atomic bomb dropped to intimidate russia

It is commonly believed that the awesome devastation of the atomic bombs caused the Japanese government to capitulate. [65], Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter Brown Papers, box 68, folder 13, Transcript/Draft B. 153-154, 164 (n)). 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. The US and Japan suffered major casualties, and the American people and the president were getting tired of it. [58]. RG 218, Central Decimal Files, 1943-1945, CCS 381 (6-4-45), Sec. (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. August 4, 2015 A few months after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, General Dwight D.Eisenhower commented during a social occasion how he had hoped that the war might have ended without our having to use the atomic bomb. This virtually unknown evidence from the diary of Robert P. Meiklejohn, an assistant to Ambassador W. Averell Harriman, published for the first time today by the National Security Archive, confirms that the future President Eisenhower had early misgivings about the first use of atomic weapons by the United States. Today, historians continue to debate this decision. ], 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).". [56]. The war was finally over. The US went forward with their actions so they can prevent a mass loss of their population from any actions japan might present. [19], Joseph E. Davies Papers, Library of Congress, box 17, 21 May 1945, While officials at the Pentagon continued to look closely at the problem of atomic targets, President Truman, like Stimson, was thinking about the diplomatic implications of the bomb. 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. 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). 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. 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. According to a Joint Chiefs of Staff report on Japanese target systems, expected results from the bombing campaign included: The absorption of man-hours in repair and relief; the dislocation of labor by casualty; the interruption of public services necessary to production, and above all the destruction of factories engaged in war industry. While Stimson would later raise questions about the bombing of Japanese cities, he was largely disengaged from the details (as he was with atomic targeting). How did the U.S. government plan to use the bombs? 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. 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. The History and Public Policy Programmakes public the primary source record of 20th and 21st century international history from repositories around the world, facilitates scholarship based on those records, and uses these materials to provide context for classroom, public, and policy debates on global affairs. Maddox, 83-84; Hasegawa, 126-128. For example, the governing clique that supported the peace moves was not trying to stave off defeat but was seeking Soviet help to end the war. [29], According to accounts based on post-war recollections and interviews, during the meeting McCloy raised the possibility of winding up the war by guaranteeing the preservation of the emperor albeit as a constitutional monarch. [48], This Magic summary includes messages from both Togo and Sato. The bomb was built in 1961 by a group of Soviet physicists that notably included . 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. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a plutonium bomb . Moreover, recent significant contributions to the scholarly literature have been taken into account. Women and children had been taught how to kill with basic weapons. As he argued in this memorandum to President Truman, failure on our part to clarify our intentions on the status of the emperor will insure prolongation of the war and cost a large number of human lives. Documents like this have played a role in arguments developed by Alperovitz that Truman and his advisers had alternatives to using the bomb such as modifying unconditional surrender and that anti-Soviet considerations weighed most heavily in their thinking. 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. 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. Since the end of WWII, the popular view in the U.S. has been that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki precipitated Japan's surrender on August 15. [54], This summary included several intercepted messages from Sato, who conveyed his despair and exasperation over what he saw as Tokyos inability to develop terms for ending the war: [I]f the Government and the Military dilly-dally in bringing this resolution to fruition, then all Japan will be reduced to ashes. Sato remained skeptical that the Soviets would have any interest in discussions with Tokyo: it is absolutely unthinkable that Russia would ignore the Three Power Proclamation and then engage in conversations with our special envoy., Documents 60A-D: These messages convey the process of creating and transmitting the execution order to bomb Hiroshima. The destruction of two cities and their civilians merely to intimidate Russia seems to be an overtly extreme and vicious act that no rational person would deem just. The traditional story of Japan's surrender has a simple timeline. Interested readers will continue to absorb the fascinating historical literature on the subject. 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. [1], Ever since the atomic bombs were exploded over Japanese cities, historians, social scientists, journalists, World War II veterans, and ordinary citizens have engaged in intense controversy about the events of August 1945. Evaluate this . The final decision to drop the atomic bomb, when it was made the following day, July 25, was decidedly anticlimactic. At the outset, three possibilities were envisioned: radiological warfare, a power source for submarines and ships, and explosives. If Russia used a nuclear weapon of any type, "I expect (the president) to say we're in a new situation, and the U.S. will directly enter the war against Russia to stop this government that has . Dropped the Atom Bomb One reason as to why the United States dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima was because it would have saved American lives and ended the war with Japan very quickly. RG 77, MED, H-B files, folder no. We picked a couple of cities where war work was the principle industry, and dropped bombs. 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. Malloy (2008), 49-50. By Marc Gallicchio. By contrast, Maddox argues that Nagasaki was necessary so that Japanese hardliners could not minimize the first explosion or otherwise explain it away. 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. Atomic diplomacy refers to attempts to use the threat of nuclear warfare to achieve diplomatic goals. Historians have used this item in the papers of Byrnes aide, Walter Brown, to make a variety of points. 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. (Photo from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-BT), A "Fat Man" test unit being raised from the pit into the bomb bay of a B-29 for bombing practice during the weeks before the attack on Nagasaki. They note large scale destruction of the city and damage to buildings (the hospital, gas storage tanks, the Mitsubishi plant, etc.) 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. The material reproduced here gives a sense of the state of play of Foreign Minister Togos attempt to secure Soviet mediation. This criminal one-two punch by the US launched the atomic age. The Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson, and I weighed that decision most prayerfully. To get production going, Bush wanted to establish a carefully chosen engineering group to study plans for possible production. This was the basis of the Top Policy Group, or the S-1 Committee, which Bush and James B. Conant quickly established. See for example, Bernstein (1995), 140-141. The nuclear age had truly begun with the first military use of atomic weapons. Years of fighting brought the US armed forces closer and closer to Japan as they hopped from one island to another. When former Secretary of State Cordell Hull learned about it he outlined his objections to Byrnes, arguing that it might be better to wait the climax of allied bombing and Russias entry into the war. Byrnes was already inclined to reject that part of the draft, but Hulls argument may have reinforced his decision. As for targeting, however, he had a more significant role. But on 7 August, Stalin changed the instructions: the attack was to begin the next day. 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. What did senior officials know about the effects of atomic bombs before they were first used. (Photo from U.S. National Archives, Still Pictures Branch, Subject Files, "Atomic Bomb"), Ground Zero at Hiroshima Today: This was the site of Shima Hospital; the atomic explosion occurred 1,870 feet above it (Photo courtesy of Lynn Eden,www.wholeworldonfire.com), The mushroom cloud over Nagasaki shortly after the bombing on August 9. Japanese kamikaze pilots could turn planes into guided missiles. See also Alex Wellersteins The Kyoto Misconception. In the belly of the bomber was Little Boy, an atomic bomb. Would the Soviet declaration of war have been enough to compel Tokyo to admit defeat? [6], In its discussion of the effects of an atomic weapon, the committee considered both blast and radiological damage. 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. By contrast, Richard Frank takes note of the estimates depiction of the Japanese armys terms for peace: for surrender to be acceptable to the Japanese army it would be necessary for the military leaders to believe that it would not entail discrediting the warrior tradition and that it would permit the ultimate resurgence of a military in Japan. That, Frank argues, would have been unacceptable to any Allied policy maker.[33], Record Group 59, Decimal Files 1945-1949, 740.0011 PW (PE)/7-1645. Both agreed that the possibility of a nuclear partnership with Moscow would depend on quid pro quos: the settlement of the Polish, Rumanian, Yugoslavian, and Manchurian problems.. McCloy was part of a drafting committee at work on the text of a proclamation to Japan to be signed by heads of state at the forthcoming Potsdam conference. Marshall believed that the latter required Soviet entry and an invasion of Kyushu, even suggesting that Soviet entry might be the decisive action levering them into capitulation. Truman and the Chiefs reviewed plans to land troops on Kyushu on 1 November, which Marshall believed was essential because air power was not decisive. 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. 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. Magic summaries for post-August 1945 remain classified at the National Security Agency. Independence, MO 64050 According to Hasegawa, Hirohito had become convinced that the preservation of the monarchy was at stake. Russia hurried in and the war ended., Truman characterized the Potsdam Declaration as a fair warning, but it was an ultimatum. On the other hand much of the confirmed evidence Alperovitz presented was baffling. Within days after the bombing of Hiroshima, U.S. military intelligence intercepted Japanese reports on the destruction of the city. 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). Stalin considered various dates to schedule an attack. The original 2005 posting included a wide range of material, including formerly top secret "Magic" summaries of intercepted Japanese communications and the first-ever full translations from the Japanese of accounts of high level meetings and discussions in Tokyo leading to the Emperors decision to surrender. Bernstein (1995), 146. 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). The discussion depicted a Japan that, by 1 November, would be close to defeat, with great destruction and economic losses produced by aerial bombing and naval blockade, but not ready to capitulate. 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. [29]. 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. 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 proposal has been characterized as the most comprehensive attempt by any American policymaker to leverage diplomacy in order to shorten the Pacific War. The documents cover multiple aspects of the bombings and their context. Alperovitz, Bernstein, and Sherwin made new contributions as did other historians, social scientists, and journalists including Richard B. Frank, Herbert Bix, Sadao Asada, Kai Bird, Robert James Maddox, Sean Malloy, Robert P. Newman, Robert S. Norris, Tsuyoshi Hagesawa, and J. Samuel Walker.[4]. On December 15th, 1945, he delcared that the A-bomb had save one-quarter million American lives. Bernstein (1995), 144. A few weeks later, on September 2, 1945 Japanese representatives signed surrender documents on the USS Missouri, in Tokyo harbor.[71]. The Japanese were vicious fighters, however, and every victory cost more time, material, and, sadly, lives. What these people were laboring to construct, directly or indirectly, were two types of weaponsa gun-type weapon using U-235 and an implosion weapon using plutonium (although the possibility of U-235 was also under consideration). According to Merkulov, two fissile materials were being produced: element-49 (plutonium), and U-235; the test device was fueled by plutonium. [57], How influential the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and later Nagasaki compared to the impact of the Soviet declaration of war were to the Japanese decision to surrender has been the subject of controversy among historians. To what extent were senior officials interested in looking at alternatives to urban targets? Maddox, 102; Alperovitz, 269-270; Hasegawa, 152-153. The Japanese Surrender in World War II. [15]. Cited by Barton J. Bernstein, Eclipsed by Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Early Thinking About Tactical Nuclear Weapons,International Security15 (1991) at page 167. An account of the cabinet debates on August 13 prepared by Information Minister Toshiro Shimamura showed the same divisions as before; Anami and a few other ministers continued to argue that the Allies threatened the kokutai and that setting the four conditions (no occupation, etc.) 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. Barton J. Bernstein, Introduction to Helen S. Hawkins et al. As Alperovitz notes, the Davies papers include variant diary entries and it is difficult to know which are the most accurate. a. Why did the Americans decide to carry out these attacks? Truman, who had been chair of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, said that only on the appeal of Secretary of War Stimson did he refrain and let the War Department continue with the experiment unmolested.. This issue of the diplomatic summary also includes Togos account of his notification of the Soviet declaration of war, reports of Soviet military operations in the Far East, and intercepts of French diplomatic traffic. 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. By the end of November over ten weapons would be available, presumably in the event the war had continued. Schaffer,Wings of Judgment, 143-146. [20]. [76]. The United States, along with other countries, criticized Japanese aggression but shied away from any economic or military punishments. Debates among the Japanese Late July/Early August 1945, IX. On the August 6, 1945, the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, by the United States. For detailed background on the Army Air Forces incendiary bombing planning, see Schaffer (1985) 107-127. It had nothing to do with Russia or Britain or Germany. In Japan and elsewhere around the world, each anniversary is observed with great solemnity. See Malloy, A Very Pleasant Way to Die, 541-542. The Committee also reaffirmed earlier recommendations about the use of the bomb at the earliest opportunity against dual targets. In addition, Arneson included the Committees recommendation for revoking part two of the 1944 Quebec agreement which stipulated that the neither the United States nor Great Britain would use the bomb against third parties without each others consent. Thus, an impulse for unilateral control of nuclear use decisions predated the first use of the bomb. . [59]. According to Meiklejohn, None of us doubt that the atomic bomb speeded up the Soviets declaration of war.. This photo was taken from the Red Cross Hospital Building about one mile from the bomb burst.

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