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The documents can help readers to make up their own minds about long-standing controversies such as whether the first use of atomic weapons was justified, whether President Harry S. Truman had alternatives to atomic attacks for ending the war, and what the impact of the Soviet declaration of war on Japan was. 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. To what extent had Emperor Hirohito prolonged the war unnecessarily by not seizing opportunities for surrender? The nuclear age had truly begun with the first military use of atomic weapons. Upon becoming president, Harry Truman learned of the Manhattan Project, a secret scientific effort to create an atomic bomb. 1. 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day, did not explicitly reject the note but suggested that any notion about the prerogatives of the Emperor would be superceded by the concept that all Japanese would be Subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers.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. Naval Aide to the President Files, box 4, Berlin Conference File, Volume XI - Miscellaneous papers: Japan, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, On 2 July Stimson presented to President Truman a proposal that he had worked up with colleagues in the War Department, including McCloy, Marshall, and Grew. Members of the Supreme War Councilthe Big Six[62]wanted the reply to Potsdam to include at least four conditions (e.g., no occupation, voluntary disarmament); they were willing to fight to the finish. Therefore, it is hard to believe that by November 1945, the Japanese press had any detailed, spontaneous reporting of the effects of the atomic bomb. 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. Public Reaction to the Atomic Bomb and World Affairs, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, April 1947. Melvyn P. Leffler, Adherence to Agreements: Yalta and the Experiences of the Early Cold War,International Security11 (1986): 107; Holloway, Barbarossa and the Bomb, 65. What concepts did war planners use to select targets? [73]. With Japan close to capitulation, Truman asserted presidential control and ordered a halt to atomic bombings. Riabevs notes, it is possible that Berias copy of this letter ended up in Stalins papers. Stimson had in mind a carefully timed warning delivered before the invasion of Japan. . Ramsey, a physicist, served as deputy director of the bomb delivery group, Project Alberta. RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. [4]. a. Brown, special assistant to Secretary of State James Byrnes. Later that year, the Uranium Committee completed its report and OSRD Chairman Vannevar Bush reported the findings to President Roosevelt: As Bush emphasized, the U.S. findings were more conservative than those in the British MAUD report: the bomb would be somewhat less effective, would take longer to produce, and at a higher cost. 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. 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). What did senior officials know about the effects of atomic bombs before they were first used. Possibly not wanting to take responsibility for the first use of nuclear weapons, Army Air Force commanders sought formal authorization from Chief of Staff Marshall who was then in Potsdam, RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, Files no. The bomb ended the war. Dbq help!! With Truman having ordered a halt to the atomic bombings [See document 78], Marshall wrote on Grove's memo that the bomb was not to be released over Japan without express authority from the President., Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 10-12, 1945, Japans prospective surrender was the subject of detailed discussion between Harriman, British Ambassador Kerr, and Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov during the evening of August 10 (with a follow-up meeting occurring at 2 a.m.). Leaflets dropped on cities in Japan warning civilians about the atomic bomb, dropped c. August 6, 1945. On August 6th, 1945 at 8:15 A.M. the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Bernstein, Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender,Diplomatic History19 (1995), 146-147; Alperovitz, 415; Frank, 246. Seeking raw materials to fuel its growing industries, Japan invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. [31], RG 107, Office of Assistant Secretary of War Formerly Classified Correspondence of John J. McCloy, 1941-1945, box 38, ASW 387 Japan. Atomic Bomb Pros 1. (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. Japanese kamikaze pilots could turn planes into guided missiles. The day after he told Sato about the current thinking on Soviet mediation, Togo requested the Ambassador to see Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and tell him of the Emperors private intention to send Prince Konoye as a Special Envoy to Moscow. The United States decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima was a diplomatic measure calculated to intimidate the Soviet Union in the post- Second-War era rather than a strictly military measure designed to force Japan's unconditional surrender. If there were, what were they and how plausible are they in retrospect? Fears and Counterfactual Analysis: Would the Planned November 1945 Invasion of Southern Kyushu Have Occurred?Pacific Historical Review68 (1999): 561-609. The discussion of available targets included Hiroshima, the largest untouched target not on the 21st Bomber Command priority list. But other targets were under consideration, including Yawata (northern Kyushu), Yokohama, and Tokyo (even though it was practically rubble.) The problem was that the Air Force had a policy of laying waste to Japans cities which created tension with the objective of reserving some urban targets for nuclear destruction. 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. The bombings were the first time that nuclear weapons had been detonated in combat operations. 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. A few days later another Japanese city, Nagasaki, was obliterated by a second atomic bomb. In these entries, Meiklejohn discussed how he and others in the Moscow Embassy learned about the bombing of Nagasaki from the OWI Bulletin. Entries for 10 and 11 August cover discussion at the Embassy about the radio broadcast announcing that Japan would surrender as long the Emperors status was not affected. Tsar Bomba's yield is estimated to have been roughly 57 megatons, about 1,500 times the combined power of the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki . [48], This Magic summary includes messages from both Togo and Sato. 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. A full translation of the surrender offer was circulated separately. 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). 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. 2023 The Wilson Center. Receptive to pressure from Stimson, Truman recorded his decision to take Japans old capital (Kyoto) off the atomic bomb target list. However, many historians believe that the attack on Japan-occupied Manchuria by the previously neutral Soviet Union on August 8 had more impact on Japan's leaders. The total destruction of that city, and the instant incineration of 40,000 mostly civilian people, occurred just three days after the destruction of Hiroshima by a 15-kiloton uranium bomb, which instantly killed 70,000. 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. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a plutonium bomb . More intercepted messages on the bombing of Hiroshima. An important question that Stimson discussed with Marshall, at Trumans request, was whether Soviet entry into the war remained necessary to secure Tokyos surrender. Beginning in September 1940, U.S. military intelligence began to decrypt routinely, under the Purple code-name, the intercepted cable traffic of the Japanese Foreign Ministry. Some years after Trumans death, a hand-written diary that he kept during the Potsdam conference surfaced in his personal papers. Stalin considered various dates to schedule an attack. 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. Officially named AN602 hydrogen bomb, it was originally intended to have a . [68], George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, VA, George C. Marshall Papers (copy courtesy of Barton J. Bernstein), While Truman had rescinded the order to drop nuclear bombs, the war was not yet over and uncertainty about Japans next step motivated war planner General John E. Hull (assistant chief of staff for the War Departments Operations Division), and one of Groves associates, Colonel L. E. Seeman, to continue thinking about further nuclear use and its relationship to a possible invasion of Japan. Moreover, the collection includes for the first time translations from Japanese sources of high level meetings and discussions in Tokyo, including the conferences when Emperor Hirohito authorized the final decision to surrender. As noted, some documents relating to the origins of the Manhattan Project have been included in addition to entries from the Robert P. Meiklejohn diaries and translations of a few Soviet documents, among other items. On December 15th, 1945, he delcared that the A-bomb had save one-quarter million American lives. Hiroshi [Kaian) Shimomura, Shusenki [Account of the End of the War] (Tokyo, Kamakura Bunko, [1948], 148-152 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi]. Soviet forces in the east had attacked in the neighbourhood of Gradekovo, where the railroad from Vladivostok crosses the frontier. 5g (copy from microfilm), As director of Los Alamos Laboratory, Oppenheimers priority was producing a deliverable bomb, but not so much the effects of the weapon on the people at the target. Early the next day, General Anami committed suicide. For emphasis on the shock of the atomic bomb, see also Lawrence Freedman and Saki Dockrill, Hiroshima: A Strategy of Shock, in Saki Dockrill, ed.,From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima : the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific, 1941-1945(New York, St. Martins Press, 1994), 191-214. His estimate of 250,000 U.S. soldiers spared far exceeded that made by General Marshall in June 1945, which was in the range of 31,000 (comparable to the Battle of Luzon) [See Document 26]. 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. [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. He wanted to end war in the Pacific without having to invade Japan b. 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]. For example, one of McCloys aides, Colonel Fahey, argued against modification of unconditional surrender (see Appendix C`). Nor is it an attempt to substitute for the extraordinary rich literature on the atomic bombings and the end of World War II. 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. This update presents previously unpublished material and translations of difficult-to-find records. [56]. [9], RG 77, Correspondence ("Top Secret") of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946, file 25M. [7], Documents 2A-B: Going Ahead with the Bomb, RG 227, Bush-Conant papers microfilm collection, Roll 1, Target 2, Folder 1, "S-1 Historical File, Section II (1941-1942), The Manhattan Project never had an official charter establishing it and defining its mission, but these two documents are the functional equivalent of a charter, in terms of presidential approvals for the mission, not to mention for a huge budget. The second, which hit Nagasaki on 9 August, killed around 50,000 people. 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. A. Zolotarev, ed., Sovetsko-Iaponskaia Voina 1945 Goda: Istoriia Voenno-Politicheskogo Protivoborstva Dvukh Derzhav v 3040e Gody (Moscow: Terra, 1997 and 2000), Vol. After a successful test of the weapon, Truman issued the Potsdam Declaration demanding the unconditional surrender of the Japanese government, warning of prompt and utter destruction. Eleven days later, on August 6, 1945, having received no reply, an American bomber called the Enola Gay left the Tinian Island in route toward Japan. 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.. He believed that casualties would not be more than those produced by the battle for Luzon, some 31,000. 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. Schaffer,Wings of Judgment, 143-146. RG 77, MED, H-B files, folder no. Harriman Papers, Library of Congress, box 211, Robert Pickens Meiklejohn World War II Diary At London and Moscow March 10, 1941-February 14, 1946, Volume II (Privately printed, 1980 [Printed from hand-written originals]) (Reproduced with permission), Robert P. Meiklejohn, who worked as Ambassador W. A. Harrimans administrative assistant at the U.S. Embassies in Moscow and London during and after World War II, kept a detailed diary of his experiences and observations. Plainly Davies thought otherwise. More than seventy years after the end of World War II, the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains controversial. On August 6, 1945, just days after the Potsdam Conference ended, the U.S. bomber Enola Gay dropped the uranium bomb known as "Little Boy" on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The 27-tonne Soviet Tsar Bomba was the most powerful weapon ever constructed. 5b and 5e (copies from microfilm), These messages convey the process of creating and transmitting the execution order to bomb Hiroshima. Some of the key elements of Stimsons argument were his assumption that Japan is susceptible to reason and that Japanese might be even more inclined to surrender if we do not exclude a constitutional monarchy under her present dynasty. The possibility of a Soviet attack would be part of the threat. As part of the threat message, Stimson alluded to the inevitability and completeness of the destruction which Japan could suffer, but he did not make it clear whether unconditional surrender terms should be clarified before using the atomic bomb. 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. [26]. By James Rothwell 5 October 2022 7:25am. That evening army officers tried to seize the palace and find Hirohitos recording, but the coup failed. If it was, he believed that the bomb would be the master card in U.S. diplomacy. Evaluate this . On July 16, the first atom bomb was tested successfully at Alamogordo, N.M. On July 17, Truman sat down to talk with Stalin. [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. [45]. [77]. Malloy (2008), 49-50. [20], Harrison-Bundy Files relating to the Development of the Atomic Bomb, 1942-1946, microfilm publication M1108 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1980), File 77: "Interim Committee - International Control.". 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? At this time, several treaties were in place to limit the size of navies in the Pacific Ocean. objectives. 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. While post-war justifications for the bomb suggested that an invasion of Japan could have produced very high levels of casualties (dead, wounded, or missing), from hundreds of thousands to a million, historians have vigorously debated the extent to which the estimates were inflated. (Truman finally cut off military aid to France to compel the French to pull back). For casualty figures and the experience of people on the ground, see Frank, 264-268 and 285-286, among many other sources. 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. For the inception of the Soviet nuclear program and the role of espionage in facilitating it, see Holloway,Stalin and the Bomb(New Haven, Yale University Press, 1994). But how exactly did the bomb help start the Cold War? Brewster suggested that Japan could be used as a target for a demonstration of the bomb, which he did not further define. Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, Magic Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18. Pumpkins referred to bright orange, pumpkin-shaped high explosive bombsshaped like the Fat Man implosion weapon--used for bombing run test missions. See also Walker (2005), 316-317. Furthermore, the United States demanded that the Japanese withdraw from conquered areas of China and Indochina. 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. This summary included intercepts of Japanese diplomatic reporting on the Soviet buildup in the Far East as well as a naval intelligence report on Anglo-American discussions of U.S. plans for the invasion of Japan. If you were President Truman in 1945, would you have dropped the bomb? All Rights Reserved, FJHUMMING: Radio Libertys Russian Language Broadcasts from Taiwan, 75th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. that participants in the debate have brought to bear in framing their arguments. After President Roosevelt died on April 12th, 1945, it became Harry Trumans job to decide how to end the war. Courtesy of Tim Brown. Various personnel and guards are standing around the loading area. 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. RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. Three days later, it dropped another on Nagasaki. The reference to our contact may refer to Bank of International Settlements economist Pers Jacobbson who was in touch with Japanese representatives to the Bank as well as Gero von Gvernitz, then on the staff, but with non-official cover, of OSS station chief Allen Dulles. Alperovitz, 281-282. However, it is striking that none of the people sent to ground zero in the immediate aftermath of the bombings were scientists or technicians. 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 an important study of how contemporary officials and scientists looked at the atomic bomb prior to first use in Japan, see Michael D. Gordin,Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007). In fact, after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, the Japanese militarys Information Division, in charge of media control, intended to announce that the bomb was an atomic one. The British National Archives, Records of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, FO 800/461. While Army Minister Anami tacitly threatened a coup (civil war), the emperor accepted the majority view that the reply to the Potsdam declaration should include only one condition not the four urged by Big Six. Nevertheless, the condition that Hirohito accepted was not the one that foreign minister Togo had brought to the conference. 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). 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]. A directive (right), written by Leslie Groves , approved by President Truman, and issued by Secretary of War Henry Stimson and General of the . RG 218, Central Decimal Files, 1943-1945, CCS 381 (6-4-45), Sec. [66], Takashi Itoh, ed., Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 926-927 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima], As various factions in the government maneuvered on how to respond to the Byrnes note, Navy Minister Yonai and Admiral Tagaki discussed the latest developments. Independence, MO 64050 Quotation and statistics from Thomas R. Searle, `It Made a Lot of Sense to Kill Skilled Workers: The Firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945,The Journal of Military History55 (2002):103. An Ordinary Man, His Extraordinary Journey, President Harry S. Truman's White House Staff, National History Day Workshops from the National Archives, Video: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor, Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb Study Collection, Harry S. Truman Library & Mu. 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 .