This report included an intercept of a message from Sato reporting that it was impossible to see Molotov and that unless the Togo had a concrete and definite plan for terminating the war he saw no point in attempting to meet with him. To suggest alternatives, they drafted this memorandum about the importance of the international exchange of information and international inspection to stem dangerous nuclear competition. Were the Japanese ready to surrender before the bombs were dropped? 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. 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. Victims who looked healthy weakened, for unknown reasons and many died. J. Samuel Walker has cited this document to make the point that contrary to revisionist assertions, American policymakers in the summer of 1945 were far from certain that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria would be enough in itself to force a Japanese surrender. [24], In a memorandum to George Harrison, Stimsons special assistant on Manhattan Project matters, Arneson noted actions taken at the recent Interim Committee meetings, including target criterion and an attack without prior warning., Henry Stimson Papers, Sterling Library, Yale University (microfilm at Library of Congress), Stimson and Truman began this meeting by discussing how they should handle a conflict with French President DeGaulle over the movement by French forces into Italian territory. Arguing that continuing the war would reduce the nation to ashes, his words about bearing the unbearable and sadness over wartime losses and suffering prefigured the language that Hirohito would use in his public announcement the next day. 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. 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. For Stimsons article, see The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,Harpers194 (February 1947): 97-107. 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. Hasegawa cited it and other documents to make a larger point about the inability of the Japanese government to agree on concrete proposals to negotiate an end to the war. Since 2005, the collection has been updated. Late in the evening of 9 August, the emperor and his advisers met in the bomb shelter of the Imperial Palace. 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. were the atomic strikes necessary primarily to avert an invasion of Japan in November 1945? 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. [2]. A collectionoftranscribed documents is Gene Dannens Atomic Bomb: Decision. For a print collection of documents, see Dennis Merrill ed.,Documentary History of the Truman Presidency: Volume I: The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb on Japan(University Publications of America, 1995). [44]. August 4, 2015 A few months after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, General Dwight D.Eisenhower commented during a social occasion how he had hoped that the war might have ended without our having to use the atomic bomb. This virtually unknown evidence from the diary of Robert P. Meiklejohn, an assistant to Ambassador W. Averell Harriman, published for the first time today by the National Security Archive, confirms that the future President Eisenhower had early misgivings about the first use of atomic weapons by the United States. As Alperovitz notes, the Davies papers include variant diary entries and it is difficult to know which are the most accurate. A more recent collection of documents, along with a bibliography, narrative, and chronology, is Michael KortsThe Columbia Guide to Hiroshima and the Bomb(New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). President Franklin Roosevelt called the attack a day which will live in infamy, and the American people were shocked and angered. As Russia wages war in Ukraine, experts have described what would happen in a nuclear strike, which is unlikely. The Caribbean and Central America, Greenland, Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands, Iraq, Syria, Burma, and the Arctic are a few of the little known places that were involved. This document is General Curtis LeMays report on the firebombing of Tokyo--the most destructive air raid in history--which burned down over 16 square miles of the city, killed up to 100,000 civilians (the official figure was 83,793), injured more than 40,000, and made over 1 million homeless. The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, brought the United States officially into World War II. The last major battle, the fight for Okinawa, lasted almost three months and took more than 100,000 Japanese and American lives. [13]. (Photo from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-BT), This shows "Little Boy" being raised for loading into the Enola Gay's bomb bay. A new body of scholarly work emerged, often based on hitherto unavailable documents, which countered revisionist arguments that the atomic bomb was primarily a diplomatic weapon in 1945, that Japan would have surrendered prior to the planned U.S. invasion had the bomb not been used, and that projected casualty figures for the anticipated invasion He believed that casualties would not be more than those produced by the battle for Luzon, some 31,000. 2130 H Street, NW Some historians believe President Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb in order to intimidate the Soviet Union whereas others believe it was a strictly military measure designed to force Japan's unconditional surrender. (Truman finally cut off military aid to France to compel the French to pull back). 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. [43], Barton J. Bernstein, Truman at Potsdam: His Secret Diary, Foreign Service Journal, July/August 1980, excerpts, used with authors permission.[44]. When the atomic bomb was dropped, I felt: "This is terrible." Immediately thereafter, it was reported Soviet Russia entered the war. Historians Herbert Feis and Gar Alperovitz raised searching questions about the first use of nuclear weapons and their broader political and diplomatic implications. For example, Bernstein cites the entries for 20 and 24 July to argue that American leaders did not view Soviet entry as a substitute for the bomb but that the latter would be so powerful, and the Soviet presence in Manchuria so militarily significant, that there was no need for actual Soviet intervention in the war. For Brown's diary entry of 3 August 9 1945 historians have developed conflicting interpretations (See discussion of document 57). It was a decision to loose the most terrible of all destructive forces for the wholesale slaughter of human beings. (Photo from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-MDH), Hiroshima, after the first atomic bomb explosion. As these cables indicate, reports of unfavorable weather delayed the plan. [40], L.D. To what extent were senior officials interested in looking at alternatives to urban targets? Malloy, A Very Pleasant Way to Die, 531-534. The first paragraph mocks the Japanese press for exaggerating the aftereffects of the explosion, for giving in to popular rumor that takes press reports to absurdity. The Soviet report suggests that the exaggeration of the Japanese press stemmed from Japans attempt to save face in light of the defeat. Herbert P. Bix,Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan(New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000), 523. The target would be a city--either Hiroshima, Kyoto (still on the list), or Niigata--but specific aiming points would not be specified at that time nor would industrial pin point targets because they were likely to be on the fringes a city. Hasegawa, 105; Alperovitz, 67-72; Forrest Pogue,George C. Marshall: Statesman, 1945-1959(New York: Viking, 1987), 18. Maddox, 83-84; Hasegawa, 126-128. 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. 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. The explosion over Hiroshima wiped out 95 percent of the city and killed 80,000 people. Bernstein, however, notes that Bard later denied that he had a meeting with Truman and that White House appointment logs support that claim. [48], This Magic summary includes messages from both Togo and Sato. Colonel John Stone, an assistant to commanding General of the Army Air Forces Henry H. Hap Arnold, had just returned from Potsdam and updated his boss on the plans as they had developed. [7]. How and when it should be used had been the subject of high-level debate for months. Besides discussing programmatic matters (e.g., status of gaseous diffusion plants, heavy water production for reactors, and staffing at Las Alamos), the participants agreed that the first use could be Japanese naval forces concentrated at Truk Harbor, an atoll in the Caroline Islands. 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). Alperovitz, 281-282. Bernstein (1995), 144. According to the official US version of history, an A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, and another on Nagasaki three days later, to force Japan to surrender. After the first successful test of the atomic bomb in 1945, U.S. officials immediately considered the potential non-military benefits that could be derived from the American nuclear monopoly. After Suzuki gave the war party--Umeda, Toyoda, and Anami--an opportunity to present their arguments against accepting the Byrnes Note, he asked the emperor to speak. 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 bomb ended the war. By early August he decided that 9-10 August 1945 would be the best dates for striking Japanese forces in Manchuria. Counterfactual issues are also disputed, for example whether there were alternatives to the atomic bombings, or would the Japanese have surrendered had a demonstration of the bomb been used to produced shock and awe. Relations between the United States and Japan worsened when Japanese forces took aim at Indochina with the goal of capturing oil rich areas of the East Indies. There were battles and military posts in surprising places. Stalin considered various dates to schedule an attack. Togos proposal would have been generally consistent with a constitutional monarchy because it defined the kokutai narrowly as the emperor and the imperial household. [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. When the atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, Americans felt both deep satisfaction and deep anxiety, and these responses have coexisted ever since. Barton Bernstein has also pointed to this as additional evidence of the influence on Stimson of an an older morality. While concerned about the U.S.s reputation, Stimson did not want the Air Force to bomb Japanese cities so thoroughly that the new weapon would not have a fair background to show its strength, a comment that made Truman laugh. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a plutonium bomb . If the United States had been more flexible about the demand for unconditional surrender by explicitly or implicitly guaranteeing a constitutional monarchy would Japan have surrendered earlier than it did? 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. [42]. 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.