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John HerseysHiroshima, first published in the New Yorkerin 1946 encouraged unsettled readers to question the bombings while church groups and some commentators, most prominently Norman Cousins, explicitly criticized them. 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. Why did the Americans decide to carry out these attacks? However, as soon as the Allied occupation of Japan came into force on September 19, the strict press code imposed by the General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, as well as the above-mentioned self-censorship imposed by the Japanese press, caused a delay in the way the atomic bombings were reported upon in Japan. For Stimsons article, see The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,Harpers194 (February 1947): 97-107. The bombings were the first time that nuclear weapons had been detonated in combat operations. Whether or not the atomic bombs should have been dropped is a topic that is still debated. Note: The second page of the diary entry includes a newspaper clipping of the Associated Presss transmission of the Byrnes note. In destructive power, the behemoths of the Cold War dwarfed the American atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. and offer details on potential protection (protective clothing against a uranium bomb includes rubber and any kind of insulation against electricity). At Potsdam, Stimson raised his objections to targeting Japans cultural capital, Kyoto, and Truman supported the secretarys efforts to drop that city from the target list [See Documents 47 and 48]. As these cables indicate, reports of unfavorable weather delayed the plan. 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. Bix appears to have moved toward a position close to Hasegawas; see Bix, Japan's Surrender Decision and the Monarchy: Staying the Course in an Unwinnable War,Japan Focus. 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. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a plutonium bomb . 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. Moreover, recent significant contributions to the scholarly literature have been taken into account. olive tree children ministries; teaching blog; about our ministry; salvation prayer; contact us See for example, Bernstein (1995), 140-141. 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. 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. The message that the bombings sent to the world was that whoever possessed those special weapons would prove to be politically superior, thus turning such weapons into the passport to survive and potentially win the Cold War. objectives. [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. 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. [18]. [9], RG 77, Correspondence ("Top Secret") of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946, file 25M. The second cable on 4 August shows that the schedule advanced to late in the evening of 5 August. But it was the opposite, Truman caused the Cold War the moment he dropped the atomic bomb. This summary includes an intercepted account of the destruction of Nagasaki. The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, brought the United States officially into World War II. With Japan close to capitulation, Truman asserted presidential control and ordered a halt to atomic bombings. 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.) 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 Meiklejohn, None of us doubt that the atomic bomb speeded up the Soviets declaration of war.. Tens of thousands were killed in the initial explosions and many more would later succumb to radiation poisoning. Merkulov reported that the United States had scheduled the test of a nuclear device for that same day, although the actual test took place 6 days later. [66]. How familiar was President Truman with the concepts that led target planners chose major cities as targets? What was at stake was the definition of the kokutai (national policy). On August 6, 1945 the American war plane Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing between 70,000 and 100,000 Japanese. 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. [74]. victor vescovo partner monika. Because the Japanese population was far from surrendering and would fight to their death, so an invasion would be costly in human lives. Since the 1960s, when the declassification of important sources began, historians have engaged in vigorous debate over the bomb and the end of World War II. The parts that are highlighted in the report with a line on the left-hand margin are noteworthy. Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb | Harry S. Truman See Bernstein (1995), 142. [48]. Obama in Hiroshima: Why the U.S. Dropped the Bomb in 1945 | Time Eisenhower and McCloys Views on the Bombings and Atomic Weapons, National Security Archive 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. With direct access to the documents, readers may develop their own answers to the questions raised above. 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 Eisenhowers son John cast doubts about the memoir statements, although he attested that when the general first learned about the bomb he was downcast. 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 . It occurred to me that a quarter of a million of the flower of our young manhood was worth a couple of Japanese cities, and I still think that they were and are. The bombings have always been presented to young Americans in . Another column was striking south from the Soviet border toward Hailar. 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. The traditional argument was that Stalin was angry because Truman did not tell him about the Atomic Bomb. The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II - nsarchive2.gwu.edu 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. 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. Aftermath of the August 6, 1945 Atomic Bomb blast in Hiroshima, 1946. We picked a couple of cities where war work was the principle industry, and dropped bombs. Upon becoming president, Harry Truman learned of the Manhattan Project, a secret scientific effort to create an atomic bomb. (Photo from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-BT), Ground view of Nagasaki before and after the bombing; radiuses in increments of 1,000 feet from Ground Zero are shown. 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). 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 initial report, May 1941, showed how leading American scientists grappled with the potential of nuclear energy for military purposes. Both Richard Frank and Barton Bernstein have used intelligence reporting and analysis of the major buildup of Japanese forces on southern Kyushu to argue that U.S. military planners were so concerned about this development that by early August 1945 they were reconsidering their invasion plans. [31], RG 107, Office of Assistant Secretary of War Formerly Classified Correspondence of John J. McCloy, 1941-1945, box 38, ASW 387 Japan. Naryshkin, then Chairman of the State Duma and Director of the Russian Historical Society, also added that if those responsible for the bombings were not punished "there could be very, very serious consequences.". [Editors Note: Originally prepared in July 2005 this posting has been updated, with new documents, changes in organization, and other editorial changes. Historian believed that there are two different possibilities. How did the USSR react to the bombing of Hiroshima? 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. [64]. Furthermore, the United States demanded that the Japanese withdraw from conquered areas of China and Indochina. Rather, they are mostly about damage to inanimate objects. Hasegawa cited it and other documents to make a larger point about the inability of the Japanese government to agree on concrete proposals to negotiate an end to the war. Bernstein (1995), 146. 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. The First Nuclear Strikes and their Impact, XI. When the atomic bomb was dropped, I felt: "This is terrible." Immediately thereafter, it was reported Soviet Russia entered the war. For early U.S. planning to detonate the weapon at a height designed to maximize destruction from mass fires and other effects, see Alex Wellerstein, The Height of the Bomb.. 500 W US Hwy 24 In light of Japans efforts to seek Soviet mediation, Stalin wanted to enter the war quickly lest Tokyo reach a compromise peace with the Americans and the British at Moscows expense. (Photo from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-AEC), An overview of the destruction of Hiroshima [undated, circa August-September 1945]. Today, historians continue to debate this decision. 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. a. 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. Concerned that President Roosevelt had an overly cavalier belief about the possibility of maintaining a post-war Anglo-American atomic monopoly, Bush and Conant recognized the limits of secrecy and wanted to disabuse senior officials of the notion that an atomic monopoly was possible. 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, 273-274; Bernstein, The Alarming Japanese Buildup on Southern Kyushu, Growing U.S. Why the U.S. Dropped the Atomic Bomb on Japan in WWII A directive (right), written by Leslie Groves , approved by President Truman, and issued by Secretary of War Henry Stimson and General of the . 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. Targeting Germany was rejected because the Germans were considered more likely to secure knowledge from a defective weapon than the Japanese. Also still debated is the impact of the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria, compared to the atomic bombings, on the Japanese decision to surrender. For a slightly different perspective, see Malloy (2007), 138. 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. 5g. 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. 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 12 July 1945 Magic summary includes a report on a cable from Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo to Ambassador Naotake Sato in Moscow concerning the Emperors decision to seek Soviet help in ending the war. Colonel John Stone, an assistant to commanding General of the Army Air Forces Henry H. Hap Arnold, had just returned from Potsdam and updated his boss on the plans as they had developed. Also included, to give a wider perspective, were translations of Japanese documents not widely available before. If you experience a barrier that affects your ability to access content on this page, let us know via ourContact form. Meiklejohn recounted Harrimans visit in early October 1945 to the Frankfurt-area residence of General Dwight Eisenhower, who was finishing up his service as Commanding General, U.S. Army, European Theater. And on Aug. 6, a bomb would fall on Hiroshima, ultimately killing an. Dbq help!! The atomic bomb on Hiroshima | CourseNotes The Japanese were vicious fighters, however, and every victory cost more time, material, and, sadly, lives. [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. Hiroshi [Kaian) Shimomura, Shusenki [Account of the End of the War] (Tokyo, Kamakura Bunko, [1948], 148-152 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi]. Shusen Shiroku (The Historical Records of the End of the War), annotated by Jun Eto, volume 4, 57-60 [Excerpts] [Translation by Toshihiro Higuchi], Excerpts from the Foreign Ministry's compilation about the end of the war show how news of the bombing reached Tokyo as well as how Foreign Minister's Togo initially reacted to reports about Hiroshima. [12]. After reviewing the impact of various atomic bomb effects--blast, heat, flash radiation (prompt effects from gamma and neutron radiation), and radiation from radioactive substances--they concluded that it seems highly plausible that a great many persons were subjected to lethal and sub-lethal dosages of radiation in areas where direct blast effects were possibly non-lethal. It was probable, therefore, that radiation would produce increments to the death rate and even more probable that a great number of cases of sub-lethal exposures to radiation have been suffered.[74], RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. Stimson accepted the language believing that a speedy reply to the Japanese would allow the United States to get the homeland into our hands before the Russians could put in any substantial claim to occupy and help rule it. If the note had included specific provision for a constitutional monarchy, Hasegawa argues, it would have taken the wind out of the sails of the military faction and Japan might have surrendered several days earlier, on August 11 or 12 instead of August 14. 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. A modern-day nuclear bomb . that participants in the debate have brought to bear in framing their arguments. The nuclear age had truly begun with the first military use of atomic weapons. To suggest alternatives, they drafted this memorandum about the importance of the international exchange of information and international inspection to stem dangerous nuclear competition. Photo restoration by TX Unlimited, San Francisco, A nuclear weapon of the "Little Boy" type, the uranium gun-type detonated over Hiroshima. 961 Words4 Pages. 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. Social critic Dwight MacDonald published trenchant criticisms immediately after Hiroshima-Nagasaki; seePolitics Past: Essays in Political Criticism(New York: Viking, 1972), 169-180. Originally this collection did not include documents on the origins and development of the Manhattan Project, although this updated posting includes some significant records for context. Historians Herbert Feis and Gar Alperovitz raised searching questions about the first use of nuclear weapons and their broader political and diplomatic implications. Potsdam and The Final Decision to Use the Bomb 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. Togos proposal would have been generally consistent with a constitutional monarchy because it defined the kokutai narrowly as the emperor and the imperial household. Nevertheless, Anami argued, We are still left with some power to fight. Suzuki, who was working quietly with the peace party, declared that the Allied terms were acceptable because they gave a dim hope in the dark of preserving the emperor. One recommendation shared by many of the scientists, whether they supported the report or not, was that the United States inform Stalin of the bomb before it was used. Open Document. 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? Reminding Stimson about the objections of some Manhattan project scientists to military use of the bomb, Harrison summarized the basic arguments of the Franck report. More updates on training missions, target selection, and conditions required for successful detonation over the target. 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. Some years after Trumans death, a hand-written diary that he kept during the Potsdam conference surfaced in his personal papers. 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. Whether Eisenhower expressed such reservations prior to Hiroshima will remain a matter of controversy. Debates among the Japanese Late July/Early August 1945, IX. All Rights Reserved, FJHUMMING: Radio Libertys Russian Language Broadcasts from Taiwan, 75th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The last remark aggravated Navy Minister Yonai who saw it as irresponsible. atomic bomb dropped to intimidate russia. Historians have used this item in the papers of Byrnes aide, Walter Brown, to make a variety of points. Barton J. Bernsteins numerous articles in scholarly publications (many of them are listed in Walkers assessment of the literature) constitute an invaluable guide to primary sources. 202-994-7000 ornsarchiv@gwu.edu, Nagasaki, August 10, 1945; photograph by Yosuke Yamahata; used with permission of copyright holder, Shogo Yamahata/Courtesy: IDG films. 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. How Did The Us Dropped The Atomic Bomb Dbq | ipl.org Through an award winning Digital Archive, the Project allows scholars, journalists, students, and the interested public to reassess the Cold War and its many contemporarylegacies. Lacking direct knowledge of conditions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Henshaw and Coveyou had their own data on the biological effects of radiation and could make educated guesses. At their first meeting after the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, Stimson briefed Truman on the scale of the destruction, with Truman recognizing the terrible responsibility that was on his shoulders. A. Zolotarev, ed., Sovetsko-Iaponskaia Voina 1945 Goda: Istoriia Voenno-Politicheskogo Protivoborstva Dvukh Derzhav v 3040e Gody (Moscow: Terra, 1997 and 2000), Vol. The intention was to force Japan to surrender, thus avoiding a long war in the Pacific. For reviews of the controversy, see Barton J. Bernstein, The Struggle Over History: Defining the Hiroshima Narrative, ibid., 128-256, and Charles T. OReilly and William A. Rooney,The Enola Gay and The Smithsonian(Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2005). Documents 77A-B: The First Japanese Offer Intercepted. "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. 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. The cost of invasion, they knew, would be high. 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. The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki features a letter written by Luis Alvarez, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, on August 6, 1945, after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. The bomb ended the war. 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. Unit 7 Flashcards | Quizlet Leaflets Warning Japanese of Atomic Bomb | American Experience - PBS He wanted to end war in the Pacific without having to invade Japan b. Stimsons diary mentions meetings with Eisenhower twice in the weeks before Hiroshima, but without any mention of a dissenting Eisenhower statement (and Stimsons diaries are quite detailed on atomic matters). [48], This Magic summary includes messages from both Togo and Sato. Wartime alliance tensions - Reasons for the Cold War - BBC [53], RG 457, Summaries of Intercepted Japanese Messages (Magic Far East Summary, March 20, 1942 October 2, 1945), box 7, SRS 491-547, This Far East Summary included reports on the Japanese Armys plans to disperse fuel stocks to reduce vulnerability to bombing attacks, the text of a directive by the commander of naval forces on Operation Homeland, the preparations and planning to repel a U.S. invasion of Honshu, and the specific identification of army divisions located in, or moving into, Kyushu. Relations between the United States and Japan worsened when Japanese forces took aim at Indochina with the goal of capturing oil rich areas of the East Indies. 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].