Later, he met with Secretary of State Byrnes and they discussed the Manhattan Projects secrecy and the huge expenditures. Alperovitz and Sherwin have argued that Truman made a real decision to use the bomb on Japan by choosing between various forms of diplomacy and warfare. In contrast, Bernstein found that Truman never questioned [the] assumption that the bomb would and should be used. Brewster suggested that Japan could be used as a target for a demonstration of the bomb, which he did not further define. 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. the atomic bomb.docx - The United States decision to drop With the Japanese surrender announcement not yet in, President Truman believed that another atomic bombing might become necessary. A directive (right), written by Leslie Groves , approved by President Truman, and issued by Secretary of War Henry Stimson and General of the . This summary includes an intercepted account of the destruction of Nagasaki. How the Hiroshima Bombing Ended WWIIAnd Started the Cold War - HISTORY 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. 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. Alperovitz, 281-282. But on 7 August, Stalin changed the instructions: the attack was to begin the next day. The bombings have always been presented to young Americans in . "The US decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima was a diplomatic measure calculated to intimidate the USSR in the post-second World War era rather than strictly a military measure designed to force Japan to unconditionallysurrender" Procedure: Use the documents, textbook pages 845-849, and your knowledge of the era to support a position on The U.S. Air Force Accidentally Dropped An Atomic Bomb On South 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. US bombings on Hiroshima & Nagasaki were not to end WWII but to - RT A new body of scholarly work emerged, often based on hitherto unavailable documents, which countered revisionist arguments that the atomic bomb was primarily a diplomatic weapon in 1945, that Japan would have surrendered prior to the planned U.S. invasion had the bomb not been used, and that projected casualty figures for the anticipated invasion An important question that Stimson discussed with Marshall, at Trumans request, was whether Soviet entry into the war remained necessary to secure Tokyos surrender. [11], Documents 6A-D: President Truman Learns the Secret, G 77, Commanding Generals file no. As to how the war with Japan would end, he saw it as unpredictable, but speculated that it will take Russian entry into the war, combined with a landing, or imminent threat of a landing, on Japan proper by us, to convince them of the hopelessness of their situation. Lincoln derided Hoovers casualty estimate of 500,000. How much did top officials know about the radiation effects of the weapons? Barton J. Bernstein, Eclipsed by Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Early Thinking about Tactical Nuclear Weapons,International Security15 (Spring 1991): 149-173; Marc Gallicchio, After Nagasaki: General Marshalls Plans for Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Japan,Prologue23 (Winter 1991): 396-404. Letters from Robert Messer and Gar Alperovitz, with Bernsteins response, provide insight into some of the interpretative issues. 816-268-8200 | 800-833-1225 In the surprise attack, Japan sunk several ships, destroyed hundreds of planes and ended thousands of lives. . 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. Upon becoming president, Harry Truman learned of the Manhattan Project, a secret scientific effort to create an atomic bomb. Did Truman Really Oppose the Soviet Union's Decision to Enter the War They note large scale destruction of the city and damage to buildings (the hospital, gas storage tanks, the Mitsubishi plant, etc.) Early the next day, General Anami committed suicide. 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 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.) [9], RG 77, Correspondence ("Top Secret") of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946, file 25M. And on Aug. 6, a bomb would fall on Hiroshima, ultimately killing an. 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. Victims who looked healthy weakened, for unknown reasons and many died. The proposed script for the Smithsonian exhibition can be seen at Philipe Nobile. Experts: How Powerful, Widespread Is Fallout From a Nuclear Bomb? 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 useful discussion of this meeting and the other Target Committee meetings, see Norris, 382-386. The last major battle, the fight for Okinawa, lasted almost three months and took more than 100,000 Japanese and American lives. Analyzes how the united states and the soviet union became superpowers as world war ii ended. [44]. were the atomic strikes necessary primarily to avert an invasion of Japan in November 1945? With the material that follows, the National Security Archive publishes the most comprehensive on-line collection to date of declassified U.S. government documents on the atomic bomb and the end of the war in the Pacific. [63]. Why did the Americans decide to carry out these attacks? To help readers who are less familiar with the debates, commentary on some of the documents will point out, although far from comprehensively, some of the ways in which they have been interpreted. Despite the bombing of Hiroshima, the Soviet declaration of war, and growing worry about domestic instability, the Japanese cabinet (whose decisions required unanimity) could not form a consensus to accept the Potsdam Declaration. [60], W.A. 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? At 10:50 a.m., he met with the leadership at the bomb shelter in his palace. Atomic diplomacy refers to attempts to use the threat of nuclear warfare to achieve diplomatic goals. At the end, Stimson shared his doubts about targeting cities and killing civilians through area bombing because of its impact on the U.S.s reputation as well as on the problem of finding targets for the atomic bomb. Soviet officials also rushed to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki to survey damage to the cities and assess the power of the atomic bomb. The First Nuclear Strikes and their Impact, XI. 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. Was the Hiroshima atomic bomb a measure to intimidate - Russian Best Noteworthy publications since 2015 includeMichael D. Gordin and G. John Ikenberry, eds., The Age of Hiroshima (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019); Sheldon Garon, On the Transnational Destruction of Cities: What Japan and the United States Learned from the Bombing of Britain and Germany in the Second World War, Past and Present 247 (2020): 235-271; Katherine E. McKinney, Scott Sagan, and Allen S. Weiner, Why the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima Would Be Illegal Today, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 76 (2020); Gregg Mitchell, The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood and America Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (New York: The New Press, 2020); Steve Olson, The Apocalypse Factory: Plutonium and the Making of the Atomic Age (New York: W.W. Norton, 2020); Neil J. Sullivan, The Prometheus Bomb: The Manhattan Project and Government in the Dark (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press/Potomac Books, 2016); Alex Wellerstein; Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States,(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming, 2020), a memoir by a Hiroshima survivor, Taniguchi Sumitero, The Atomic Bomb on My Back: A Life Story of Survival and Activism (Montpelier, VT: Rootstock Publishing, 2020), and a collection of interviews, Cynthia C. Kelly, ed., The Manhattan Project: The Birth of the Atomic Bomb in the Words of Its Creators, Eyewitnesses, and Historians (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2020). Alperovitz, Bernstein, and Sherwin made new contributions as did other historians, social scientists, and journalists including Richard B. Frank, Herbert Bix, Sadao Asada, Kai Bird, Robert James Maddox, Sean Malloy, Robert P. Newman, Robert S. Norris, Tsuyoshi Hagesawa, and J. Samuel Walker.[4]. [32], Record Group 353, Records of Interdepartmental and Intradepartmental Committees, Secretarys Staff Meetings Minutes, 1944-1947 (copy from microfilm). Riabevs notes, it is possible that Berias copy of this letter ended up in Stalins papers. In this context, Naryshkins words gain a particular nuance: the anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were an excellent opportunity for Moscow to revive its relationship with Tokyo, which irritated US officials at a time when the United States sought a united front with its ally in light of Russias increasingly aggressive behavior. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The documents may even provoke new questions. The documents cover multiple aspects of the bombings and their context. At the beginning of the discussion, Eisenhower made a significant statement: he mentioned how he had hoped that the war might have ended without our having to use the atomic bomb. The general implication was that prior to Hiroshima-Nagasaki, he had wanted to avoid using the bomb. A. Zolotarev, ed., Sovetsko-Iaponskaia Voina 1945 Goda: Istoriia Voenno-Politicheskogo Protivoborstva Dvukh Derzhav v 3040e Gody (Moscow: Terra, 1997 and 2000), Vol. 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. When former Secretary of State Cordell Hull learned about it he outlined his objections to Byrnes, arguing that it might be better to wait the climax of allied bombing and Russias entry into the war. Byrnes was already inclined to reject that part of the draft, but Hulls argument may have reinforced his decision. The original 2005 posting included a wide range of material, including formerly top secret "Magic" summaries of intercepted Japanese communications and the first-ever full translations from the Japanese of accounts of high level meetings and discussions in Tokyo leading to the Emperors decision to surrender. 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). The bomb missed Gregg's house by just 100 yards, and the explosion caused by the TNT trigger created a hole in Walter Gregg's garden that measured 24 feet in depth and 50 feet in width. The nuclear age had truly begun with the first military use of atomic weapons. Historians Reassess: Did we need to drop the bomb? Russia is very much in the minds of the people who give any thought to world affairs, and distrust and suspicion of her are very widespread. 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]. Togo could not persuade the cabinet, however, and the Army wanted to delay any decisions until it had learned what had happened to Hiroshima. 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). Atomic bomb question.pdf - The US decision to drop an Tsar Bomba, the Largest Atomic Bomb in History The original desire of the United States government when they dropped Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not, in fact, the one more commonly known: that the two nuclear devices dropped upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki were detonated with the intention of bringing an end to the war with Japan, but instead to intimidate the Soviet . Maddox, 83-84; Hasegawa, 126-128. Harriman Papers, Library of Congress, box 211, Robert Pickens Meiklejohn World War II Diary At London and Moscow March 10, 1941-February 14, 1946, Volume II (Privately printed, 1980 [Printed from hand-written originals]) (Reproduced with permission), Robert P. Meiklejohn, who worked as Ambassador W. A. Harrimans administrative assistant at the U.S. Embassies in Moscow and London during and after World War II, kept a detailed diary of his experiences and observations. When he learned of the atomic bombing from the Domei News Agency, Togo believed that it was time to give up and advised the cabinet that the atomic attack provided the occasion for Japan to surrender on the basis of the Potsdam Declaration. [59a]. As indicated by the L.D. [69]. [61]. 576 words. which was the world's first atomic bomb to be used in welfare. The panel argued for early military use but not before informing key allies about the atomic project to open a dialogue on how we can cooperate in making this development contribute to improved international relations., Record Group 218, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Central Decimal Files, 1942-1945, box 198 334 JCS (2-2-45) Mtg 186th-194th. He wanted to intimidate the Soviet Union c. He wanted Japan's unconditional surrender d. He felt it would strengthen U.S.-Soviet relations Some may associate this statement with one that Eisenhower later recalled making to Stimson. 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. [Photograph: The atomic cloud rising over Nagasaki, Japan, August 9, 1945. Dbq help!! The atomic bomb on Hiroshima | CourseNotes To provide a fuller picture of the transition from U.S.-Japanese antagonism to reconciliation, the editor has done what could be done within time and resource constraints to present information on the activities and points of view of Japanese policymakers and diplomats. 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 cost of invasion, they knew, would be high. Whether this meant that Truman was getting ready for a confrontation with Stalin over Eastern Europe and other matters has also been the subject of debate. 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. 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. 5b and 5e (copies from microfilm), These messages convey the process of creating and transmitting the execution order to bomb Hiroshima. 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. How is the current debate about immigration in the United States rooted in our nations past? A more recent collection of documents, along with a bibliography, narrative, and chronology, is Michael KortsThe Columbia Guide to Hiroshima and the Bomb(New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). 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. The document was then circulated on November 22, 1945 by Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov to Stalin, Lavrentyi Beria (at that point appointed as head of the Soviet atomic bomb project), and Politburo members Georgy Malenkov and Anastas Mikoyan. Milestones: 1945-1952 - Office of the Historian Various personnel and guards are standing around the loading area. Atomic Bomb Flashcards | Quizlet Arguing that continuing the war would reduce the nation to ashes, his words about bearing the unbearable and sadness over wartime losses and suffering prefigured the language that Hirohito would use in his public announcement the next day. "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. For more recent contributions, see Sean Malloy,Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Bomb Against Japan(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008), Andrew Rotter,Hiroshima: The World's Bomb(New York: Oxford, 2008), Campbell Craig and Sergey Radchenko,The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War(New Haven, Yale University Press, 2008), Wilson D. Miscamble,The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Open Document. Fears and Counterfactual Analysis: Would the Planned November 1945 Invasion of Southern Kyushu Have Occurred?Pacific Historical Review68 (1999): 561-609. The numbered items are military and industrial installations with the percentages of total destruction. 5b (copy from microfilm), Two days after the bombing of Hiroshima, Groves provided Chief of Staff Marshall with a report which included messages from Captain William S. Parsons and others about the impact of the detonation which, through prompt radiation effects, fire storms, and blast effects, immediately killed at least 70,000, with many dying later from radiation sickness and other causes. Why the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima | CNN Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog. 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 . Is control of nuclear weapons necessary to maintain peace? [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. The bomb was dropped to impress the Soviets, and persuade them to relax their grip on eastern Europe.