atomic bomb dropped to intimidate russia atomic bomb dropped to intimidate russia

The weekly illustrated magazine Asahi Graph also published a brief article on August 25 titled What is an atomic bomb?. 76 (copy from microfilm), Physicists Leo Szilard and James Franck, a Nobel Prize winner, were on the staff of the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, a cover for the Manhattan Project program to produce fuel for the bomb. Another intercept of a cable from Togo to Sato shows that the Foreign Minister rejected unconditional surrender and that the Emperor was not asking the Russians mediation in anything like unconditional surrender. Incidentally, this `Magic Diplomatic Summary indicates the broad scope and capabilities of the program; for example, it includes translations of intercepted French messages (see pages 8-9). Such details and information may have been useful for the Soviet atomic bomb project, pushing the internal narrative that the USSR needed its own weapon as soon as possible. (Photo from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-BT), A photo prepared by U.S. Air Intelligence for analytical work on the destructiveness of atomic weapons. Hirohito asked the leadership to accept the Note, which he believed was well intentioned on the matter of the national polity (by leaving open a possible role for the Emperor). Additional bombs will be delivery on the [targets] as soon as made ready by the project staff., RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 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. 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. [5]. [41]. It had nothing to do with Russia or Britain or Germany. . Togo could not persuade the cabinet, however, and the Army wanted to delay any decisions until it had learned what had happened to Hiroshima. Photo restoration by TX Unlimited, San Francisco, A nuclear weapon of the "Little Boy" type, the uranium gun-type detonated over Hiroshima. 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. Were there alternatives to the use of the weapons? At this time, several treaties were in place to limit the size of navies in the Pacific Ocean. 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). atomic bomb dropped to intimidate russia. Did Truman authorize the use of atomic bombs for diplomatic-political reasons-- to intimidate the Soviets--or was his major goal to force Japan to surrender and bring the war to an early end? 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. The point was to keep the bombing mission crew safe; concern about radiation effects had no impact on targeting decisions. Correspondence,International Security16 (Winter 1991/1992): 214-221. 576 words. 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]. [17]. The U.S believed the bomb was the only way to send out a warning.When the bombs were dropped on Japan, it was world shocking news which was what the U.S wanted from the start. The US went forward with their actions so they can prevent a mass loss of their population from any actions japan might present. The target is and was always expected to be Japan., These documents have important implications for the perennial debate over whether Truman inherited assumptions from the Roosevelt administration that the bomb would be used when available or that he madethedecision to do so. Evaluate this . As these cables indicate, reports of unfavorable weather delayed the plan. The controversy, especially the arguments made by Alperovitz and others about atomic diplomacy quickly became caught up in heated debates over Cold War revisionism. The controversy simmered over the years with major contributions by Martin Sherwin and Barton J. Bernstein but it became explosive during the mid-1990s when curators at the National Air and Space Museum met the wrath of the Air Force Association over a proposed historical exhibit on the Enola Gay. Togos proposal would have been generally consistent with a constitutional monarchy because it defined the kokutai narrowly as the emperor and the imperial household. Marshall noted the opprobrium which might follow from an ill considered employment of such force. This document has played a role in arguments developed by Barton J. Bernstein that figures such as Marshall and Stimson were caught between an older morality that opposed the intentional killing of non-combatants and a newer one that stressed virtually total war.[22], RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. After President Roosevelt died on April 12th, 1945, it became Harry Trumans job to decide how to end the war. Today, historians continue to debate this decision. Every major country of the time was involved in the war. (Photo from U.S. National Archives, RG 306-NT). On the other hand much of the confirmed evidence Alperovitz presented was baffling. Riabev, ed., Atomnyi Proekt SSSR (Moscow: izd MFTI, 2002), Volume 1, Part 2, 335-336. 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. Alperovitz, 226; Bernstein, Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender,Diplomatic History19 (1995), 237, note 22. This photo was taken from the Red Cross Hospital Building about one mile from the bomb burst. It would force the Japanese to surrender, shorten the war, save lives and money, and avoid us from asking the Soviet Union to get involved. Read more, The Nuclear Proliferation International History Project is a global network of individuals and institutions engaged in the study of international nuclear history through archival documents, oral history interviews, and other empirical sources. [5] While the editor has a point of view on the issues, to the greatest extent possible he has tried to not let that influence document selection, e.g., by selectively withholding or including documents that may buttress one point of view or the other. The United States used the bomb to end the war with Japan, which began in 1941 when Japan launched an unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor. Historian believed that there are two different possibilities. Rather, they are mostly about damage to inanimate objects. More updates on training missions, target selection, and conditions required for successful detonation over the target. Collectively the decoded messages were known as Magic. How this came about is explained in an internal history of pre-war and World War II Army and Navy code-breaking activities prepared by William F. Friedman, a central figure in the development of U.S. government cryptology during the 20th century. [1]. (Photo from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-BT), This shows the "Little Boy" weapon in the pit ready for loading into the bomb bay of the Enola Gay. The Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson, and I weighed that decision most prayerfully. Despite its. Sato cabled Togo earlier that he saw no point in approaching the Soviets on ending the war until Tokyo had concrete proposals. Any aid from the Soviets has now become extremely doubtful.. This. 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. 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. 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. 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. After the first successful test of the atomic bomb in 1945, U.S. officials immediately considered the potential non-military benefits that could be derived from the American nuclear monopoly. The translations differ but they convey the sticking point that prevented U.S. acceptance: Tokyos condition that the allies not make any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler., Papers of Henry A. Wallace, Special Collections Department, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa (copy courtesy of Special Collections Department). 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). Besides material from the files of the Manhattan Project, this collection includes formerly Top Secret Ultra summaries and translations of Japanese diplomatic cable traffic intercepted under the Magic program. RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. Maddox, 83-84; Hasegawa, 126-128. 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. Malloy, A Very Pleasant Way to Die, 531-534. A. Zolotarev, ed., Sovetsko-Iaponskaia Voina 1945 Goda: Istoriia Voenno-Politicheskogo Protivoborstva Dvukh Derzhav v 3040e Gody (Moscow: Terra, 1997 and 2000), Vol. [Photograph: The atomic cloud rising over Nagasaki, Japan, August 9, 1945. olive tree children ministries; teaching blog; about our ministry; salvation prayer; contact us In this memorandum, Norstad reviewed the complex requirements for preparing B-29s and their crew for successful nuclear strikes. That there may be a difference between the two sources becomes evident from some of the entries; for example, in the entry for July 18, 1945 Brown wrote: "Although I knew about the atomic bomb when I wrote these notes, I dared not place it in writing in my book., The degree to which the typed-up version reflects the original is worth investigating. If it was, he believed that the bomb would be the master card in U.S. diplomacy. Barton Bernstein and Richard Frank, among others, have argued that Trumans assertion that the atomic targets were military objectives suggested that either he did not understand the power of the new weapons or had simply deceived himself about the nature of the targets. 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. See also Walker (2005), 316-317. With respect to the latter, It is possible that the destructive effects on life caused by the intense radioactivity of the products of the explosion may be as important as those of the explosion itself. This insight was overlooked when top officials of the Manhattan Project considered the targeting of Japan during 1945. 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. 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. [73] As it turned out, a few hours later, at 4:05 p.m., the White House received the Japanese surrender announcement. For Trumans recognition of mass civilian casualties, see also hisletter to Senator Richard Russell, 9 August 1945. Nor does it include any of the interviews, documents prepared after the events, and post-World War II correspondence, etc. Lower image - August 11, 1945, photo by 6th Photo Reconnaissance Group One of the visitors mentioned at the beginning of the entry was Iwao Yamazaki who became Minister of the Interior in the next cabinet. 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. Analyzes how the united states and the soviet union became superpowers as world war ii ended. 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.) Upon becoming president, Harry Truman learned of the Manhattan Project, a secret scientific effort to create an atomic bomb. [29]. 8). This document is General Curtis LeMays report on the firebombing of Tokyo--the most destructive air raid in history--which burned down over 16 square miles of the city, killed up to 100,000 civilians (the official figure was 83,793), injured more than 40,000, and made over 1 million homeless. While McCloy later recalled that Truman expressed interest, he said that Secretary of State Byrnes squashed the proposal because of his opposition to any deals with Japan. The proposed script for the Smithsonian exhibition can be seen at Philipe Nobile. 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. [79]. Moreover, he may not have known that the third bomb was still in the United States and would not be available for use for nearly another week. Malloy (2008), 49-50. In writing to the Soviet leadership, Soviet Ambassador to Japan Iakov Malik included a nine-page report resulting from a trip to Hiroshima and Nagasaki by a group of staff members sent by the Soviet Embassy in September 1945. 75 years ago, in August 1945, the United States dropped the first and last atomic bombs used in warfare. 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. Alperovitz, 662; Bernstein (1995), 139; Norris, 377. Barton J. Bernstein has suggested that Trumans comment about all those kids showed his belated recognition that the bomb caused mass casualties and that the target was not purely a military one.[64]. 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). 816-268-8200 | 800-833-1225 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. To produce material for any of those purposes required a capability to separate uranium isotopes in order to produce fissionable U-235. "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. 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). By Marc Gallicchio. His vivid account shows that senior military officials in the Manhattan Project were no longer dismissive of reports of radiation poisoning. [74]. 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. Thus, he wanted Roosevelts instructions as to whether the project should be vigorously pushed throughout. Unlike the pilot plant proposal described above, Bush described a real production order for the bomb, at an estimated cost of a serious figure: $400 million, which was an optimistic projection given the eventual cost of $1.9 billion. With the goal of having enough fissile material by the first half of 1945 to produce the bombs, Bush was worried that the Germans might get there first. 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. Also necessary for those capabilities was the production of a nuclear chain reaction. [6], In its discussion of the effects of an atomic weapon, the committee considered both blast and radiological damage. Vladimir Putin's renewed threat of nuclear war, issued during a bitter and rambling speech, has revived fears that he could drop an atomic bomb on . The Caribbean and Central America, Greenland, Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands, Iraq, Syria, Burma, and the Arctic are a few of the little known places that were involved. Stimson, who later wrote up the meeting in his diary, also prepared a discussion paper, which raised broader policy issues associated with the imminent possession of the most terrible weapon ever known in human history., In a background report prepared for the meeting, Groves provided a detailed overview of the bomb project from the raw materials to processing nuclear fuel to assembling the weapons to plans for using them, which were starting to crystallize. 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. [35]. The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, brought the United States officially into World War II. 576 words. For more on these developments, see Asada, "The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan's Decision to Surrender: A Reconsideration," 486-488. Frank, 286-287; Sherwin, 233-237; Bernstein (1995), 150; Maddox, 148. [63]. 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. 5, 27-35 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi], The Byrnes Note did not break the stalemate at the cabinet level. Riabevs notes, it is possible that Berias copy of this letter ended up in Stalins papers. The material reproduced here gives a sense of the state of play of Foreign Minister Togos attempt to secure Soviet mediation. Soviet officials also rushed to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki to survey damage to the cities and assess the power of the atomic bomb. President Obama's visit to Hiroshima, nearly 71 years after it was destroyed by the first atomic bomb, inevitably raises once again the questions of why the United States dropped that bomb,. 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. 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]. After the first minute of dropping Fat Man, 39,000 men, women and children were killed. Barton J. Bernstein, Introduction to Helen S. Hawkins et al. What Hirohito accepted, however, was a proposal by the extreme nationalist Kiichiro Hiranuma which drew upon prevailing understandings of the kokutai: the mythical notion that the emperor was a living god. [32], Record Group 353, Records of Interdepartmental and Intradepartmental Committees, Secretarys Staff Meetings Minutes, 1944-1947 (copy from microfilm). See Janet Farrell Brodie, Radiation Secrecy and Censorship after Hiroshima and Nagasaki,The Journal of Social History48 (2015): 842-864. [54]. 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). The Soviet source reported that the weight of the device was 3 tons (which was in the ball park) and forecast an explosive yield of 5 kilotons. atomic bomb dropped to intimidate russia. The first paragraph mocks the Japanese press for exaggerating the aftereffects of the explosion, for giving in to popular rumor that takes press reports to absurdity. The Soviet report suggests that the exaggeration of the Japanese press stemmed from Japans attempt to save face in light of the defeat. Seeing the bombing of Hiroshima as a sign of a worsening situation at home, Tagaki worried about further deterioration. 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. Officially named AN602 hydrogen bomb, it was originally intended to have a . 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. For further consideration of Tokyo and more likely targets at the time, see Alex Wellerstein, Neglected Niigata,Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog, 9 October 2015. My analysis will provide some historical and political context and offer an initial assessment of these documents. Some years after Trumans death, a hand-written diary that he kept during the Potsdam conference surfaced in his personal papers. Takashi Itoh, ed., Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 916-917 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima], In 1944 Navy minister Mitsumasa Yonai ordered rear admiral Sokichi Takagi to go on sick leave so that he could undertake a secret mission to find a way to end the war. As Alperovitz notes, the Davies papers include variant diary entries and it is difficult to know which are the most accurate. How decisive was the atomic bombings to the Japanese decision to surrender? 77 (copy from microfilm). For tug of war, see Hasegawa, 226-227. The conventional justification for the atomic bombings is that they prevented the invasion of Japan, thus saving countless lives on both sides. [75]. Frank, 273-274; Bernstein, The Alarming Japanese Buildup on Southern Kyushu, Growing U.S. Public Reaction to the Atomic Bomb and World Affairs, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, April 1947. Moscows opening to Japan in 2015 then engendered a shift in Japan-Russia relations, as confirmed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrovs visit to Tokyo in April, Prime Minister Shinzo Abes bold visit to Moscow in May and Naryshkins visit to Tokyo in June 2016, right after President Obamas historical visit to Hiroshima at the end of May. To what extent did subsequent justification for the atomic bomb exaggerate or misuse wartime estimates for U.S. casualties stemming from an invasion of Japan? 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. Why did the Americans decide to carry out these attacks? 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. I am lost! Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 5-9, 1945. An illustration of a nuclear bomb exploding in a city. The U.S. documents cited here will be familiar to many knowledgeable readers on the Hiroshima-Nagasaki controversy and the history of the Manhattan Project. A full translation of the surrender offer was circulated separately. Richard Frank sees this brief discussion of Japans interest in Soviet diplomatic assistance as crucial evidence that Admiral Leahy had been sharing MAGIC information with President Truman. For example, Bernstein cites the entries for 20 and 24 July to argue that American leaders did not view Soviet entry as a substitute for the bomb but that the latter would be so powerful, and the Soviet presence in Manchuria so militarily significant, that there was no need for actual Soviet intervention in the war. For Brown's diary entry of 3 August 9 1945 historians have developed conflicting interpretations (See discussion of document 57). Churchill and India: Manipulation or Betrayal? How is the current debate about immigration in the United States rooted in our nations past? Frank Costigliola,France and the United States: The Cold Alliance Since World War II(New York, Twayne, 1992), 38-39. Two days later an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing an estimated . 4 (copy from microfilm), General Groves prepared for Stimson, then at Potsdam, a detailed account of the Trinity test. 5b, Despite the reports pouring in from Japan about radiation sickness among the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, General Groves and Dr. Charles Rea, a surgeon who was head of the base hospital at Oak Ridge (and had no specialized knowledge about the biological effects of radiation) dismissed the reports as propaganda.