Why The United States Dropped The Atomic Bomb - Essay Examples 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]. 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. Was the Hiroshima atomic bomb a measure to intimidate - Russian Best David Holloway, Barbarossa and the Bomb: Two Cases of Soviet Intelligence in World War II, in Jonathan Haslam and Karina Urbach, eds.,Secret Intelligence in the European States System, 1918-1989(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), 63-64. Thanks to Alex Wellerstein for the suggestion and the archival link. The second, which hit Nagasaki on 9 August, killed around 50,000 people. 5d (copy from microfilm), On 27 April, military officers and nuclear scientists met to discuss bombing techniques, criteria for target selection, and overall mission requirements. 8). 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. Because the Japanese population was far from surrendering and would fight to their death, so an invasion would be costly in human lives. Historians Reassess: Did we need to drop the bomb? Bernstein, Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender,Diplomatic History19 (1995), 146-147; Alperovitz, 415; Frank, 246. Hasegawa argues that Truman realized that the Japanese would refuse a demand for unconditional surrender without a proviso on a constitutional monarchy and that he needed Japans refusal to justify the use of the atomic bomb.[47], Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter J. The releasing of the atomic bombs to intimidate the Soviets in the years after World War Two is a valid claim because the . Every major country of the time was involved in the war. As Yonai explained to Tagaki, he had also confronted naval vice Chief Takijiro Onishi to make sure that he obeyed any decision by the Emperor. This account hints at discussion of the atomic bomb (certain other matters), but no documents disclose that part of the meeting. Public Reaction to the Atomic Bomb and World Affairs, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, April 1947. Moscow's was 3,000 times . However, the Department of the Interior opposed the disclosure of the nature of the weapon. [74]. The United States Government's decision to attack Russia with the atomic bomb ultimate proved to scare the Russians. Hiroshi [Kaian) Shimomura, Shusenki [Account of the End of the War] (Tokyo, Kamakura Bunko, [1948], 148-152 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi]. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. [11], Documents 6A-D: President Truman Learns the Secret, G 77, Commanding Generals file no. RG 77, Harrison-Bundy Files (H-B Files), folder 69 (copy from microfilm), While Groves worried about the engineering and production problems, key War Department advisers were becoming troubled over the diplomatic and political implications of these enormously powerful weapons and the dangers of a global nuclear arms race. 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? [11]. Through an award winning Digital Archive, the Project allows scholars, journalists, students, and the interested public to reassess the Cold War and its many contemporarylegacies. With Japan close to capitulation, Truman asserted presidential control and ordered a halt to atomic bombings. The record of this meeting has figured in the complex debate over the estimates of casualties stemming from a possible invasion of Japan. Obama in Hiroshima: Why the U.S. Dropped the Bomb in 1945 | Time 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. 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. A. Zolotarev, ed., Sovetsko-Iaponskaia Voina 1945 Goda: Istoriia Voenno-Politicheskogo Protivoborstva Dvukh Derzhav v 3040e Gody (Moscow: Terra, 1997 and 2000), Vol. They note large scale destruction of the city and damage to buildings (the hospital, gas storage tanks, the Mitsubishi plant, etc.) 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. Confronting the Problem of Radiation Poisoning, XII. Early the next day, General Anami committed suicide. Why the United States Did Not Demonstrate the Bomb's Power, Ahead of 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. Why the U.S. Dropped the Atomic Bomb on Japan in WWII [20]. The Japanese goal was to cripple the U.S. Pacific fleet, and they nearly succeeded. The nuclear age had truly begun with the first military use of atomic weapons. The author recommended issuing the declaration just before the bombardment program [against Japan] reaches its peak. Next to that suggestion, Stimson or someone in his immediate office, wrote S1, implying that the atomic bombing of Japanese cities was highly relevant to the timing issue. 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. 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. As for targeting, however, he had a more significant role. Why we dropped the Atomic Bomb The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 was a definite turning point in the Pacific War of World . RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 21 (copies courtesy of Barton Bernstein). Plainly Davies thought otherwise. [6]. Third update - August 7, 2017, For more information, contact: [77], Harry S. Truman Library, President's Secretary's Files, Speech Files, 1945-1953, copy on U.S. National Archives Web Site, On 15 December, President Truman spoke about the atomic bombings in his speech at the annual dinner of the Gridiron Club, organized by bureau chiefs and other leading figures of print media organizations. With the Japanese surrender announcement not yet in, President Truman believed that another atomic bombing might become necessary. Why the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki [66]. Meiklejohn recounted Harrimans visit in early October 1945 to the Frankfurt-area residence of General Dwight Eisenhower, who was finishing up his service as Commanding General, U.S. Army, European Theater. 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.). The "Tsar Bomba," as it became known, was 10 times more powerful than all the munitions used during World War II. [29]. Washington's biggest test blast was 1,000 times as large. Why the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima | CNN 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. How Did The Us Decision To Drop The Atomic Bomb Dbq All Rights Reserved, FJHUMMING: Radio Libertys Russian Language Broadcasts from Taiwan, 75th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 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. With Prime Minister Suzuki presiding, each of the ministers had a chance to state their views directly to Hirohito. 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. In a progress report, Bush told President Roosevelt that the bomb project was on a pilot plant basis, but not yet at the production stage. [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. As Russia wages war in Ukraine, experts have described what would happen in a nuclear strike, which is unlikely. The First Nuclear Strikes and their Impact, XI. An important question that Stimson discussed with Marshall, at Trumans request, was whether Soviet entry into the war remained necessary to secure Tokyos surrender. Atomic Bomb Radiation - bomb made from uranium which is highly toxic - long term effects of exposure led to increased cancer rates Instrument of Surrender the written agreement that formalized the surrender of the Empire of Japan, marking the end of World War II emperor clause included but edited from the original draft of Potsdam With direct access to the documents, readers may develop their own answers to the questions raised above. How Did The Us Dropped The Atomic Bomb Dbq | ipl.org Was the bombing of Nagasaki unnecessary? [6], In its discussion of the effects of an atomic weapon, the committee considered both blast and radiological damage. 1-127. Background on the U. S. Atomic Project, III. 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. On Stimson, see Schaffer (1985), 179-180 and Malloy (2008), 54. On August 6, 1945, a B-29 "superbomber" dropped a uranium bomb over Hiroshima in an attempt to force Japan's unconditional surrender. A blog of the History and Public Policy Program. Note: The second page of the diary entry includes a newspaper clipping of the Associated Presss transmission of the Byrnes note. 100 (copy from microfilm). The Japanese Surrender in World War II. Try again Why were alternatives not pursued? Whether or not the atomic bombs should have been dropped is a topic that is still debated. [22]. 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. Another column was striking south from the Soviet border toward Hailar. [4]. The contacts never went far and Dulles never received encouragement to pursue them. Every August, newspapers are dotted with stories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, accompanied by a well-picked-over but never resolved . Eisenhower and McCloys Views on the Bombings and Atomic Weapons, National Security Archive [16]. In a long and impassioned message, the latter argued why Japan must accept defeat: it is meaningless to prove ones devotion [to the Emperor] by wrecking the State. Togo rejected Satos advice that Japan could accept unconditional surrender with one qualification: the preservation of the Imperial House. Probably unable or unwilling to take a soft position in an official cable, Togo declared that the whole country will pit itself against the enemy in accordance with the Imperial Will as long as the enemy demands unconditional surrender., Naval Historical Center, Operational Archives, James Forrestal Diaries, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal was a regular recipient of Magic intercept reports; this substantial entry reviews the dramatic Sato-Togo exchanges covered in the 22 July Magic summary (although Forrestal misdated Satos cable as first of July instead of the 21st). [56]. 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. Also relevant to Japanese thinking about surrender, the author speculated, was the Soviet attack on their forces after a declaration of war. Churchill and India: Manipulation or Betrayal? Some months later, with the Manhattan Project already underway and under the direction of General Leslie Grove, Bush outlined to Roosevelt the effort necessary to produce six fission bombs. An article that Bernstein published in 1995, The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered,Foreign Affairs74 (1995), 135-152, nicely summarizes his thinking on the key issues. Alperovitz argues that the possibility of atomic diplomacy was central to the thinking of Truman and his advisers, while Bernstein, who argues that Trumans primary objective was to end the war quickly, suggests that the ability to cow other nations, notably the Soviet Union was a bonus effect. At the time of the first report, various methods for producing a chain reaction were envisioned and money was being budgeted to try them out. 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. (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. Barton J. Bernstein, "'Reconsidering the 'Atomic General': Leslie R. Groves,"The Journal of Military History67 (July 2003): 883-920. With the material that follows, the National Security Archive publishes the most comprehensive on-line collection to date of declassified U.S. government documents on the atomic bomb and the end of the war in the Pacific. 8 devine street north haven, ct what is berth preference in irctc atomic bomb dropped to intimidate russia. 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 70th anniversary of the event presents an opportunity to set the record straight on five widely held myths about the bomb. Unaware of the findings of Health Division scientists, Groves and Rhea saw the injuries as nothing more than good thermal burns.[75], Documents 94A-B: General Farrell Surveys the Destruction, RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 17, Envelope B, A month after the attacks Groves deputy, General Farrell, traveled to Japan to see for himself the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He believed it essential that the United States declare its intention to preserve the institution of the emperor. For tug of war, see Hasegawa, 226-227. Open Document. The Magic intercepts from mid-July have figured in Gar Alperovitzs argument that Truman and his advisers recognized that the Emperor was ready to capitulate if the Allies showed more flexibility on the demand for unconditional surrender. 961 Words4 Pages. Nevertheless, Anami argued, We are still left with some power to fight. Suzuki, who was working quietly with the peace party, declared that the Allied terms were acceptable because they gave a dim hope in the dark of preserving the emperor. 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]. 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. objectives. On the August 6, 1945, the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, by the United States. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 243, Photographs Used In The Report Effects of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, 1947 - 1947, Local Identifier:243-HP-I-31-3; National Archives ID:22345672. 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,. [72]. 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. The bomb ended the war. The proposed script for the Smithsonian exhibition can be seen at Philipe Nobile. 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. Frank, 273-274; Bernstein, The Alarming Japanese Buildup on Southern Kyushu, Growing U.S. We picked a couple of cities where war work was the principle industry, and dropped bombs. Peter Grose,Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 170-174, 248-249. This made me feel: "This has really become a very difficult situation." Russia's participation in the war had long since been expected, but this does not mean that we had been well prepared for it. 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. 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 . An importanton-line collection focuses on the air-raids of Japanese cities and bases, providing valuable context for the atomic attacks. 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. Pogue only cites the JCS transcript of the meeting; presumably, an interview with a participant was the source of the McCloy quote. The Soviet invasion was.[58], Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter J. Togo asked Sato to try to meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov as soon as possible to sound out the Russian attitude on the declaration as well as Japans end-the-war initiative. 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). 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. To help readers who are less familiar with the debates, commentary on some of the documents will point out, although far from comprehensively, some of the ways in which they have been interpreted. [78]. [2]. 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].

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atomic bomb dropped to intimidate russia