While Lincoln believed that the proposed peace teams were militarily acceptable he doubted that they were workable or that they could check Soviet expansion which he saw as an inescapable result of World War II. 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. Searle, `It Made a Lot of Sense to Kill Skilled Workers, 118. 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 For varied casualty figures cited by Truman and others after the war, see Walker,Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan, 101-102. Brown, special assistant to Secretary of State James Byrnes. [18]. Two days later an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing an estimated . 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). [71]. As this August marks the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we are once again urged to reflect on the political role of the weapon that inaugurated the Nuclear Age. Barton J. Bernstein, "'Reconsidering the 'Atomic General': Leslie R. Groves,"The Journal of Military History67 (July 2003): 883-920. That is why, on August 8, Japanese newspapers first reported that the enemy used a new type of bomb in attacking Hiroshima, but the details are still under investigation., The phrasing a new type of bomb ( shingata bakudan) was used because the expression atomic bomb ( genshi bakudan) was prohibited by the Japanese government during the war. Because the Japanese population was far from surrendering and would fight to their death, so an invasion would be costly in human lives. Women and children had been taught how to kill with basic weapons. The British National Archives, Records of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, FO 800/461. Malloy (2008), 49-50. As part of the war with Japan, the Army Air Force waged a campaign to destroy major industrial centers with incendiary bombs. If you were President Truman in 1945, would you have dropped the bomb? [15], RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 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. Not altogether certain that surrender was imminent, Army intelligence did not rule out the possibility that Tokyo would try to drag out the negotiations or reject the Byrnes proposal and continue fighting. As noted, some documents relating to the origins of the Manhattan Project have been included in addition to entries from the Robert P. Meiklejohn diaries and translations of a few Soviet documents, among other items. [63]. [7]. 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 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. The parts that are highlighted in the report with a line on the left-hand margin are noteworthy. Here senior State Department officials, Under Secretary Joseph Grew on one side, and Assistant Secretary Dean Acheson and Archibald MacLeish on the other, engaged in hot debate. 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. 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. However, the Department of the Interior opposed the disclosure of the nature of the weapon. Signed by about 68 Manhattan Project scientists, mainly physicists and biologists (copies with the remaining signatures are in the archival file), the petition did not explicitly reject military use, but raised questions about an arms race that military use could instigate and requested Truman to publicize detailed terms for Japanese surrender. He believed that casualties would not be more than those produced by the battle for Luzon, some 31,000. 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 war was finally over. 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. If there were, what were they and how plausible are they in retrospect? 1. The target would be a city--either Hiroshima, Kyoto (still on the list), or Niigata--but specific aiming points would not be specified at that time nor would industrial pin point targets because they were likely to be on the fringes a city. (Photo from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-BT), This shows "Little Boy" being raised for loading into the Enola Gay's bomb bay. [25]. Early the next day, General Anami committed suicide. Brown Papers, box 10, folder 12, Byrnes, James F.: Potsdam, Minutes, July-August 1945, Walter Brown, who served as special assistant to Secretary of State Byrnes, kept a diary which provided considerable detail on the Potsdam conference and the growing concerns about Soviet policy among top U.S. officials. On August 6,1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki were attacked by atomic bombs that were dropped by the U.S Military. For tug of war, see Hasegawa, 226-227. Thousands died later from radiation sickness. Togos proposal would have been generally consistent with a constitutional monarchy because it defined the kokutai narrowly as the emperor and the imperial household. On the other hand much of the confirmed evidence Alperovitz presented was baffling. Soviet forces in the east had attacked in the neighbourhood of Gradekovo, where the railroad from Vladivostok crosses the frontier. 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. 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. [65], Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter Brown Papers, box 68, folder 13, Transcript/Draft B. Bush-Conant papers, S-1 Historical File, Reports to and Conferences with the President (1942-1944), National Archives, Record Group 77, Records of the Army Corps of Engineers (hereinafter RG 77), Manhattan Engineering District (MED), Minutes of the Military Policy Meeting (5 May 1943), Correspondence (Top Secret) of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946, microfilm publication M1109 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1980), Roll 3, Target 6, Folder 23, Military Policy Committee, Minutes of Meetings, Before the Manhattan Project had produced any weapons, senior U.S. government officials had Japanese targets in mind. 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. [60], W.A. and so that Russia could not enter the war to get . The alternative is prompt and utter destruction. The next day, in response to questions from journalists about the governments reaction to the ultimatum, Prime Minister Suzuki apparently said that We can only ignore [mokusatsu] it. Barton J. Bernstein, Introduction to Helen S. Hawkins et al. [73] As it turned out, a few hours later, at 4:05 p.m., the White House received the Japanese surrender announcement. Russia hurried in and the war ended., Truman characterized the Potsdam Declaration as a fair warning, but it was an ultimatum. Stalin considered various dates to schedule an attack. On August 9th, 1945, Truman declared that the use of the A-bomb had saved THOUSANDS of American lives. The editor particularly benefited from the source material cited in the following works: Robert S. Norris,Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie S. Groves, The Manhattan Projects Indispensable Man(South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 2002); Gar Alperovitz,The Decision to Use the Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth(New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1995); Richard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire(New York: Random House, 1999), Martin Sherwin,A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and the Origins of the Arm Race(New York, Vintage Books, 1987), and as already mentioned, HasegawasRacing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan(Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2005). Upon becoming president, Harry Truman learned of the Manhattan Project, a secret scientific effort to create an atomic bomb. The discussion of weapons effects centered on blast damage models; radiation and other effects were overlooked. With Prime Minister Suzuki presiding, each of the ministers had a chance to state their views directly to Hirohito. 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.. Private collections were also important, such as the Henry L. Stimson Papers held at Yale University (although available on microfilm, for example, at the Library of Congress) and the papers of W. Averell Harriman at the Library of Congress. Evaluate this . Toward that end, in 2005, at the time of the 60th anniversary of the bombings, staff at the National Security Archive compiled and scanned a significant number of declassified U.S. government documents to make them more widely available. Nevertheless, his diary suggests that military hard-liners were very much in charge and that Prime Minister Suzuki was talking tough against surrender, by evoking last ditch moments in Japanese history and warning of the danger that subordinate commanders might not obey surrender orders. In destructive power, the behemoths of the Cold War dwarfed the American atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. On August 6th, 1945 at 8:15 A.M. the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. In the course of the conversation, Harriman received a message from Washington that included the proposed U.S. reply and a request for Soviet support of the reply. 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 Augusta, Truman learned about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and announced it twice, first to those in the wardroom (socializing/dining area for commissioned officers), and then to the sailors mess. Bernstein (1995), 144. They caused terrible human losses and destruction at the time and more deaths and sickness in the years ahead from the radiation effects. [15]. [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. Alperovitz, 281-282. 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 . Some of the key elements of Stimsons argument were his assumption that Japan is susceptible to reason and that Japanese might be even more inclined to surrender if we do not exclude a constitutional monarchy under her present dynasty. The possibility of a Soviet attack would be part of the threat. As part of the threat message, Stimson alluded to the inevitability and completeness of the destruction which Japan could suffer, but he did not make it clear whether unconditional surrender terms should be clarified before using the atomic bomb. The bomb was dropped to impress the Soviets, and persuade them to relax their grip on eastern Europe. Drawing on contemporary documents and journals, Masuji Ibuses novelBlack Rain(Tokyo, Kodansha, 1982) provides an unforgettable account of the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath. Frank, 258; Bernstein (1995), 147; Walker (2005), 322. 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. The diary entries cover July 16, 17, 18, 20, 25, 26, and 30 and include Trumans thinking about a number of issues and developments, including his reactions to Churchill and Stalin, the atomic bomb and how it should be targeted, the possible impact of the bomb and a Soviet declaration of war on Japan, and his decision to tell Stalin about the bomb. 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. See Malloy, A Very Pleasant Way to Die, 541-542. Alperovitz, 147; Robert James Maddox,Weapons for Victory: The Hiroshima Decision Fifty Years Later(Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1995), 52; Gabiel Kolko,The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943-1945(New York: Pantheon Books, 1990), 421-422. For years debate has raged over whether the US was right to drop two atomic bombs on Japan during the final weeks of the Second World War. On the morning of August 15, Hirohito broadcast the message to the nation (although he never used the word surrender). As Alperovitz notes, the Davies papers include variant diary entries and it is difficult to know which are the most accurate. 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 World Wide Web includes significant documentary resources on these events. More than seventy years after the end of World War II, the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains controversial. The atomic bomb on Hiroshima. 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. For some historians, the urban fire-bombing strategy facilitated atomic targeting by creating a new moral context, in which earlier proscriptions against intentional targeting of civilians had eroded. Judgment at the Smithsonian(New York: Matthews and Company, 1995), pp. Maddox, 83-84; Hasegawa, 126-128. Alperovitz, however, treats it as additional evidence that strongly suggests that Truman saw alternatives to using the bomb. 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. [2]. Rather, they are mostly about damage to inanimate objects. [76]. The United States, along with other countries, criticized Japanese aggression but shied away from any economic or military punishments. 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. The atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War IIcodenamed "Little Boy" and "Fat Man," respectivelycaused widespread destruction . But how exactly did the bomb help start the Cold War? The traditional story of Japan's surrender has a simple timeline. The ensuing war was costly. This update presents previously unpublished material and translations of difficult-to-find records. 153-154, 164 (n)). As the Russian invasion of Ukraine shows, nuclear threats are real, present, and dangerous. 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. Independence, MO 64050 Togo asked Sato to try to meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov as soon as possible to sound out the Russian attitude on the declaration as well as Japans end-the-war initiative. Hiroshima - view of Hiroshima Castle and surroundings; Both cities were leveled from the bombs and this, in turn, forced Japan to surrender to the United States. Whether or not the atomic bombs should have been dropped is a topic that is still debated. Seventy 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. A modern-day nuclear bomb . My analysis will provide some historical and political context and offer an initial assessment of these documents. Nor does it include any of the interviews, documents prepared after the events, and post-World War II correspondence, etc. Contributors to the historical controversy have deployed the documents selected here to support their arguments about the first use of nuclear weapons and the end of World War II. Another column was striking south from the Soviet border toward Hailar. that participants in the debate have brought to bear in framing their arguments. [80]. According to an Eyewitness Account (and Estimates Heard) In Regard to the Bombing of Hiroshima: Casualties have been estimated at 100,000 persons., Zenshiro Hoshina, Daitoa Senso Hishi: Hoshina Zenshiro Kaiso-roku [Secret History of the Greater East Asia War: Memoir of Zenshiro Hoshina] (Tokyo, Japan: Hara-Shobo, 1975), excerpts from Section 5, The Emperor made go-seidan [= the sacred decision] the decision to terminate the war, 139-149 [translation by Hikaru Tajima]. Historians and the public continue to debate if the bombings were justified, the causes of Japan's surrender, the casualties that would have resulted if the U.S. had invaded Japan, and more. 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]. According to Frank, the actual total of deaths due to the atomic bombs will never be known, but the huge number ranges somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people. For Stimsons article, see The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,Harpers194 (February 1947): 97-107. Also included, to give a wider perspective, were translations of Japanese documents not widely available before. did not mean that the war would continue. 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. For the maneuverings on August 9 and the role of thekokutai, see Hasegawa, 3-4, 205-214. The 509th Composite Groups cover story for its secret mission was the preparation of Pumpkins for use in battle. Sayuri Romei examines Soviet records produced in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the continuing importance of Hiroshima to Russian foreign policy. We wish to believe. We will do our utmost to complete the war to the bitter end. That, Bix argues, represents a missed opportunity to end the war and spare the Japanese from continued U.S. aerial attacks. 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]. For a slightly different perspective, see Malloy (2007), 138. Fax: 816-268-8295. Truman read Stimsons proposal, which he said was powerful, but made no commitments to the details, e.g., the position of the emperor. An entry from Admiral Tagaki's diary for August 8 conveys more information on the mood in elite Japanese circles after Hiroshima, but before the Soviet declaration of war and the bombing of Nagasaki. With the devastating battle for Okinawa winding up, Truman and the Joint Chiefs stepped back and considered what it would take to secure Japans surrender. The war had shown that the Japanese were fighting for the Emperor who convinced them that it was better to die than surrender. 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. This includes a number of formerly top secret summaries of intercepted Japanese diplomatic communications, which enable interested readers to form their own judgments about the direction of Japanese diplomacy in the weeks before the atomic bombings. And on Aug. 6, a bomb would fall on Hiroshima, ultimately killing an. [39], The last item discusses Japanese contacts with representatives of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Switzerland. After a White House meeting on 14 August, British Minister John Balfour reported that Truman had remarked sadly that he now had no alternative but to order an atomic bomb to be dropped on Tokyo. This was likely emotional thinking spurred by anxiety and uncertainty. RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 20, Envelope G Tinian Files, Top Secret, The prime target for the second atomic attack was Kokura, which had a large army arsenal and ordnance works, but various problems ruled that city out; instead, the crew of the B-29 that carried Fat Man flew to an alternate target at Nagasaki. [11], Documents 6A-D: President Truman Learns the Secret, G 77, Commanding Generals file no. On the August 6, 1945, the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, by the United States. While U.S. leaders hailed the bombings at the time and for many years afterwards for bringing the Pacific war to an end and saving untold thousands of American lives, that interpretation has since been seriously challenged. 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. An illustration of a nuclear bomb exploding in a city. 5g. See Janet Farrell Brodie, Radiation Secrecy and Censorship after Hiroshima and Nagasaki,The Journal of Social History48 (2015): 842-864. The bomb ended the war. They also discussed postwar legislation on the atom and the pending Henry D. Smyth report on the scientific work underlying the Manhattan project and postwar domestic controls of the atom. [Editors Note: Originally prepared in July 2005 this posting has been updated, with new documents, changes in organization, and other editorial changes. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 243, Photographs Used In The Report Effects of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, 1947 - 1947, Local Identifier:243-HP-I-31-3; National Archives ID:22345672. For detailed background on the Army Air Forces incendiary bombing planning, see Schaffer (1985) 107-127. With respect to the point about assembling the weapons, Groves and Stimson informed Truman that the first gun-type weapon should be ready about 1 August 1945 while an implosion weapon would also be available that month. 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.

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