David Holloway, Barbarossa and the Bomb: Two Cases of Soviet Intelligence in World War II, in Jonathan Haslam and Karina Urbach, eds.,Secret Intelligence in the European States System, 1918-1989(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), 63-64. [31], RG 107, Office of Assistant Secretary of War Formerly Classified Correspondence of John J. McCloy, 1941-1945, box 38, ASW 387 Japan. At the Wilson Center, it is part of the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. Truman, who had been chair of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, said that only on the appeal of Secretary of War Stimson did he refrain and let the War Department continue with the experiment unmolested.. 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. Why we dropped the Atomic Bomb The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 was a definite turning point in the Pacific War of World . This and other entries from the Stimson diary (as well as the entry from the Davies diary that follows) are important to arguments developed by Gar Alperovitz and Barton J. Bernstein, among others, although with significantly different emphases, that in light of controversies with the Soviet Union over Eastern Europe and other areas, top officials in the Truman administration believed that possessing the atomic bomb would provide them with significant leverage for inducing Moscows acquiescence in U.S. The bombings were the first time that nuclear weapons had been detonated in combat operations. With Japan close to capitulation, Truman asserted presidential control and ordered a halt to atomic bombings. Every August, newspapers are dotted with stories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, accompanied by a well-picked-over but never resolved . This criminal one-two punch by the US launched the atomic age. This document has also figured in the argument framed by Barton Bernstein that Truman and his advisers took it for granted that the bomb was a legitimate weapon and that there was no reason to explore alternatives to military use. A collectionoftranscribed documents is Gene Dannens Atomic Bomb: Decision. For a print collection of documents, see Dennis Merrill ed.,Documentary History of the Truman Presidency: Volume I: The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb on Japan(University Publications of America, 1995). After considerable pressure from Harriman, the Soviets signed off on the reply but not before tensions surfaced over the control of Japan--whether Moscow would have a Supreme Commander there as well. The discussion of area bombing may have reminded him that Japanese civilians remained at risk from U.S. bombing operations. National Archives Identifier 535795] That possibility would be difficult if the United States made first military use of the weapon. 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 12, S-1, Tacitly dissenting from the Targeting Committees recommendations, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall argued for initial nuclear use against a clear-cut military target such as a large naval installation. If that did not work, manufacturing areas could be targeted, but only after warning their inhabitants. A U.S. War Department photograph of Hiroshima after the atomic bombing, undated. 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. Analyzes how the united states and the soviet union became superpowers as world war ii ended. A modern-day nuclear bomb . If there was a misfire the weapon would be difficult for the Japanese to recover, which would not be the case if Tokyo was targeted. As the scientists had learned, a gun-type weapon based on plutonium was impossible because that element had an unexpected property: spontaneous neutron emissions would cause the weapon to fizzle.[10] For both the gun-type and the implosion weapons, a production schedule had been established and both would be available during 1945. The conventional justification for the atomic bombings is that they prevented the invasion of Japan, thus saving countless lives on both sides. The releasing of the atomic bombs to intimidate the Soviets in the years after World War Two is a valid claim because the . "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. Read more, The Cold War International History Project supports the full and prompt release of historical materials by governments on all sides of the Cold War. Reasons Why the U.S. If that failed to persuade Tokyo, he proposed that the United States disclose the secret of the atomic bomb to secure Japans unconditional surrender. In accordance with the dinners rules that reporters are never present, Trumans remarks were off-the record. On December 15th, 1945, he delcared that the A-bomb had save one-quarter million American lives. While McCloy later recalled that Truman expressed interest, he said that Secretary of State Byrnes squashed the proposal because of his opposition to any deals with Japan. [40], L.D. Sadao Asada, The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japans Decision to Surrender: A Reconsideration,Pacific Historical Review67 (1998): 101-148; Bix, 523; Frank, 348; Hasegawa, 298. Read more, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NWWashington, DC 20004-3027, Nuclear Proliferation International History Project. See also Malloy, A Very Pleasant Way to Die, 539-540. This memorandum from General Groves to General Marshall captured how far the Manhattan Project had come in less than two years since Bushs December 1942 report to President Roosevelt. [78]. With direct access to the documents, readers may develop their own answers to the questions raised above. 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. Frank, 286-287; Sherwin, 233-237; Bernstein (1995), 150; Maddox, 148. See also Walker (2005), 316-317. Takashi Itoh, ed., Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 916-917 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima], In 1944 Navy minister Mitsumasa Yonai ordered rear admiral Sokichi Takagi to go on sick leave so that he could undertake a secret mission to find a way to end the war. The target is and was always expected to be Japan., These documents have important implications for the perennial debate over whether Truman inherited assumptions from the Roosevelt administration that the bomb would be used when available or that he madethedecision to do so. Record Group 165, Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs, American-British-Canadian Top Secret Correspondence, Box 504, ABC 387 Japan (15 Feb. 45), George A. Lincoln, chief of the Strategy and Policy Group at U.S. Armys Operations Department, commented on a memorandum by former President Herbert Hoover that Stimson had passed on for analysis. Moreover, the collection includes for the first time translations from Japanese sources of high level meetings and discussions in Tokyo, including the conferences when Emperor Hirohito authorized the final decision to surrender. That evening army officers tried to seize the palace and find Hirohitos recording, but the coup failed. [61]. The bomb was built in 1961 by a group of Soviet physicists that notably included . Nor does it include any of the interviews, documents prepared after the events, and post-World War II correspondence, etc. Included are documents on the early stages of the U.S. atomic bomb project, Army Air Force GeneralCurtis LeMays reporton the firebombing of Tokyo (March 1945), Secretary of War HenryStimsons requestsfor modification of unconditional surrender terms,Soviet documentsrelating to the events, excerpts from the Robert P. Meiklejohn diaries mentioned above, and selections from the diaries of Walter J. While post-war justifications for the bomb suggested that an invasion of Japan could have produced very high levels of casualties (dead, wounded, or missing), from hundreds of thousands to a million, historians have vigorously debated the extent to which the estimates were inflated. George C. Marshall Papers, George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, VA (copy courtesy of Barton J. Bernstein), Groves informed General Marshall that he was making plans for the use of a third atomic weapon sometime after 17 August, depending on the weather. The bomb was dropped to impress the Soviets, and persuade them to relax their grip on eastern Europe. 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 outspoken Szilard was not involved in operational work on the bomb and General Groves kept him under surveillance but Met Lab director Arthur Compton found Szilard useful to have around. A significant contested question is whether, under the weight of a U.S. blockade and massive conventional bombing, the Japanese were ready to surrender before the bombs were dropped. On 30 October 1961, the Soviet Union detonated the Tsar Bomba nuclear bomb over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in northern Russia. Third update - August 7, 2017, For more information, contact: 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. 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. August 4, 2015 A few months after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, General Dwight D.Eisenhower commented during a social occasion how he had hoped that the war might have ended without our having to use the atomic bomb. This virtually unknown evidence from the diary of Robert P. Meiklejohn, an assistant to Ambassador W. Averell Harriman, published for the first time today by the National Security Archive, confirms that the future President Eisenhower had early misgivings about the first use of atomic weapons by the United States. The intention was to force Japan to surrender, thus avoiding a long war in the Pacific. If Russia used a nuclear weapon of any type, "I expect (the president) to say we're in a new situation, and the U.S. will directly enter the war against Russia to stop this government that has . Source: U.S. National Archives, College Park, MD, Record Group 373, Defense Intelligence Agency, Aerial Film, U.S., Army Air Force. The destruction was. 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.. The bombings have always been presented to young Americans in . (Photo from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-BT), This shows "Little Boy" being raised for loading into the Enola Gay's bomb bay. Every major country of the time was involved in the war. After the first successful test of the atomic bomb in 1945, U.S. officials immediately considered the potential non-military benefits that could be derived from the American nuclear monopoly. Peter Grose,Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 170-174, 248-249. Despite the interest of some senior officials such as Joseph Grew, Henry Stimson, and John J. McCloy in modifying the concept of unconditional surrender so that the Japanese could be sure that the emperor would be preserved, it remained a highly contentious subject. For example, the governing clique that supported the peace moves was not trying to stave off defeat but was seeking Soviet help to end the war. By contrast, Herbert P. Bix has suggested that the Japanese leadership would probably not have surrendered if the Truman administration had spelled out the status of the emperor. Japan, sensing conflict was inevitable, began planning for an attack on Pearl Harbor by April, 1941. Was the dropping of the atomic bombs morally justifiable. The task of compilation involved consultation of primary sources at the National Archives, mainly in Manhattan Project files held in the records of the Army Corps of Engineers, Record Group 77, but also in the archival records of the National Security Agency. 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. [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. The timing of the trip to Hiroshima and Nagasaki within 40 days of the bombings illustrates the Soviet race to obtain its own atomic bomb, but the timing of the 2015 re-release of these documents is also significant: it came at a time when US-Russia relations were suffering a major deterioration. It is part of the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. Moreover, to shed light on the considerations that induced Japans surrender, this briefing book includes new translations of Japanese primary sources on crucial events, including accounts of the conferences on August 9 and 14, where Emperor Hirohito made decisions to accept Allied terms of surrender.
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