb he was downcast. 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. Counterfactual issues are also disputed, for example whether there were alternatives to the atomic bombings, or would the Japanese have surrendered had a demonstration of the bomb been used to produced shock and awe. 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. Documents 77A-B: The First Japanese Offer Intercepted. This photo was taken from the Red Cross Hospital Building about one mile from the bomb burst. An intercepted message from Togo to Sato showed that Tokyo remained interested in securing Moscows good office but that it is difficult to decide on concrete peace conditions here at home all at once. [W]e are exerting ourselves to collect the views of all quarters on the matter of concrete terms. Barton Bernstein, Richard Frank, and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, among others, have argued that the Magic intercepts from the end of July and early August show that the Japanese were far from ready to surrender. 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. How much Power does a President actually have? Which of the following was least likely a reason for Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb? Groves did not mention this but around the time he wrote this the Manhattan Project had working at its far-flung installations over 125,000 people ; taking into account high labor turnover some 485,000 people worked on the project (1 out of every 250 people in the country at that time). Until 1949, when the USSR succeeded in testing its own bomb, the Soviet Unions knowledge of the effects of radiation was indeed very poor. The controversy, especially the arguments made by Alperovitz and others about atomic diplomacy quickly became caught up in heated debates over Cold War revisionism. The controversy simmered over the years with major contributions by Martin Sherwin and Barton J. Bernstein but it became explosive during the mid-1990s when curators at the National Air and Space Museum met the wrath of the Air Force Association over a proposed historical exhibit on the Enola Gay. Tsar Bomba, (Russian: "King of Bombs") , byname of RDS-220, also called Big Ivan, Soviet thermonuclear bomb that was detonated in a test over Novaya Zemlya island in the Arctic Ocean on October 30, 1961. Both cities were leveled from the bombs and this, in turn, forced Japan to surrender to the United States. [72]. Also important to take into account is John Dowers extensive discussion of Hiroshima/Nagasaki in context of the U.S. fire-bombings of Japanese cities inCultures of War: Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9-11/Iraq(New York, W. Norton, 2010), 163-285. On August 6,1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki were attacked by atomic bombs that were dropped by the U.S Military. Plainly Davies thought otherwise. To a great extent the documents selected for this compilation have been declassified for years, even decades; the most recent declassifications were in the 1990s. When Truman received a detailed account of the test, Stimson reported that the President was tremendously pepped up by it and that it gave him an entirely new feeling of confidence (see entry for July 21). The US and Japan suffered major casualties, and the American people and the president were getting tired of it. Nor does it include any of the interviews, documents prepared after the events, and post-World War II correspondence, etc. The Soviet Union and the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki How decisive was the atomic bombings to the Japanese decision to surrender? An illustration of a nuclear bomb exploding in a city. It was Meiklejohns birthday and during the dinner party, Eisenhower and McCloy had an interesting discussion of atomic weapons, which included comments alluding to scientists statements about what appears to be the H-bomb project (a 20 megaton weapon), recollection of the early fear that an atomic detonation could burn up the atmosphere, and the Navys reluctance to use its battleships to test atomic weapons. Responding to this threat, the United States placed an embargo on scrap metal, oil, and aviation fuel heading to Japan and froze Japanese assets in the United States. Part II of the summary includes the rest of Togos 2 August cable which instructed Sato to do what he could to arrange an interview with Molotov. On 30 October 1961, the Soviet Union detonated the Tsar Bomba nuclear bomb over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in northern Russia. 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. 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. Barton J. Bernstein has observed that Groves recommendation that troops could move into the immediate explosion area within a half hour demonstrates the prevalent lack of top-level knowledge of the dangers of nuclear weapons effects. A modern-day nuclear bomb . National Archives and Records Administration, Newspaper clipping, Japanese planes destroy US fleet at Pearl Harbor, December 8, 1945, Excerpts of Franklin Roosevelts speech to Congress, December 8, 1941, Excerpt of Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, July 26, 1945, Letter from Henry Stimson to Harry S. Truman, April 24, 1945, Letter from Harry S. Truman to Richard Russell, August 9, 1945, Translation of leaflet dropped on the Japanese, August 6, 1945, Petition to the President of the United States, July 17, 1945, Minutes of meeting held at the White House, June 18, 1945. The bombings have always been presented to young Americans in . In contrast to Alperovitzs argument that Forrestal tried to modify the terms of unconditional surrender to give the Japanese an out, Frank sees Forrestals account of the Sato-Togo exchange as additional evidence that senior U.S. officials understood that Tokyo was not on the cusp of surrender. [49], Joseph E. Davies Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division, box 19, 29 July 1945, Having been asked by Truman to join the delegation to the Potsdam conference, former-Ambassador Davies sat at the table with the Big Three throughout the discussions. According to Herbert Bix, for months Hirohito had believed that the outlook for a negotiated peace could be improved if Japan fought and won one last decisive battle, thus, he delayed surrender, continuing to procrastinate until the bomb was dropped and the Soviets attacked.[52]. To keep his pledge at Yalta to enter the war against Japan and to secure the territorial concessions promised at the conference (e.g., Soviet annexation of the Kuriles and southern Sakhalin and a Soviet naval base at Port Arthur, etc.) Why the U.S. Dropped the Atomic Bomb on Japan in WWII Although they have been public for 30 years, new translations of these sources are now freely accessible on the Wilson Centers Digital Archive. [15], RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. As these cables indicate, reports of unfavorable weather delayed the plan. How the Hiroshima Bombing Ended WWIIAnd Started the Cold War - HISTORY In destructive power, the behemoths of the Cold War dwarfed the American atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. These cables are the earliest reports of the mission; the bombing of Nagasaki killed immediately at least 39,000 people, with more dying later. The total destruction of that city, and the instant incineration of 40,000 mostly civilian people, occurred just three days after the destruction of Hiroshima by a 15-kiloton uranium bomb, which instantly killed 70,000. Thus, the extent to which the bombings contributed to the end of World War II or the beginning of the Cold War remain live issues. Collectively the decoded messages were known as Magic. How this came about is explained in an internal history of pre-war and World War II Army and Navy code-breaking activities prepared by William F. Friedman, a central figure in the development of U.S. government cryptology during the 20th century. Truman, already on his way to Europe, never saw the petition.[35]. [40]. [7]. Atomic bomb pros. Atomic Bomb Pros And Cons. 2022-11-10 On the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the National Security Archive updates its 2005 publication of the most comprehensive on-line collection of declassified U.S. government documents on the first use of the atomic bomb and the end of the war in the Pacific. [16]. [34], On the eve of the Potsdam conference, Leo Szilard circulated a petition as part of a final effort to discourage military use of the bomb. 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. It is part of the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II - nsarchive2.gwu.edu Weapon Of Last Resort: How The Soviet Union Developed The World's Most 75 years ago, in August 1945, the United States dropped the first and last atomic bombs used in warfare. The largest nuclear weapon ever set off, it produced the most powerful human-made explosion ever recorded. 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. 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. [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. Why The United States Dropped The Atomic Bomb - Essay Examples Library of Congress . On August 6, 1945, a B-29 "superbomber" dropped a uranium bomb over Hiroshima in an attempt to force Japan's unconditional surrender. 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. Richard Frank sees this as evidence of the uncertainty felt by senior officials about the situation in early August; Forrestal would not have been so audacious to take an action that could ignite a political firestorm if he seriously thought the end of the war was near., Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 5-9, 1945, Shortly after the Soviets declared war on Japan, in line with commitments made at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, Ambassador Harriman met with Stalin, with George Kennan keeping the U.S. record of the meeting. [19], Joseph E. Davies Papers, Library of Congress, box 17, 21 May 1945, While officials at the Pentagon continued to look closely at the problem of atomic targets, President Truman, like Stimson, was thinking about the diplomatic implications of the bomb. Note: The second page of the diary entry includes a newspaper clipping of the Associated Presss transmission of the Byrnes note. More intercepted messages on the bombing of Hiroshima. 202-994-7000 [email protected], Nagasaki, August 10, 1945; photograph by Yosuke Yamahata; used with permission of copyright holder, Shogo Yamahata/Courtesy: IDG films. Thankfully, nuclear weapons have not been exploded in war since 1945, perhaps owing to the taboo against their use shaped by the dropping of the bombs on Japan. Initialed by President Roosevelt (VB OK FDR), this may have been the closest that he came to a formal approval of the Manhattan Project. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8, and the following day the United States dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing an additional 100,000 people. Since the end of WWII, the popular view in the U.S. has been that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki precipitated Japan's surrender on August 15. See also Malloy, A Very Pleasant Way to Die, 539-540. [68], George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, VA, George C. Marshall Papers (copy courtesy of Barton J. Bernstein), While Truman had rescinded the order to drop nuclear bombs, the war was not yet over and uncertainty about Japans next step motivated war planner General John E. Hull (assistant chief of staff for the War Departments Operations Division), and one of Groves associates, Colonel L. E. Seeman, to continue thinking about further nuclear use and its relationship to a possible invasion of Japan. By contrast, Richard Frank takes note of the estimates depiction of the Japanese armys terms for peace: for surrender to be acceptable to the Japanese army it would be necessary for the military leaders to believe that it would not entail discrediting the warrior tradition and that it would permit the ultimate resurgence of a military in Japan. That, Frank argues, would have been unacceptable to any Allied policy maker.[33], Record Group 59, Decimal Files 1945-1949, 740.0011 PW (PE)/7-1645. [70]. For Stimsons article, see The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,Harpers194 (February 1947): 97-107. Japan, sensing conflict was inevitable, began planning for an attack on Pearl Harbor by April, 1941. Obama in Hiroshima: Why the U.S. Dropped the Bomb in 1945 | Time 35+ YEARS OF FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACTION, FOIA Advisory Committee Oversight Reports, a helpful collection of archival documents, on-line resources on the first atomic test. What concepts did war planners use to select targets? Late in the evening of 9 August, the emperor and his advisers met in the bomb shelter of the Imperial Palace. 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. More updates on training missions, target selection, and conditions required for successful detonation over the target. By citing an inflated casualty figure, the president was giving a trial run for the rationale that would become central to official and semi-official discourse about the bombings during the decades ahead. For more on the Uranium Committee, the decision to establish the S-1 Committee, and the overall context, see James G. Hershberg, James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age(Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1995), 140-154. The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II [5]. Evaluate this . Moscow's was 3,000 times . The initial report, May 1941, showed how leading American scientists grappled with the potential of nuclear energy for military purposes. For Hirohito' surrender speech--the actual broadcastand a translation--seeJapan Times,August2015. In a long and impassioned message, the latter argued why Japan must accept defeat: it is meaningless to prove ones devotion [to the Emperor] by wrecking the State. Togo rejected Satos advice that Japan could accept unconditional surrender with one qualification: the preservation of the Imperial House. Probably unable or unwilling to take a soft position in an official cable, Togo declared that the whole country will pit itself against the enemy in accordance with the Imperial Will as long as the enemy demands unconditional surrender., Naval Historical Center, Operational Archives, James Forrestal Diaries, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal was a regular recipient of Magic intercept reports; this substantial entry reviews the dramatic Sato-Togo exchanges covered in the 22 July Magic summary (although Forrestal misdated Satos cable as first of July instead of the 21st). In this short memorandum to Groves deputy, General Farrell, Oppenheimer explained the need for precautions because of the radiological dangers of a nuclear detonation. His estimate of 250,000 U.S. soldiers spared far exceeded that made by General Marshall in June 1945, which was in the range of 31,000 (comparable to the Battle of Luzon) [See Document 26]. Another column was striking south from the Soviet border toward Hailar. His implicit preference, however, was for non-use; he wrote that it would be better to take U.S. casualties in conquering Japan than to bring upon the world the tragedy of unrestrained competitive production of this material.. A blog of the History and Public Policy Program. . Therefore, we are publishing an excised version of the entry, with a link to the Byrnes note. Washington's biggest test blast was 1,000 times as large. Debates on Alternatives to First Use and Unconditional Surrender, IV. Sato cabled Togo earlier that he saw no point in approaching the Soviets on ending the war until Tokyo had concrete proposals. Any aid from the Soviets has now become extremely doubtful.. 5, 27-35 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi], The Byrnes Note did not break the stalemate at the cabinet level. On the morning of August 15, Hirohito broadcast the message to the nation (although he never used the word surrender). 5d (copy from microfilm), On 27 April, military officers and nuclear scientists met to discuss bombing techniques, criteria for target selection, and overall mission requirements. To what extent were senior officials interested in looking at alternatives to urban targets? This document is General Curtis LeMays report on the firebombing of Tokyo--the most destructive air raid in history--which burned down over 16 square miles of the city, killed up to 100,000 civilians (the official figure was 83,793), injured more than 40,000, and made over 1 million homeless. As he argued in this memorandum to President Truman, failure on our part to clarify our intentions on the status of the emperor will insure prolongation of the war and cost a large number of human lives. Documents like this have played a role in arguments developed by Alperovitz that Truman and his advisers had alternatives to using the bomb such as modifying unconditional surrender and that anti-Soviet considerations weighed most heavily in their thinking.
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