atomic bomb dropped to intimidate russia

Background on the U. S. Atomic Project, III. [23] It is possible that Truman was informed of such discussions and their conclusions, although he clung to a belief that the prospective targets were strictly military. The bomb was dropped on Japan because it was necessary to bring japan to a surrender aswell as trick them into thinking they would be able to keep their emperor. Bix appears to have moved toward a position close to Hasegawas; see Bix, Japan's Surrender Decision and the Monarchy: Staying the Course in an Unwinnable War,Japan Focus. The Soviet invasion was.[58], Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter J. For years debate has raged over whether the US was right to drop two atomic bombs on Japan during the final weeks of the Second World War. Atomic Bomb Dbq; Atomic Bomb Dbq. It occurred to me that a quarter of a million of the flower of our young manhood was worth a couple of Japanese cities, and I still think that they were and are. 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 . If that failed to persuade Tokyo, he proposed that the United States disclose the secret of the atomic bomb to secure Japans unconditional surrender. The releasing of the atomic bombs to intimidate the Soviets in the years after World War Two is a valid claim because the . To what extent had Emperor Hirohito prolonged the war unnecessarily by not seizing opportunities for surrender? [46]. Barton Bernstein and Richard Frank, among others, have argued that Trumans assertion that the atomic targets were military objectives suggested that either he did not understand the power of the new weapons or had simply deceived himself about the nature of the targets. The nuclear age had truly begun with the first military use of atomic weapons. Aftermath of the August 6, 1945 Atomic Bomb blast in Hiroshima, 1946. 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. Maddox, 102; Alperovitz, 269-270; Hasegawa, 152-153. 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. According to Frank, the actual total of deaths due to the atomic bombs will never be known, but the huge number ranges somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people. As this August marks the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we are once again urged to reflect on the political role of the weapon that inaugurated the Nuclear Age. A few days later another Japanese city, Nagasaki, was obliterated by a second atomic bomb. With respect to the latter, It is possible that the destructive effects on life caused by the intense radioactivity of the products of the explosion may be as important as those of the explosion itself. This insight was overlooked when top officials of the Manhattan Project considered the targeting of Japan during 1945. 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. Schaffer,Wings of Judgment, 143-146. The ensuing war was costly. The message that the bombings sent to the world was that whoever possessed those special weapons would prove to be politically superior, thus turning such weapons into the passport to survive and potentially win the Cold War. The handwritten transcriptions are on the original archival copies. 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. [70]. 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. In contrast to Alperovitzs argument that Forrestal tried to modify the terms of unconditional surrender to give the Japanese an out, Frank sees Forrestals account of the Sato-Togo exchange as additional evidence that senior U.S. officials understood that Tokyo was not on the cusp of surrender. [49], Joseph E. Davies Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division, box 19, 29 July 1945, Having been asked by Truman to join the delegation to the Potsdam conference, former-Ambassador Davies sat at the table with the Big Three throughout the discussions. 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. How much Power does a President actually have? 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. Zenshiro Hoshina, a senior naval official, attended the conference and prepared a detailed account. [59a], Takashi Itoh, ed., Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 923-924 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima]. Not altogether certain that surrender was imminent, Army intelligence did not rule out the possibility that Tokyo would try to drag out the negotiations or reject the Byrnes proposal and continue fighting. 5. [1]. That there may be a difference between the two sources becomes evident from some of the entries; for example, in the entry for July 18, 1945 Brown wrote: "Although I knew about the atomic bomb when I wrote these notes, I dared not place it in writing in my book., The degree to which the typed-up version reflects the original is worth investigating. The weekly illustrated magazine Asahi Graph also published a brief article on August 25 titled What is an atomic bomb?. Some will want to read declassified primary sources so they can further develop their own thinking about the issues. [5]. After a successful test of the weapon, Truman issued the Potsdam Declaration demanding the unconditional surrender of the Japanese government, warning of prompt and utter destruction. Eleven days later, on August 6, 1945, having received no reply, an American bomber called the Enola Gay left the Tinian Island in route toward Japan. Officially named AN602 hydrogen bomb, it was originally intended to have a . Barton J. Bernstein, Introduction to Helen S. Hawkins et al. Ramsey, a physicist, served as deputy director of the bomb delivery group, Project Alberta. One of the visitors mentioned at the beginning of the entry was Iwao Yamazaki who became Minister of the Interior in the next cabinet. 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Alperovitz and Sherwin have argued that Truman made a real decision to use the bomb on Japan by choosing between various forms of diplomacy and warfare. In contrast, Bernstein found that Truman never questioned [the] assumption that the bomb would and should be used. Early the next day, General Anami committed suicide. Conflict in the Pacific began well before the official start of World War II. Alperovitz, 281-282. And on Aug. 6, a bomb would fall on Hiroshima, ultimately killing an. [46] During the meeting on August 24, discussed above, Stimson gave his reasons for taking Kyoto off the atomic target list: destroying that city would have caused such bitterness that it could have become impossible to reconcile the Japanese to us in that area rather than to the Russians. Stimson vainly tried to preserve language in the Potsdam Declaration designed to assure the Japanese about the continuance of their dynasty but received Trumans assurance that such a consideration could be conveyed later through diplomatic channels (see entry for July 24). Responding to this threat, the United States placed an embargo on scrap metal, oil, and aviation fuel heading to Japan and froze Japanese assets in the United States. The Japanese Surrender in World War II. For the early criticisms and their impact on Stimson and other former officials, see Barton J. Bernstein, Seizing the Contested Terrain of Early Nuclear History: Stimson, Conant, and Their Allies Explain the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,Diplomatic History17 (1993): 35-72, and James Hershberg,James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age(Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1995), 291-301. Information from the late John Taylor, National Archives. 576 words. Seeing the bombing of Hiroshima as a sign of a worsening situation at home, Tagaki worried about further deterioration. The target is and was always expected to be Japan., These documents have important implications for the perennial debate over whether Truman inherited assumptions from the Roosevelt administration that the bomb would be used when available or that he madethedecision to do so. With the Japanese surrender announcement not yet in, President Truman believed that another atomic bombing might become necessary. Hasegawa, 105; Alperovitz, 67-72; Forrest Pogue,George C. Marshall: Statesman, 1945-1959(New York: Viking, 1987), 18. 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. Why were alternatives not pursued? [29]. [14], Firebombing raids on other cities followed Tokyo, including Osaka, Kobe, Yokahama, and Nagoya, but with fewer casualties (many civilians had fled the cities).

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