In the surprise attack, Japan sunk several ships, destroyed hundreds of planes and ended thousands of lives. Why the United States Did Not Demonstrate the Bomb's Power, Ahead of Besides discussing programmatic matters (e.g., status of gaseous diffusion plants, heavy water production for reactors, and staffing at Las Alamos), the participants agreed that the first use could be Japanese naval forces concentrated at Truk Harbor, an atoll in the Caroline Islands. Churchill and India: Manipulation or Betrayal? Alperovitz, 226; Bernstein, Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender,Diplomatic History19 (1995), 237, note 22. 2 Pt. This personal account, written on Tinian, reports his fears about the danger of a nuclear accident, the confusion surrounding the Nagasaki attack, and early Air Force thinking about a nuclear strike force. 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. One of the reports key findings was that a fission bomb of superlatively destructive power will result from bringing quickly together a sufficient mass of element U235. That was a certainty, as sure as any untried prediction based upon theory and experiment can be. The critically important task was to develop ways and means to separate highly enriched uranium from uranium-238. World War II was fought by millions of people in all corners of the world. Did America drop the bomb in revenge, to prevent the USSR spreading? Cited in Barton J. Bernstein, Truman and the A-Bomb: Targeting Noncombatants, Using the Bomb, and His Defending the "Decision,The Journal of Military History62 (1998), at page 559. For more on these developments, see Asada, "The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan's Decision to Surrender: A Reconsideration," 486-488. [3] The NASM exhibit was drastically scaled-down but historians and journalist continued to engage in the debate. 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 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. How did the U.S. government plan to use the bombs? Eisenhowers son John cast doubts about the memoir statements, although he attested that when the general first learned about the bomb he was downcast. This was the affirmation of the emperors theocratic powers, unencumbered by any law, based on Shinto gods in antiquity, and totally incompatible with a constitutional monarchy. Thus, the Japanese response to the Potsdam declaration opposed any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of his Majesty as a sovereign ruler. This proved to be unacceptable to the Truman administration.[63]. 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). 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). 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. This proposal had been the subject of positive discussion by the Interim Committee on the grounds that Soviet confidence was necessary to make possible post-war cooperation on atomic energy. The author recommended issuing the declaration just before the bombardment program [against Japan] reaches its peak. Next to that suggestion, Stimson or someone in his immediate office, wrote S1, implying that the atomic bombing of Japanese cities was highly relevant to the timing issue. Plainly he was troubled by the devastation and suffering caused by the bombings, but he found it justifiable because it saved the lives of U.S. troops. 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. Togos proposal would have been generally consistent with a constitutional monarchy because it defined the kokutai narrowly as the emperor and the imperial household. [22]. For example, one of McCloys aides, Colonel Fahey, argued against modification of unconditional surrender (see Appendix C`). 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. Tagaki was soon at the center of a cabal of Japanese defense officials, civil servants, and academics, which concluded that, in the end, the emperor would have to impose his decision on the military and the government. Takagi kept a detailed account of his activities, part of which was in diary form, the other part of which he kept on index cards. The United States, then, dropped the bombs to end the war that Japan had unleashed in Asia in 1931 and extended to the United States at Pearl Harborand thereby probably avoided an invasion that. The warning would draw on the draft State-War proclamation to Japan; presumably, the one criticized by Hull (above) which included language about the emperor. Stimson had in mind a carefully timed warning delivered before the invasion of Japan. At the time of the first report, various methods for producing a chain reaction were envisioned and money was being budgeted to try them out. [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. 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. Would the Soviet declaration of war have been enough to compel Tokyo to admit defeat? Why the U.S. Dropped the Atomic Bomb on Japan in WWII The U.S. Air Force Accidentally Dropped An Atomic Bomb On South 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. On 30 October 1961, the Soviet Union detonated the Tsar Bomba nuclear bomb over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in northern Russia. On August 6, 1945 the American war plane Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing between 70,000 and 100,000 Japanese. The embassy teams included GRU members Mikhail Ivanov and German Sergeev in August, and TASS correspondent Anatoliy Varshavskiy, former acting military attach Mikhail Romanov, and Naval apparatus employee Sergey Kikenin in September. Unfortunately, AP would not authorize the Archive to reproduce this item without payment. [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 the extent that the atomic bombing was critically important to the Japanese decision to surrender would it have been enough to destroy one city? Atomic Bomb Dbq in World War II Essay Example | GraduateWay Moreover, the role of an invasion of Japan in U.S. planning remains a matter of debate, with some arguing that the bombings spared many thousands of American lives that otherwise would have been lost in an invasion. 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. The Supreme War Council comprised the prime minister, foreign minister, army and navy ministers, and army and navy chiefs of staff; see Hasegawa, 72. Alperovitz treated this entry as evidence in support of the atomic diplomacy argument, but other historians, ranging from Robert Maddox to Gabriel Kolko, have denied that the timing of the Potsdam conference had anything to do with the goal of using the bomb to intimidate the Soviets. 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. The entry from Meiklejohns diary does not prove or disprove Eisenhowers recollection, but it does confirm that he had doubts which he expressed only a few months after the bombings. The conventional justification for the atomic bombings is that they prevented the invasion of Japan, thus saving countless lives on both sides. How familiar was President Truman with the concepts that led target planners chose major cities as targets? On August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on the people of Hiroshima. The Truman Library has published a helpful collection of archival documents, some of which are included in the present collection. This account, prepared by Director of Information Shimomura, conveys the drama of the occasion (as well as his interest in shifting the blame for the debacle to the Army). Seventy-five years later, and with the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight than ever, it is essential to keep exploring the meaning of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and how these tragedies still shape current global politics. Thousands more would die of radiation exposure. 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. ], Documents 1A-C: Report of the Uranium Committee, National Archives, Records of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Record Group 227 (hereinafter RG 227), Bush-Conant papers microfilm collection, Roll 1, Target 2, Folder 1, "S-1 Historical File, Section A (1940-1941).". Receptive to pressure from Stimson, Truman recorded his decision to take Japans old capital (Kyoto) off the atomic bomb target list. Brown recounted Byrnes debriefing of the 10 August White House meeting on the Japanese peace offer, an account which differed somewhat from that in the Stimson diary. 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. 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.. Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 5-9, 1945. Potsdam and The Final Decision to Use the Bomb By providing access to a broad range of U.S. and Japanese documents, mainly from the spring and summer of 1945, interested readers can see for themselves the crucial source material that scholars have used to shape narrative accounts of the historical developments and to frame their arguments about the questions that have provoked controversy over the years. The Soviet invasion was.[58], Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter J. Tsar Bomba, the Largest Atomic Bomb in History See Janet Farrell Brodie, Radiation Secrecy and Censorship after Hiroshima and Nagasaki,The Journal of Social History48 (2015): 842-864. With Prime Minister Suzuki presiding, each of the ministers had a chance to state their views directly to Hirohito. The documents may even provoke new questions. In any event, historians have used information from the diary to support various interpretations. Try again The United States Government's decision to attack Russia with the atomic bomb ultimate proved to scare the Russians. Japans cultural capital, Kyoto, would not stay on the list. In a progress report, Bush told President Roosevelt that the bomb project was on a pilot plant basis, but not yet at the production stage. Debate over the Bomb: An Annotated Bibliography 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. [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. Henry L. Stimson Papers (MS 465), Sterling Library, Yale University (reel 113) (microfilm at Library of Congress), Still interested in trying to find ways to warn Japan into surrender, this represents an attempt by Stimson before the Potsdam conference, to persuade Truman and Byrnes to agree to issue warnings to Japan prior to the use of the bomb. Concerned with the long-run implications of the bomb, Franck chaired a committee, in which Szilard and Eugene Rabinowitch were major contributors, that produced a report rejecting a surprise attack on Japan and recommended instead a demonstration of the bomb on the desert or a barren island. Arguing that a nuclear arms race will be on in earnest not later than the morning after our first demonstration of the existence of nuclear weapons, the committee saw international control as the alternative. Melvyn P. Leffler, Adherence to Agreements: Yalta and the Experiences of the Early Cold War,International Security11 (1986): 107; Holloway, Barbarossa and the Bomb, 65. 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. All Rights Reserved, FJHUMMING: Radio Libertys Russian Language Broadcasts from Taiwan, 75th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 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. Ramsey, a physicist, served as deputy director of the bomb delivery group, Project Alberta. The Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson, and I weighed that decision most prayerfully. Willingness to accept even the destruction of the Army and Navy rather than surrender inspired the military coup that unfolded and failed during the night of 14 August. Schaffer,Wings of Judgment, 143-146. 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 (1995), 146. The proposed script for the Smithsonian exhibition can be seen at Philipe Nobile. 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. 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. 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). According to what Byrnes told Brown, Truman, Stimson, and Leahy favored accepting the Japanese note, but Byrnes objected that the United States should go [no] further than we were willing to go at Potsdam. Stimsons account of the meeting noted Byrnes concerns (troubled and anxious) about the Japanese note and implied that he (Stimson) favored accepting it, but did not picture the debate as starkly as Browns's did. Zenshiro Hoshina, a senior naval official, attended the conference and prepared a detailed account. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, during World War II, American bombing raids on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945) that marked the first use of atomic weapons in war. The killing of workers in the urban-industrial sector was one of the explicit goals of the air campaign against Japanese cities. However, many historians believe that the attack on Japan-occupied Manchuria by the previously neutral Soviet Union on August 8 had more impact on Japan's leaders. 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. Hiroshima and Nagasaki represent the point of no return in the history of world politics: they mark the dramatic culmination and end of the war, while symbolizing the beginning of an era of nuclear fear. Searle, `It Made a Lot of Sense to Kill Skilled Workers, 118. If the United States had been more flexible about the demand for unconditional surrender by explicitly or implicitly guaranteeing a constitutional monarchy would Japan have surrendered earlier than it did?