2 Pt. Togos proposal would have been generally consistent with a constitutional monarchy because it defined the kokutai narrowly as the emperor and the imperial household. [27], Commenting on another memorandum by Herbert Hoover, George A. Lincoln discussed war aims, face-saving proposals for Japan, and the nature of the proposed declaration to the Japanese government, including the problem of defining unconditional surrender. Lincoln argued against modifying the concept of unconditional surrender: if it is phrased so as to invite negotiation he saw risks of prolonging the war or a compromise peace. J. Samuel Walker has observed that those risks help explain why senior officials were unwilling to modify the demand for unconditional surrender. 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. 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. The Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson, and I weighed that decision most prayerfully. Victims who looked healthy weakened, for unknown reasons and many died. In what Stimson called the letter of an honest man, Oswald C. Brewster sent President Truman a profound analysis of the danger and unfeasibility of a U.S. atomic monopoly. On 30 October 1961, the Soviet Union detonated the Tsar Bomba nuclear bomb over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in northern Russia. Why were alternatives not pursued? 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. For Groves and the problem of radiation sickness, see Norris, 339-441, Bernstein, Reconsidering the Atomic General: Leslie R. Groves,Journal of Military History67 (2003), 907-908, and Malloy, A Very Pleasant Way to Die, 513-518 and 539-542. Five myths about the atomic bomb - The Washington Post A significant contested question is whether, under the weight of a U.S. blockade and massive conventional bombing, the Japanese were ready to surrender before the bombs were dropped. Would the Soviet declaration of war have been enough to compel Tokyo to admit defeat? Whether this meant that Truman was getting ready for a confrontation with Stalin over Eastern Europe and other matters has also been the subject of debate. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. 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. olive tree children ministries; teaching blog; about our ministry; salvation prayer; contact us [74]. In August 1945 the USA detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Dbq help!! The result was approximately 80,000 deaths in just the first few minutes. Along with the ethical issues involved in the use of atomic and other mass casualty weapons, why the bombs were dropped in the first place has been the subject of sometimes heated debate.As with all events in human history, interpretations vary and readings of primary sources can lead to different conclusions. The US bombed Japan in 1945 to demonstrate its power to the USSR US bombings on Hiroshima & Nagasaki were not to end WWII but to - RT Pogue only cites the JCS transcript of the meeting; presumably, an interview with a participant was the source of the McCloy quote. 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. The diary entries cover July 16, 17, 18, 20, 25, 26, and 30 and include Trumans thinking about a number of issues and developments, including his reactions to Churchill and Stalin, the atomic bomb and how it should be targeted, the possible impact of the bomb and a Soviet declaration of war on Japan, and his decision to tell Stalin about the bomb. [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. Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog. President Franklin Roosevelt called the attack a day which will live in infamy, and the American people were shocked and angered. The combination of the first bomb and the Soviet declaration of war would have been enough to induce Tokyos surrender. [59]. 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. This personal account, written on Tinian, reports his fears about the danger of a nuclear accident, the confusion surrounding the Nagasaki attack, and early Air Force thinking about a nuclear strike force. [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. [39], The last item discusses Japanese contacts with representatives of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Switzerland. Within days after the bombing of Hiroshima, U.S. military intelligence intercepted Japanese reports on the destruction of the city. [66]. National Archives Identifier 535795] Soviet aircraft had bombed Changchun and Harbin by darkness. 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 . [54]. For Trumans recognition of mass civilian casualties, see also hisletter to Senator Richard Russell, 9 August 1945. [59a]. The reason for why America dropped the Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a contentious, emotive and particularly relevant issue, there are lots of speculations, however these are usually based on lies such as the "to save 500,000 American soldiers" which is clearly untrue. 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. Hoover proposed a compromise solution with Japan that would allow Tokyo to retain part of its empire in East Asia (including Korea and Japan) as a way to head off Soviet influence in the region. See for example, Bernstein (1995), 140-141. Shusen Shiroku (The Historical Records of the End of the War), annotated by Jun Eto, volume 4, 57-60 [Excerpts] [Translation by Toshihiro Higuchi], Excerpts from the Foreign Ministry's compilation about the end of the war show how news of the bombing reached Tokyo as well as how Foreign Minister's Togo initially reacted to reports about Hiroshima. Before summarizing the findings of the embassy mission, Malik offered the premise that the report was limited to a recording of conversations and personal impressions without any kind of generalizations or conclusions. However, it is clear from the beginning that this report had the objective of minimizing the effects of the atomic bomb. This proposal had been the subject of positive discussion by the Interim Committee on the grounds that Soviet confidence was necessary to make possible post-war cooperation on atomic energy. [72]. 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. [67], National Archives, RG 165, Army Operations OPD, Executive Files 1940-1945, box 12, Exec #2. Russia is very much in the minds of the people who give any thought to world affairs, and distrust and suspicion of her are very widespread. By contrast, Maddox argues that Nagasaki was necessary so that Japanese hardliners could not minimize the first explosion or otherwise explain it away. Lacking direct knowledge of conditions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Henshaw and Coveyou had their own data on the biological effects of radiation and could make educated guesses. With more information on the Alamogordo test available, Groves provided Marshall with detail on the destructive power of atomic weapons. [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. In his 1948 memoirs (further amplified in his 1963 memoirs), Eisenhower claimed that he had expressed the hope [to Stimson] that we would never have to use such a thing against an enemy because I disliked seeing the United States take the lead in introducing into war something as horrible and destructive as this new weapon was described to be. That language may reflect the underlying thinking behind Eisenhowers statement during the dinner party, but whether Eisenhower used such language when speaking with Stimson has been a matter of controversy. Years of fighting brought the US armed forces closer and closer to Japan as they hopped from one island to another. [70]. 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. He wanted to end war in the Pacific without having to invade Japan b. Was The Atomic Bomb Used To Stop Soviet Expansion? If it was, he believed that the bomb would be the master card in U.S. diplomacy. 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.. According to Meiklejohn, None of us doubt that the atomic bomb speeded up the Soviets declaration of war.. 816-268-8200 | 800-833-1225 The killing of workers in the urban-industrial sector was one of the explicit goals of the air campaign against Japanese cities. Atomic Bombs vs. Nuclear Bombs: What's the Difference? - Popular Mechanics The documents may even provoke new questions. (Copy from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-AEC), A nuclear weapon of the "Fat Man" type, the plutonium implosion-type detonated over Nagasaki. Initialed by President Roosevelt (VB OK FDR), this may have been the closest that he came to a formal approval of the Manhattan Project. 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. [48], This Magic summary includes messages from both Togo and Sato. The bombings have always been presented to young Americans in . 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. 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. Moreover, ethical questions have shrouded the bombings which caused terrible human losses and in succeeding decades fed a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union and now Russia and others. Weapon Of Last Resort: How The Soviet Union Developed The World's Most Cited by Barton J. Bernstein, Eclipsed by Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Early Thinking About Tactical Nuclear Weapons,International Security15 (1991) at page 167. None of these sections are about damage to human beings. This diary entry has figured in the argument that Byrnes believed that the atomic bomb gave the United States a significant advantage in negotiations with the Soviet Union. Within a few days Japan surrendered, and the terrible struggle that we call World War II was over. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs brought renewed attention to these documents more recently on August 5, 2015, the same day Naryshkin was pointing a finger at the United States in his speech. (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. For tug of war, see Hasegawa, 226-227. 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. Seventy years ago this month, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and the Japanese government surrendered to the United States and its allies. Richard Frank sees this as evidence of the uncertainty felt by senior officials about the situation in early August; Forrestal would not have been so audacious to take an action that could ignite a political firestorm if he seriously thought the end of the war was near., Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 5-9, 1945, Shortly after the Soviets declared war on Japan, in line with commitments made at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, Ambassador Harriman met with Stalin, with George Kennan keeping the U.S. record of the meeting. 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. Was there another way to end the war? For background on Magic and the Purple code, see John Prados,Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II (New York: Random House, 1995), 161-172 and David Kahn,The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing(New York: Scribner, 1996), 1-67.