Bernstein, Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender,Diplomatic History19 (1995), 146-147; Alperovitz, 415; Frank, 246. Toward that end, in 2005, at the time of the 60th anniversary of the bombings, staff at the National Security Archive compiled and scanned a significant number of declassified U.S. government documents to make them more widely available. For a review of the debate on casualty estimates, see Walker (2005), 315, 317-318, 321, 323, and 324-325. By the end of November over ten weapons would be available, presumably in the event the war had continued. Leaflets dropped on cities in Japan warning civilians about the atomic bomb, dropped c. August 6, 1945. Officially named AN602 hydrogen bomb, it was originally intended to have a . Over 200,000 people were killed. [55] On 22 July Marshall asked Deputy Chief of Staff Thomas Handy to prepare a draft; General Groves wrote one which went to Potsdam for Marshalls approval. An account of the cabinet debates on August 13 prepared by Information Minister Toshiro Shimamura showed the same divisions as before; Anami and a few other ministers continued to argue that the Allies threatened the kokutai and that setting the four conditions (no occupation, etc.) What these people were laboring to construct, directly or indirectly, were two types of weaponsa gun-type weapon using U-235 and an implosion weapon using plutonium (although the possibility of U-235 was also under consideration). Pogue only cites the JCS transcript of the meeting; presumably, an interview with a participant was the source of the McCloy quote. The peace party, however, deftly maneuvered to break the stalemate by persuading a reluctant emperor to intervene. (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. 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. The first bomb, dropped on the city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, resulted in a total death toll of around 140,000. [37], RG 165, Army Operations OPD Executive File #17, Item 13 (copy courtesy of J. Samuel Walker), The day after the Togo message was reported, Army intelligence chief Weckerling proposed several possible explanations of the Japanese diplomatic initiative. Years of fighting brought the US armed forces closer and closer to Japan as they hopped from one island to another. 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. 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. Bix, Japan's Surrender Decision and the Monarchy: Staying the Course in an Unwinnable War,Japan Focus. 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. At the time, the American people cheered the . The continued controversy has revolved around the following, among other, questions: This compilation will not attempt to answer these questions or use primary sources to stake out positions on any of them. Sadao Asada, The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japans Decision to Surrender: A Reconsideration,Pacific Historical Review67 (1998): 101-148; Bix, 523; Frank, 348; Hasegawa, 298. The entries for 8 and 9 August, prepared in light of the bombing of Hiroshima, include discussion of the British contribution to the Manhattan Project, Harriman (his nibs) report on his meeting with Molotov about the Soviet declaration of war, and speculation about the impact of the bombing of Hiroshima on the Soviet decision. How decisive was the atomic bombings to the Japanese decision to 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. that participants in the debate have brought to bear in framing their arguments. Concerned with the long-run implications of the bomb, Franck chaired a committee, in which Szilard and Eugene Rabinowitch were major contributors, that produced a report rejecting a surprise attack on Japan and recommended instead a demonstration of the bomb on the desert or a barren island. Arguing that a nuclear arms race will be on in earnest not later than the morning after our first demonstration of the existence of nuclear weapons, the committee saw international control as the alternative. Soviet aircraft had bombed Changchun and Harbin by darkness. This point is central to Alperovitzs thesis that top U.S. officials recognized a two-step logic: relaxing unconditional surrender and a Soviet declaration of war would have been enough to induce Japans surrender without the use of the bomb. The document was then circulated on November 22, 1945 by Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov to Stalin, Lavrentyi Beria (at that point appointed as head of the Soviet atomic bomb project), and Politburo members Georgy Malenkov and Anastas Mikoyan. 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. The parts that are highlighted in the report with a line on the left-hand margin are noteworthy. 2 Pt. 35+ YEARS OF FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACTION, FOIA Advisory Committee Oversight Reports, a helpful collection of archival documents, on-line resources on the first atomic test. 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. Groves did not mention this but around the time he wrote this the Manhattan Project had working at its far-flung installations over 125,000 people ; taking into account high labor turnover some 485,000 people worked on the project (1 out of every 250 people in the country at that time). How much did top officials know about the radiation effects of the weapons? In light of those instructions, Togo and Prime Minister Suzuki agreed that the Supreme War Council should meet the next day. Third update - August 7, 2017, For more information, contact: 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. [41], RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File 5e (copy from microfilm), An elated message from Harrison to Stimson reported the success of the Trinity Test of a plutonium implosion weapon. Within a few days Japan surrendered, and the terrible struggle that we call World War II was over. It is quite apparent that the United States did, in fact, drop the two atomic bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively for the . Moreover, the atrocities of the bombs were not made graphically public to the Japanese people until August 6, 1952, when Asahi Graphpublished the issue titled Genbaku higai no shokkai (the first publication of the damages of the atomic bomb). 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. On August 6, 1945 the American war plane Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing between 70,000 and 100,000 Japanese. Truman was apparently not considering the fact that Tokyo was already devastated by fire bombing and that an atomic bombing would have killed the Emperor, which would have greatly complicated the process of surrender. The explosion over Hiroshima wiped out 95 percent of the city and killed 80,000 people. [78]. When he learned of the atomic bombing from the Domei News Agency, Togo believed that it was time to give up and advised the cabinet that the atomic attack provided the occasion for Japan to surrender on the basis of the Potsdam Declaration. Henry L. Stimson Papers (MS 465), Sterling Library, Yale University (reel 113) (microfilm at Library of Congress), Still interested in trying to find ways to warn Japan into surrender, this represents an attempt by Stimson before the Potsdam conference, to persuade Truman and Byrnes to agree to issue warnings to Japan prior to the use of the bomb. Stimsons account of the events of 10 August focused on the debate over the reply to the Japanese note, especially the question of the Emperors status. Soviet officials also rushed to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki to survey damage to the cities and assess the power of the atomic bomb. 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 Committee also reaffirmed earlier recommendations about the use of the bomb at the earliest opportunity against dual targets. In addition, Arneson included the Committees recommendation for revoking part two of the 1944 Quebec agreement which stipulated that the neither the United States nor Great Britain would use the bomb against third parties without each others consent. Thus, an impulse for unilateral control of nuclear use decisions predated the first use of the bomb. The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki features a letter written by Luis Alvarez, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, on August 6, 1945, after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Cited in Barton J. Bernstein, Truman and the A-Bomb: Targeting Noncombatants, Using the Bomb, and His Defending the "Decision,The Journal of Military History62 (1998), at page 559. To what extent were senior officials interested in looking at alternatives to urban targets? 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. "Nobody should allow themselves to forget the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," declared Sergey Naryshkin on August 5, 2015, at an event at Moscow's State Institute of International Relations commemorating the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings on the Japanese cities. It is part of the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. On 30 October 1961, the Soviet Union detonated the Tsar Bomba nuclear bomb over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in northern Russia. [39], The last item discusses Japanese contacts with representatives of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Switzerland. Barton J. Bernstein and Martin Sherwin have argued that if top Washington policymakers had kept tight control of the delivery of the bomb instead of delegating it to Groves the attack on Nagasaki could have been avoided. With the goal of having enough fissile material by the first half of 1945 to produce the bombs, Bush was worried that the Germans might get there first. Churchill and India: Manipulation or Betrayal? 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. The Japanese were vicious fighters, however, and every victory cost more time, material, and, sadly, lives. Early the next day, General Anami committed suicide. Historians have used this item in the papers of Byrnes aide, Walter Brown, to make a variety of points. Brewster suggested that Japan could be used as a target for a demonstration of the bomb, which he did not further define. Pages 12 through 15 of those notes refer to the atomic bombing of Japan: You know the most terrible decision a man ever had to make was made by me at Potsdam. The bomb ended the war. In August 1945 the USA detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombings have always been presented to young Americans in . 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? 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. 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. 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. Alperovitz, 281-282. 76 (copy from microfilm), Physicists Leo Szilard and James Franck, a Nobel Prize winner, were on the staff of the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, a cover for the Manhattan Project program to produce fuel for the bomb. Richard Frank sees this brief discussion of Japans interest in Soviet diplomatic assistance as crucial evidence that Admiral Leahy had been sharing MAGIC information with President Truman. [79]. 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. RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 21 (copies courtesy of Barton Bernstein). Russias annexation of Crimea in February 2014 escalated tensions between Washington and Moscow and changed the global perception of Russias role in international politics. After Stalin reviewed in considerable detail, Soviet military gains in the Far East, they discussed the possible impact of the atomic bombing on Japans position (Nagasaki had not yet been attacked) and the dangers and difficulty of an atomic weapons program. 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.). 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. Contributors to the historical controversy have deployed the documents selected here to support their arguments about the first use of nuclear weapons and the end of World War II. Confronting the Problem of Radiation Poisoning, XII. Due to the relations of Russia . The president, however, wrote in long-hand a text that that might approximate what he said that evening. Alperovitz, 662; Bernstein (1995), 139; Norris, 377. See for example, Bernstein (1995), 140-141. According to Merkulov, two fissile materials were being produced: element-49 (plutonium), and U-235; the test device was fueled by plutonium. 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. In writing to the Soviet leadership, Soviet Ambassador to Japan Iakov Malik included a nine-page report resulting from a trip to Hiroshima and Nagasaki by a group of staff members sent by the Soviet Embassy in September 1945. [32], Record Group 353, Records of Interdepartmental and Intradepartmental Committees, Secretarys Staff Meetings Minutes, 1944-1947 (copy from microfilm). Private collections were also important, such as the Henry L. Stimson Papers held at Yale University (although available on microfilm, for example, at the Library of Congress) and the papers of W. Averell Harriman at the Library of Congress. We wish to believe. 8). Social critic Dwight MacDonald published trenchant criticisms immediately after Hiroshima-Nagasaki; seePolitics Past: Essays in Political Criticism(New York: Viking, 1972), 169-180. To produce material for any of those purposes required a capability to separate uranium isotopes in order to produce fissionable U-235. 202-994-7000 ornsarchiv@gwu.edu, Nagasaki, August 10, 1945; photograph by Yosuke Yamahata; used with permission of copyright holder, Shogo Yamahata/Courtesy: IDG films. [59]. See also Walker (2005), 316-317. How is the current debate about immigration in the United States rooted in our nations past? We will do our utmost to complete the war to the bitter end. That, Bix argues, represents a missed opportunity to end the war and spare the Japanese from continued U.S. aerial attacks. They caused terrible human losses and destruction at the time and more deaths and sickness in the years ahead from the radiation effects. 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. Some of the highlighted parts even emphasize signs of life (contrary to all the evidence, we saw how in various places the grass was beginning to turn green and even on some scorched trees new leaves were appearing.). It is commonly believed that the awesome devastation of the atomic bombs caused the Japanese government to capitulate. The combination of the first bomb and the Soviet declaration of war would have been enough to induce Tokyos surrender. [80]. Explain your answer. That goal, he feared, raised terrifying prospects with implications for the inevitable destruction of our present day civilization. Once the U.S. had used the bomb in combat other great powers would not tolerate a monopoly by any nation and the sole possessor would be be the most hated and feared nation on earth. Even the U.S.s closest allies would want the bomb because how could they know where our friendship might be five, ten, or twenty years hence. Nuclear proliferation and arms races would be certain unless the U.S. worked toward international supervision and inspection of nuclear plants. 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. A flash, stronger than the sun itself, followed by a fiery explosion within seconds completely annihilated the city. 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. An important question that Stimson discussed with Marshall, at Trumans request, was whether Soviet entry into the war remained necessary to secure Tokyos surrender. Japan, sensing conflict was inevitable, began planning for an attack on Pearl Harbor by April, 1941. If it was, he believed that the bomb would be the master card in U.S. diplomacy. 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. Why did the Americans decide to carry out these attacks? Barton J. Bernstein, Introduction to Helen S. Hawkins et al. [69]. 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. 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 . How much Power does a President actually have? Riabev, ed., Atomnyi Proekt SSSR (Moscow: izd MFTI, 2002), Volume 1, Part 2, 335-336. 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. While McCloy later recalled that Truman expressed interest, he said that Secretary of State Byrnes squashed the proposal because of his opposition to any deals with Japan. Bernstein, introduction,Toward a Livable World, xxxvii-xxxviii. How and when it should be used had been the subject of high-level debate for months. Since these issues will be subjects of hot debate for many more years, the Archive has once again refreshed its compilation of declassified U.S. government documents and translated Japanese records that first appeared on these pages in 2005. Bernsteins detailed commentary on Trumans diary has not been reproduced here except for the opening pages where he provides context and background.