The Atomic Bomb

The Atomic Bomb

In early August 1945, atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These two bombs quickly yielded the surrender of Japan and the end of American involvement in World War II (Findley, 2006). By 1946, the two bombs caused the death of perhaps as many as 240,000 Japanese citizens. The popular, or traditional, view that dominated the 1950s and 60s put forth by President Harry Truman and Secretary of War Henry Stimson was that the dropping of the bomb was a diplomatic maneuver aimed at intimating and gaining the upper hand in relations with Russia (Wainstock, 1996). Today, sixty-two years after the two bombings, with the advantage of historical hindsight and the advantage of new evidence, a third view, can be presented. First, the dropping of the bomb was born out of complex military, domestic, and diplomatic pressures. Second, many potentially viable alternatives to dropping the bombs were not explored by Truman and other men in power. Third, because these alternatives were never explored, we can only speculate over whether or not Truman's decision was a morally just one, and if indeed it was necessary to use atomic energy to win the war (Wainstock, 1996).

The military pressures stemmed from discussion and meetings Truman had with Secretary of War Stimson, Army Chief of Staff General Marshal, Chief of Staff, Admiral William Leahy, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal and others. On June 18, 1945, general Marshall and Secretary of War Stimson convinced Truman to set an invasion of the island of Kyushu for November 1945. Truman knew of the ferocious fighting currently taking place in the Pacific, and naturally had a desire to minimize the long, bloody struggle. Stimson, Truman and others believed the invasion of the Japanese mainland would be extremely costly, and therefore embraced the bomb as a military weapon (Alperovitz, 1996). Truman's feelings that the bomb was a necessary military weapon were written in his diary on July 25, 1945. In his diary, Truman told Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson to use the atomic bomb so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. In his diary entries it seems that military pressures lied mostly heavily on Truman's mind (Ferrell, 1980).

The second major source of pressure on Truman and his advisors to drop the atomic bombs came from domestic tensions and issues of reelection, combined with a collective American feeling of hatred toward the Japanese race. As in most major Military conflicts, there was an effort to establish the Americans as morally superior to the Japanese (Alperovitz, 1996). On July 25, 1945, he wrote that the Japanese people were savages, ruthless, and merciless. Truman knew that if he backed down and did not remain firm on his stance with Japan the American public might be outraged. Furthermore, if the bomb was not dropped, Truman feared that it would prove extremely difficult in post war America to justify the two billion dollars spent on the Manhattan Project (Ferrell, 1980). Truman became president because Roosevelt died while in office, and although he never fully embraced the idea of being President, a desire to ensure the possibility of his reelection would certainly have been at least a subconscious consideration (Findley, 2006).

The third major source of pressures on Truman to drop the bomb was diplomatic tensions with Russia. Today, historians debate nothing about the dropping of the bombs more than whether diplomatic tensions played a role in Truman's decision. Truman's predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, followed a program of cooperation and good relations with Russia, highlighted by the Lend-Lease program and the symbolic gestures of good nature at the Yalta conference. Truman broke away from these good-natured relations and sought to follow a new policy. While preparing for his first meeting with a Russian official as President of the United States, Truman exclaimed that if the Russians did not want to cooperate, "they could go to hell." Furthermore, as the meeting came to a close an astounded Molotov responded, "I have never been talked to like that in my life." Collectively, these quotes leave little doubt that Truman embraced a new policy of strict bluntness and a willingness to play hardball with the Russians (Alperovitz, 1996).

The war in Asia had its roots in the early 1930s. Japan had expansionist aims in Eastern Asia and the Western Pacific. In July of 1940, the United States placed an embargo on materials exported to Japan, including oil in the hope of restraining Japanese expansionism. Nevertheless, tensions remained high in Asia, and only increased in 1939 when Germany ignited World War II with an invasion of Poland. America's determination to remain isolated changed abruptly following Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Military strategists and politicians poured the majority of American war effort into the European theater, and before the United States could fully mobilize, most of South-East Asia had fallen to Japan. Slowly, the United States recaptured the many small islands invaded by Japan, including Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Although the Japanese suicidal battles were ferocious, the Americans won every battle. They demolished the Japanese fleet and established air bases, at the naval battle of Midway Island (Wainstock, 1996).

Under the guidance of President Roosevelt, a top-secret joint effort between America and the United Kingdom had begun to build an atomic bomb that could be used against Germany. This project was called by its code name S-1, after Secretary of War Stimson. The project later became known as the Manhattan Project on April 25, 1945 after Harry S. Truman became president (Truman, 1986). Parallel with the Manhattan project, both Japan and America were making preparations for a final all-encompassing conflict, which both sides expected would involve an American invasion of mainland Japan. The Americans expanded conventional bombing and tightened their increasingly successful naval blockade on Japan. The Japanese began stockpiling their aircrafts, amassed a giant military force, and commenced the creation of a civilian army who swore total allegiance to the emperor. This awe-inspiring army included children with dynamite strapped to their bodies that were trained to throw themselves under American tanks (Alperovitz, 1996).

In