atomic bomb dropped to intimidate russia

[Editors Note: Originally prepared in July 2005 this posting has been updated, with new documents, changes in organization, and other editorial changes. Thus, Groves and others would try to suppress findings about radioactive effects, although that was a losing proposition.[76]. 60 inches in diameter and 128 inches long, the weapon weighed about 10,000 pounds and had a yield approximating 21,000 tons of high explosives (Copy from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-AEC), Taken at Tinian Island on the afternoon of August 5, 1945, this shows the tail of the Enola Gay being edged over the pit and into position to load "Little Boy" into the bomb bay. 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). The notion that the atomic bombs caused . Barton J. Bernstein, Introduction to Helen S. Hawkins et al. (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. 5, 27-35 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi], The Byrnes Note did not break the stalemate at the cabinet level. Seeking raw materials to fuel its growing industries, Japan invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. Although they have been public for 30 years, new translations of these sources are now freely accessible on the Wilson Centers Digital Archive. 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. [26], 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 8, Japan (After December 7/41), A former ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grews extensive knowledge of Japanese politics and culture informed his stance toward the concept of unconditional surrender. [50], In the Potsdam Declaration the governments of China, Great Britain, and the United States) demanded the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces. [56] Groves also provided the schedule for the delivery of the weapons: the components of the gun-type bomb to be used on Hiroshima had arrived on Tinian, while the parts of the second weapon to be dropped were leaving San Francisco. 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. [35]. [66]. Drawing on sources at the National Archives and the Library of Congress as well as Japanese materials, this electronic briefing book includes key documents that historians of the events have relied upon to present their findings and advance their interpretations. Moreover, the role of an invasion of Japan in U.S. planning remains a matter of debate, with some arguing that the bombings spared many thousands of American lives that otherwise would have been lost in an invasion. 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? 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. 25,000 more were injured. The atomic bomb on Hiroshima. 5. According to Hasegawa, this was an important, even startling, conversation: it showed that Stalin took the atomic bomb seriously; moreover, he disclosed that the Soviets were working on their own atomic program. 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. Riabevs notes, it is possible that Berias copy of this letter ended up in Stalins papers. 8 devine street north haven, ct what is berth preference in irctc atomic bomb dropped to intimidate russia. Nor does it include any of the interviews, documents prepared after the events, and post-World War II correspondence, etc. Alperovitz, 226; Bernstein, Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender,Diplomatic History19 (1995), 237, note 22. [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. In this short memorandum to Groves deputy, General Farrell, Oppenheimer explained the need for precautions because of the radiological dangers of a nuclear detonation. 5b (copy from microfilm), Two days after the bombing of Hiroshima, Groves provided Chief of Staff Marshall with a report which included messages from Captain William S. Parsons and others about the impact of the detonation which, through prompt radiation effects, fire storms, and blast effects, immediately killed at least 70,000, with many dying later from radiation sickness and other causes. [71]. Of course, the Allies ignored this for the reason that dropping the atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would intimidate Russia. During a conversation with Joseph E. Davies, a prominent Washington lawyer and former ambassador to the Soviet Union, Truman said that he wanted to delay talks with Stalin and Churchill until July when the first atomic device had been tested. By contrast, Herbert P. Bix has suggested that the Japanese leadership would probably not have surrendered if the Truman administration had spelled out the status of the emperor. Brown Papers, box 68, folder 13, Transcript/Draft B, Returning from the Potsdam Conference, sailing on the U.S.S. 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 The bomb ended the war. Bernstein (1995), 146. All Rights Reserved, FJHUMMING: Radio Libertys Russian Language Broadcasts from Taiwan, 75th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Aftermath of the August 6, 1945 Atomic Bomb blast in Hiroshima, 1946. Truman read Stimsons proposal, which he said was powerful, but made no commitments to the details, e.g., the position of the emperor. Photo restoration by TX Unlimited, San Francisco, A nuclear weapon of the "Little Boy" type, the uranium gun-type detonated over Hiroshima. As for target cities, the committee agreed that the following should be exempt from Army Air Force bombing so they would be available for nuclear targeting: Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and Kokura Arsenal. Would the Soviet declaration of war have been enough to compel Tokyo to admit defeat? 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. He wanted to intimidate the Soviet Union c. He wanted Japan's unconditional surrender d. He felt it would strengthen U.S.-Soviet relations Lower image - August 11, 1945, photo by 6th Photo Reconnaissance Group He believed that casualties would not be more than those produced by the battle for Luzon, some 31,000. By James Rothwell 5 October 2022 7:25am. 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. 25,000 more were injured. [70]. For example, one of McCloys aides, Colonel Fahey, argued against modification of unconditional surrender (see Appendix C`). More intercepted messages on the bombing of Hiroshima. The documents may even provoke new questions. editors,Toward a Livable World: Leo Szilard and the Crusade for Nuclear Arms Control(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987), xxx-xxv; Sherwin, 210-215. 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 Stimsons article, see The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,Harpers194 (February 1947): 97-107. That the original copy is missing from Berias papers suggests that he may have passed it on to Stalin before the latter left for the Potsdam conference. This summary includes an intercepted account of the destruction of Nagasaki. 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. Therefore, we are publishing an excised version of the entry, with a link to the Byrnes note. zhuri james net worth 2021 . President Franklin Roosevelt called the attack a day which will live in infamy, and the American people were shocked and angered. The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, brought the United States officially into World War II. Sadao Asada emphasizes the shock of the atomic bombs, while Herbert Bix has suggested that Hiroshima and the Soviet declaration of war made Hirohito and his court believe that failure to end the war could lead to the destruction of the imperial house. 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. For more on the debate over Japans surrender, see Hasegawas important edited book,The End of the Pacific War: A Reappraisal(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), with major contributions by Hasegawa, Holloway, Bernstein, and Hatano. Truman dropped the atomic bombs on Japan because analysts and the president thought fewer lives could be lost if we dropped the atomic bomb, instead of island hopping to Japan. The 70th anniversary of the event presents an opportunity to set the record straight on five widely held myths about the bomb. As McCloy observed the most contentious issue was whether the proclamation should include language about the preservation of the emperor: This may cause repercussions at home but without it those who seem to know the most about Japan feel there would be very little likelihood of acceptance.. The nuclear age had truly begun with the first military use of atomic weapons. [79]. On the basic decision, he had simply concurred with the judgments of Stimson, Groves, and others that the bomb would be used as soon as it was available for military use. A full translation of the surrender offer was circulated separately. To a great extent the documents selected for this compilation have been declassified for years, even decades; the most recent declassifications were in the 1990s. None of these sections are about damage to human beings. The point was to keep the bombing mission crew safe; concern about radiation effects had no impact on targeting decisions. This update presents previously unpublished material and translations of difficult-to-find records. Yonai made sure that Takagi understood his reasons for bringing the war to an end and why he believed that the atomic bomb and the Soviet declaration of war had made it easier for Japan to surrender. His vivid account shows that senior military officials in the Manhattan Project were no longer dismissive of reports of radiation poisoning. The dropping of two atomic bombs, the tremendous destruction caused by U.S. bombing, and the Soviet declaration of war notwithstanding, important elements of the Japanese Army were unwilling to yield, as was evident from intercepted messages dated 12 and 13 August. On 25 July Marshall informed Handy that Secretary of War Stimson had approved the text; that same day, Handy signed off on a directive which ordered the use of atomic weapons on Japan, with the first weapon assigned to one of four possible targetsHiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, or Nagasaki. The explosion over Hiroshima wiped out 95 percent of the city and killed 80,000 people. The president, however, wrote in long-hand a text that that might approximate what he said that evening. For casualty figures and the experience of people on the ground, see Frank, 264-268 and 285-286, among many other sources. Later, he met with Secretary of State Byrnes and they discussed the Manhattan Projects secrecy and the huge expenditures. This memorandum from General Groves to General Marshall captured how far the Manhattan Project had come in less than two years since Bushs December 1942 report to President Roosevelt. 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). [28], In a report to Stimson, Oppenheimer and colleagues on the scientific advisory panel--Arthur Compton, Ernest O. Lawrence, and Enrico Fermitacitly disagreed with the report of the Met Lab scientists. [31], RG 107, Office of Assistant Secretary of War Formerly Classified Correspondence of John J. McCloy, 1941-1945, box 38, ASW 387 Japan. 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. Also relevant to Japanese thinking about surrender, the author speculated, was the Soviet attack on their forces after a declaration of war. Two scientists at Oak Ridges Health Division, Henshaw and Coveyou, saw a United Press report in the Knoxville News Sentinel about radiation sickness caused by the bombings. 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. 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. Suite 701, Gelman Library According to Herbert Bix, for months Hirohito had believed that the outlook for a negotiated peace could be improved if Japan fought and won one last decisive battle, thus, he delayed surrender, continuing to procrastinate until the bomb was dropped and the Soviets attacked.[52]. Leaflets dropped on cities in Japan warning civilians about the atomic bomb, dropped c. August 6, 1945. 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. According to David Holloway, it seems likely that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima the day before that impelled [Stalin] to speed up Soviet entry into the war and secure the gains promised at Yalta.[59]. Frank Costigliola,France and the United States: The Cold Alliance Since World War II(New York, Twayne, 1992), 38-39. On August 6,1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki were attacked by atomic bombs that were dropped by the U.S Military. As Alperovitz notes, the Davies papers include variant diary entries and it is difficult to know which are the most accurate. [15]. In 1934, Japan ended its cooperation with other major powers in the Pacific by withdrawing from the Five Power Treaty. 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. National Archives Identifier 535795] [16], RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. The killing of workers in the urban-industrial sector was one of the explicit goals of the air campaign against Japanese cities. On the eve of the Potsdam Conference, a State Department draft of the proclamation to Japan contained language which modified unconditional surrender by promising to retain the emperor. Second update - August 4, 2015 To the extent that the atomic bombing was critically important to the Japanese decision to surrender would it have been enough to destroy one city? According to what Byrnes told Brown, Truman, Stimson, and Leahy favored accepting the Japanese note, but Byrnes objected that the United States should go [no] further than we were willing to go at Potsdam. Stimsons account of the meeting noted Byrnes concerns (troubled and anxious) about the Japanese note and implied that he (Stimson) favored accepting it, but did not picture the debate as starkly as Browns's did. Explain your answer. Third update - August 7, 2017, For more information, contact: 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. 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? The combination of the first bomb and the Soviet declaration of war would have been enough to induce Tokyos surrender. Three days later another atomic device was exploded over Nagasaki. The bomb would be dropped in the citys center. By providing access to a broad range of U.S. and Japanese documents, mainly from the spring and summer of 1945, interested readers can see for themselves the crucial source material that scholars have used to shape narrative accounts of the historical developments and to frame their arguments about the questions that have provoked controversy over the years. The 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. 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.. Reasons Why the U.S. What was at stake was the definition of the kokutai (national policy). [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. Counterfactual issues are also disputed, for example whether there were alternatives to the atomic bombings, or would the Japanese have surrendered had a demonstration of the bomb been used to produced shock and awe. Three days later, it dropped another on Nagasaki. That figure was based on underestimates by Manhattan Project scientists: the actual yield of the test device was 20 kilotons. 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. For the distances, see Norris, 407. 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. 2023 The Wilson Center. But I couldnt help but think of the necessity of blotting out women and children and non-combatants. Two days later an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing an estimated . Historians have used this item in the papers of Byrnes aide, Walter Brown, to make a variety of points. 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]. [73]. . But how exactly did the bomb help start the Cold War? [13]. [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. One of the major reasons why the atomic bomb was dropped was to save American lives, at least so it is told by many sources. See also Alex Wellersteins The Kyoto Misconception. National Archives and Records Administration, Newspaper clipping, Japanese planes destroy US fleet at Pearl Harbor, December 8, 1945, Excerpts of Franklin Roosevelts speech to Congress, December 8, 1941, Excerpt of Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, July 26, 1945, Letter from Henry Stimson to Harry S. Truman, April 24, 1945, Letter from Harry S. Truman to Richard Russell, August 9, 1945, Translation of leaflet dropped on the Japanese, August 6, 1945, Petition to the President of the United States, July 17, 1945, Minutes of meeting held at the White House, June 18, 1945. [69]. [32], Record Group 353, Records of Interdepartmental and Intradepartmental Committees, Secretarys Staff Meetings Minutes, 1944-1947 (copy from microfilm). As for targeting, however, he had a more significant role. Alperovitz, 662; Bernstein (1995), 139; Norris, 377. Former Secretary of War Henry Stimson found the criticisms troubling and published an influential justification for the attacks inHarpers. How much did top officials know about the radiation effects of the weapons? As the Russian invasion of Ukraine shows, nuclear threats are real, present, and dangerous. Hiroshima and Nagasaki represent the point of no return in the history of world politics: they mark the dramatic culmination and end of the war, while symbolizing the beginning of an era of nuclear fear. 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. [39], The last item discusses Japanese contacts with representatives of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Switzerland. If the United States had been more flexible about the demand for unconditional surrender by explicitly or implicitly guaranteeing a constitutional monarchy would Japan have surrendered earlier than it did? [29]. And on Aug. 6, a bomb would fall on Hiroshima, ultimately killing an. 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. 153-154, 164 (n)). [43]. 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. To keep the secret, Bush wanted to avoid a ruinous appropriations request to Congress and asked Roosevelt to ask Congress for the necessary discretionary funds. The U.S. reply, drafted during the course of the day, did not explicitly reject the note but suggested that any notion about the prerogatives of the Emperor would be superceded by the concept that all Japanese would be Subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers. The language was ambiguous enough to enable Japanese readers, upon Hirohitos urging, to believe that they could decide for themselves the Emperors future role. The second, which hit Nagasaki on 9 August, killed around 50,000 people. Riabev, ed., Atomnyi Proekt SSSR (Moscow: izd MFTI, 2002), Volume 1, Part 2, 335-336. 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. bobert. [59a]. Besides Truman, guests included New York Governor Thomas Dewey (Republican presidential candidate in 1944 and 1948), foreign ambassadors, members of the cabinet and the Supreme Court, the military high command, and various senators and representatives. World War II was fought by millions of people in all corners of the world. However, the Department of the Interior opposed the disclosure of the nature of the weapon. Noteworthy publications since 2015 includeMichael D. Gordin and G. John Ikenberry, eds., The Age of Hiroshima (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019); Sheldon Garon, On the Transnational Destruction of Cities: What Japan and the United States Learned from the Bombing of Britain and Germany in the Second World War, Past and Present 247 (2020): 235-271; Katherine E. McKinney, Scott Sagan, and Allen S. Weiner, Why the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima Would Be Illegal Today, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 76 (2020); Gregg Mitchell, The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood and America Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (New York: The New Press, 2020); Steve Olson, The Apocalypse Factory: Plutonium and the Making of the Atomic Age (New York: W.W. Norton, 2020); Neil J. Sullivan, The Prometheus Bomb: The Manhattan Project and Government in the Dark (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press/Potomac Books, 2016); Alex Wellerstein; Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States,(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming, 2020), a memoir by a Hiroshima survivor, Taniguchi Sumitero, The Atomic Bomb on My Back: A Life Story of Survival and Activism (Montpelier, VT: Rootstock Publishing, 2020), and a collection of interviews, Cynthia C. Kelly, ed., The Manhattan Project: The Birth of the Atomic Bomb in the Words of Its Creators, Eyewitnesses, and Historians (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2020).

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