The Atom Bomb

Unit XXIV THE ATOM BOMB (See also Total War, "The War in Asia," ch. 21, pp. 851-8 73) .:'~ On 6 August 1945 the Enola Gay dropped a uranium bomb of 14 kilotons (producing an explosion equivalent to 14,000 tons of TNT) on Hiroshima. On 9 August a plutonium bomb of 20 kilotons was dropped on Nagasaki. President Truman promised that the United States would continue to drop such bombs until Japan surrendered. On· 14 August the Japanese capitulated. There was almost universal support for the decision to drop the bomb. American lives were saved. The war was brought to a swift conclusion. There were a few protests, mainly from Racifists, clergymen and black leaders. Truman never had a second thought about a decision which marked the beginning of a completely new and terrifying epoch in the history of armed conflict. By the outbreak of the war the international scientific community was facinated by a number of discoveries which indicated the effects of bombarding uranium atoms with neutrons to the point where they would split. In late 1939 a group of scientists informed President Rocsevelt that this process might be developed to create a bomb: they expressed the concern that the Germans might be the first to develop such a frightful weapon. But it was not until October 1941 that Roosevelt ordered an all-out research project on the bomb to be headed by Dr. Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). In June 1942 the project was greatly expanded and placed under General Leslie Droves of the War Department. The "Manhattan Engineering District Project" was highly secret. Few members of Roosevelt's cabinet knew of its existence. On 19 · September 1944 at Hyde Park Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to continue excluding the Soviet Union from all information on the development of the' bomb. The two leaders raised the question whether the bomb might be used against the Japanese, but in the last few months of his life, the President never discussed the possibl.e use of the bomb. On 4 May Stimson, having discussed the bomb with President Truman, appointed a select committee "for recommending action The to the executive and legislative branches of our government when Select secrecy is no longer in full effect (and also) actions to be taken by Committee the War Department prior to that time in anticipation of the postwar problems." Stimson chaired the committee with George Harrison the President of New York Life as vice-chairman. The 160 Committee included Vannaver Bush; James B. Conant, the President of Harvard; Karl T. Compton, president of MIT; Ralph Bard, Under Secretary of the Navy; William Clayton, Assistant Secretary of State; Byrnes, who was soon to become Secretary of State; three Nobel laureates: Enrico Fermi, Ernest O. Lawrence, and Arthur H. Compton; and lastly a brilliant young theoretical physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos laboratory. After what some later critics have felt was a somewhat perfunctory debate, the committee agreed that the bomb should be dropped on Japan as soon as possible, that it should be used against military installations and civilian housing, and that it should be dropped without any prior warning. Some scientists at the Chicago laboratory were concerned about the effects of dropping the bomb on relations with the Soviet Union. They proposed a demonstration use of the bomb to threaten the Japanese and raised the possibility of international control of the bomb to counteract the harmful effects on · postwar international relations of dropping the bomb without warning. Stimson's committee discussed this suggestion, contained in the Franck Committee's report, and suggested that Britain, 'Russia, France and China should be consulted "as to how we can cooperate in making this development contribute to improve international relations", but insisted that there was no alternative to direct military use against Japan. At a further meeting of the Committee it was agreed that Truman should tell Stalin at Potsdam that the United States had the bomb and intended to use it against Japan. Truman arrived at Potsdam on 15 July. The following day he was informed that the Alamogordo test was successful, and on 21 Potsdam July he was given a detailed report on the test. On 24 July Truman casually mentioned that the United States had a "new weapon", and Stalin mumbled that he hoped they would make good use of it. On 26 July the United States, Britain and China issued the Potsdam declaration which called for Japan's unconditional surrender. There was no guarantee of the position of the Emperor as Stimson and Grew, the Under Secretary of State, had wished. Nor was there any mention of the bomb. The Soviets were not invited to sign the declaration. The Americans knew from decoded messages that the Japanese were negotiating with the Russians to act as intermediaries for a peace short of unconditional surrender. The Russians did not follow up these Japanese. overtures and the Japanese would not accept the Potsdam declaration. The American military were anxious to avoid the invasion of Japan which they knew would be a costly and bloody campaign. Avoiding Okinawa gave an unpleasant foretaste of what might be expected. an Invasion With widely dispersed industry and a highly concentrated civilian population Japan seemed an ideal target for area bombing. Terror bombing of this sort was des'igned to undermine the will of the 161 Japanese people to continue the war. The atom bomb was seen as an ideal terror weapon. Not only was it highly destructive it was also spectacularly frightful. Oppenheimer pointed out that "the visual effect of an atomic bombing would be tremendous. It would be accompanied by a brilliant luminescence which would rise to a height of l 0,000 to 20,000 feet". General Marshall and Stimson both stressed that the shock value of the bomb would be so great that the Japanese would be forced to surrender. If the shock value of the bomb was the key to its success a demonstration explosion was out of the question. Marshall argued: "It's no good warning them. If you warn them there's no surprise. And the only way to produce shock is surprise." None of the key policy makers questioned the use of the bomb against Japan·. Eisenhower was the only leading military commander who forcefully objected on moral grounds to the use of the born b. Once Japan surrendered there, was agreement that the use of the bomb had speeded up the conclusion of the war by days, weeks, or even months. Subsequent Questions Although there was virtual unanimity that the bomb should be dropped the decision has become one of the most vigorously debated issues in recent history. An almost endless series of questions have been raised. Why did the United States not invite the Soviets to sign the Potsdam declaration? Did -the United States want Russian participation in the war against Japan? Why did Truman not give Stalin fuller details of the bomb? Why did the Americans not delay the dropping of the bomb until they knew more about the Japanese peace feelers? If victory by "conventional" means was so close why were the atomic bombs necessary? Why were the moral and political issues not discussed at greater length? Did the dropping of the bomb mark the true beginning of the cold war? Was the bomb used to impress the Russians and to win concessions from them at Potsdam? The answer given by Truman and most of his senior associates is simple. The bomb shortened the war and saved thousands of American lives. This explanation was clear and simple. After all, the bomb worked. Japan surrendered and the world was at peace. But the question remained whether it was morally justifiable to murder a man on his death bed. Hanson Baldwin, the military analyst of the New York Times, wrote in 1950 that America was "branded with mark of the beast" by its use of the bomb, and thus won the war, but politically and morally lost the peace. This argument was taken up by other writers who agreed that since the bomb was not necessary for victory, its use was immoral, and that the postwar political consequences of the use of the bomb were disastrous. 162 The Bomb and the Cold War Other writers of what was to become known as the revisionist school went much further. They agreed that the use of the bomb was unnecessary and immoral, but they argued that it was aimed against the Soviet Union rather than Japan. The United States used the bomb as soon as possible in order to impress the Soviets, and thus were largely, or in some versions entirely, responsible for the onset of the cold war. "Atomic Diplomacy" (the title of Gar Alperovitz's influential book) was used to intimidate the Soviets and marks a radical break with Roosevelt's policy of accommodation with the Russians. There is sufficient evidence to support at least part of the revisionists' position. It is clear that the American leaders felt that the bomb gave them a considerable advantage in negotiations with the Russians and that this was true not only of Truman but also of Roosevelt and that it lead to a hardening of the American position at Potsdam. But this does not mean that the primary reason for dropping the bomb was to scare the Russians. Nor did the Americans use explicit atomic threats against the Russians. The primary reason for dropping the bomb was to secure the speedy and unconditional surrender of Japan.

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