atomic bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki essay

The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II

A Collection of Primary Sources

Updated National Security Archive Posting Marks 75th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings of Japan and the End of World War II

Extensive Compilation of Primary Source Documents Explores Manhattan Project, Eisenhower’s Early Misgivings about First Nuclear Use, Curtis LeMay and the Firebombing of Tokyo, Debates over Japanese Surrender Terms, Atomic Targeting Decisions, and Lagging Awareness of Radiation Effects

Washington, D.C., August 4, 2020 –  To mark the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the National Security Archive is updating and reposting one of its most popular e-books of the past 25 years. 

While U.S. leaders hailed the bombings at the time and for many years afterwards for bringing the Pacific war to an end and saving untold thousands of American lives, that interpretation has since been seriously challenged.  Moreover, ethical questions have shrouded the bombings which caused terrible human losses and in succeeding decades fed a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union and now Russia and others.

Three-quarters of a century on, Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain emblematic of the dangers and human costs of warfare, specifically the use of nuclear weapons.  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.

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Introduction

By William Burr

The 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 is an occasion for sober reflection. In Japan and elsewhere around the world, each anniversary is observed with great solemnity. The bombings were the first time that nuclear weapons had been detonated in combat operations.  They caused terrible human losses and destruction at the time and more deaths and sickness in the years ahead from the radiation effects. And the U.S. bombings hastened the Soviet Union’s atomic bomb project and have fed a big-power nuclear arms race to this day. Thankfully, nuclear weapons have not been exploded in war since 1945, perhaps owing to the taboo against their use shaped by the dropping of the bombs on Japan. 

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.  Thus, the extent to which the bombings contributed to the end of World War II or the beginning of the Cold War remain live issues.  A significant contested question is whether, under the weight of a U.S. blockade and massive conventional bombing, the Japanese were ready to surrender before the bombs were dropped.  Also still debated is the impact of the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria, compared to the atomic bombings, on the Japanese decision to surrender. 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. Moreover, the role of an invasion of Japan in U.S. planning remains a matter of debate, with some arguing that the bombings spared many thousands of American lives that otherwise would have been lost in an invasion.

Those and other questions will be subjects of discussion well into the indefinite future. Interested readers will continue to absorb the fascinating historical literature on the subject.  Some will want to read declassified primary sources so they can further develop their own thinking about the issues. 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. The documents cover multiple aspects of the bombings and their context.  Also included, to give a wider perspective, were translations of Japanese documents not widely available before.  Since 2005, the collection has been updated. This latest iteration of the collection includes corrections, a few minor revisions, and updated footnotes to take into account recently published secondary literature.

2015 Update

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. General George C. Marshall is the only high-level official whose contemporaneous (pre-Hiroshima) doubts about using the weapons against cities are on record.

On the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the National Security Archive updates its 2005 publication of the most comprehensive on-line collection of declassified U.S. government documents on the first use of the atomic bomb and the end of the war in the Pacific. This update presents previously unpublished material and translations of difficult-to-find records. Included are documents on the early stages of the U.S. atomic bomb project, Army Air Force General  Curtis LeMay’s report  on the firebombing of Tokyo (March 1945), Secretary of War Henry  Stimson’s requests  for modification of unconditional surrender terms,  Soviet documents  relating to the events, excerpts from the Robert P. Meiklejohn diaries mentioned above, and selections from the diaries of Walter J. Brown, special assistant to Secretary of State James Byrnes.

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 Emperor’s decision to surrender. Also documented are U.S. decisions to target Japanese cities, pre-Hiroshima petitions by scientists questioning the military use of the A-bomb, proposals for demonstrating the effects of the bomb, debates over whether to modify unconditional surrender terms, reports from the bombing missions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and belated top-level awareness of the radiation effects of atomic weapons.

The documents can help readers to make up their own minds about long-standing controversies such as whether the first use of atomic weapons was justified, whether President Harry S. Truman had alternatives to atomic attacks for ending the war, and what the impact of the Soviet declaration of war on Japan was. Since the 1960s, when the declassification of important sources began, historians have engaged in vigorous debate over the bomb and the end of World War II. Drawing on sources at the National Archives and the Library of Congress as well as Japanese materials, this electronic briefing book includes key documents that historians of the events have relied upon to present their findings and advance their interpretations.

The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II: A Collection of Primary Sources

Seventy years ago this month, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and the Japanese government surrendered to the United States and its allies. The nuclear age had truly begun with the first military use of atomic weapons. With the material that follows, the National Security Archive publishes the most comprehensive on-line collection to date of declassified U.S. government documents on the atomic bomb and the end of the war in the Pacific. Besides material from the files of the Manhattan Project, this collection includes formerly “Top Secret Ultra” summaries and translations of Japanese diplomatic cable traffic intercepted under the “Magic” program. Moreover, the collection includes for the first time translations from Japanese sources of high level meetings and discussions in Tokyo, including the conferences when Emperor Hirohito authorized the final decision to surrender. [1]

Ever since the atomic bombs were exploded over Japanese cities, historians, social scientists, journalists, World War II veterans, and ordinary citizens have engaged in intense controversy about the events of August 1945. John Hersey’s  Hiroshima , first published in the New Yorker  in 1946 encouraged unsettled readers to question the bombings while church groups and some commentators, most prominently Norman Cousins, explicitly criticized them. Former Secretary of War Henry Stimson found the criticisms troubling and published an influential justification for the attacks in  Harper’s . [2] During the 1960s the availability of primary sources made historical research and writing possible and the debate became more vigorous. Historians Herbert Feis and Gar Alperovitz raised searching questions about the first use of nuclear weapons and their broader political and diplomatic implications. The controversy, especially the arguments made by Alperovitz and others about “atomic diplomacy” quickly became caught up in heated debates over Cold War “revisionism.” The controversy simmered over the years with major contributions by Martin Sherwin and Barton J. Bernstein but it became explosive during the mid-1990s when curators at the National Air and Space Museum met the wrath of the Air Force Association over a proposed historical exhibit on the Enola Gay. [3] The NASM exhibit was drastically scaled-down but historians and journalist continued to engage in the debate. Alperovitz, Bernstein, and Sherwin made new contributions as did other historians, social scientists, and journalists including Richard B. Frank, Herbert Bix, Sadao Asada, Kai Bird, Robert James Maddox, Sean Malloy, Robert P. Newman, Robert S. Norris, Tsuyoshi Hagesawa, and J. Samuel Walker. [4]

The continued controversy has revolved around the following, among other, questions:

• were the atomic strikes necessary primarily to avert an invasion of Japan in November 1945?
• Did Truman authorize the use of atomic bombs for diplomatic-political reasons-- to intimidate the Soviets--or was his major goal to force Japan to surrender and bring the war to an early end?
• If ending the war quickly was the most important motivation of Truman and his advisers to what extent did they see an “atomic diplomacy” capability as a “bonus”?
• To what extent did subsequent justification for the atomic bomb exaggerate or misuse wartime estimates for U.S. casualties stemming from an invasion of Japan?
• Were there alternatives to the use of the weapons? If there were, what were they and how plausible are they in retrospect? Why were alternatives not pursued?
• How did the U.S. government plan to use the bombs? What concepts did war planners use to select targets? To what extent were senior officials interested in looking at alternatives to urban targets? How familiar was President Truman with the concepts that led target planners chose major cities as targets?
• What did senior officials know about the effects of atomic bombs before they were first used. How much did top officials know about the radiation effects of the weapons?
• Did President Truman make a decision, in a robust sense, to use the bomb or did he inherit a decision that had already been made?
• Were the Japanese ready to surrender before the bombs were dropped? To what extent had Emperor Hirohito prolonged the war unnecessarily by not seizing opportunities for surrender?
• 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?
• How decisive was the atomic bombings to the Japanese decision to surrender?
• Was the bombing of Nagasaki unnecessary? 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?
• Would the Soviet declaration of war have been enough to compel Tokyo to admit defeat?
• Was the dropping of the atomic bombs morally justifiable?

This compilation will not attempt to answer these questions or use primary sources to stake out positions on any of them. Nor is it an attempt to substitute for the extraordinary rich literature on the atomic bombings and the end of World War II. Nor does it include any of the interviews, documents prepared after the events, and post-World War II correspondence, etc. that participants in the debate have brought to bear in framing their arguments. Originally this collection did not include documents on the origins and development of the Manhattan Project, although this updated posting includes some significant records for context. By providing access to a broad range of U.S. and Japanese documents, mainly from the spring and summer of 1945, interested readers can see for themselves the crucial source material that scholars have used to shape narrative accounts of the historical developments and to frame their arguments about the questions that have provoked controversy over the years. 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. With direct access to the documents, readers may develop their own answers to the questions raised above. The documents may even provoke new questions.

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. The editor has closely reviewed the footnotes and endnotes in a variety of articles and books and selected documents cited by participants on the various sides of the controversy. [5] While the editor has a point of view on the issues, to the greatest extent possible he has tried to not let that influence document selection, e.g., by selectively withholding or including documents that may buttress one point of view or the other. The task of compilation involved consultation of primary sources at the National Archives, mainly in Manhattan Project files held in the records of the Army Corps of Engineers, Record Group 77, but also in the archival records of the National Security Agency. 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. To a great extent the documents selected for this compilation have been declassified for years, even decades; the most recent declassifications were in the 1990s.

The U.S. documents cited here will be familiar to many knowledgeable readers on the Hiroshima-Nagasaki controversy and the history of the Manhattan Project. To provide a fuller picture of the transition from U.S.-Japanese antagonism to reconciliation, the editor has done what could be done within time and resource constraints to present information on the activities and points of view of Japanese policymakers and diplomats. This includes a number of formerly top secret summaries of intercepted Japanese diplomatic communications, which enable interested readers to form their own judgments about the direction of Japanese diplomacy in the weeks before the atomic bombings. Moreover, to shed light on the considerations that induced Japan’s surrender, this briefing book includes new translations of Japanese primary sources on crucial events, including accounts of the conferences on August 9 and 14, where Emperor Hirohito made decisions to accept Allied terms of surrender.

[ Editor’s Note: Originally prepared in July 2005 this posting has been updated, with new documents, changes in organization, and other editorial changes. As noted, some documents relating to the origins of the Manhattan Project have been included in addition to entries from the Robert P. Meiklejohn diaries and translations of a few Soviet documents, among other items. Moreover, recent significant contributions to the scholarly literature have been taken into account.]

I. Background on the U.S. Atomic Project

Documents 1A-C: Report of the Uranium Committee

1A . Arthur H. Compton, National Academy of Sciences Committee on Atomic Fission, to Frank Jewett, President, National Academy of Sciences, 17 May 1941, Secret

1B . Report to the President of the National Academy of Sciences by the Academy Committee on Uranium, 6 November 1941, Secret

1C . Vannevar Bush, Director, Office of Scientific Research and Development, to President Roosevelt, 27 November 1941, Secret

Source: National Archives, Records of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Record Group 227 (hereinafter RG 227), Bush-Conant papers microfilm collection, Roll 1, Target 2, Folder 1, "S-1 Historical File, Section A (1940-1941)."

This set of documents concerns the work of the Uranium Committee of the National Academy of Sciences, an exploratory project that was the lead-up to the actual production effort undertaken by the Manhattan Project. The initial report, May 1941, showed how leading American scientists grappled with the potential of nuclear energy for military purposes. At the outset, three possibilities were envisioned: radiological warfare, a power source for submarines and ships, and explosives. To produce material for any of those purposes required a capability to separate uranium isotopes in order to produce fissionable U-235. Also necessary for those capabilities was the production of a nuclear chain reaction. At the time of the first report, various methods for producing a chain reaction were envisioned and money was being budgeted to try them out.

Later that year, the Uranium Committee completed its report and OSRD Chairman Vannevar Bush reported the findings to President Roosevelt: As Bush emphasized, the U.S. findings were more conservative than those in the British MAUD report: the bomb would be somewhat “less effective,” would take longer to produce, and at a higher cost. One of the report’s key findings was that a fission bomb of superlatively destructive power will result from bringing quickly together a sufficient mass of element U235.” That was a certainty, “as sure as any untried prediction based upon theory and experiment can be.” The critically important task was to develop ways and means to separate highly enriched uranium from uranium-238. To get production going, Bush wanted to establish a “carefully chosen engineering group to study plans for possible production.” This was the basis of the Top Policy Group, or the S-1 Committee, which Bush and James B. Conant quickly established. [6]

In its discussion of the effects of an atomic weapon, the committee considered both blast and radiological damage. 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. [7]

Documents 2A-B: Going Ahead with the Bomb

2A : Vannevar Bush to President Roosevelt, 9 March 1942, with memo from Roosevelt attached, 11 March 1942, Secret

2B : Vannevar Bush to President Roosevelt, 16 December 1942, Secret (report not attached)

Sources: 2A: RG 227, Bush-Conant papers microfilm collection, Roll 1, Target 2, Folder 1, "S-1 Historical File, Section II (1941-1942): 2B: Bush-Conant papers, S-1 Historical File, Reports to and Conferences with the President (1942-1944)

The Manhattan Project never had an official charter establishing it and defining its mission, but these two documents are the functional equivalent of a charter, in terms of presidential approvals for the mission, not to mention for a huge budget. In a progress report, Bush told President Roosevelt that the bomb project was on a pilot plant basis, but not yet at the production stage. By the summer, once “production plants” would be at work, he proposed that the War Department take over the project. In reply, Roosevelt wrote a short memo endorsing Bush’s ideas as long as absolute secrecy could be maintained. According to Robert S. Norris, this was “the fateful decision” to turn over the atomic project to military control. [8]

Some months later, with the Manhattan Project already underway and under the direction of General Leslie Grove, Bush outlined to Roosevelt the effort necessary to produce six fission bombs. 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. Thus, he wanted Roosevelt’s instructions as to whether the project should be “vigorously pushed throughout.” Unlike the pilot plant proposal described above, Bush described a real production order for the bomb, at an estimated cost of a “serious figure”: $400 million, which was an optimistic projection given the eventual cost of $1.9 billion. 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. Initialed by President Roosevelt (“VB OK FDR”), this may have been the closest that he came to a formal approval of the Manhattan Project.

Document 3 : Memorandum by Leslie R. Grove, “Policy Meeting, 5/5/43,” Top Secret

Source:  National Archives, Record Group 77, Records of the Army Corps of Engineers (hereinafter RG 77), Manhattan Engineering District (MED), Minutes of the Military Policy Meeting (5 May 1943), Correspondence (“Top Secret”) of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946, microfilm publication M1109 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1980), Roll 3, Target 6, Folder 23, “Military Policy Committee, Minutes of Meetings”

Before the Manhattan Project had produced any weapons, senior U.S. government officials had Japanese targets in mind. 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. If there was a misfire the weapon would be difficult for the Japanese to recover, which would not be the case if Tokyo was targeted. Targeting Germany was rejected because the Germans were considered more likely to “secure knowledge” from a defective weapon than the Japanese. That is, the United States could possibly be in danger if the Nazis acquired more knowledge about how to build a bomb. [9]

Document 4 :   Memo from General Groves to the Chief of Staff [Marshall], “Atomic Fission Bombs – Present Status and Expected Progress,” 7 August 1944, Top Secret, excised copy

Source: RG 77, Correspondence ("Top Secret") of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946, file 25M

This memorandum from General Groves to General Marshall captured how far the Manhattan Project had come in less than two years since Bush’s December 1942 report to President Roosevelt .  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). What these people were laboring to construct, directly or indirectly, were two types of weapons—a gun-type weapon using U-235 and an implosion weapon using plutonium (although the possibility of U-235 was also under consideration). As the scientists had learned, a gun-type weapon based on plutonium was “impossible” because that element had an “unexpected property”: spontaneous neutron emissions would cause the weapon to “fizzle.” [10]  For both the gun-type and the implosion weapons, a production schedule had been established and both would be available during 1945. The discussion of weapons effects centered on blast damage models; radiation and other effects were overlooked.

Document 5 : Memorandum from Vannevar Bush and James B. Conant, Office of Scientific Research and Development, to Secretary of War, September 30, 1944, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, Harrison-Bundy Files (H-B Files), folder 69 (copy from microfilm)

While Groves worried about the engineering and production problems, key War Department advisers were becoming troubled over the diplomatic and political implications of these enormously powerful weapons and the dangers of a global nuclear arms race. Concerned that President Roosevelt had an overly “cavalier” belief about the possibility of maintaining a post-war Anglo-American atomic monopoly, Bush and Conant recognized the limits of secrecy and wanted to disabuse senior officials of the notion that an atomic monopoly was possible. To suggest alternatives, they drafted this memorandum about the importance of the international exchange of information and international inspection to stem dangerous nuclear competition. [11]

Documents 6A-D: President Truman Learns the Secret:

6A : Memorandum for the Secretary of War from General L. R. Groves, “Atomic Fission Bombs,” April 23, 1945

6B : Memorandum discussed with the President, April 25, 1945

6C : [Untitled memorandum by General L.R. Groves, April 25, 1945

6D : Diary Entry, April 25, 1945

Sources: A: RG 77, Commanding General’s file no. 24, tab D; B: Henry Stimson Diary, Sterling Library, Yale University (microfilm at Library of Congress); C: Source: Record Group 200, Papers of General Leslie R. Groves, Correspondence 1941-1970, box 3, “F”; D: Henry Stimson Diary, Sterling Library, Yale University (microfilm at Library of Congress)

Soon after he was sworn in as president following President Roosevelt’s death, Harry Truman learned about the top secret Manhattan Project from a briefing from Secretary of War Stimson and Manhattan Project chief General Groves, who went through the “back door” to escape the watchful press. Stimson, who later wrote up the meeting in his diary, also prepared a discussion paper, which raised broader policy issues associated with the imminent possession of “the most terrible weapon ever known in human history.” In a background report prepared for the meeting, Groves provided a detailed overview of the bomb project from the raw materials to processing nuclear fuel to assembling the weapons to plans for using them, which were starting to crystallize.

With respect to the point about assembling the weapons, the first gun-type weapon “should be ready about 1 August 1945” while an implosion weapon would also be available that month. “The target is and was always expected to be Japan.” The question whether Truman “inherited assumptions” from the Roosevelt administration that that the bomb would be used has been a controversial one. 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. Norris also noted that “Truman’s `decision’ was a decision not to override previous plans to use the bomb.” [12]

II. Targeting Japan

Document 7 : Commander F. L. Ashworth to Major General L.R. Groves, “The Base of Operations of the 509 th  Composite Group,” February 24, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5g

The force of B-29 nuclear delivery vehicles that was being readied for first nuclear use—the Army Air Force’s 509 th  Composite Group—required an operational base in the Western Pacific. In late February 1945, months before atomic bombs were ready for use, the high command selected Tinian, an island in the Northern Marianas Islands, for that base.

Document 8 : Headquarters XXI Bomber Command, “Tactical Mission Report, Mission No. 40 Flown 10 March 1945,”n.d., Secret

Source: Library of Congress, Curtis LeMay Papers, Box B-36

As part of the war with Japan, the Army Air Force waged a campaign to destroy major industrial centers with incendiary bombs. This document is General Curtis LeMay’s 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.  [13]  According to the “Foreword,” the purpose of the raid, which dropped 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs, was to destroy industrial and strategic targets “ not  to bomb indiscriminately civilian populations.” Air Force planners, however, did not distinguish civilian workers from the industrial and strategic structures that they were trying to destroy.

The killing of workers in the urban-industrial sector was one of the explicit goals of the air campaign against Japanese cities. According to a Joint Chiefs of Staff report on Japanese target systems, expected results from the bombing campaign included: “The absorption of man-hours in repair and relief; the dislocation of labor by casualty; the interruption of public services necessary to production, and above all the destruction of factories engaged in war industry.” While Stimson would later raise questions about the bombing of Japanese cities, he was largely disengaged from the details (as he was with atomic targeting). [14]

Firebombing raids on other cities followed Tokyo, including Osaka, Kobe, Yokahama, and Nagoya, but with fewer casualties (many civilians had fled the cities). For some historians, the urban fire-bombing strategy facilitated atomic targeting by creating a “new moral context,” in which earlier proscriptions against intentional targeting of civilians had eroded. [15]

Document 9 : Notes on Initial Meeting of Target Committee, May 2, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 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. The discussion of “available targets” included Hiroshima, the “largest untouched target not on the 21 st  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 Japan’s cities which created tension with the objective of reserving some urban targets for nuclear destruction.  [16]

Document 10 : Memorandum from J. R. Oppenheimer to Brigadier General Farrell, May 11, 1945

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5g (copy from microfilm)

As director of Los Alamos Laboratory, Oppenheimer’s priority was producing a deliverable bomb, but not so much the effects of the weapon on the people at the target. In keeping with General Groves’ emphasis on compartmentalization, the Manhattan Project experts on the effects of radiation on human biology were at the MetLab and other offices and had no interaction with the production and targeting units. In this short memorandum to Groves’ deputy, General Farrell, Oppenheimer explained the need for precautions because of the radiological dangers of a nuclear detonation. The initial radiation from the detonation would be fatal within a radius of about 6/10ths of a mile and “injurious” within a radius of a mile. The point was to keep the bombing mission crew safe; concern about radiation effects had no impact on targeting decisions.  [17]

Document 11 : Memorandum from Major J. A. Derry and Dr. N.F. Ramsey to General L.R. Groves, “Summary of Target Committee Meetings on 10 and 11 May 1945,” May 12, 1945, Top Secret

Scientists and officers held further discussion of bombing mission requirements, including height of detonation, weather, radiation effects (Oppenheimer’s memo), plans for possible mission abort, and the various aspects of target selection, including priority cities (“a large urban area of more than three miles diameter”) and psychological dimension. As for target cities, the committee agreed that the following should be exempt from Army Air Force bombing so they would be available for nuclear targeting: Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and Kokura Arsenal. Japan’s cultural capital, Kyoto, would not stay on the list. Pressure from Secretary of War Stimson had already taken Kyoto off the list of targets for incendiary bombings and he would successfully object to the atomic bombing of that city.  [18]

Document 12 : Stimson Diary Entries, May 14 and 15, 1945

Source: Henry Stimson Diary, Sterling Library, Yale University (microfilm at Library of Congress)

On May 14 and 15, Stimson had several conversations involving S-1 (the atomic bomb); during a talk with Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, he estimated that possession of the bomb gave Washington a tremendous advantage—“held all the cards,” a “royal straight flush”-- in dealing with Moscow on post-war problems: “They can’t get along without our help and industries and we have coming into action a weapon which will be unique.” The next day a discussion of divergences with Moscow over the Far East made Stimson wonder whether the atomic bomb would be ready when Truman met with Stalin in July. If it was, he believed that the bomb would be the “master card” in U.S. diplomacy. This and other entries from the Stimson diary (as well as the entry from the Davies diary that follows) are important to arguments developed by Gar Alperovitz and Barton J. Bernstein, among others, although with significantly different emphases, that in light of controversies with the Soviet Union over Eastern Europe and other areas, top officials in the Truman administration believed that possessing the atomic bomb would provide them with significant leverage for inducing Moscow’s acquiescence in U.S. objectives. [19]

Document 13 : Davies Diary entry for May 21, 1945

Source: Joseph E. Davies Papers, Library of Congress, box 17, 21 May 1945

While officials at the Pentagon continued to look closely at the problem of atomic targets, President Truman, like Stimson, was thinking about the diplomatic implications of the bomb. During a conversation with Joseph E. Davies, a prominent Washington lawyer and former ambassador to the Soviet Union, Truman said that he wanted to delay talks with Stalin and Churchill until July when the first atomic device had been tested. Alperovitz treated this entry as evidence in support of the atomic diplomacy argument, but other historians, ranging from Robert Maddox to Gabriel Kolko, have denied that the timing of the Potsdam conference had anything to do with the goal of using the bomb to intimidate the Soviets. [20]

Document 14 : Letter, O. C. Brewster to President Truman, 24 May 1945, with note from Stimson to Marshall, 30 May 1945, attached, secret

Source: Harrison-Bundy Files relating to the Development of the Atomic Bomb, 1942-1946, microfilm publication M1108 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1980), File 77: "Interim Committee - International Control."

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.  [21]  An engineer for the Kellex Corporation, which was involved in the gas diffusion project to enrich uranium, Brewster recognized that the objective was fissile material for a weapon. 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.

Brewster suggested that Japan could be used as a “target” for a “demonstration” of the bomb, which he did not further define. His implicit preference, however, was for non-use; he wrote that it would be better to take U.S. casualties in “conquering Japan” than “to bring upon the world the tragedy of unrestrained competitive production of this material.”

Document 15 : Minutes of Third Target Committee Meeting – Washington, May 28, 1945, Top Secret

More updates on training missions, target selection, and conditions required for successful detonation over the target. 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. The bomb would be dropped in the city’s center. “Pumpkins” referred to bright orange, pumpkin-shaped high explosive bombs—shaped like the “Fat Man” implosion weapon--used for bombing run test missions.

Document 16 : General Lauris Norstad to Commanding General, XXI Bomber Command, “509 th  Composite Group; Special Functions,” May 29, 1945, Top Secret

The 509 th  Composite Group’s cover story for its secret mission was the preparation of “Pumpkins” for use in battle. In this memorandum, Norstad reviewed the complex requirements for preparing B-29s and their crew for successful nuclear strikes.

Document 17 : Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, “Memorandum of Conversation with General Marshal May 29, 1945 – 11:45 p.m.,” Top Secret

Source: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson (“Safe File”), July 1940-September 1945, box 12, S-1

Tacitly dissenting from the Targeting Committee’s recommendations, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall argued for initial nuclear use against a clear-cut military target such as a “large naval installation.” If that did not work, manufacturing areas could be targeted, but only after warning their inhabitants. Marshall noted the “opprobrium which might follow from an ill considered employment of such force.” This document has played a role in arguments developed by Barton J. Bernstein that figures such as Marshall and Stimson were “caught between an older morality that opposed the intentional killing of non-combatants and a newer one that stressed virtually total war.” [22]  

Document 18 : “Notes of the Interim Committee Meeting Thursday, 31 May 1945, 10:00 A.M. to 1:15 P.M. – 2:15 P.M. to 4:15 P.M., ” n.d., Top Secret

Source: RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 100 (copy from microfilm)

With Secretary of War Stimson presiding, members of the committee heard reports on a variety of Manhattan Project issues, including the stages of development of the atomic project, problems of secrecy, the possibility of informing the Soviet Union, cooperation with “like-minded” powers, the military impact of the bomb on Japan, and the problem of “undesirable scientists.” Interested in producing the “greatest psychological effect,” the Committee members agreed that the “most desirable target would be a vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers’ houses.” Exactly how the mass deaths of civilians would persuade Japanese rulers to surrender was not discussed. Bernstein has argued that this target choice represented an uneasy endorsement of “terror bombing”--the target was not exclusively military or civilian; nevertheless, worker’s housing would include non-combatant men, women, and children. [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.

Document 19 : General George A. Lincoln to General Hull, June 4, 1945, enclosing draft, Top Secret

Source: Record Group 165, Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs, American-British-Canadian Top Secret Correspondence, Box 504, “ABC 387 Japan (15 Feb. 45)

George A. Lincoln, chief of the Strategy and Policy Group at U.S. Army’s Operations Department, commented on a memorandum by former President Herbert Hoover that Stimson had passed on for analysis. Hoover proposed a compromise solution with Japan that would allow Tokyo to retain part of its empire in East Asia (including Korea and Japan) as a way to head off Soviet influence in the region. While Lincoln believed that the proposed peace teams were militarily acceptable he doubted that they were workable or that they could check Soviet “expansion” which he saw as an inescapable result of World War II. As to how the war with Japan would end, he saw it as “unpredictable,” but speculated that “it will take Russian entry into the war, combined with a landing, or imminent threat of a landing, on Japan proper by us, to convince them of the hopelessness of their situation.” Lincoln derided Hoover’s casualty estimate of 500,000. 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]

Document 20 : Memorandum from R. Gordon Arneson, Interim Committee Secretary, to Mr. Harrison, June 6, 1945, Top Secret

In a memorandum to George Harrison, Stimson’s 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.”

Document 21 : Memorandum of Conference with the President, June 6, 1945, Top Secret

Source: 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. (Truman finally cut off military aid to France to compel the French to pull back).  [25]  As evident from the discussion, Stimson strongly disliked de Gaulle whom he regarded as “psychopathic.” The conversation soon turned to the atomic bomb, with some discussion about plans to inform the Soviets but only after a successful test. Both agreed that the possibility of a nuclear “partnership” with Moscow would depend on “quid pro quos”: “the settlement of the Polish, Rumanian, Yugoslavian, and Manchurian problems.”

At the end, Stimson shared his doubts about targeting cities and killing civilians through area bombing because of its impact on the U.S.’s reputation as well as on the problem of finding targets for the atomic bomb. 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.  The discussion of “area bombing” may have reminded him that Japanese civilians remained at risk from U.S. bombing operations.

III. Debates on Alternatives to First Use and Unconditional Surrender

Document 22 : Memorandum from Arthur B. Compton to the Secretary of War, enclosing “Memorandum on `Political and Social Problems,’ from Members of the `Metallurgical Laboratory’ of the University of Chicago,” June 12, 1945, Secret

Source: RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 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. The outspoken Szilard was not involved in operational work on the bomb and General Groves kept him under surveillance but Met Lab director Arthur Compton found Szilard useful to have around. 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. That possibility would be difficult if the United States made first military use of the weapon. Compton raised doubts about the recommendations but urged Stimson to study the report. Martin Sherwin has argued that the Franck committee shared an important assumption with Truman et al.--that an “atomic attack against Japan would `shock’ the Russians”--but drew entirely different conclusions about the import of such a shock.  [26]

Document 23 : Memorandum from Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew to the President, “Analysis of Memorandum Presented by Mr. Hoover,” June 13, 1945

Source: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson (“Safe File”), July 1940-September 1945, box 8, Japan (After December 7/41)

A former ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew’s extensive knowledge of Japanese politics and culture informed his stance toward the concept of unconditional surrender. He believed it essential that the United States declare its intention to preserve the institution of the emperor. As he argued in this memorandum to President Truman, “failure on our part to clarify our intentions” on the status of the emperor “will insure prolongation of the war and cost a large number of human lives.” Documents like this have played a role in arguments developed by Alperovitz that Truman and his advisers had alternatives to using the bomb such as modifying unconditional surrender and that anti-Soviet considerations weighed most heavily in their thinking. 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. [27]

Document 24 : Memorandum from Chief of Staff Marshall to the Secretary of War, 15 June 1945, enclosing “Memorandum of Comments on `Ending the Japanese War,’” prepared by George A. Lincoln, June 14, 1945, Top Secret

Commenting on another memorandum by Herbert Hoover, George A. Lincoln discussed war aims, face-saving proposals for Japan, and the nature of the proposed declaration to the Japanese government, including the problem of defining “unconditional surrender.” Lincoln argued against modifying the concept of unconditional surrender: if it is “phrased so as to invite negotiation” he saw risks of prolonging the war or a “compromise peace.” J. Samuel Walker has observed that those risks help explain why senior officials were unwilling to modify the demand for unconditional surrender. [28]

Document 25 : Memorandum by J. R. Oppenheimer, “Recommendations on the Immediate Use of Nuclear Weapons,” June 16, 1945, Top Secret

In a report to Stimson, Oppenheimer and colleagues on the scientific advisory panel--Arthur Compton, Ernest O. Lawrence, and Enrico Fermi—tacitly disagreed with the report of the “Met Lab” scientists. The panel argued for early military use but not before informing key allies about the atomic project to open a dialogue on “how we can cooperate in making this development contribute to improved international relations.”

Document 26 : “Minutes of Meeting Held at the White House on Monday, 18 June 1945 at 1530,” Top Secret

Source: Record Group 218, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Central Decimal Files, 1942-1945, box 198 334 JCS (2-2-45) Mtg 186 th -194 th

With the devastating battle for Okinawa winding up, Truman and the Joint Chiefs stepped back and considered what it would take to secure Japan’s surrender. 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. Marshall believed that the latter required Soviet entry and an invasion of Kyushu, even suggesting that Soviet entry might be the “decisive action levering them into capitulation.” Truman and the Chiefs reviewed plans to land troops on Kyushu on 1 November, which Marshall believed was essential because air power was not decisive. He believed that casualties would not be more than those produced by the battle for Luzon, some 31,000. This account hints at discussion of the atomic bomb (“certain other matters”), but no documents disclose that part of the meeting.

The record of this meeting has figured in the complex debate over the estimates of casualties stemming from a possible invasion of Japan. While post-war justifications for the bomb suggested that an invasion of Japan could have produced very high levels of casualties (dead, wounded, or missing), from hundreds of thousands to a million, historians have vigorously debated the extent to which the estimates were inflated.  [29]

According to accounts based on post-war recollections and interviews, during the meeting McCloy raised the possibility of winding up the war by guaranteeing the preservation of the emperor albeit as a constitutional monarch. If that failed to persuade Tokyo, he proposed that the United States disclose the secret of the atomic bomb to secure Japan’s unconditional surrender. 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. Yet, according to Forrest Pogue’s account, when Truman asked McCloy if he had any comments, the latter opened up a discussion of nuclear weapons use by asking “Why not use the bomb?” [30]

Document 27 : Memorandum from R. Gordon Arneson, Interim Committee Secretary, to Mr. Harrison, June 25, 1945, Top Secret

For Harrison’s convenience, Arneson summarized key decisions made at the 21 June meeting of the Interim Committee, including a recommendation that President Truman use the forthcoming conference of allied leaders to inform Stalin about the atomic project. The Committee also reaffirmed earlier recommendations about the use of the bomb at the “earliest opportunity” against “dual targets.” In addition, Arneson included the Committee’s 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 other’s consent.” Thus, an impulse for unilateral control of nuclear use decisions predated the first use of the bomb.

Document 28 : Memorandum from George L. Harrison to Secretary of War, June 26, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, MED, H-B files, folder no. 77 (copy from microfilm)

Reminding Stimson about the objections of some Manhattan project scientists to military use of the bomb, Harrison summarized the basic arguments of the Franck report. One recommendation shared by many of the scientists, whether they supported the report or not, was that the United States inform Stalin of the bomb before it was used. This proposal had been the subject of positive discussion by the Interim Committee on the grounds that Soviet confidence was necessary to make possible post-war cooperation on atomic energy.

Document 29 : Memorandum from George L. Harrison to Secretary of War, June 28, 1945, Top Secret, enclosing Ralph Bard’s “Memorandum on the Use of S-1 Bomb,” June 27, 1945

Under Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bard joined those scientists who sought to avoid military use of the bomb; he proposed a “preliminary warning” so that the United States would retain its position as a “great humanitarian nation.” Alperovitz cites evidence that Bard discussed his proposal with Truman who told him that he had already thoroughly examined the problem of advanced warning. This document has also figured in the argument framed by Barton Bernstein that Truman and his advisers took it for granted that the bomb was a legitimate weapon and that there was no reason to explore alternatives to military use. Bernstein, however, notes that Bard later denied that he had a meeting with Truman and that White House appointment logs support that claim. [31]

Document 30 : Memorandum for Mr. McCloy, “Comments re: Proposed Program for Japan,” June 28, 1945, Draft, Top Secret

Source: RG 107, Office of Assistant Secretary of War Formerly Classified Correspondence of John J. McCloy, 1941-1945, box 38, ASW 387 Japan

Despite the interest of some senior officials such as Joseph Grew, Henry Stimson, and John J. McCloy in modifying the concept of unconditional surrender so that the Japanese could be sure that the emperor would be preserved, it remained a highly contentious subject. For example, one of McCloy’s aides, Colonel Fahey, argued against modification of unconditional surrender (see “Appendix ‘C`”).

Document 31 : Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy to Colonel Stimson, June 29, 1945, Top Secret

McCloy was part of a drafting committee at work on the text of a proclamation to Japan to be signed by heads of state at the forthcoming Potsdam conference. As McCloy observed the most contentious issue was whether the proclamation should include language about the preservation of the emperor: “This may cause repercussions at home but without it those who seem to know the most about Japan feel there would be very little likelihood of acceptance.”

Document 32 : Memorandum, “Timing of Proposed Demand for Japanese Surrender,” June 29, 1945, Top Secret

Probably the work of General George A. Lincoln at Army Operations, this document was prepared a few weeks before the Potsdam conference when senior officials were starting to finalize the text of the declaration that Truman, Churchill, and Chiang would issue there. The author recommended issuing the declaration “just before the bombardment program [against Japan] reaches its peak.” Next to that suggestion, Stimson or someone in his immediate office, wrote “S1”, implying that the atomic bombing of Japanese cities was highly relevant to the timing issue. Also relevant to Japanese thinking about surrender, the author speculated, was the Soviet attack on their forces after a declaration of war.

Document 33 : Stimson memorandum to The President, “Proposed Program for Japan,” 2 July 1945, Top Secret

Source: 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 proposal has been characterized as “the most comprehensive attempt by any American policymaker to leverage diplomacy” in order to shorten the Pacific War. Stimson had in mind a “carefully timed warning” delivered before the invasion of Japan. Some of the key elements of Stimson’s argument were his assumption that “Japan is susceptible to reason” and that Japanese might be even more inclined to surrender if “we do not exclude a constitutional monarchy under her present dynasty.” The possibility of a Soviet attack would be part of the “threat.” As part of the threat message, Stimson alluded to the “inevitability and completeness of the destruction” which Japan could suffer, but he did not make it clear whether unconditional surrender terms should be clarified before using the atomic bomb. Truman read Stimson’s proposal, which he said was “powerful,” but made no commitments to the details, e.g., the position of the emperor.  [32]

Document 34 : Minutes, Secretary’s Staff Committee, Saturday Morning, July 7, 1945, 133d Meeting, Top Secret

Source: Record Group 353, Records of Interdepartmental and Intradepartmental Committees, Secretary’s Staff Meetings Minutes, 1944-1947 (copy from microfilm)

The possibility of modifying the concept of unconditional surrender so that it guaranteed the continuation of the emperor remained hotly contested within the U.S. government. Here senior State Department officials, Under Secretary Joseph Grew on one side, and Assistant Secretary Dean Acheson and Archibald MacLeish on the other, engaged in hot debate.

Document 35 : Combined Chiefs of Staff, “Estimate of the Enemy Situation (as of 6 July 1945, C.C.S 643/3, July 8, 1945, Secret (Appendices Not Included)

Source: RG 218, Central Decimal Files, 1943-1945, CCS 381 (6-4-45), Sec. 2 Pt. 5

This review of Japanese capabilities and intentions portrays an economy and society under “tremendous strain”; nevertheless, “the ground component of the Japanese armed forces remains Japan’s greatest military asset.” Alperovitz sees statements in this estimate about the impact of Soviet entry into the war and the possibility of a conditional surrender involving survival of the emperor as an institution as more evidence that the policymakers saw alternatives to nuclear weapons use. By contrast, Richard Frank takes note of the estimate’s depiction of the Japanese army’s terms for peace: “for surrender to be acceptable to the Japanese army it would be necessary for the military leaders to believe that it would not entail discrediting the warrior tradition and that it would permit the ultimate resurgence of a military in Japan.” That, Frank argues, would have been “unacceptable to any Allied policy maker.” [33]

Document 36 : Cable to Secretary of State from Acting Secretary Joseph Grew, July 16, 1945, Top Secret

Source: Record Group 59, Decimal Files 1945-1949, 740.0011 PW (PE)/7-1645

On the eve of the Potsdam Conference, a State Department draft of the proclamation to Japan contained language which modified unconditional surrender by promising to retain the emperor. When former Secretary of State Cordell Hull learned about it he outlined his objections to Byrnes, arguing that it might be better to wait “the climax of allied bombing and Russia’s entry into the war.” Byrnes was already inclined to reject that part of the draft, but Hull’s argument may have reinforced his decision.

Document 37 : Letter from Stimson to Byrnes, enclosing memorandum to the President, “The Conduct of the War with Japan,” 16 July 1945, Top Secret

Source: 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. The warning would draw on the draft State-War proclamation to Japan; presumably, the one criticized by Hull (above) which included language about the emperor .  Presumably the clarified warning would be issued prior to the use of the bomb; if the Japanese persisted in fighting then “the full force of our new weapons should be brought to bear” and a “heavier” warning would be issued backed by the “actual entrance of the Russians in the war.” Possibly, as Malloy has argued, Stimson was motivated by concerns about using the bomb against civilians and cities, but his latest proposal would meet resistance at Potsdam from Byrnes and other. [34]

Document 38 : R. E. Lapp, Leo Szilard et al., “A Petition to the President of the United States,” July 17, 1945

On the eve of the Potsdam conference, Leo Szilard circulated a petition as part of a final effort to discourage military use of the bomb. Signed by about 68 Manhattan Project scientists, mainly physicists and biologists (copies with the remaining signatures are in the archival file), the petition did not explicitly reject military use, but raised questions about an arms race that military use could instigate and requested Truman to publicize detailed terms for Japanese surrender. Truman, already on his way to Europe, never saw the petition. [35]

IV. The Japanese Search for Soviet Mediation

Documents 39A-B: Magic

39A : William F. Friedman, Consultant (Armed Forces Security Agency), “A Short History of U.S. COMINT Activities,” 19 February 1952, Top Secret

39B :“Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1204 – July 12, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

Sources: A: National Security Agency Mandatory declassification review release; B: Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, “Magic” Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18

Beginning in September 1940, U.S. military intelligence began to decrypt routinely, under the “Purple” code-name, the intercepted cable traffic of the Japanese Foreign Ministry. Collectively the decoded messages were known as “Magic.” How this came about is explained in an internal history of pre-war and World War II Army and Navy code-breaking activities prepared by  William F. Friedman , a central figure in the development of U.S. government cryptology during the 20 th  century. The National Security Agency kept the ‘Magic” diplomatic and military summaries classified for many years and did not release the entire series for 1942 through August 1945 until the early 1990s. [36]

The 12 July 1945 “Magic” summary includes a report on a cable from Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo to Ambassador Naotake Sato in Moscow concerning the Emperor’s decision to seek Soviet help in ending the war. Not knowing that the Soviets had already made a commitment to their Allies to declare war on Japan, Tokyo fruitlessly pursued this option for several weeks. The “Magic” intercepts from mid-July have figured in Gar Alperovitz’s 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. This point is central to Alperovitz’s 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 Japan’s surrender without the use of the bomb. [37]

Document 40 : John Weckerling, Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, July 12, 1945, to Deputy Chief of Staff, “Japanese Peace Offer,” 13 July 1945, Top Secret Ultra

Source: 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. Robert J. Maddox has cited this document to support his argument that top U.S. officials recognized that Japan was not close to surrender because Japan was trying to “stave off defeat.” In a close analysis of this document, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, who is also skeptical of claims that the Japanese had decided to surrender, argues that each of the three possibilities proposed by Weckerling “contained an element of truth, but none was entirely correct”. For example, the “governing clique” that supported the peace moves was not trying to “stave off defeat” but was seeking Soviet help to end the war. [38]

Document 41 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1205 – July 13, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

Source: Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, “Magic” Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18

The day after he told Sato about the current thinking on Soviet mediation, Togo requested the Ambassador to see Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and tell him of the Emperor’s “private intention to send Prince Konoye as a Special Envoy” to Moscow. Before he received Togo’s message, Sato had already met with Molotov on another matter.

Document 42 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1210 – July 17, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

Source: Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, “Magic” Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18.

Another intercept of a cable from Togo to Sato shows that the Foreign Minister rejected unconditional surrender and that the Emperor was not “asking the Russian’s mediation in anything like unconditional surrender.” Incidentally, this “`Magic’ Diplomatic Summary” indicates the broad scope and capabilities of the program; for example, it includes translations of intercepted French messages (see pages 8-9).

Document 43 : Admiral Tagaki Diary Entry for July 20, 1945

Source: Takashi Itoh, ed.,  Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho  [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 916-917 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima]

In 1944 Navy minister Mitsumasa Yonai ordered rear admiral Sokichi Takagi to go on sick leave so that he could undertake a secret mission to find a way to end the war. Tagaki was soon at the center of a cabal of Japanese defense officials, civil servants, and academics, which concluded that, in the end, the emperor would have to “impose his decision on the military and the government.” Takagi kept a detailed account of his activities, part of which was in diary form, the other part of which he kept on index cards. The material reproduced here gives a sense of the state of play of Foreign Minister Togo’s attempt to secure Soviet mediation. 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. [39]

The last item discusses Japanese contacts with representatives of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Switzerland. 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 Gävernitz, then on the staff, but with non-official cover, of OSS station chief Allen Dulles. The contacts never went far and Dulles never received encouragement to pursue them. [40]

V. The Trinity Test

Document 44 : Letter from Commissar of State Security First Rank, V. Merkulov, to People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs L. P. Beria, 10 July 1945, Number 4305/m, Top Secret (translation by Anna Melyaskova)

Source:  L.D. Riabev, ed.,  Atomnyi Proekt SSSR  (Moscow: izd MFTI, 2002), Volume 1, Part 2, 335-336

This 10 July 1945 letter from NKVD director V. N. Merkulov to Beria is an example of Soviet efforts to collect inside information on the Manhattan Project, although not all the detail was accurate. Merkulov reported that the United States had scheduled the test of a nuclear device for that same day, although the actual test took place 6 days later. According to Merkulov, two fissile materials were being produced: element-49 (plutonium), and U-235; the test device was fueled by plutonium. The Soviet source reported that the weight of the device was 3 tons (which was in the ball park) and forecast an explosive yield of 5 kilotons. That figure was based on underestimates by Manhattan Project scientists: the actual yield of the test device was 20 kilotons.

As indicated by the L.D. Riabev’s notes, it is possible that Beria’s copy of this letter ended up in Stalin’s papers. That the original copy is missing from Beria’s papers suggests that he may have passed it on to Stalin before the latter left for the Potsdam conference. [41]

Document 45 : Telegram War [Department] 33556, from Harrison to Secretary of War, July 17, 1945, Top Secret

Source: 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. The light from the explosion could been seen “from here [Washington, D.C.] to “high hold” [Stimson’s estate on Long Island—250 miles away]” and it was so loud that Harrison could have heard the “screams” from Washington, D.C. to “my farm” [in Upperville, VA, 50 miles away] [42]

Document 46 : Memorandum from General L. R. Groves to Secretary of War, “The Test,” July 18, 1945, Top Secret, Excised Copy

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 4 (copy from microfilm)

General Groves prepared for Stimson, then at Potsdam, a detailed account of the Trinity test. [43]

VI. The Potsdam Conference

Document 47 : Truman’s Potsdam Diary

Source: Barton J. Bernstein, “Truman at Potsdam: His Secret Diary,”  Foreign Service Journal , July/August 1980, excerpts, used with author’s permission. [44]

Some years after Truman’s death, a hand-written diary that he kept during the Potsdam conference surfaced in his personal papers. For convenience, Barton Bernstein’s rendition is provided here but linked here are the scanned versions of Truman’s handwriting on the National Archives’ website (for 15-30 July).

The diary entries cover July 16, 17, 18, 20, 25, 26, and 30 and include Truman’s thinking about a number of issues and developments, including his reactions to Churchill and Stalin, the atomic bomb and how it should be targeted, the possible impact of the bomb and a Soviet declaration of war on Japan, and his decision to tell Stalin about the bomb. Receptive to pressure from Stimson, Truman recorded his decision to take Japan’s “old capital” (Kyoto) off the atomic bomb target list. Barton Bernstein and Richard Frank, among others, have argued that Truman’s 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. Another statement—“Fini Japs when that [Soviet entry] comes about”—has also been the subject of controversy over whether it meant that Truman thought it possible that the war could end without an invasion of Japan. [45]

Document 48 : Stimson Diary entries for July 16 through 25, 1945

Stimson did not always have Truman’s ear, but historians have frequently cited his diary when he was at the Potsdam conference. There Stimson kept track of S-1 developments, including news of the successful first test (see entry for July 16) and the ongoing deployments for nuclear use against Japan. When Truman received a detailed account of the test, Stimson reported that the “President was tremendously pepped up by it” and that “it gave him an entirely new feeling of confidence” (see entry for July 21). Whether this meant that Truman was getting ready for a confrontation with Stalin over Eastern Europe and other matters has also been the subject of debate.

An important question that Stimson discussed with Marshall, at Truman’s request, was whether Soviet entry into the war remained necessary to secure Tokyo’s surrender. Marshall was not sure whether that was so although Stimson privately believed that the atomic bomb would provide enough to force surrender (see entry for July 23). This entry has been cited by all sides of the controversy over whether Truman was trying to keep the Soviets out of the war. [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 Truman’s assurance that such a consideration could be conveyed later through diplomatic channels (see entry for July 24). Hasegawa argues that Truman realized that the Japanese would refuse a demand for unconditional surrender without a proviso on a constitutional monarchy and that “he needed Japan’s refusal to justify the use of the atomic bomb.” [47]

Document 49 : Walter Brown Diaries, July 10-August 3, 1945

Source: Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter J. Brown Papers, box 10, folder 12, Byrnes, James F.: Potsdam, Minutes, July-August 1945

Walter Brown, who served as special assistant to Secretary of State Byrnes, kept a diary which provided considerable detail on the Potsdam conference and the growing concerns about Soviet policy among top U.S. officials. This document is a typed-up version of the hand-written original (which Brown’s family has provided to Clemson University). 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. In any event, historians have used information from the diary to support various interpretations. 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). [48]

Document 50 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1214 – July 22, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

This “Magic” summary includes messages from both Togo and Sato. In a long and impassioned message, the latter argued why Japan must accept defeat: “it is meaningless to prove one’s devotion [to the Emperor] by wrecking the State.” Togo rejected Sato’s 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.”

Document 51 : Forrestal Diary Entry, July 24, 1945, “Japanese Peace Feelers”

Source: 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 Sato’s cable as “first of July” instead of the 21 st ). In contrast to Alperovitz’s argument that Forrestal tried to modify the terms of unconditional surrender to give the Japanese an out, Frank sees Forrestal’s 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]

Document 52 : Davies Diary entry for July 29, 1945

S ource: 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. This diary entry has figured in the argument that Byrnes believed that the atomic bomb gave the United States a significant advantage in negotiations with the Soviet Union. Plainly Davies thought otherwise. [50]

VII. Debates among the Japanese – Late July/Early August 1945

Document 53 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1221- July 29, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

In the  Potsdam Declaration  the governments of China, Great Britain, and the United States) demanded the “unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces. “The alternative is prompt and utter destruction.” The next day, in response to questions from journalists about the government’s reaction to the ultimatum, Prime Minister Suzuki apparently said that “We can only ignore [ mokusatsu ] it. 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. [51]  Togo’s private position was more nuanced than Suzuki’s; he told Sato that “we are adopting a policy of careful study.” That Stalin had not signed the declaration (Truman and Churchill did not ask him to) led to questions about the Soviet attitude. Togo asked Sato to try to meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov as soon as possible to “sound out the Russian attitude” on the declaration as well as Japan’s end-the-war initiative. Sato cabled Togo earlier that he saw no point in approaching the Soviets on ending the war until Tokyo had “concrete proposals.” “Any aid from the Soviets has now become extremely doubtful.”

Document 54 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1222 – July 30, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

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.

Document 55 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1225 – August 2, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

An intercepted message from Togo to Sato showed that Tokyo remained interested in securing Moscow’s good office but that it “is difficult to decide on concrete peace conditions here at home all at once.” “[W]e are exerting ourselves to collect the views of all quarters on the matter of concrete terms.” Barton Bernstein, Richard Frank, and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, among others, have argued that the “Magic” intercepts from the end of July and early August show that the Japanese were far from ready to surrender. According to Herbert Bix, for months Hirohito had believed that the “outlook for a negotiated peace could be improved if Japan fought and won one last decisive battle,” thus, he delayed surrender, continuing to “procrastinate until the bomb was dropped and the Soviets attacked.” [52]

Document 56 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1226 - August 3, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

This summary included intercepts of Japanese diplomatic reporting on the Soviet buildup in the Far East as well as a naval intelligence report on Anglo-American discussions of U.S. plans for the invasion of Japan. Part II of the summary includes the rest of Togo’s 2 August cable which instructed Sato to do what he could to arrange an interview with Molotov.

Document 57 : Walter Brown Meeting Notes, August 3, 1945

Historians have used this item in the papers of Byrne’s aide, Walter Brown, to make a variety of points. Richard Frank sees this brief discussion of Japan’s interest in Soviet diplomatic assistance as crucial evidence that Admiral Leahy had been sharing “MAGIC” information with President Truman. He also points out that Truman and his colleagues had no idea what was behind Japanese peace moves, only that Suzuki had declared that he would “ignore” the Potsdam Declaration. Alperovitz, however, treats it as additional evidence that “strongly suggests” that Truman saw alternatives to using the bomb. [53]

Document 58 : “Magic” – Far East Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, no. 502, 4 August 1945

Source: RG 457, Summaries of Intercepted Japanese Messages (“Magic” Far East Summary, March 20, 1942 – October 2, 1945), box 7, SRS 491-547

This “Far East Summary” included reports on the Japanese Army’s plans to disperse fuel stocks to reduce vulnerability to bombing attacks, the text of a directive by the commander of naval forces on “Operation Homeland,” the preparations and planning to repel a U.S. invasion of Honshu, and the specific identification of army divisions located in, or moving into, Kyushu. Both Richard Frank and Barton Bernstein have used intelligence reporting and analysis of the major buildup of Japanese forces on southern Kyushu to argue that U.S. military planners were so concerned about this development that by early August 1945 they were reconsidering their invasion plans. [54]

Document 59 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1228 – August 5, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

This summary included several intercepted messages from Sato, who conveyed his despair and exasperation over what he saw as Tokyo’s inability to develop terms for ending the war: “[I]f the Government and the Military dilly-dally in bringing this resolution to fruition, then all Japan will be reduced to ashes.” Sato remained skeptical that the Soviets would have any interest in discussions with Tokyo: “it is absolutely unthinkable that Russia would ignore the Three Power Proclamation and then engage in conversations with our special envoy.”

VIII. The Execution Order

Documents 60a-d: Framing the Directive for Nuclear Strikes:

60A . Cable VICTORY 213 from Marshall to Handy, July 22, 1945, Top Secret

60B . Memorandum from Colonel John Stone to General Arnold, “Groves Project,” 24 July 1945, Top Secret

60C . Cable WAR 37683 from General Handy to General Marshal, enclosing directive to General Spatz, July 24, 1945, Top Secret

60D . Cable VICTORY 261 from Marshall to General Handy, July 25, 1945, 25 July 1945, Top Secret

60E . General Thomas T. Handy to General Carl Spaatz, July 26, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, Files no. 5b and 5e ((copies from microfilm)

Top Army Air Force commanders may not have wanted to take responsibility for the first use of nuclear weapons on urban targets and sought formal authorization from Chief of Staff Marshall who was then in Potsdam. [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 Marshall’s approval. 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. On 25 July Marshall informed Handy that Secretary of War Stimson had approved the text; that same day, Handy signed off on a directive which ordered the use of atomic weapons on Japan, with the first weapon assigned to one of four possible targets—Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, or Nagasaki. “Additional bombs will be delivery on the [targets] as soon as made ready by the project staff.”

Document 61 : Memorandum from Major General L. R. Groves to Chief of Staff, July 30, 1945, Top Secret, Sanitized Copy

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5

With more information on the Alamogordo test available, Groves provided Marshall with detail on the destructive power of atomic weapons. Barton J. Bernstein has observed that Groves’ recommendation that troops could move into the “immediate explosion area” within a half hour demonstrates the prevalent lack of top-level knowledge of the dangers of nuclear weapons effects. [56]  Groves also provided the schedule for the delivery of the weapons: the components of the gun-type bomb to be used on Hiroshima had arrived on Tinian, while the parts of the second weapon to be dropped were leaving San Francisco. By the end of November over ten weapons would be available, presumably in the event the war had continued.

Documents 62A-C: Weather delays

62A . CG 313 th  Bomb Wing, Tinian cable APCOM 5112 to War Department, August 3, 1945, Top Secret

62B . CG 313 th  Bomb Wing, Tinian cable APCOM 5130 to War Department, August 4, 1945, Top Secret

62C . CG 313 th  Bomb Wing, Tinian cable APCOM 5155 to War Department, August 4, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 21 (copies courtesy of Barton Bernstein)

The Hiroshima “operation” was originally slated to begin in early August depending on local conditions. As these cables indicate, reports of unfavorable weather delayed the plan. The second cable on 4 August shows that the schedule advanced to late in the evening of 5 August. The handwritten transcriptions are on the original archival copies.

IX. The First Nuclear Strikes and their Impact

Document 63 : Memorandum from General L. R. Groves to the Chief of Staff, August 6, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5b (copy from microfilm)

Two days after the bombing of Hiroshima, Groves provided Chief of Staff Marshall with a report which included messages from Captain William S. Parsons and others about the impact of the detonation which, through prompt radiation effects, fire storms, and blast effects, immediately killed at least 70,000, with many dying later from radiation sickness and other causes. [57]

How influential the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and later Nagasaki compared to the impact of the Soviet declaration of war were to the Japanese decision to surrender has been the subject of controversy among historians. Sadao Asada emphasizes the shock of the atomic bombs, while Herbert Bix has suggested that Hiroshima and the Soviet declaration of war made Hirohito and his court believe that failure to end the war could lead to the destruction of the imperial house. 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 Soviet invasion was.” [58]

Document 64 : Walter Brown Diary Entry, 6 August 1945

Source:  Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter J. Brown Papers, box 68, folder 13, “Transcript/Draft B

Returning from the Potsdam Conference, sailing on the  U.S.S. Augusta , Truman learned about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and announced it twice, first to those in the wardroom (socializing/dining area for commissioned officers), and then to the sailors’ mess. Still unaware of radiation effects, Truman emphasized the explosive yield. Later, he met with Secretary of State Byrnes and they discussed the Manhattan Project’s secrecy and the huge expenditures. Truman, who had been chair of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, said that “only on the appeal of Secretary of War Stimson did he refrain and let the War Department continue with the experiment unmolested.”

Document 65 : Directive from the Supreme Command Headquarters to the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Forces in the Far East on the Start of Combat Operations, No. 11122, Signed by [Communist Party General Secretary Joseph] Stalin and [Chief of General Staff A.I.] Antonov, 7 August 1945 (translation by Anna Melyakova)

Source: V. A. Zolotarev, ed.,  Sovetsko-Iaponskaia Voina 1945 Goda: Istoriia Voenno-Politicheskogo Protivoborstva Dvukh Derzhav v 30–40e Gody ( Moscow: Terra, 1997 and 2000), Vol. 7 (1), 340-341.

To keep his pledge at Yalta to enter the war against Japan and to secure the territorial concessions promised at the conference (e.g., Soviet annexation of the Kuriles and southern Sakhalin and a Soviet naval base at Port Arthur, etc.) Stalin considered various dates to schedule an attack. By early August he decided that 9-10 August 1945 would be the best dates for striking Japanese forces in Manchuria. In light of Japan’s efforts to seek Soviet mediation, Stalin wanted to enter the war quickly lest Tokyo reach a compromise peace with the Americans and the British at Moscow’s expense. But on 7 August, Stalin changed the instructions: the attack was to begin the next day. According to David Holloway, “it seems likely that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima the day before that impelled [Stalin] to speed up Soviet entry into the war” and “secure the gains promised at Yalta.” [59]

Document 66 : Memorandum of Conversation, “Atomic Bomb,” August 7, 1945

Source: Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 5-9, 1945.

The Soviets already knew about the U.S. atomic project from espionage sources in the United States and Britain so Molotov’s comment to Ambassador Harriman about the secrecy surrounding the U.S. atomic project can be taken with a grain of salt, although the Soviets were probably unaware of specific plans for nuclear use.

Documents 67A-B:  Early High-level Reactions to the Hiroshima Bombing

67A : Cabinet Meeting and Togo's Meeting with the Emperor, August 7-8, 1945 Source: Gaimusho (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) ed.  Shusen Shiroku  (The Historical Records of the End of the War), annotated by Jun Eto, volume 4, 57-60 [Excerpts] [Translation by Toshihiro Higuchi]

67B : Admiral Tagaki Diary Entry for Wednesday, August 8 , 1945

Source: Takashi Itoh, ed.,  Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho  [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 923-924 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima]

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. 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. Togo could not persuade the cabinet, however, and the Army wanted to delay any decisions until it had learned what had happened to Hiroshima. When the Foreign Minister met with the Emperor, Hirohito agreed with him; he declared that the top priority was an early end to the war, although it would be acceptable to seek better surrender terms--probably U.S. acceptance of a figure-head emperor--if it did not interfere with that goal. In light of those instructions, Togo and Prime Minister Suzuki agreed that the Supreme War Council should meet the next day.  [59a]

An entry from Admiral Tagaki's diary for August 8 conveys more information on the mood in elite Japanese circles after Hiroshima, but before the Soviet declaration of war and the bombing of Nagasaki. Seeing the bombing of Hiroshima as a sign of a worsening situation at home, Tagaki worried about further deterioration. 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. The last remark aggravated Navy Minister Yonai who saw it as irresponsible. That the Soviets had made no responses to Sato's request for a meeting was understood as a bad sign; Yonai realized that the government had to prepare for the possibility that Moscow might not help. One of the visitors mentioned at the beginning of the entry was Iwao Yamazaki who became Minister of the Interior in the next cabinet.

Document 68 : Navy Secretary James Forrestal to President Truman, August 8, 1945

General Douglas MacArthur had been slated as commander for military operations against Japan’s mainland, this letter to Truman from Forrestal shows that the latter believed that the matter was not settled. Richard Frank sees this as evidence of the uncertainty felt by senior officials about the situation in early August; Forrestal would not have been so “audacious” to take an action that could ignite a “political firestorm” if he “seriously thought the end of the war was near.”

Document 69 : Memorandum of Conversation, “Far Eastern War and General Situation,” August 8, 1945, Top Secret

Source: Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 5-9, 1945

Shortly after the Soviets declared war on Japan, in line with commitments made at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, Ambassador Harriman met with Stalin, with George Kennan keeping the U.S. record of the meeting. After Stalin reviewed in considerable detail, Soviet military gains in the Far East, they discussed the possible impact of the atomic bombing on Japan’s position (Nagasaki had not yet been attacked) and the dangers and difficulty of an atomic weapons program. 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. [60]

Document 70 : Entries for 8-9 August, Robert P. Meiklejohn Diary

Source: W.A. 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. Harriman’s 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. 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. According to Meiklejohn, “None of us doubt that the atomic bomb speeded up the Soviets’ declaration of war.”

Document 71 : Memorandum of Conference with the President, August 8, 1945 at 10:45 AM

At their first meeting after the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, Stimson briefed Truman on the scale of the destruction, with Truman recognizing the “terrible responsibility” that was on his shoulders. Consistent with his earlier attempts, Stimson encouraged Truman to find ways to expedite Japan’s surrender by using “kindness and tact” and not treating them in the same way as the Germans. They also discussed postwar legislation on the atom and the pending Henry D. Smyth report on the scientific work underlying the Manhattan project and postwar domestic controls of the atom.

Documents 72A-C: The Attack on Nagasaki:

72A . Cable APCOM 5445 from General Farrell to O’Leary [Groves assistant], August 9, 1945, Top Secret

72B . COMGENAAF 8 cable CMDW 576 to COMGENUSASTAF, for General Farrell, August 9, 1945, Top secret

72C . COMGENAAF 20 Guam cable AIMCCR 5532 to COMGENUSASTAF Guam, August 10, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 20, Envelope G Tinian Files, Top Secret

The prime target for the second atomic attack was Kokura, which had a large army arsenal and ordnance works, but various problems ruled that city out; instead, the crew of the B-29 that carried “Fat Man” flew to an alternate target at Nagasaki. These cables are the earliest reports of the mission; the bombing of Nagasaki killed immediately at least 39,000 people, with more dying later. 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. 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. The combination of the first bomb and the Soviet declaration of war would have been enough to induce Tokyo’s surrender. By contrast, Maddox argues that Nagasaki was necessary so that Japanese “hardliners” could not “minimize the first explosion” or otherwise explain it away. [61]

Documents 73A-B: Ramsey Letter from Tinian Island

73A : Letter from Norman Ramsey to J. Robert Oppenheimer, undated [mid-August 1945], Secret, excerpts Source: Library of Congress, J. Robert Oppenheimer Papers, box 60, Ramsey, Norman

73B : Transcript of the letter prepared by editor.

Ramsey, a physicist, served as deputy director of the bomb delivery group, Project Alberta. 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.

X. Toward Surrender

Document 74 : “Magic” – Far East Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, no. 507, August 9, 1945

Within days after the bombing of Hiroshima, U.S. military intelligence intercepted Japanese reports on the destruction of the city. According to an “Eyewitness Account (and Estimates Heard) … In Regard to the Bombing of Hiroshima”: “Casualties have been estimated at 100,000 persons.”

Document 75 : “Hoshina Memorandum” on the Emperor’s “Sacred Decision [ go-seidan] ,” 9-10 August, 1945

Source: Zenshiro Hoshina,  Daitoa Senso Hishi: Hoshina Zenshiro Kaiso-roku  [Secret History of the Greater East Asia War: Memoir of Zenshiro Hoshina] (Tokyo, Japan: Hara-Shobo, 1975), excerpts from Section 5, “The Emperor made  go-seidan  [= the sacred decision] – the decision to terminate the war,” 139-149 [translation by Hikaru Tajima]

Despite the bombing of Hiroshima, the Soviet declaration of war, and growing worry about domestic instability, the Japanese cabinet (whose decisions required unanimity) could not form a consensus to accept the Potsdam Declaration. Members of the Supreme War Council—“the Big Six” [62] —wanted the reply to Potsdam to include at least four conditions (e.g., no occupation, voluntary disarmament); they were willing to fight to the finish. The peace party, however, deftly maneuvered to break the stalemate by persuading a reluctant emperor to intervene. According to Hasegawa, Hirohito had become convinced that the preservation of the monarchy was at stake. Late in the evening of 9 August, the emperor and his advisers met in the bomb shelter of the Imperial Palace.

Zenshiro Hoshina, a senior naval official, attended the conference and prepared a detailed account. With Prime Minister Suzuki presiding, each of the ministers had a chance to state their views directly to Hirohito. 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. What was at stake was the definition of the  kokutai  (national policy). Togo’s proposal would have been generally consistent with a constitutional monarchy because it defined the  kokutai  narrowly as the emperor and the imperial household. What Hirohito accepted, however, was a proposal by the extreme nationalist Kiichiro Hiranuma which drew upon prevailing understandings of the  kokutai : the “mythical notion” that the emperor was a living god. “This was the affirmation of the emperor’s theocratic powers, unencumbered by any law, based on Shinto gods in antiquity, and totally incompatible with a constitutional monarchy.” Thus, the Japanese response to the Potsdam declaration opposed “any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of his Majesty as a sovereign ruler.” This proved to be unacceptable to the Truman administration. [63]

Document 76 :“Magic’ – Far East Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, no. 508, August 10, 1945

More intercepted messages on the bombing of Hiroshima.

Documents 77A-B: The First Japanese Offer Intercepted

77A . “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1233 – August 10, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

77B . Translation of intercepted Japanese messages, circa 10 August 10, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

The first Japanese surrender offer was intercepted shortly before Tokyo broadcast it. This issue of the diplomatic summary also includes Togo’s account of his notification of the Soviet declaration of war, reports of Soviet military operations in the Far East, and intercepts of French diplomatic traffic. A full translation of the surrender offer was circulated separately. The translations differ but they convey the sticking point that prevented U.S. acceptance: Tokyo’s condition that the allies not make any “demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler.”

Document 78 : Diary Entry, Friday, August 10, 1945, Henry Wallace Diary

Source: Papers of Henry A. Wallace, Special Collections Department, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa (copy courtesy of Special Collections Department)

Note: The second page of the diary entry includes a newspaper clipping of the Associated Press’s transmission of the Byrnes note. Unfortunately, AP would not authorize the Archive to reproduce this item without payment. Therefore, we are publishing an excised version of the entry, with a link to the  Byrnes note .

Secretary of Commerce (and former Vice President) Henry Wallace provided a detailed report on the cabinet meeting where Truman and his advisers discussed the Japanese surrender offer, Russian moves into Manchuria, and public opinion on “hard” surrender terms. With Japan close to capitulation, Truman asserted presidential control and ordered a halt to atomic bombings. Barton J. Bernstein has suggested that Truman’s comment about “all those kids” showed his belated recognition that the bomb caused mass casualties and that the target was not purely a military one. [64]

Document 79 : Entries for 10-11 August, Robert P. Meiklejohn Diary

In these entries, Meiklejohn discussed how he and others in the Moscow Embassy learned about the bombing of Nagasaki from the “OWI Bulletin.” Entries for 10 and 11 August cover discussion at the Embassy about the radio broadcast announcing that Japan would surrender as long the Emperor’s status was not affected. Harriman opined that “surrender is in the bag” because of the Potsdam Declaration’s provision that the Japanese could “choose their own form of government, which would probably include the Emperor.” Further, “the only alternative to the Emperor is Communism,” implying that an official role for the Emperor was necessary to preserve social stability and prevent social revolution.

Document 80 : Stimson Diary Entries, Friday and Saturday, August 10 and 11, 1945

Stimson’s account of the events of 10 August focused on the debate over the reply to the Japanese note, especially the question of the Emperor’s status.  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 Hirohito’s urging, to believe that they could decide for themselves the Emperor’s future role. Stimson accepted the language believing that a speedy reply to the Japanese would allow the United States to “get the homeland into our hands before the Russians could put in any substantial claim to occupy and help rule it.” If the note had included specific provision for a constitutional monarchy, Hasegawa argues, it would have “taken the wind out of the sails” of the military faction and Japan might have surrendered several days earlier, on August 11 or 12 instead of August 14. [65]

Document 81 : Entries from Walter Brown Diary, 10-11 August 1945

Source:  Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter Brown Papers, box 68, folder 13, “Transcript/Draft B

Brown recounted Byrnes’ debriefing of the 10 August White House meeting on the Japanese peace offer, an account which differed somewhat from that in the Stimson diary .  According to what Byrnes told Brown, Truman, Stimson, and Leahy favored accepting the Japanese note, but Byrnes objected that the United States should “go [no] further than we were willing to go at Potsdam.” Stimson’s account of the meeting noted Byrnes’ concerns (“troubled and anxious”) about the Japanese note and implied that he (Stimson) favored accepting it, but did not picture the debate as starkly as Browns's did.

Document 82 : General L. R. Groves to Chief of Staff George C. Marshall,  August 10, 1945, Top Secret, with a hand-written note by General Marshall

Source: George C. Marshall Papers, George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, VA (copy courtesy of Barton J. Bernstein)

Groves informed General Marshall that he was making plans for the use of a third atomic weapon sometime after 17 August, depending on the weather. 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.”

Document 83 : Memorandum of Conversation, “Japanese Surrender Negotiations,” August 10, 1945, Top Secret

Source: Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 10-12, 1945

Japan’s 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.). In the course of the conversation, Harriman received a message from Washington that included the proposed U.S. reply and a request for Soviet support of the reply. After considerable pressure from Harriman, the Soviets signed off on the reply but not before tensions surfaced over the control of Japan--whether Moscow would have a Supreme Commander there as well. This marked the beginning of a U.S.-Soviet “tug of war” over occupation arrangements for Japan. [66]

Document 84 : Admiral Tagaki Diary Entry for 12 August [1945] Source: Takashi Itoh, ed.,  Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho  [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 926-927 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima]

As various factions in the government maneuvered on how to respond to the Byrnes note, Navy Minister Yonai and Admiral Tagaki discussed the latest developments. Yonai was upset that Chief of Staff Yoshijiro Umezu and naval chief Suemu Toyada had sent the emperor a memorandum arguing that acceptance of the Brynes note would “desecrate the emperor’s dignity” and turn Japan into virtually a “slave nation.” The emperor chided Umezu and Toyoda for drawing hasty conclusions; in this he had the support of Yonai, who also dressed them down. 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. Yonai made sure that Takagi understood his reasons for bringing the war to an end and why he believed that the atomic bomb and the Soviet declaration of war had made it easier for Japan to surrender. [67]

Document 85 : Memorandum from Major General Clayton Bissell, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, for the Chief of Staff, “Estimate of Japanese Situation for Next 30 Days,” August 12, 1945, Top Secret

Source: National Archives, RG 165, Army Operations OPD, Executive Files 1940-1945, box 12, Exec #2

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. If the Japanese decided to keep fighting, G-2 opined that “Atomic bombs will not have a decisive effect in the next 30 days.” Richard Frank has pointed out that this and other documents indicate that high level military figures remained unsure as to how close Japan really was to surrender.

Document 86 : The Cabinet Meeting over the Reply to the Four Powers (August 13)

Source:  Gaimusho [Ministry of Foreign Affairs], ed., Shusen Shiroku [Historical Record of the End of the War] (Tokyo: Hokuyosha, 1977-1978), vol. 5, 27-35 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi]

The Byrnes Note did not break the stalemate at the cabinet level. 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.) did not mean that the war would continue. 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. At the end of the meeting, he announced that he would report to Hirohito and ask him to make another “Sacred Judgment”. Meanwhile, junior Army officers plotted a coup to thwart the plans for surrender. [68]

Document 87 : Telephone conversation transcript, General Hull and Colonel Seaman [sic] – 1325 – 13 Aug 45, Top Secret

Source: George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, VA, George C. Marshall Papers (copy courtesy of Barton J. Bernstein)

While Truman had rescinded the order to drop nuclear bombs, the war was not yet over and uncertainty about Japan’s next step motivated war planner General John E. Hull (assistant chief of staff for the War Department’s Operations Division), and one of Groves’ associates, Colonel L. E. Seeman, to continue thinking about further nuclear use and its relationship to a possible invasion of Japan. As Hull explained, “should we not concentrate on targets that will be of greatest assistance to an invasion rather than industry, morale, psychology, etc.” “Nearer the tactical use”, Seaman agreed and they discussed the tactics that could be used for beach landings. In 1991 articles, Barton Bernstein and Marc Gallicchio used this and other evidence to develop the argument that concepts of tactical nuclear weapons use first came to light at the close of World War II. [69]

Document 88 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1236 – August 13, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

The dropping of two atomic bombs, the tremendous destruction caused by U.S. bombing, and the Soviet declaration of war notwithstanding, important elements of the Japanese Army were unwilling to yield, as was evident from intercepted messages dated 12 and 13 August. Willingness to accept even the “destruction of the Army and Navy” rather than surrender inspired the military coup that unfolded and failed during the night of 14 August.

Document 89 : “The Second  Sacred Judgment”, August 14, 1945

Source :   Hiroshi [Kaian) Shimomura, S husenki [Account of the End of the War]  (Tokyo, Kamakura Bunko, [1948], 148-152 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi]

Frightened by the rapid movement of Soviet forces into Manchuria and worried that the army might launch a coup, the peace party set in motion a plan to persuade Hirohito to meet with the cabinet and the “Big Six” to resolve the stalemate over the response to the Allies. Japan was already a day late in responding to the Byrnes Note and Hirohito agreed to move quickly. At 10:50 a.m., he met with the leadership at the bomb shelter in his palace. This account, prepared by Director of Information Shimomura, conveys the drama of the occasion (as well as his interest in shifting the blame for the debacle to the Army). 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. 

  Hirohito asked the leadership to accept the Note, which he believed was “well intentioned” on the matter of the “national polity” (by leaving open a possible role for the Emperor).  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. According to Bix, “Hirohito's language helped to transform him from a war to a peace leader, from a cold, aloof monarch to a human being who cared for his people” but “what chiefly motivated him … was his desire to save a politically empowered throne with himself on it.” [70]

Hirohito said that he would make a recording of the surrender announcement so that the nation could hear it. That evening army officers tried to seize the palace and find Hirohito’s recording, but the coup failed. Early the next day, General Anami committed suicide. On the morning of August 15, Hirohito broadcast the message to the nation (although he never used the word “surrender”). A few weeks later, on September 2, 1945 Japanese representatives signed surrender documents on the USS  Missouri , in Tokyo harbor. [71]

Document 90 : “Magic” – Far East Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, no. 515, August 18, 1945

This summary includes an intercepted account of the destruction of Nagasaki.

Document 91 :Washington Embassy Telegram 5599 to Foreign Office, 14 August 1945, Top Secret [72]

Source: The British National Archives, Records of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office,  FO 800/461

With the Japanese surrender announcement not yet in, President Truman believed that another atomic bombing might become necessary. After a White House meeting on 14 August, British Minister John Balfour reported that Truman had “remarked sadly that he now had no alternative but to order an atomic bomb to be dropped on Tokyo.” This was likely emotional thinking spurred by anxiety and uncertainty. 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. Moreover, he may not have known that the third bomb was still in the United States and would not be available for use for nearly another week. [73]  As it turned out, a few hours later, at 4:05 p.m., the White House received the Japanese surrender announcement.

XI. Confronting the Problem of Radiation Poisoning

Document 92 : P.L. Henshaw and R.R. Coveyou to H.J. Curtis and K. Z. Morgan, “Death from Radiation Burns,” 24 August 1945, Confidential

Source: Department of Energy Open-Net

Two scientists at Oak Ridge’s Health Division, Henshaw and Coveyou, saw a United Press report in the Knoxville  News Sentinel  about radiation sickness caused by the bombings. Victims who looked healthy weakened, “for unknown reasons” and many died. Lacking direct knowledge of conditions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Henshaw and Coveyou had their own data on the biological effects of radiation and could make educated guesses. After reviewing the impact of various atomic bomb effects--blast, heat, flash radiation (prompt effects from gamma waves), and radiation from radioactive substances--they concluded that “it seems highly plausible that a great many persons were subjected to lethal and sub-lethal dosages of radiation in areas where direct blast effects were possibly non-lethal.” It was “probable,” therefore, that radiation “would produce increments to the death rate and “even more probable” that a “great number of cases of sub-lethal exposures to radiation have been suffered.” [74]

Document 93 : Memorandum of Telephone Conversation Between General Groves and Lt. Col. Rea, Oak Ridge Hospital, 9:00 a.m., August 28, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5b

Despite the reports pouring in from Japan about radiation sickness among the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, General Groves and Dr. Charles Rea, a surgeon who was head of the base hospital at Oak Ridge (and had no specialized knowledge about the biological effects of radiation) dismissed the reports as “propaganda”. Unaware of the findings of Health Division scientists, Groves and Rhea saw the injuries as nothing more than “good thermal burns.” [75]

Documents 94A-B: General Farrell Surveys the Destruction

94A . Cable CAX 51813 from  USS Teton  to Commander in Chief Army Forces Pacific Administration, From Farrell to Groves, September 10, 1945, Secret

94B . Cable CAX 51948 from Commander in Chief Army Forces Pacific Advance Yokohoma Japan to Commander in Chief Army Forces Pacific Administration, September 14, 1945, Secret

Source: RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 17, Envelope B

A month after the attacks Groves’ deputy, General Farrell, traveled to Japan to see for himself the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. His vivid account shows that senior military officials in the Manhattan Project were no longer dismissive of reports of radiation poisoning. As Farrell observed in his discussion of Hiroshima, “Summaries of Japanese reports previously sent are essentially correct, as to clinical effects from single gamma radiation dose.” Such findings dismayed Groves, who worried that the bomb would fall into a taboo category like chemical weapons, with all the fear and horror surrounding them. Thus, Groves and others would try to suppress findings about radioactive effects, although that was a losing proposition. [76]

XII. Eisenhower and McCloy’s Views on the Bombings and Atomic Weapons

Document 95 : Entry for 4 October 1945, Robert P. Meiklejohn Diary

In this entry written several months later, Meiklejohn shed light on what much later became an element of the controversy over the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings: whether any high level civilian or military officials objected to nuclear use. Meiklejohn recounted Harriman’s visit in early October 1945 to the Frankfurt-area residence of General Dwight Eisenhower, who was finishing up his service as Commanding General, U.S. Army, European Theater. It was Meiklejohn’s birthday and during the dinner party, Eisenhower and McCloy had an interesting discussion of atomic weapons, which included comments alluding to scientists’ statements about what appears to be the H-bomb project (a 20 megaton weapon), recollection of the early fear that an atomic detonation could burn up the atmosphere, and the Navy’s reluctance to use its battleships to test atomic weapons. At the beginning of the discussion, Eisenhower made a significant statement: he “mentioned how he had hoped that the war might have ended without our having to use the atomic bomb.” The general implication was that prior to Hiroshima-Nagasaki, he had wanted to avoid using the bomb.

Some may associate this statement with one that Eisenhower later recalled making to Stimson. In his 1948 memoirs (further amplified in his 1963 memoirs), Eisenhower claimed that he had “expressed the hope [to Stimson] that we would never have to use such a thing against an enemy because I disliked seeing the United States take the lead in introducing into war something as horrible and destructive as this new weapon was described to be.” That language may reflect the underlying thinking behind Eisenhower’s statement during the dinner party, but whether Eisenhower used such language when speaking with Stimson has been a matter of controversy. In later years, those who knew both thought it unlikely that the general would have expressed misgivings about using the bomb to a civilian superior. Eisenhower’s son John cast doubts about the memoir statements, although he attested that when the general first learned about the bomb he was downcast.

Stimson’s diary mentions meetings with Eisenhower twice in the weeks before Hiroshima, but without any mention of a dissenting Eisenhower statement (and Stimson’s diaries are quite detailed on atomic matters). The entry from Meiklejohn’s diary does not prove or disprove Eisenhower’s recollection, but it does confirm that he had doubts which he expressed only a few months after the bombings. Whether Eisenhower expressed such reservations prior to Hiroshima will remain a matter of controversy. [77]

Document 96:  President Harry S. Truman, Handwritten Remarks for Gridiron Dinner, circa 15 December 1945 [78]

Source: 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. Besides Truman, guests included New York Governor Thomas Dewey (Republican presidential candidate in 1944 and 1948), foreign ambassadors, members of the cabinet and the Supreme Court, the military high command, and various senators and representatives. The U.S. Marine Band provided music for the dinner and for the variety show that was performed by members of the press.  [79]

In accordance with the dinner’s rules that “reporters are never present,” Truman’s remarks were off-the record. The president, however, wrote in long-hand a text that that might approximate what he said that evening. 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. It had nothing to do with Russia or Britain or Germany. It was a decision to loose the most terrible of all destructive forces for the wholesale slaughter of human beings. The Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson, and I weighed that decision most prayerfully. But the President had to decide. 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. But I couldn’t help but think of the necessity of blotting out women and children and non-combatants. We gave them fair warning and asked them to quit. We picked a couple of cities where war work was the principle industry, and dropped bombs. Russia hurried in and the war ended.”

Truman characterized the Potsdam Declaration as a “fair warning,” but it was an ultimatum. Plainly he was troubled by the devastation and suffering caused by the bombings, but he found it justifiable because it saved the lives of U.S. troops. His estimate of 250,000 U.S. soldiers spared far exceeded that made by General Marshall in June 1945, which was in the range of 31,000 (comparable to the Battle of Luzon) [See Document 26]. By citing an inflated casualty figure, the president was giving a trial run for the rationale that would become central to official and semi-official discourse about the bombings during the decades ahead. [80]  

Despite Truman’s claim that he made “the most terrible” decision at Potsdam, he assigned himself more responsibility than the historical record supports. 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. As for targeting, however, he had a more significant role. At Potsdam, Stimson raised his objections to targeting Japan’s cultural capital, Kyoto, and Truman supported the secretary’s efforts to drop that city from the target list [See Documents 47 and 48].  [81]

Where he had taken significant responsibility was by making a decision to stop the atomic bombings just before the Japanese surrender, thereby asserting presidential control over nuclear weapons

The editor thanks Barton J. Bernstein, J. Samuel Walker, Gar Alperovitz, David Holloway, and Alex Wellerstein for their advice and assistance, and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa for kindly providing copies of some of the Japanese sources that were translated for this compilation. Hasegawa’s book,  Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan  (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2005), includes invaluable information on Japanese sources. David Clark, an archivist at the Harry S. Truman Library, and James Cross, Manuscripts Archivist at Clemson University Library’s Special Collections, kindly provided material from their collections. The editor also thanks Kyle Hammond and Gregory Graves for research assistance and Toshihiro Higuchi and Hikaru Tajima (who then were graduate students in history at Georgetown University and the University of Tokyo respectively), for translating documents and answering questions on the Japanese sources. The editor thanks Anna Melyakova (National Security Archive) for translating Russian language material.

Read the documents

I. background on the u.s. atomic project   documents 1a-c: report of the uranium committee.

Document 1A

National Archives, Records of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Record Group 227 (hereinafter RG 227), Bush-Conant papers microfilm collection, Roll 1, Target 2, Folder 1, "S-1 Historical File, Section A (1940-1941)."

Document 1B

See description of document 1A.

Document 1C

Document 2A

RG 227, Bush-Conant papers microfilm collection, Roll 1, Target 2, Folder 1, "S-1 Historical File, Section II (1941-1942)

Document 2B

Bush-Conant papers, S-1 Historical File, Reports to and Conferences with the President (1942-1944)

See description of document 2A.

National Archives, Record Group 77, Records of the Army Corps of Engineers (hereinafter RG 77), Manhattan Engineering District (MED), Minutes of the Military Policy Meeting (5 May 1943), Correspondence (“Top Secret”) of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946, microfilm publication M1109 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1980), Roll 3, Target 6, Folder 23, “Military Policy Committee, Minutes of Meetings”

Before the Manhattan Project had produced any weapons, senior U.S. government officials had Japanese targets in mind. 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. If there was a misfire the weapon would be difficult for the Japanese to recover, which would not be the case if Tokyo was targeted. Targeting Germany was rejected because the Germans were considered more likely to “secure knowledge” from a defective weapon than the Japanese. That is, the United States could possibly be in danger if the Nazis acquired more knowledge about how to build a bomb. [9]

RG 77, Correspondence ("Top Secret") of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946, file 25M

This memorandum from General Groves to General Marshall captured how far the Manhattan Project had come in less than two years since Bush’s December 1942 report to President Roosevelt. 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). What these people were laboring to construct, directly or indirectly, were two types of weapons—a gun-type weapon using U-235 and an implosion weapon using plutonium (although the possibility of U-235 was also under consideration). As the scientists had learned, a gun-type weapon based on plutonium was “impossible” because that element had an “unexpected property”: spontaneous neutron emissions would cause the weapon to “fizzle.” [10] For both the gun-type and the implosion weapons, a production schedule had been established and both would be available during 1945. The discussion of weapons effects centered on blast damage models; radiation and other effects were overlooked.

RG 77, Harrison-Bundy Files (H-B Files), folder 69 (copy from microfilm)

Documents 6A-D: President Truman Learns the Secret

Document 6A

G 77, Commanding General’s file no. 24, tab D

Soon after he was sworn in as president following President Roosevelt’s death, Harry Truman learned about the top secret Manhattan Project from briefings by  Secretary of War Stimson and Manhattan Project chief General Groves (who went through the “back door” to escape the watchful press). Stimson, who later wrote up the meeting in his diary, also prepared a discussion paper, which raised broader policy issues associated with the imminent possession of “the most terrible weapon ever known in human history.”

In a background report prepared for the meeting, Groves provided a detailed overview of the bomb project from the raw materials to processing nuclear fuel to assembling the weapons to plans for using them, which were starting to crystallize. With respect to the point about assembling the weapons, Groves and Stimson informed Truman that the first gun-type weapon “should be ready about 1 August 1945” while an implosion weapon would also be available that month. “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 made  the  decision to do so.  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. Norris also noted that “Truman’s ”decision” amounted to a decision not to override previous plans to use the bomb.” [12]

Document 6B

Henry Stimson Diary, Sterling Library, Yale University (microfilm at Library of Congress)

See description of document 6A.

Document 6C

Record Group 200, Papers of General Leslie R. Groves, Correspondence 1941-1970, box 3, “F”

Document 6D

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5g

The force of B-29 nuclear delivery vehicles that was being readied for first nuclear use—the Army Air Force’s 509 th Composite Group—required an operational base in the Western Pacific. In late February 1945, months before atomic bombs were ready for use, the high command selected Tinian, an island in the Northern Marianas Islands, for that base.

Library of Congress, Curtis LeMay Papers, Box B-36

As part of the war with Japan, the Army Air Force waged a campaign to destroy major industrial centers with incendiary bombs. This document is General Curtis LeMay’s 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. [13] According to the “Foreword,” the purpose of the raid, which dropped 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs, was to destroy industrial and strategic targets “ not to bomb indiscriminately civilian populations.” Air Force planners, however, did not distinguish civilian workers from the industrial and strategic structures that they were trying to destroy.

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 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. The discussion of “available targets” included Hiroshima, the “largest untouched target not on the 21 st 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 Japan’s cities which created tension with the objective of reserving some urban targets for nuclear destruction. [16]

Document 10

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5g (copy from microfilm)

As director of Los Alamos Laboratory, Oppenheimer’s priority was producing a deliverable bomb, but not so much the effects of the weapon on the people at the target. In keeping with General Groves’ emphasis on compartmentalization, the Manhattan Project experts on the effects of radiation on human biology were at the MetLab and other offices and had no interaction with the production and targeting units. In this short memorandum to Groves’ deputy, General Farrell, Oppenheimer explained the need for precautions because of the radiological dangers of a nuclear detonation. The initial radiation from the detonation would be fatal within a radius of about 6/10ths of a mile and “injurious” within a radius of a mile. The point was to keep the bombing mission crew safe; concern about radiation effects had no impact on targeting decisions. [17]

Document 11

Scientists and officers held further discussion of bombing mission requirements, including height of detonation, weather, radiation effects (Oppenheimer’s memo), plans for possible mission abort, and the various aspects of target selection, including priority cities (“a large urban area of more than three miles diameter”) and psychological dimension. As for target cities, the committee agreed that the following should be exempt from Army Air Force bombing so they would be available for nuclear targeting: Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and Kokura Arsenal. Japan’s cultural capital, Kyoto, would not stay on the list. Pressure from Secretary of War Stimson had already taken Kyoto off the list of targets for incendiary bombings and he would successfully object to the atomic bombing of that city. [18]

Document 12

Document 13

Joseph E. Davies Papers, Library of Congress, box 17, 21 May 1945

Document 14

Harrison-Bundy Files relating to the Development of the Atomic Bomb, 1942-1946, microfilm publication M1108 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1980), File 77: "Interim Committee - International Control."

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. [21] An engineer for the Kellex Corporation, which was involved in the gas diffusion project to enrich uranium, Brewster recognized that the objective was fissile material for a weapon. 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.

Document 15

Document 16

At the end of May General Groves forwarded to Army Chief of Staff Marshall a “Plan of Operations” for the atomic bombings. While that plan has not surfaced, apparently its major features were incorporated in this 29 May 1945 message on the “special functions” of the 509th Composite Group sent from Chief of Staff General Lauris Norstad to General Curtis LeMay, chief of the XXI Bomber Command, headquartered in the Marianas Islands. [21A] The Norstad message reviewed the complex requirements for preparing B-29s and their crew for delivering nuclear weapons.  He detailed the mission of the specially modified B-29s that comprised the  509th Composite Group, the “tactical factors” that applied,  training and rehearsal issues, and the functions of “special personnel” and the Operational Studies Group.  The targets listed—Hiroshima, Kyoto, and Niigato—were those that had been discussed at the Target Committee meeting on 28 May, but Kyoto would be dropped when Secretary Stimson objected (although that would remain a contested matter) and Kokura would eventually be substituted.   As part of the Composite Group’s training to drop “special bombs,” it would practice with facsimiles—the conventionally-armed “Pumpkins.” The 509th Composite Group’s cover story for its secret mission was the preparation for the use of “Pumpkins” in battle.

Document 17

Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson (“Safe File”), July 1940-September 1945, box 12, S-1

Tacitly dissenting from the Targeting Committee’s recommendations, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall argued for initial nuclear use against a clear-cut military target such as a “large naval installation.” If that did not work, manufacturing areas could be targeted, but only after warning their inhabitants. Marshall noted the “opprobrium which might follow from an ill considered employment of such force.” This document has played a role in arguments developed by Barton J. Bernstein that figures such as Marshall and Stimson were “caught between an older morality that opposed the intentional killing of non-combatants and a newer one that stressed virtually total war.” [22]

Document 18

RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 100 (copy from microfilm)

With Secretary of War Stimson presiding, members of the committee heard reports on a variety of Manhattan Project issues, including the stages of development of the atomic project,  problems of secrecy, the possibility of informing the Soviet Union, cooperation with “like-minded” powers, the military impact of the bomb on Japan, and the problem of “undesirable scientists.”  In his comments on a detonation over Japanese targets, Oppenheimer mentioned that the “neutron effect would be dangerous to life for a radius of at least two-thirds of a mile,” but did not mention that the radiation could cause prolonged sickness.

Interested in producing the “greatest psychological effect,” the Committee members agreed that the “most desirable target would be a vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers’ houses.”  Bernstein argues that this target choice represented an uneasy endorsement of “terror bombing”-the target was not exclusively military or civilian; nevertheless, worker’s housing would include non-combatant men, women, and children. [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.

Document 19

Record Group 165, Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs, American-British-Canadian Top Secret Correspondence, Box 504, “ABC 387 Japan (15 Feb. 45)

George A. Lincoln, chief of the Strategy and Policy Group at U.S. Army’s Operations Department, commented on a memorandum by former President Herbert Hoover that Stimson had passed on for analysis. Hoover proposed a compromise solution with Japan that would allow Tokyo to retain part of its empire in East Asia (including Korea and Japan) as a way to head off Soviet influence in the region. While Lincoln believed that the proposed peace teams were militarily acceptable he doubted that they were workable or that they could check Soviet “expansion” which he saw as an inescapable result of World War II. As to how the war with Japan would end, he saw it as “unpredictable,” but speculated that “it will take Russian entry into the war, combined with a landing, or imminent threat of a landing, on Japan proper by us, to convince them of the hopelessness of their situation.” Lincoln derided Hoover’s casualty estimate of 500,000. 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]

Document 20

Document 21

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. (Truman finally cut off military aid to France to compel the French to pull back). [25] As evident from the discussion, Stimson strongly disliked de Gaulle whom he regarded as “psychopathic.” The conversation soon turned to the atomic bomb, with some discussion about plans to inform the Soviets but only after a successful test. Both agreed that the possibility of a nuclear “partnership” with Moscow would depend on “quid pro quos”: “the settlement of the Polish, Rumanian, Yugoslavian, and Manchurian problems.”

At the end, Stimson shared his doubts about targeting cities and killing civilians through area bombing because of its impact on the U.S.’s reputation as well as on the problem of finding targets for the atomic bomb. 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. The discussion of “area bombing” may have reminded him that Japanese civilians remained at risk from U.S. bombing operations.

Document 22

RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 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. The outspoken Szilard was not involved in operational work on the bomb and General Groves kept him under surveillance but Met Lab director Arthur Compton found Szilard useful to have around. 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. That possibility would be difficult if the United States made first military use of the weapon. Compton raised doubts about the recommendations but urged Stimson to study the report. Martin Sherwin has argued that the Franck committee shared an important assumption with Truman et al.--that an “atomic attack against Japan would `shock’ the Russians”--but drew entirely different conclusions about the import of such a shock. [26]

Document 23

Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson (“Safe File”), July 1940-September 1945, box 8, Japan (After December 7/41)

Document 24

Document 25

Document 26

Record Group 218, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Central Decimal Files, 1942-1945, box 198 334 JCS (2-2-45) Mtg 186th-194th

The record of this meeting has figured in the complex debate over the estimates of casualties stemming from a possible invasion of Japan. While post-war justifications for the bomb suggested that an invasion of Japan could have produced very high levels of casualties (dead, wounded, or missing), from hundreds of thousands to a million, historians have vigorously debated the extent to which the estimates were inflated. [29]

Document 27

Document 28

RG 77, MED, H-B files, folder no. 77 (copy from microfilm)

Document 29

Document 30

RG 107, Office of Assistant Secretary of War Formerly Classified Correspondence of John J. McCloy, 1941-1945, box 38, ASW 387 Japan

Document 31

Document 32

Document 33

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 proposal has been characterized as “the most comprehensive attempt by any American policymaker to leverage diplomacy” in order to shorten the Pacific War. Stimson had in mind a “carefully timed warning” delivered before the invasion of Japan. Some of the key elements of Stimson’s argument were his assumption that “Japan is susceptible to reason” and that Japanese might be even more inclined to surrender if “we do not exclude a constitutional monarchy under her present dynasty.” The possibility of a Soviet attack would be part of the “threat.” As part of the threat message, Stimson alluded to the “inevitability and completeness of the destruction” which Japan could suffer, but he did not make it clear whether unconditional surrender terms should be clarified before using the atomic bomb. Truman read Stimson’s proposal, which he said was “powerful,” but made no commitments to the details, e.g., the position of the emperor. [32]

Document 34

Record Group 353, Records of Interdepartmental and Intradepartmental Committees, Secretary’s Staff Meetings Minutes, 1944-1947 (copy from microfilm)

Document 35

RG 218, Central Decimal Files, 1943-1945, CCS 381 (6-4-45), Sec. 2 Pt. 5

Document 36

Record Group 59, Decimal Files 1945-1949, 740.0011 PW (PE)/7-1645

Document 37

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. The warning would draw on the draft State-War proclamation to Japan; presumably, the one criticized by Hull (above) which included language about the emperor. Presumably the clarified warning would be issued prior to the use of the bomb; if the Japanese persisted in fighting then “the full force of our new weapons should be brought to bear” and a “heavier” warning would be issued backed by the “actual entrance of the Russians in the war.” Possibly, as Malloy has argued, Stimson was motivated by concerns about using the bomb against civilians and cities, but his latest proposal would meet resistance at Potsdam from Byrnes and other. [34]

Document 38

IV. The Japanese Search for Soviet Mediation   Documents 39A-B: Magic

Document 39A

National Security Agency Mandatory declassification review release.

Beginning in September 1940, U.S. military intelligence began to decrypt routinely, under the “Purple” code-name, the intercepted cable traffic of the Japanese Foreign Ministry. Collectively the decoded messages were known as “Magic.” How this came about is explained in an internal history of pre-war and World War II Army and Navy code-breaking activities prepared by William F. Friedman , a central figure in the development of U.S. government cryptology during the 20 th century. The National Security Agency kept the ‘Magic” diplomatic and military summaries classified for many years and did not release the entire series for 1942 through August 1945 until the early 1990s. [36]

Document 39B

Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, “Magic” Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18.

Document 40

RG 165, Army Operations OPD Executive File #17, Item 13 (copy courtesy of J. Samuel Walker)

Document 41

Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, “Magic” Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18

Document 42

Document 43

Takashi Itoh, ed., Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 916-917 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima]

Document 44

L.D. Riabev, ed., Atomnyi Proekt SSSR (Moscow: izd MFTI, 2002), Volume 1, Part 2, 335-336

This 10 July 1945 letter from NKVD director V. N. Merkulov to Beria is an example of Soviet efforts to collect inside information on the Manhattan Project, although not all the detail was accurate. Merkulov reported that the United States had scheduled the test of a nuclear device for that same day, although the actual test took place 6 days later. According to Merkulov, two fissile materials were being produced: element-49 (plutonium), and U-235; the test device was fueled by plutonium. The Soviet source reported that the weight of the device was 3 tons (which was in the ball park) and forecast an explosive yield of 5 kilotons. That figure was based on underestimates by Manhattan Project scientists: the actual yield of the test device was 20 kilotons.

Document 45

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. The light from the explosion could been seen “from here [Washington, D.C.] to “high hold” [Stimson’s estate on Long Island—250 miles away]” and it was so loud that Harrison could have heard the “screams” from Washington, D.C. to “my farm” [in Upperville, VA, 50 miles away] [42]

Document 46

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 4 (copy from microfilm)

Document 47

Barton J. Bernstein, “Truman at Potsdam: His Secret Diary,” Foreign Service Journal, July/August 1980, excerpts, used with author’s permission. [44]

Some years after Truman’s death, a hand-written diary that he kept during the Potsdam conference surfaced in his personal papers. For convenience, Barton Bernstein’s rendition is provided here but linked here are the scanned versions of Truman’s handwriting on the National Archives’ website (for 15-30 July).

Document 48

An important question that Stimson discussed with Marshall, at Truman’s request, was whether Soviet entry into the war remained necessary to secure Tokyo’s surrender. Marshall was not sure whether that was so although Stimson privately believed that the atomic bomb would provide enough to force surrender (see entry for July 23). This entry has been cited by all sides of the controversy over whether Truman was trying to keep the Soviets out of the war. [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 Truman’s assurance that such a consideration could be conveyed later through diplomatic channels (see entry for July 24). Hasegawa argues that Truman realized that the Japanese would refuse a demand for unconditional surrender without a proviso on a constitutional monarchy and that “he needed Japan’s refusal to justify the use of the atomic bomb.” [47]

Document 49

Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter J. Brown Papers, box 10, folder 12, Byrnes, James F.: Potsdam, Minutes, July-August 1945

The degree to which the typed-up version reflects the original is worth investigating. In any event, historians have used information from the diary to support various interpretations. 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). [48]

Document 50

Document 51

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 Sato’s cable as “first of July” instead of the 21 st ). In contrast to Alperovitz’s argument that Forrestal tried to modify the terms of unconditional surrender to give the Japanese an out, Frank sees Forrestal’s 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]

Document 52

Joseph E. Davies Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division, box 19, 29 July 1945

VII. Debates among the Japanese – Late July/Early August 1945

Document 53

In the Potsdam Declaration the governments of China, Great Britain, and the United States) demanded the “unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces. “The alternative is prompt and utter destruction.” The next day, in response to questions from journalists about the government’s reaction to the ultimatum, Prime Minister Suzuki apparently said that “We can only ignore [ mokusatsu ] it. 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. [51] Togo’s private position was more nuanced than Suzuki’s; he told Sato that “we are adopting a policy of careful study.” That Stalin had not signed the declaration (Truman and Churchill did not ask him to) led to questions about the Soviet attitude. Togo asked Sato to try to meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov as soon as possible to “sound out the Russian attitude” on the declaration as well as Japan’s end-the-war initiative. Sato cabled Togo earlier that he saw no point in approaching the Soviets on ending the war until Tokyo had “concrete proposals.” “Any aid from the Soviets has now become extremely doubtful.”

Document 54

Document 55

Document 56

Document 57

Document 58

RG 457, Summaries of Intercepted Japanese Messages (“Magic” Far East Summary, March 20, 1942 – October 2, 1945), box 7, SRS 491-547

Document 59

VIII. The Execution Order   Documents 60A-D: These messages convey the process of creating and transmitting the execution order to bomb Hiroshima. Possibly not wanting to take responsibility for the first use of nuclear weapons, Army Air Force commanders sought formal authorization from Chief of Staff Marshall who was then in Potsdam

Document 60A

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, Files no. 5b and 5e (copies from microfilm)

These messages convey the process of creating and transmitting the execution order to bomb Hiroshima.  Possibly not wanting to take responsibility for the first use of nuclear weapons, Army Air Force commanders sought formal authorization from Chief of Staff Marshall who was then in Potsdam. [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 Marshall’s approval. 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. On 25 July Marshall informed Handy that Secretary of War Stimson had approved the text; that same day, Handy signed off on a directive which ordered the use of atomic weapons on Japan, with the first weapon assigned to one of four possible targets—Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, or Nagasaki. “Additional bombs will be delivery on the [targets] as soon as made ready by the project staff.”

Document 60B

See description of document 60A.

Document 60C

Document 60D

Document 60E

Document 61

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5

With more information on the Alamogordo test available, Groves provided Marshall with detail on the destructive power of atomic weapons. Barton J. Bernstein has observed that Groves’ recommendation that troops could move into the “immediate explosion area” within a half hour demonstrates the prevalent lack of top-level knowledge of the dangers of nuclear weapons effects. [56] Groves also provided the schedule for the delivery of the weapons: the components of the gun-type bomb to be used on Hiroshima had arrived on Tinian, while the parts of the second weapon to be dropped were leaving San Francisco. By the end of November over ten weapons would be available, presumably in the event the war had continued.

Document 62A

RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 21 (copies courtesy of Barton Bernstein)

Document 62B

See description of document 62A.

Document 62C

Document 63

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5b (copy from microfilm)

Document 64

Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter J. Brown Papers, box 68, folder 13, “Transcript/Draft B

Returning from the Potsdam Conference, sailing on the U.S.S. Augusta , Truman learned about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and announced it twice, first to those in the wardroom (socializing/dining area for commissioned officers), and then to the sailors’ mess. Still unaware of radiation effects, Truman emphasized the explosive yield. Later, he met with Secretary of State Byrnes and they discussed the Manhattan Project’s secrecy and the huge expenditures. Truman, who had been chair of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, said that “only on the appeal of Secretary of War Stimson did he refrain and let the War Department continue with the experiment unmolested.”

Document 65

A. Zolotarev, ed., Sovetsko-Iaponskaia Voina 1945 Goda: Istoriia Voenno-Politicheskogo Protivoborstva Dvukh Derzhav v 30–40e Gody (Moscow: Terra, 1997 and 2000), Vol. 7 (1), 340-341.

Document 66

Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 5-9, 1945.

Documents 67A-B: Early High-level Reactions to the Hiroshima Bombing

Document 67A

Gaimusho (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) ed. 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. 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. Togo could not persuade the cabinet, however, and the Army wanted to delay any decisions until it had learned what had happened to Hiroshima. When the Foreign Minister met with the Emperor, Hirohito agreed with him; he declared that the top priority was an early end to the war, although it would be acceptable to seek better surrender terms--probably U.S. acceptance of a figure-head emperor--if it did not interfere with that goal. In light of those instructions, Togo and Prime Minister Suzuki agreed that the Supreme War Council should meet the next day. [59a]

Document 67B

Takashi Itoh, ed., Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 923-924 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima]

Document 68

Document 69

Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 5-9, 1945

Document 70

W.A. 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)

Document 71

Documents 72A-C: The Attack on Nagasaki

Document 72A

RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 20, Envelope G Tinian Files, Top Secret

Document 72B

See description of document 72A.

Document 72C

Document 73A

Library of Congress, J. Robert Oppenheimer Papers, box 60, Ramsey, Norman

Document 73B

See description of document 73A.

Document 74

Document 75

Zenshiro Hoshina, Daitoa Senso Hishi: Hoshina Zenshiro Kaiso-roku [Secret History of the Greater East Asia War: Memoir of Zenshiro Hoshina] (Tokyo, Japan: Hara-Shobo, 1975), excerpts from Section 5, “The Emperor made go-seidan [= the sacred decision] – the decision to terminate the war,” 139-149 [translation by Hikaru Tajima]

Zenshiro Hoshina, a senior naval official, attended the conference and prepared a detailed account. With Prime Minister Suzuki presiding, each of the ministers had a chance to state their views directly to Hirohito. 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. What was at stake was the definition of the kokutai (national policy). Togo’s proposal would have been generally consistent with a constitutional monarchy because it defined the kokutai narrowly as the emperor and the imperial household. What Hirohito accepted, however, was a proposal by the extreme nationalist Kiichiro Hiranuma which drew upon prevailing understandings of the kokutai : the “mythical notion” that the emperor was a living god. “This was the affirmation of the emperor’s theocratic powers, unencumbered by any law, based on Shinto gods in antiquity, and totally incompatible with a constitutional monarchy.” Thus, the Japanese response to the Potsdam declaration opposed “any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of his Majesty as a sovereign ruler.” This proved to be unacceptable to the Truman administration. [63]

Document 76

Document 77A

The first Japanese surrender offer was intercepted shortly before Tokyo broadcast it. This issue of the diplomatic summary also includes Togo’s account of his notification of the Soviet declaration of war, reports of Soviet military operations in the Far East, and intercepts of French diplomatic traffic.

Document 77B

A full translation of the surrender offer was circulated separately. The translations differ but they convey the sticking point that prevented U.S. acceptance: Tokyo’s condition that the allies not make any “demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler.”

Document 78

Papers of Henry A. Wallace, Special Collections Department, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa (copy courtesy of Special Collections Department)

Note: The second page of the diary entry includes a newspaper clipping of the Associated Press’s transmission of the Byrnes note. Unfortunately, AP would not authorize the Archive to reproduce this item without payment. Therefore, we are publishing an excised version of the entry, with a link to the Byrnes note .

Document 79

Document 80

Stimson’s account of the events of 10 August focused on the debate over the reply to the Japanese note, especially the question of the Emperor’s status. 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 Hirohito’s urging, to believe that they could decide for themselves the Emperor’s future role. Stimson accepted the language believing that a speedy reply to the Japanese would allow the United States to “get the homeland into our hands before the Russians could put in any substantial claim to occupy and help rule it.” If the note had included specific provision for a constitutional monarchy, Hasegawa argues, it would have “taken the wind out of the sails” of the military faction and Japan might have surrendered several days earlier, on August 11 or 12 instead of August 14. [65]

Document 81

Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter Brown Papers, box 68, folder 13, “Transcript/Draft B

Brown recounted Byrnes’ debriefing of the 10 August White House meeting on the Japanese peace offer, an account which differed somewhat from that in the Stimson diary. According to what Byrnes told Brown, Truman, Stimson, and Leahy favored accepting the Japanese note, but Byrnes objected that the United States should “go [no] further than we were willing to go at Potsdam.” Stimson’s account of the meeting noted Byrnes’ concerns (“troubled and anxious”) about the Japanese note and implied that he (Stimson) favored accepting it, but did not picture the debate as starkly as Browns's did.

Document 82

George C. Marshall Papers, George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, VA (copy courtesy of Barton J. Bernstein)

Groves informed General Marshall that he was making plans for the use of a third atomic weapon sometime after 17 August, depending on the weather. 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.”

Document 83

Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 10-12, 1945

Document 84

Takashi Itoh, ed., Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 926-927 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima]

Document 85

National Archives, RG 165, Army Operations OPD, Executive Files 1940-1945, box 12, Exec #2

Document 86

Gaimusho [Ministry of Foreign Affairs], ed., Shusen Shiroku [Historical Record of the End of the War] (Tokyo: Hokuyosha, 1977-1978), vol. 5, 27-35 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi]

The Byrnes Note did not break the stalemate at the cabinet level. 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.) did not mean that the war would continue. 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. At the end of the meeting, he announced that he would report to Hirohito and ask him to make another “Sacred Judgment”. Meanwhile, junior Army officers plotted a coup to thwart the plans for surrender. [68]

Document 87

George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, VA, George C. Marshall Papers (copy courtesy of Barton J. Bernstein)

Document 88

Document 89

Hiroshi [Kaian) Shimomura, Shusenki [Account of the End of the War] (Tokyo, Kamakura Bunko, [1948], 148-152 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi]

Frightened by the rapid movement of Soviet forces into Manchuria and worried that the army might launch a coup, the peace party set in motion a plan to persuade Hirohito to meet with the cabinet and the “Big Six” to resolve the stalemate over the response to the Allies. Japan was already a day late in responding to the Byrnes Note and Hirohito agreed to move quickly. At 10:50 a.m., he met with the leadership at the bomb shelter in his palace. This account, prepared by Director of Information Shimomura, conveys the drama of the occasion (as well as his interest in shifting the blame for the debacle to the Army). 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.

Hirohito asked the leadership to accept the Note, which he believed was “well intentioned” on the matter of the “national polity” (by leaving open a possible role for the Emperor). 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. According to Bix, “Hirohito's language helped to transform him from a war to a peace leader, from a cold, aloof monarch to a human being who cared for his people” but “what chiefly motivated him … was his desire to save a politically empowered throne with himself on it.” [70]

Hirohito said that he would make a recording of the surrender announcement so that the nation could hear it. That evening army officers tried to seize the palace and find Hirohito’s recording, but the coup failed. Early the next day, General Anami committed suicide. On the morning of August 15, Hirohito broadcast the message to the nation (although he never used the word “surrender”). A few weeks later, on September 2, 1945 Japanese representatives signed surrender documents on the USS Missouri , in Tokyo harbor. [71]

Document 90

Document 91

The British National Archives, Records of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, FO 800/461

With the Japanese surrender announcement not yet in, President Truman believed that another atomic bombing might become necessary. After a White House meeting on 14 August, British Minister John Balfour reported that Truman had “remarked sadly that he now had no alternative but to order an atomic bomb to be dropped on Tokyo.” This was likely emotional thinking spurred by anxiety and uncertainty. 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. Moreover, he may not have known that the third bomb was still in the United States and would not be available for use for nearly another week. [73] As it turned out, a few hours later, at 4:05 p.m., the White House received the Japanese surrender announcement.

Document 92

Department of Energy Open-Net

Two scientists at Oak Ridge’s Health Division, Henshaw and Coveyou, saw a United Press report in the Knoxville News Sentinel about radiation sickness caused by the bombings. Victims who looked healthy weakened, “for unknown reasons” and many died. Lacking direct knowledge of conditions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Henshaw and Coveyou had their own data on the biological effects of radiation and could make educated guesses. After reviewing the impact of various atomic bomb effects--blast, heat, flash radiation (prompt effects from gamma and neutron radiation), and radiation from radioactive substances--they concluded that “it seems highly plausible that a great many persons were subjected to lethal and sub-lethal dosages of radiation in areas where direct blast effects were possibly non-lethal.” It was “probable,” therefore, that radiation “would produce increments to the death rate and “even more probable” that a “great number of cases of sub-lethal exposures to radiation have been suffered.” [74]

Document 93

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5b

Document 94A

RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 17, Envelope B

See description of document 94B

Document 94B

XII. Eisenhower and McCloy’s Views on the Bombings and Atomic Weapons

Document 95

Document 96

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. Besides Truman, guests included New York Governor Thomas Dewey (Republican presidential candidate in 1944 and 1948), foreign ambassadors, members of the cabinet and the Supreme Court, the military high command, and various senators and representatives. The U.S. Marine Band provided music for the dinner and for the variety show that was performed by members of the press. [79]

Truman characterized the Potsdam Declaration as a “fair warning,” but it was an ultimatum. Plainly he was troubled by the devastation and suffering caused by the bombings, but he found it justifiable because it saved the lives of U.S. troops. His estimate of 250,000 U.S. soldiers spared far exceeded that made by General Marshall in June 1945, which was in the range of 31,000 (comparable to the Battle of Luzon) [See Document 26]. By citing an inflated casualty figure, the president was giving a trial run for the rationale that would become central to official and semi-official discourse about the bombings during the decades ahead. [80]

Despite Truman’s claim that he made “the most terrible” decision at Potsdam, he assigned himself more responsibility than the historical record supports. 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. As for targeting, however, he had a more significant role. At Potsdam, Stimson raised his objections to targeting Japan’s cultural capital, Kyoto, and Truman supported the secretary’s efforts to drop that city from the target list [See Documents 47 and 48]. [81]

[1] . The World Wide Web includes significant documentary resources on these events. The Truman Library has published a helpful collection of archival documents , some of which are included in the present collection. A collection of transcribed documents is Gene Dannen’s “ 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). A more recent collection of documents, along with a bibliography, narrative, and chronology, is Michael Kort’s  The Columbia Guide to Hiroshima and the Bomb  (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). An important  on-line collection focuses on the air-raids of Japanese cities and bases, providing valuable context for the atomic attacks.

[2] . 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 History  17 (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.

For Stimson’s article, see “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,”  Harper’s  194 (February 1947): 97-107. Social critic Dwight MacDonald published trenchant criticisms immediately after Hiroshima-Nagasaki; see  Politics Past: Essays in Political Criticism  (New York: Viking, 1972), 169-180.

[3] . The proposed script for the Smithsonian exhibition can be seen at Philipe Nobile,

Judgment at the Smithsonian  (New York: Matthews and Company, 1995), pp. 1-127. For reviews of the controversy, see Barton J. Bernstein, “The Struggle Over History: Defining the Hiroshima Narrative,” ibid., 128-256, and Charles T. O’Reilly and William A. Rooney,  The Enola Gay and The Smithsonian  (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2005).

[4] . For the extensive literature, see the references in J. Samuel Walker , Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan,  Third Edition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016) at 131-136, as well as Walker’s, “Recent Literature on Truman’s Atomic Bomb Decision: A Search for Middle Ground,”  Diplomatic History  29 (April 2005): 311-334. For more recent contributions, see Sean Malloy,  Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Bomb Against Japan  (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008), Andrew Rotter,  Hiroshima: The World's Bomb  (New York: Oxford, 2008), Campbell Craig and Sergey Radchenko,  The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War  (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2008), Wilson D. Miscamble,  The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan  (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Also important to take into account is John Dower’s extensive discussion of Hiroshima/Nagasaki in context of the U.S. fire-bombings of Japanese cities in  Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9-11/Iraq  (New York, W. Norton, 2010), 163-285.

[5] . The editor particularly benefited from the source material cited in the following works: Robert S. Norris,  Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie S. Groves, The Manhattan Project’s Indispensable Man  (South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 2002); Gar Alperovitz,  The Decision to Use the Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth  (New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1995); Richard B. Frank , Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire  (New York: Random House, 1999), Martin Sherwin,  A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and the Origins of the Arm Race  (New York, Vintage Books, 1987), and as already mentioned, Hasegawa’s  Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan  (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2005 ).  Barton J. Bernstein’s numerous articles in scholarly publications (many of them are listed in Walker’s assessment of the literature) constitute an invaluable guide to primary sources. An article that Bernstein published in 1995, “The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered,”  Foreign Affairs  74 (1995), 135-152, nicely summarizes his thinking on the key issues.   Noteworthy publications since 2015 include Michael D. Gordin and G. John Ikenberry, eds., The Age of Hiroshim a (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019); Sheldon Garon, “On the Transnational Destruction of Cities: What Japan and the United States Learned from the Bombing of Britain and Germany in the Second World War,” Past and Present 247 (2020): 235-271; Katherine E. McKinney, Scott Sagan, and Allen S. Weiner, “Why the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima Would Be Illegal Today,” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist s 76 (2020); Gregg Mitchell, The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood and America Learned  to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (New York: The New Press, 2020); Steve Olson, The Apocalypse Factory: Plutonium and the Making of the Atomic Age (New York: W.W. Norton, 2020); Neil J. Sullivan, The Prometheus Bomb: The Manhattan Project and Government in the Dark  (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press/Potomac Books, 2016); Alex Wellerstein; Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States,  (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming, 2020), a memoir by a Hiroshima survivor, Taniguchi Sumitero, The Atomic  Bomb on My Back: A Life Story of Survival and Activism (Montpelier, VT: Rootstock Publishing, 2020), and a collection of interviews, Cynthia C. Kelly, ed., The Manhattan Project: The Birth of the Atomic Bomb in the Words of Its Creators, Eyewitnesses, and Historians (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2020).

[6] . Malloy (2008), 49-50. For more on the Uranium Committee, the decision to establish the S-1 Committee, and the overall context, see James G. Hershberg , James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age  (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1995), 140-154.

[7] . Sean Malloy, “`A Very Pleasant Way to Die’: Radiation Effects and the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb against Japan,”  Diplomatic History  36 (2012), especially 523. For an important study of how contemporary officials and scientists looked at the atomic bomb prior to first use in Japan, see Michael D. Gordin,  Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War  (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).

[8] . Norris, 169.

[9] . Malloy (2008), 57-58.

[10] . See also Norris, 362.

[11] . For discussion of the importance of this memorandum, see Sherwin, 126-127, and Hershberg , James B. Conant , 203-207.

[12] . Alperovitz, 662; Bernstein (1995), 139; Norris, 377.

[13] . Quotation and statistics from Thomas R. Searle, “`It Made a Lot of Sense to Kill Skilled Workers’: The Firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945,  The Journal of Military History  55 (2002):103. More statistics and a detailed account of the raid is in Ronald Schaffer,  Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in World War II  (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 130-137.

[14] . Searle, “`It Made a Lot of Sense to Kill Skilled Workers,’” 118. For detailed background on the Army Air Force’s incendiary bombing planning, see Schaffer (1985) 107-127. On Stimson, see Schaffer (1985), 179-180 and Malloy (2008), 54. For a useful discussion of the firebombing of Tokyo and the atomic bombings, see Alex Wellerstein, “Tokyo vs. Hiroshima,”  Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog ,  22 September 2014

[15] . See for example, Bernstein (1995), 140-141.

[16] . For useful discussion of this meeting and the other Target Committee meetings, see Norris, 382-386.

[17] . Malloy, “A Very Pleasant Way to Die,” 531-534.

[18] . Schaffer,  Wings of Judgment , 143-146.

[19] . Alperovitz argues that the possibility of atomic diplomacy was central to the thinking of Truman and his advisers, while Bernstein, who argues that Truman’s primary objective was to end the war quickly, suggests that the ability to “cow other nations, notably the Soviet Union” was a “bonus” effect. See Bernstein (1995), 142.

[20] . Alperovitz, 147; Robert James Maddox,  Weapons for Victory: The Hiroshima Decision Fifty Years Later  (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1995), 52; Gabiel Kolko,  The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943-1945  (New York: Pantheon Books, 1990), 421-422. As Alperovitz notes, the Davies papers include variant diary entries and it is difficult to know which are the most accurate.

[21] . Malloy (2008), 112

[21A] . Vincent Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1985), 529.

[22] . Bernstein (1995), 146. See also Barton J. Bernstein, “Looking Back: Gen. Marshall and the Atomic Bombing of Japanese Cities,” Arms Control Today , November 2015.

[23] . Bernstein (1995), 144. See also Malloy (2008), at 116-117, including the argument that 1) Stimson was deceiving himself by accepting the notion that a “vital war plant …surrounded by workers’ houses” was a legitimate military target, and 2) that Groves was misleading Stimson by withholding the Target Committee’s conclusions that the target would be a city center.

[24] . Walker (2005), 320.

[25] . Frank Costigliola,  France and the United States: The Cold Alliance Since World War II  (New York, Twayne, 1992), 38-39.

[26] . Barton J. Bernstein, Introduction to Helen S. Hawkins et al. editors,  Toward a Livable World: Leo Szilard and the Crusade for Nuclear Arms Control  (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987), xxx-xxv; Sherwin, 210-215.

[27] . Herbert P. Bix,  Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan  (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000), 523.

[28] . Walker (2005), 319-320.

[29] . For a review of the debate on casualty estimates, see Walker (2005), 315, 317-318, 321, 323, and 324-325.

[30] . Hasegawa, 105; Alperovitz, 67-72; Forrest Pogue,  George C. Marshall: Statesman, 1945-1959  (New York: Viking, 1987), 18. Pogue only cites the JCS transcript of the meeting; presumably, an interview with a participant was the source of the McCloy quote.

[31] . Alperovitz, 226; Bernstein, “Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender,”  Diplomatic History  19 (1995), 237, note 22.

[32] . Malloy (2008), 123-124.

[33] . Alperovitz, 242, 245; Frank, 219.

[34] . Malloy (2008), 125-127.

[35] . Bernstein, introduction,  Toward a Livable World , xxxvii-xxxviii.

[36] . “Magic” summaries for post-August 1945 remain classified at the National Security Agency. Information from the late John Taylor, National Archives. For background on Magic and the “Purple” code, see John Prados,  Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II (  New York: Random House, 1995), 161-172 and David Kahn,  The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing  (New York: Scribner, 1996), 1-67.

[37] . Alperovitz, 232-238.

[38] . Maddox, 83-84; Hasegawa, 126-128. See also Walker (2005), 316-317.

[39] . Hasegawa, 28, 121-122.

[40] . Peter Grose,  Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles  (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 170-174, 248-249.

[41] . David Holloway, “Barbarossa and the Bomb: Two Cases of Soviet Intelligence in World War II,” in Jonathan Haslam and Karina Urbach, eds.,  Secret Intelligence in the European States System, 1918-1989  (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), 63-64. For the inception of the Soviet nuclear program and the role of espionage in facilitating it, see Holloway,  Stalin and the Bomb  (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1994).

[42] . For the distances, see Norris, 407.

[43] . For on-line resources on the first atomic test .

[44] . Bernstein’s detailed commentary on Truman’s diary has not been reproduced here except for the opening pages where he provides context and background.

[45] . Frank, 258; Bernstein (1995), 147; Walker (2005), 322. See also Alex Wellerstein’s “ The Kyoto Misconception ”

[46] . Maddox, 102; Alperovitz, 269-270; Hasegawa, 152-153.

[47] . Hasegawa, 292.

[48] . Bernstein, “Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender,”  Diplomatic History  19 (1995), 146-147; Alperovitz, 415; Frank, 246.

[49] . Alperovitz, 392; Frank, 148.

[50] . Alperovitz, 281-282. For Davies at Potsdam, see Elizabeth Kimball MacLean,  Joseph E. Davies: Envoy to the Soviets  (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992), 151-166

[51] . Hasegawa, 168; Bix, 518.

[52] . Bix, 490, 521.

[53] . Alperovitz, 415; Frank, 246.

[54] . Frank, 273-274; Bernstein, “The Alarming Japanese Buildup on Southern Kyushu, Growing U.S. Fears and Counterfactual Analysis: Would the Planned November 1945 Invasion of Southern Kyushu Have Occurred?”  Pacific Historical Review  68 (1999): 561-609.

[55] . Maddox, 105.

[56] . Barton J. Bernstein, "'Reconsidering the 'Atomic General': Leslie R. Groves,"  The Journal of Military History  67 (July 2003): 883-920. See also Malloy, “A Very Pleasant Way to Die,” 539-540.

[57] . For casualty figures and the experience of people on the ground, see Frank, 264-268 and 285-286, among many other sources. Drawing on contemporary documents and journals, Masuji Ibuse’s novel  Black Rain  (Tokyo, Kodansha, 1982) provides an unforgettable account of the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath. For early U.S. planning to detonate the weapon at a height designed to maximize destruction from mass fires and other effects, see Alex Wellerstein, “ The Height of the Bomb .”

[58] . Sadao Asada, “The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan’s Decision to Surrender: A Reconsideration,”  Pacific Historical Review  67 (1998): 101-148; Bix, 523; Frank, 348; Hasegawa, 298. Bix appears to have moved toward a position close to Hasegawa’s; see Bix, “Japan's Surrender Decision and the Monarchy: Staying the Course in an Unwinnable War,”  Japan Focus  . For emphasis on the “shock” of the atomic bomb, see also Lawrence Freedman and Saki Dockrill, “Hiroshima: A Strategy of Shock,” in Saki Dockrill, ed.,  From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima : the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific, 1941-1945  (New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 191-214. For more on the debate over Japan’s surrender, see Hasegawa’s important edited book,  The End of the Pacific War: A Reappraisal  (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), with major contributions by Hasegawa, Holloway, Bernstein, and Hatano.

[59] . Melvyn P. Leffler, “Adherence to Agreements: Yalta and the Experiences of the Early Cold War,”  International Security  11 (1986): 107; Holloway, “Barbarossa and the Bomb,” 65.

[59a] . For more on these developments, see Asada, "The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan's Decision to Surrender: A Reconsideration," 486-488.

[60] . Hasegawa, 191-192.

[61] . Frank, 286-287; Sherwin, 233-237; Bernstein (1995), 150; Maddox, 148.

[62] . The Supreme War Council comprised the prime minister, foreign minister, army and navy ministers, and army and navy chiefs of staff; see Hasegawa, 72 .

[63] . For the maneuverings on August 9 and the role of the  kokutai , see Hasegawa, 3-4, 205-214

[64] . For Truman’s recognition of mass civilian casualties, see also his  letter to Senator Richard Russell, 9 August 1945.

[65] . Hasegawa, 295.

[66] . For “tug of war,” see Hasegawa, 226-227.

[67] . Hasegawa, 228-229, 232.

[68] . Hasegawa, 235-238.

[69] . Barton J. Bernstein, “Eclipsed by Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Early Thinking about Tactical Nuclear Weapons,”  International Security  15 (Spring 1991): 149-173; Marc Gallicchio, “After Nagasaki: General Marshall’s Plans for Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Japan,”  Prologue  23 (Winter 1991): 396-404. Letters from Robert Messer and Gar Alperovitz, with Bernstein’s response, provide insight into some of the interpretative issues. “Correspondence,”  International Security  16 (Winter 1991/1992): 214-221.

[70] . Bix, “Japan's Surrender Decision and the Monarchy: Staying the Course in an Unwinnable War,”  Japan Focus .

[71] . For Hirohito' surrender speech--the actual broadcast and a translation--see  Japan Times , August 2015.

[72] . Cited by Barton J. Bernstein, “Eclipsed by Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Early Thinking About Tactical Nuclear Weapons,”  International Security  15 (1991) at page 167. Thanks to Alex Wellerstein for the suggestion and the archival link.

[73] . For further consideration of Tokyo and more likely targets at the time, see Alex Wellerstein, “Neglected Niigata,”  Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog, 9 October 2015.

[74] . See Malloy, “A Very Pleasant Way to Die,” 541-542.

[75] . For Groves and the problem of radiation sickness, see Norris, 339-441, Bernstein, “Reconsidering the ‘Atomic General’: Leslie R. Groves,”  Journal of Military History  67 (2003), 907-908, and Malloy, “A Very Pleasant Way to Die,” 513-518 and 539-542

[76] . See Janet Farrell Brodie, “Radiation Secrecy and Censorship after Hiroshima and Nagasaki,”  The Journal of Social History  48 (2015): 842-864.

[77] . For Eisenhower’s statements, see  Crusade in Europe  (Garden City: Doubleday, 1948), 443, and  Mandate for Change  (Garden City: Doubleday, 1963), 312-313. Barton J. Bernstein’s 1987 article, “Ike and Hiroshima: Did He Oppose It?”  The Journal of Strategic Studies  10 (1987): 377-389, makes a case against relying on Eisenhower’s memoirs and points to relevant circumstantial evidence. For a slightly different perspective, see Malloy (2007), 138

[78] . Cited in Barton J. Bernstein, “Truman and the A-Bomb: Targeting Noncombatants, Using the Bomb, and His Defending the "Decision,”  The Journal of Military History  62 (1998), at page 559. Thanks to Alex Wellerstein for the suggestion and the archival link.

[79] . “Truman Plays Part of Himself in Skit at Gridiron Dinner,” and “List of Members and Guests at the Gridiron Show,”  The Washington Post , 16 December 1945.

[80] . For varied casualty figures cited by Truman and others after the war, see Walker,  Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan , 101-102.

[81] . See also ibid., 59.

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Terrible But Justified: The U.S. A-Bomb Attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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National Archives News

The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, August 1945

Photograph of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. (National Archives Identifier 22345671 )

The United States bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, 1945, were the first instances of atomic bombs used against humans, killing tens of thousands of people, obliterating the cities, and contributing to the end of World War II. The National Archives maintains the documents that trace the evolution of the project to develop the bombs, their use in 1945, and the aftermath.

Online Exhibits

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.

[Photograph: The atomic cloud rising over Nagasaki, Japan, August 9, 1945. National Archives Identifier 535795 ]

A People at War looks at the 509 Composite Group, the unit selected to carry the atomic bomb to Hiroshima.

[Photograph: Col. Paul Tibbets, Jr., waves from the cockpit of the Enola Gay before departing for Hiroshima, August 6, 1945. National Archives Identifier  535737 ]

Photograph Gallery

"Little Boy" atomic bomb being raised into plane on Tinian Island before the flight to Hiroshima. National Archives Identifier  76048583

Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. National Archives Identifier  22345671

Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. National Archives Identifier  22345679

Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. National Archives Identifier  22345680

Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. National Archives Identifier  148728174

Nuclear weapon of the "Fat Man" type, the kind detonated over Nagasaki, Japan. National Archives Identifier  175539928

The atomic cloud rising over Nagasaki, Japan. National Archives Identifier  535795

Nagasaki after the atomic bomb. National Archives Identifier  39147824

Nagasaki after the atomic bomb. National Archives Identifier  39147850

Additional Photographs

Atomic Bomb Preparations at Tinian Island, 1945

Photographs used in the report Effects of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima, Japan

Manhattan Project Notebook

Atomic bomb/Enola Gay preparations for the bombing missions

Post-bombing aerial and on-the-ground images of Hiroshima

Empty bottle of Chianti Bertolli wine signed by scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project

Archival Film

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Effects, 1945

The Last Bomb ,  a 1945 film, done in Technicolor, by the Army Air Forces Combat Camera Units and Motion Picture Units covering the B-29 bombing raids on Japan

Effects on the human body of radiation from the atomic bomb

Additional Records

Photos: Atomic Bomb Preparations at Tinian Island, 1945

Atomic bomb/ Enola Gay preparations for the bombing missions

Post-Hiroshima bombing aerial and on-the-ground images

Color image of Hiroshima after bombing

Manhattan Project records from Oak Ridge, TN

Blogs and Social Media Posts

Unwritten Record:  Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Unwritten Record:  Witness to Destruction: Photographs and Sound Recordings Documenting the Hiroshima Bombing

Forward with Roosevelt:  Found in the Archives: The Einstein Letter

Pieces of History:  Little Boy: The First Atomic Bomb

Pieces of History:  Harry Truman and the Bomb

Pieces of History:  Morgantown Ordnance Works (part of the Manhattan Project) Panoramas, 1940–1942

Today's Document:  Petition from Manhattan Project Scientists to President Truman

For Educators

Docs Teach resources on the atomic bomb

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Kennedy Library: “The Presidency in the Nuclear Age”

At the Presidential Libraries

Roosevelt Library: Albert Einstein’s letter to FDR regarding the atomic bomb

Truman Library: “The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb ”

Truman Library: Additional records on the bombing of Hiroshima

Truman Library:  President Truman's Diary Entry for July 17, 1945 (the day before Truman learned that the United States had successfully tested the world's first atomic bomb)

Truman Library: Memo for the Record, Manhattan Project, July 20, 1945

Truman Library: Petition from Leo Szilard and other scientists to President Truman

Eisenhower Library: Atoms for Peace

Kennedy Library: “ The Presidency in the Nuclear Age: The Race to Build the Bomb and the Decision to Use It”

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Atomic Bomb History

By: History.com Editors

Updated: November 9, 2022 | Original: September 6, 2017

The atomic bomb and nuclear bombs are powerful weapons that use nuclear reactions as their source of explosive energy. Scientists first developed nuclear weapons technology during World War II. Atomic bombs have been used only twice in war—both times by the United States against Japan at the end of World War II, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A period of nuclear proliferation followed that war, and during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union vied for supremacy in a global nuclear arms race.

Nuclear Bombs and Hydrogen Bombs

A discovery by nuclear physicists in a laboratory in Berlin, Germany, in 1938 made the first atomic bomb possible, after Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassman discovered nuclear fission.

In nuclear fission, the nucleus of an atom of radioactive material splits into two or more smaller nuclei, which causes a sudden, powerful release of energy. The discovery of nuclear fission opened up the possibility of nuclear technologies, including weapons.

Atomic bombs get their energy from fission reactions. Thermonuclear weapons, or hydrogen bombs, rely on a combination of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion is another type of reaction in which two lighter atoms combine to release energy.

Manhattan Project

On December 28, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the formation of the Manhattan Project to bring together various scientists and military officials working on nuclear research.

The Manhattan Project was the code name for the American-led effort to develop a functional atomic bomb during World War II . The project was started in response to fears that German scientists had been working on a weapon using nuclear technology since the 1930s.

Who Invented the Atomic Bomb?

Much of the work in the Manhattan Project was performed in Los Alamos, New Mexico , under the direction of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer , the “ father of the atomic bomb .”

On July 16, 1945, in a remote desert location near Alamogordo, New Mexico , the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated—the Trinity Test . It created an enormous mushroom cloud some 40,000 feet high and ushered in the Atomic Age.

Hiroshima And Nagasaki Bombings

Scientists at Los Alamos had developed two distinct types of atomic bombs by 1945—a uranium-based design called “the Little Boy” and a plutonium-based weapon called “the Fat Man.” (Uranium and plutonium are both radioactive elements.)

While the war in Europe had ended in April, fighting in the Pacific continued between Japanese forces and U.S. troops. In late July, President Harry Truman called for Japan’s surrender with the Potsdam Declaration . The declaration promised “prompt and utter destruction” if Japan did not surrender.

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped its first atomic bomb from a B-29 bomber plane called the Enola Gay over the city of Hiroshima , Japan. The “Little Boy” exploded with about 13 kilotons of force, leveling five square miles of the city and killing 80,000 people instantly. Tens of thousands more would later die from radiation exposure.

When the Japanese did not immediately surrender, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb three days later on the city of Nagasaki . The “Fat Man” killed an estimated 40,000 people on impact.

Nagasaki had not been the primary target for the second bomb. American bombers initially had targeted the city of Kokura, where Japan had one of its largest munitions plants, but smoke from firebombing raids obscured the sky over Kokura. American planes then turned toward their secondary target, Nagasaki.

Citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb,” Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s surrender on August 15—a day that became known as ‘ V-J Day ’—ending World War II.

The Cold War

The United States was the only country with nuclear weaponry in the years immediately following World War II. The Soviet Union initially lacked the knowledge and raw materials to build nuclear warheads.

Within just a few years, however, the U.S.S.R. had obtained—through a network of spies engaging in international espionage—blueprints of a fission-style bomb and discovered regional sources of uranium in Eastern Europe. On August 29, 1949, the Soviets tested their first nuclear bomb.

The United States responded by launching a program in 1950 to develop more advanced thermonuclear weapons. The Cold War arms race had begun, and nuclear testing and research became high-profile goals for several countries, especially the United States and the Soviet Union.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Over the next few decades, each world superpower would stockpile tens of thousands of nuclear warheads. Other countries, including Great Britain, France, and China, developed nuclear weapons during this time, too.

To many observers, the world appeared on the brink of nuclear war in October of 1962. The Soviet Union had installed nuclear-armed missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. This resulted in a 13-day military and political standoff known as the Cuban Missile Crisis .

President John F. Kennedy enacted a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the United States was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize the perceived threat.

Disaster was avoided when the United States agreed to an offer made by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the United States promising not to invade Cuba.

Three Mile Island

Many Americans became concerned about the health and environmental effects of nuclear fallout—the radiation left in the environment after a nuclear blast—in the wake of World War II and after extensive nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific during the 1940s and 1950s.

The antinuclear movement emerged as a social movement in 1961 at the height of the Cold War. During Women Strike for Peace demonstrations on November 1, 1961 co-organized by activist Bella Abzug , roughly 50,000 women marched in 60 cities in the United States to demonstrate against nuclear weapons.

The antinuclear movement captured national attention again in the 1970s and 1980s with high profile protests against nuclear reactors after the Three Mile Island accident—a nuclear meltdown at a Pennsylvania power plant in 1979.

In 1982, a million people marched in New York City protesting nuclear weapons and urging an end to the Cold War nuclear arms race. It was one of the largest political protests in United States history.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

The United States and Soviet Union took the lead in negotiating an international agreement to halt the further spread of nuclear weapons in 1968.

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (also called the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT) went into effect in 1970. It separated the world’s countries into two groups—nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states.

Nuclear weapons states included the five countries that were known to possess nuclear weapons at the time—the United States, the U.S.S.R., Great Britain, France and China.

According to the treaty, nuclear weapons states agreed not to use nuclear weapons or help non-nuclear states acquire nuclear weapons. They also agreed to gradually reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons with the eventual goal of total disarmament. Non-nuclear weapons states agreed not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, there were still thousands of nuclear weapons scattered across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Many of the weapons were located in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. These weapons were deactivated and returned to Russia.

Illegal Nuclear Weapon States

Some countries wanted the option of developing their own nuclear weapons arsenal and never signed the NPT. India was the first country outside of the NPT to test a nuclear weapon in 1974.

Other non-signatories to the NTP include: Pakistan, Israel and South Sudan. Pakistan has a known nuclear weapons program. Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though has never officially confirmed or denied the existence of a nuclear weapons program. South Sudan is not known or believed to possess nuclear weapons.

North Korea

North Korea initially signed the NPT treaty, but announced its withdrawal from the agreement in 2003. Since 2006, North Korea has openly tested nuclear weapons, drawing sanctions from various nations and international bodies.

North Korea tested two long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles in 2017—one reportedly capable of reaching the United States mainland. In September 2017, North Korea claimed it had tested a hydrogen bomb that could fit on top an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Iran, while a signatory of the NPT, has said it has the capability to initiate production of nuclear weapons at short notice.

Pioneering Nuclear Science: The Discovery of Nuclear Fission. International Atomic Energy Agency . The Development and Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. NobelPrize.org . Here are the facts about North Korea’s nuclear test. NPR .

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Featured document display: the atomic bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki.

“A rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.”

-President Harry Truman’s statement on the Hiroshima atomic bombing, August 6, 1945

World War II marked the first—and only—wartime use of atomic weapons. 

On August 6, 1945, at approximately 8:15 a.m. locally, the B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb “Little Boy” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On the ground, the city was alive with morning activity when the bomb detonated in a blinding explosion. As many as 70,000 people were killed instantly. Those who survived the initial blast were hit with a powerful shockwave that leveled nearly every structure within a mile of the impact. It was followed by intense heat that created a firestorm that engulfed the city and claimed even more lives.

Later that day, President Harry Truman informed the American people of the U.S. military’s use of this new form of weaponry and threatened future bombings if Japan did not surrender unconditionally as outlined in the July 26, 1945, Potsdam Declaration. After Japan failed to act, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb, “Fat Man,” over the city of Nagasaki on the morning of August 9. Another 35-40,000 people perished. Soviet forces also invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria in China that day, further crippling the Japanese military. 

Finally, on August 15, the Emperor of Japan issued an Imperial Rescript proclaiming his acceptance of the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration. World War II ended when Japan formally surrendered on September 2, 1945.

“A single plane . . . can now wipe out a city”

Luis Alvarez was a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic weapons dropped over Japan. He served as a scientific observer on the Hiroshima mission and drafted this letter to his son describing the bombing during the return flight. In this typed copy of the letter, Alvarez wrote: “What regrets I have about being a party to killing and maiming thousands of Japanese civilians this morning are tempered with the hope that this terrible weapon we have created may bring the countries of the world together to prevent further wars.”

The exact death toll of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings is impossible to know. At least 100,000 deaths directly resulted from the attacks. A minimum of another 100,000 people also died from illnesses caused by radiation exposure in the weeks, months, and decades that followed. 

Historians continue to debate the United States’ decision to use nuclear weapons to end World War II. Supporters argue that the bombs were necessary to save American lives and bring a swift end to the war. Opponents contend that the bombs were unnecessary to defeat a severely weakened Japan. In 1945, however, the American people overwhelmingly supported the decision to bring an end to the deadliest war in history. 

Explore the online collection The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb on the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum website. 

Find more resources related to World War II records at Archives.gov.

The Featured Document display is made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation, through the generous support of the Ford Motor Company Fund.

Was the US justified in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War?

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. The first bomb, dropped on the city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, resulted in a total death toll of around 140,000. The second, which hit Nagasaki on 9 August, killed around 50,000 people. But was the US justified? We put the question to historians and two HistoryExtra readers...

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America's use of atomic bombs to attack the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 has long remained one of the most controversial decisions of the Second World War . Here, a group of historians offer their views on whether US president Truman was right to authorise these nuclear attacks...

“Yes. Truman had little choice” – Antony Beevor

Few actions in war are morally justifiable. All a commander or political leader can hope to assess is whether a particular course of action is likely to reduce the loss of life. Faced with the Japanese refusal to surrender, President Truman had little choice.

His decision was mainly based on the estimate of half a million Allied casualties likely to be caused by invading the home islands of Japan . There was also the likely death rate from starvation for Allied PoWs and civilians as the war dragged on well into 1946.

• Read more | The Manhattan Project: your guide to the building of the first atomic bomb

What Truman did not know, and which has only been established quite recently, is that the Imperial Japanese Army could never contemplate surrender, having forced all their men to fight to the death since the start of the war. All civilians were to be mobilised and forced to fight with bamboo spears and satchel charges to act as suicide bombers against Allied tanks. Japanese documents apparently indicate their army was prepared to accept up to 28 million civilian deaths.

Antony Beevor is a bestselling military historian, specialising in the Second World War. His most recent book is Ardennes 1944: Hitler’s Last Gamble (Viking, 2015)

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“no. it was immoral, and unnecessary” – richard overy.

The dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima was justified at the time as being moral – in order to bring about a more rapid victory and prevent the deaths of more Americans. However, it was clearly not moral to use this weapon knowing that it would kill civilians and destroy the urban milieu. And it wasn’t necessary either.

WW2 | The Big Questions

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Militarily Japan was finished (as the Soviet invasion of Manchuria that August showed). Further blockade and urban destruction would have produced a surrender in August or September at the latest, without the need for the costly anticipated invasion or the atomic bomb. As for the second bomb on Nagasaki, that was just as unnecessary as the first one. It was deemed to be needed, partly because it was a different design, and the military (and many civilian scientists) were keen to see if they both worked the same way. There was, in other words, a cynical scientific imperative at work as well.

I should also add that there was a fine line between the atomic bomb and conventional bombing – indeed descriptions of Hamburg or Tokyo after conventional bombing echo the aftermath of Hiroshima. To regard Hiroshima as a moral violation is also to condemn the firebombing campaign, which was deliberately aimed at city centres and completely indiscriminate.

Of course it is easy to say that if I had been in Truman’s shoes, I would not have ordered the two bombings. But it is possible to imagine greater restraint. The British and Americans had planned in detail the gas-bombing of a list of 17 major German cities, but in the end did not carry it out because the moral case seemed to depend on Germany using gas first. Restraint was possible, and, at the very end of the war, perhaps more politically acceptable.

Richard Overy is a professor of history at the University of Exeter and editor of The Oxford Illustrated History of World War Two (OUP, 2015)

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“Yes. It was the least bad option” – Robert James Maddox

The atomic bombs were horrible, but I agree with US secretary of war Henry L Stimson that using them was the “least abhorrent choice”. A bloody invasion and round-the-clock conventional bombing would have led to a far higher death toll and so the atomic weapons actually saved thousands of American and millions of Japanese lives. The bombs were the best means to bring about unconditional surrender, which is what the US leaders wanted. Only this would enable the Allies to occupy Japan and root out the institutions that led to war in the first place.

• Timeline | The countdown to the bombing of Hiroshima

The experience with Germany after the First World War had persuaded them that a mere armistice would constitute a betrayal of future generations if an even larger war occurred 20 years down the line. It is true that the radiation effects of the atomic bomb provided a grisly dividend, which the US leaders did not anticipate. However, even if they had known, I don’t think it would have changed their decision.

Robert James Maddox is author of Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism (University of Missouri Press, 2007)

Video: Could the Nazis have built the first atomic bomb?

“no. japan would have surrendered anyway” – martin j sherwin.

I believe that it was a mistake and a tragedy that the atomic bombs were used. Those bombings had little to do with the Japanese decision to surrender. The evidence has become overwhelming that it was the entry of the Soviet Union on 8 August into the war against Japan that forced surrender but, understandably, this view is very difficult for Americans to accept.

Of the Japanese leaders, it was the military ones who held out against the civilian leaders who were closest to the emperor, and who wanted to surrender provided the emperor’s safety would be guaranteed. The military’s argument was that Japan could convince the Soviet Union to mediate on its behalf for better surrender terms than unconditional surrender and therefore should continue the war until that was achieved.

• Read more | How and when did the Second World War end?

Once the USSR entered the war, the Japanese military not only had no arguments for continuation left, but it also feared the Soviet Union would occupy significant parts of northern Japan.

Truman could have simply waited for the Soviet Union to enter the war but he did not want the USSR to have a claim to participate in the occupation of Japan. Another option (which could have ended the war before August) was to clarify that the emperor would not be held accountable for the war under the policy of unconditional surrender. US secretary of war Stimson recommended this, but secretary of state James Byrnes, who was much closer to Truman, vetoed it.

By dropping the atomic bombs instead, the United States signalled to the world that it considered nuclear weapons to be legitimate weapons of war. Those bombings precipitated the nuclear arms race and they are the source of all nuclear proliferation.

The late Martin J Sherwin was co-author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer (Atlantic, 2008)

• Read more | 6 terrible choices people had to make during the Second World War

“Yes. It saved millions of lives in Japan and Asia” – Richard Frank

Dropping the bombs was morally preferable to any other choices available. One of the biggest problems we have is that we can talk about Dresden and the bombing of Hamburg and we all know what the context is: Nazi Germany and what Nazi Germany did. There’s been a great amnesia in the west with respect to what sort of war Japan conducted across Asia-Pacific. Bear in mind that for every Japanese non-combatant who died during the war, 17 or 18 died across Asia-Pacific. Yet you very seldom find references to this and virtually nothing that vivifies it in the way that the suffering at Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been.

With the original invasion strategy negated by radio intelligence revealing the massive Japanese build-up on the planned Kyushu landing areas, Truman’s alternative was a campaign of blockade and bombardment, which would have killed millions of Japanese, mostly non-combatants. For example, in 1946 the food situation would have become catastrophic and there would have been stupendous civilian deaths. It was only because Japan surrendered when it still had a serviceable administrative system – plus American food aid – that saved the country from famine.

• Read more | Stalin’s famine: a brief history of the Holodomor in Soviet Ukraine

Another thing to bear in mind is that while just over 200,000 people were killed in total by the atomic bombs, it is estimated that 300,000–500,000 Japanese people (many of whom were civilians) died or disappeared in Soviet captivity. Had the war continued, that number would have been much higher.

Critics talk about changing the demand for unconditional surrender , but the Japanese government had never put forth a set of terms on which they were prepared to end the war prior to Hiroshima. The inner cabinet ruling the country never devised such terms. When foreign minister Shigenori Togo was told that the best terms Japan could obtain were unconditional surrender with the exception of maintaining the imperial system, Togo flatly rejected them in the name of the cabinet.

The fact is that there was no historical record over the past 2,600 years of Japan ever surrendering, nor any examples of a Japanese unit surrendering during the war. This was where the great American fear lay.

Richard B Frank is a military historian whose books include Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (Random House, 1999)

“No. Better options were discarded for political reasons” – Tsuyoshi Hasegawa

Once sympathetic to the argument that the atomic bomb was necessary, the more research I do, the more I am convinced it was one of the gravest war crimes the US has ever committed. I’ve been to Japan and discovered what happened on the ground in 1945 and it was really horrifying. The radiation has affected people who survived the blast for many years and still today thousands of people suffer the effects.

• Read more | “My God, what have we done?” The moral dilemma of Hiroshima

There were possible alternatives that might have ended the war. Truman could have invited Stalin to sign the Potsdam declaration [in which the USA, Britain and Nationalist China demanded Japanese surrender in July 1945]. The authors of the draft of the declaration believed that if the Soviets joined the war at this time it might lead to Japanese surrender but Truman consciously avoided that option, because he and some of his advisors were apprehensive about Soviet entry. I don’t agree with revisionists who say Truman used the bomb to intimidate the Soviet Union but I believe he used it to force Japan to surrender before they were able to enter the war.

The second option was to alter the demand for unconditional surrender. Some influential advisors within the Truman administration were in favour of allowing the Japanese to keep the emperor system to induce so-called moderates within the Japanese government to work for the termination of the war. However, Truman was mindful of American public opinion, which wanted unconditional surrender as revenge against Pearl Harbor and the Japanese atrocities.

Bearing in mind those atrocities, it’s clear that Japan doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to immoral acts in the war. However, one atrocity does not make another one right. I believe this was the most righteous war the Americans have ever been involved in but you still can’t justify using any means to win a just war.

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa is a professor of history at the University of California at Santa Barbara and the author of Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (Harvard University, Press 2005)

“Yes. The moral failing was Japan’s” – Michael Kort

Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb was the best choice available under the circumstances and was therefore morally justifiable. It was clear Japan was unwilling to surrender on terms even remotely acceptable to the US and its allies, and the country was preparing a defence far more formidable than the US had anticipated.

The choice was not, as is frequently argued, between using an atomic bomb against Hiroshima and invading Japan. No one on the Allied side could say with confidence what would bring about a Japanese surrender, as Japan’s situation had been hopeless for a long time. It was hoped that the shock provided by the bombs would convince Tokyo to surrender, but how many would be needed was an open question. After Hiroshima, the Japanese government had three days to respond before Nagasaki but did not do so. Hirohito and some of his advisers knew Japan had to surrender but were not in a position to get the government to accept that conclusion. Key military members of the government argued that it was unlikely that the US could have a second bomb and, even if it did, public pressure would prevent its use. The bombing of Nagasaki demolished these arguments and led directly to the imperial conference that produced Japan’s offer to surrender.

• Read more | The science behind the bombing of Hiroshima

The absolutist moral arguments (such as not harming civilians) made against the atomic bombs would have precluded many other actions essential to victory taken by the Allies during the most destructive war in history. There is no doubt that had the bomb been available sooner, it would have been used against Germany. There was, to be sure, a moral failing in August 1945, but it was on the part of the Japanese government when it refused to surrender after its long war of conquest had been lost.

Michael Kort is professor of social science at Boston University and author of The Columbia Guide to Hiroshima and the Bomb (Columbia Press, 2007)

This article was first published in the August 2015 issue of BBC History Magazine

HistoryExtra readers George Evans-Hulme and Roy Ceustermans debate...

George Evans-Hulme: Yes, it was justified. The US was, like the rest of the world, soldiering on towards the end of a dark period of human history that had seen the single most costly conflict (in terms of life) in history, and they chose to adopt a stance that seemed to limit the amount of casualties in the war, by significantly shortening it with the use of atomic weapons.

It was certainly a reasonable view for the USA to take, since they had suffered the loss of more than 418,000 lives, both military and civilian. To the top rank of the US military the 135,000 death toll was worth it to prevent the “many thousands of American troops [that] would be killed in invading Japan” – a view attributed to the president himself.

This was a grave consequence taken seriously by the US. Ordering the deployment of the atomic bombs was an abhorrent act, but one they were certainly justified in doing.

Roy Ceustermans : No, the US wasn’t justified. Even secretary of war Henry Lewis Stimson was not sure the bombs were needed to reduce the need of an invasion: “Japan had no allies; its navy was almost destroyed; its islands were under a naval blockade; and its cities were undergoing concentrated air attacks.”

The United States still had many industrial resources to use against Japan, and thus it was essentially defeated. Rear Admiral Tocshitane Takata concurred that B-29s “were the greatest single factor in forcing Japan's surrender”, while Prince Konoye already thought Japan was defeated on 14 February 1945 when he met emperor Hirohito.

A combination of thoroughly bombing blockading cities that were economically dependent on foreign sources for food and raw materials, and the threat of Soviet entry in the war, would have been enough.

The recommendations for the use of the bomb show that the military was more interested in its devastating effect than in preparing the invasion. Therefore the destruction of hospitals and schools etc was acceptable to them.

• Read more | 7 of the best WW2 films

GEH: The USA was more interested in a quick and easy end to the war than causing untold suffering. They had in their hands a weapon that was capable of bringing the war to a swift end, and so they used it.

The atom bombs achieved their desired effects by causing maximum devastation . Just six days after the Nagasaki bombing, the Emperor’s Gyokuon-hōsō speech was broadcast to the nation, detailing the Japanese surrender. The devastation caused by the bombs sped up the Japanese surrender, which was the best solution for all parties.

If the atomic bombs had not had the devastating effect they had, they would have been utterly pointless. They replaced thousands of US bombing missions that would have been required to achieve the same effect of the two bombs that, individually, had the explosive power of the payload of 2,000 B-29s. This freed up resources that could be utilised for the war effort elsewhere.

RC: After the bloody battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa , the death toll on both sides was high, and the countries’ negative view of one other became almost unbridgeable, says J Samuel Walker in Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and The Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan . Therefore, the US created unconditional terms of surrender, knowingly going against the Japanese ethic of honour and against the institute of the emperor, whom most Americans probably wanted dead.

Consequently, the use of the atomic bomb became a way to avenge America's fallen soldiers while also keeping the USSR in check in Europe. The Japanese civilian casualties did not matter in this strategy. Also, it did not prevent the Cold War , as the USSR was just a few years behind on a-bomb research.

At the time, revenge, geopolitics and an expensive project that could not be allowed to simply rust away, meant the atomic bomb had to be hastily deployed “in the field” in order to see its power and aftermath – though little was known about radiation and its effects on humans.

GEH: Admittedly, the US did use the atom bomb to keep the USSR in line, and for that it served its purpose. It may not have stopped the Soviets developing their own nuclear device, but that’s not what it was intended for. It was used as a deterrent to keep the (sometimes uneasy) peace between the US and the USSR, and it achieved that. There are no cases of a direct, all-out war between the US and the Soviets that can be attributed to the potentially devastating effects of atomic weaponry.

The atomic bombs certainly established US dominance immediately after the Second World War – the destructive power it possessed meant that it remained uncontested as the world’s greatest power until the Soviets developed their own weapon, four years after the deployment at Nagasaki. It is certainly true that Stalin and the Soviets tried to test US dominance, but even into the 1960s the US generally came out on top.

RC: The price to keep the USSR in check was steep: the use of a weapon of mass destruction that caused around 200,000 deaths (most of them civilians) and massive suffering through radiation . However, it did not stop the USSR from creating the same weapon within four years.

It might be argued that, following the explosions, Japan virtually disappeared from the world stage while the USSR viewed the bombing as an incentive to acquire the same weaponry in order to retaliate in equal force if the atomic bomb was ever used again. Considering the tension between the two countries, a similar attack with tens of thousands of civilian casualties would have created a nuclear apocalypse .

If the US had organised a demonstration, as they had briefly considered, the USSR would still have responded in the same manner, while Japan – which had made clear overtures for a (un)conditional surrender – could have been spared. Furthermore, by postponing the use of the bomb, scientists would have had time to understand the test results, meaning further anguish, like the Bikini Atoll [a huge US hydrogen bomb test in 1954 that had major consequences for the geology and natural environment, and on the health of those who were exposed to radiation] could have been avoided.

GEH: The large civilian death toll that resulted from the bombings can be seen as a small price to pay by the United States in return for their assertion of dominance on the world stage.

The USSR’s development of an atomic weapon had been underway since 1943, and so their quest for nuclear devices cannot be solely attributed to the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It should also be considered that the Soviets’ rapid progress in creating an atom bomb was not exclusively down to their desire to compete with the United States, but from spies passing them US secrets.

Postponing the use of the atom bomb would only have prolonged the war and potentially created an even worse fate for the people of Japan, with an estimated five to 10 million Japanese fatalities – a number higher than some estimates for the entire Soviet military in the Second World War.

Ultimately, the atomic bombs did what they were designed to do. They created such a high level of devastation that the Japanese felt they had no option but to surrender unconditionally to the United States, hence resulting in US victory and the end of the Second World War .

RC: Of course civilian casualties of another nation would have been acceptable to the USA. Japan had made clear overtures to peace, but cultural differences made this nearly impossible (the shame of unconditional surrender goes against their code of honour).

The determination to use an expensive bomb instead of letting it rust away; the desire to find out how devastating it was and the opportunity to use the bomb as a strong showcase of US supremacy, made Japan the ideal target.

Obviously, the USSR would eventually succeed in creating the a-bomb. Therefore, making Hiroshima & Nagasaki the example of the tremendous power of the bombs would make it clear to the USSR that they too needed such weapons to defend themselves.

Moreover, other countries claimed the right of nuclear weapons to defend their citizens. Consequently, the tragic bombings became the example of an arm’s race instead of peace.

Furthermore, since Japan was already on the brink of collapse the bombing was unnecessary, and peace talks would have taken place within a decent time frame (even after the cancelled Hawaii summit). The millions of deaths calculated by Operation Downfall [the codename for the Allied plan for the invasion of Japan near the end of the Second World War, which was abandoned when Japan surrendered following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki] actually show that only desperation and honour stood between Japan and unconditional surrender.

George Evans-Hulme has a passion for military and political history, and enjoys visiting historical sites across the UK.

Roy Ceustermans has a master's degree in the history of the Catholic Church, an advanced master's degree on the historical expansion, exchange and globalisation of the world, and a master’s degree in management.

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Beyond the World War II We Know

How We Retain the Memory of Japan’s Atomic Bombings: Books

Literature is a refuge we turn to when we are forced to confront contradictions that lie beyond reason, writes the Japanese novelist Yoko Ogawa.

By Yoko Ogawa

In the latest article from “ Beyond the World War II We Know ,” a series by The Times that documents lesser-known stories from the war, we asked Yoko Ogawa, an award-winning Japanese author, to reflect on the literature unleashed by the atomic bombings. This article was translated by Stephen Snyder.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima occurred on Aug. 6. The bombing of Nagasaki on Aug. 9. The announcement of surrender came on the 15th. In Japan, August is the time when we remember the dead.

This year, the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings would have been observed during the Tokyo Olympics. But the Games were postponed because of the spread of the novel coronavirus, and we will be left instead to offer our prayers for the dead in an atmosphere of unexpected calm.

The final torch bearer at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics was a relatively unknown, 19-year-old, track and field competitor named Yoshinori Sakai , a young man who was born in Hiroshima on the day the bomb was dropped. There was something extraordinary about the sight of him, clad simply in white shirt and shorts , running up the long stairway that led to the caldron he was meant to light. He embodied purity, a sense of balance and an overwhelming youthfulness. Those who saw him must have been amazed to realize that the world had gathered in Japan to celebrate this festival of sport a mere 19 years after the end of the war. Yet there he was, a young man born of unprecedented, total destruction, a human being cradling a flame, advancing step by step. No doubt there were political motivations behind the selection of the final runner, but there was no questioning the hopeful life force personified by this young man from Hiroshima.

Sadly, in the intervening years, we have failed to realize the dream of a nuclear-free world. Even in Japan, the memories fade. According to a 2015 survey conducted by NHK, Japan’s public broadcasting organization, only 69 percent of the residents of Hiroshima and 50 percent of the residents of Nagasaki could correctly name the month, day and year when the Hiroshima bomb was dropped. At the national level, the rate fell to 30 percent. The cloud of oblivion rises, and the time is coming soon when it will no longer be possible to hear directly from witnesses about their experiences.

So, what can those who have not seen with their own eyes do to preserve the memories of those who have? How do we ensure that witnesses continue to be heard? In the wake of unimaginable horrors — endless wars, the Holocaust, Chernobyl, Fukushima … not to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki — humankind has constantly confronted the problem of the continuity of memory. How do we inscribe within us things that happened long ago and far away that have no apparent connection to our lives, not simply as learned knowledge but exactly as though we had experienced them ourselves? How do we build a fragile bark to carry these memories safely to the far shore, to the minds of the next generation? One thing is certain: It is a task for which political and academic thinking and institutions are poorly suited, quite simply because the act of sharing the memories of another human being is fundamentally an irrational one.

So we appeal to the power of literature, a refuge we turn to when forced to confront contradictions that lie beyond reason or theory. Through the language of literature, we can finally come to empathize with the suffering of nameless and unknown others. Or, at very least, we can force ourselves to stare without flinching at the stupidity of those who have committed unforgivable errors and ask ourselves whether the shadow of this same folly lurks within us as well.

I myself have listened intently to the voices of those who lived during the era of Nazi Germany, by reading and rereading Anne Frank’s “Diary of a Young Girl,” Victor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning,” and Primo Levi’s “If This Is a Man.” From Frank, for example, I learned the invaluable truth that a human being can still grow and develop even when living in hiding. From Frankl’s observation that “the best of us did not return” from the concentration camps, I learned to feel the boundless suffering of those who survived and were forced to live on. And when, through these books, the connection was made between my existence here and now and that earlier time when I was not yet alive, I could feel my horizons expanding, a new field of vision opening.

Likewise, Japanese literature continues to tell the story of the atomic bombs. Bomb literature occupies a special place in every genre — fiction, poetry, drama, nonfiction. For example, anyone born in 1962, as I was, would be familiar with Miyoko Matsutani’s “Two Little Girls Called Iida,” the story of a magical talking chair that unites two girls across time in a house where the calendar is forever frozen on Aug. 6. Or, with one of the indispensable works of modern Japanese literature, Masuji Ibuse’s “Black Rain,” with its excruciating account of the aftermath of the bomb. Kenzaburo Oe, still in his 20s and barely embarked on his literary career, visited Hiroshima and gave us “Hiroshima Notes,” his report on the extraordinary human dignity of the bomb victims enduring the harsh reality of survivors. There is no end to similar examples.

But there is one novel so admired and avidly read, even today, that it is regularly included in school textbooks: Tamiki Hara’s “Summer Flowers.” A work by a bomb victim himself, it records the period and experience in precise detail.

Born in Hiroshima in 1905, Hara had been living in Tokyo, contributing fiction and poetry to literary magazines, when his wife died suddenly in 1944. In February 1945, he returned to his birthplace, exactly as though he’d “had a rendezvous with the tragedy that was coming to Hiroshima,” as he later wrote. On the morning of Aug. 6, he was at home in his windowless bathroom — a fact that possibly saved his life. Fortunate to have escaped serious injury, Hara spent the following days wandering the burning city and recording his experiences in his notebook, a record that later became “Summer Flowers.”

The novel begins two days before the bombing, as the protagonist pays a visit to his wife’s grave. He washes the stone and places summer flowers on it, finding the sight cool and refreshing. But this opening passage is haunted by sadness, a horrible premonition of the impossibility of accounting for the loss of his beloved wife and the innumerable corpses he will see a short time later.

The author’s description of the protagonist as he flees to the river for refuge is detailed and almost cold in tone. The language is concise, and words that might express sentiment are nowhere to be found. Horrors of the sort no human being had ever witnessed unfold one after the other before the narrator’s eyes, and he finds himself unable to express anything as vague as mere emotion.

Faces so swollen that it was impossible to tell whether they were men or women. Heads charred over with lumps like black beans. Voices crying out again and again for water. Children clutching hands together as they whispered faintly, “Mother … Father.” People prying fingernails from corpses or stripping off belts as keepsakes of the dead. The narrator describes a city filled with the stench of death: “In the vast, silvery emptiness, there were roads and rivers and bridges, and scattered here and there, raw and swollen corpses. A new hell, made real through some elaborate technology.”

When the atomic bomb snatched away all things human, it might have incinerated words themselves at the same time. Yet, led perhaps by the hand of providence, he tucked a notebook and a pencil in with his food and medicine. And what he wrote down in his notebook was not mere words. He created a symbol for something he had heard from the dead and dying that simply could not be expressed in words. Vestiges, scraps of evidence that these human beings who had slipped mutely away had, indeed, existed.

Having lost his wife to illness and then, in his solitude, encountered the atomic bomb, Hara’s creative work was constantly rooted in the silence of the dead. He was a writer, a poet, who stood in the public square, not to call out to his fellow man but to mutely endure the contradiction of putting into words the voiceless voices of those whose words had been taken from them.

Hara is the author of a short poem titled “This Is a Human Being,” a work that transcends bitterness and anger, seeking to gently capture the failing voice of someone who no longer appears human:

This is a human being. See how the atom bomb has changed it. The flesh is terribly bloated, men and women all taking the same shape. Ah! “Help me!” The quiet words of the voice that escapes the swollen lips in the festering face. This is a human being. This is a human face.

Reading it, we can’t help being reminded of “If This Is a Man,” by Primo Levi, chemist and concentration camp survivor. Right at the outset, Levi poses the question:

Consider if this is a man Who works in the mud Who does not know peace Who fights for a scrap of bread Who dies because of a yes or a no

I have no idea whether Levi and Hara were acquainted, but we can hear the resonance between their words. One asks whether this is a human being; the other answers that it is. In their work, we find the meeting of one man who struggles to preserve the quality of humanity and another who is determined not to lose sight of that same quality — a meeting of the minds that continues to reverberate into the future. In the world of literature, the most important truth can be portrayed in a simple, meaningless coincidence. With the help of literature, the words of the dead may be gathered and placed carefully aboard their small boat, to flow on to join the stream of reality.

A further coincidence: perhaps with the sense that they had accomplished their duty as survivors, or perhaps because the burden of living with the horrors of their pasts was too great, the two men took their own lives, Hara in 1951 and Levi in 1987 (some dispute that Levi’s death was a suicide).

As I write, I have in front of me Hiromi Tsuchida’s collection of photographs of bomb artifacts offered by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. I am struck by a picture of a lunchbox and canteen that belonged to a middle school student named Shigeru Orimen. His class had been mobilized for the war effort and was working in the city on the morning of Aug. 6. Shigeru was 500 meters from ground zero when the bomb fell. His mother discovered his body among the corpses piled on the river bank and recovered the lunchbox and canteen from his bag. She remembered he had left that morning saying how much he was looking forward to lunch, since she had made roasted soybean rice. The lunchbox was twisted out of shape, the lid cracked open, and the contents were no more than a lump of charcoal.

But, in fact, this tiny box contained something more important: the innocence of a young boy who had been full of anticipation for his simple lunch, and his mother’s love. Even when the last victim of the atomic bomb has passed away and this lunchbox is no more than a petrified relic, as long as there is still someone to hear the voice concealed within it, this memory will survive. The voices of the dead are eternal, because human beings possess the small boat — the language of literature — to carry them to the future.

Yoko Ogawa is the author of numerous books, including “The Memory Police,” a 2019 National Book Award finalist. Stephen Snyder is the Dean of Language Schools and Kawashima Professor of Japanese Studies at Middlebury College in Vermont.

51g. The Decision to Drop the Bomb

America had the bomb. Now what?

When Harry Truman learned of the success of the Manhattan Project, he knew he was faced with a decision of unprecedented gravity. The capacity to end the war with Japan was in his hands, but it would involve unleashing the most terrible weapon ever known.

American soldiers and civilians were weary from four years of war, yet the Japanese military was refusing to give up their fight. American forces occupied Okinawa and Iwo Jima and were intensely fire bombing Japanese cities. But Japan had an army of 2 million strong stationed in the home islands guarding against invasion.

For Truman, the choice whether or not to use the atomic bomb was the most difficult decision of his life.

First, an Allied demand for an immediate unconditional surrender was made to the leadership in Japan. Although the demand stated that refusal would result in total destruction, no mention of any new weapons of mass destruction was made. The Japanese military command rejected the request for unconditional surrender, but there were indications that a conditional surrender was possible.

Regardless, on August 6, 1945, a plane called the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima . Instantly, 70,000 Japanese citizens were vaporized. In the months and years that followed, an additional 100,000 perished from burns and radiation sickness.

Two days later, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. On August 9, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki , where 80,000 Japanese people perished.

On August 14, 1945, the Japanese surrendered.

Critics have charged that Truman's decision was a barbaric act that brought negative long-term consequences to the United States. A new age of nuclear terror led to a dangerous arms race.

Some military analysts insist that Japan was on its knees and the bombings were simply unnecessary. The American government was accused of racism on the grounds that such a device would never have been used against white civilians.

Other critics argued that American diplomats had ulterior motives. The Soviet Union had entered the war against Japan, and the atomic bomb could be read as a strong message for the Soviets to tread lightly. In this respect, Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have been the first shots of the Cold War as well as the final shots of World War II. Regardless, the United States remains the only nation in the world to have used a nuclear weapon on another nation.

Truman stated that his decision to drop the bomb was purely military. A Normandy-type amphibious landing would have cost an estimated million casualties. Truman believed that the bombs saved Japanese lives as well. Prolonging the war was not an option for the President. Over 3,500 Japanese kamikaze raids had already wrought great destruction and loss of American lives.

The President rejected a demonstration of the atomic bomb to the Japanese leadership. He knew there was no guarantee the Japanese would surrender if the test succeeded, and he felt that a failed demonstration would be worse than none at all. Even the scientific community failed to foresee the awful effects of radiation sickness . Truman saw little difference between atomic bombing Hiroshima and fire bombing Dresden or Tokyo.

The ethical debate over the decision to drop the atomic bomb will never be resolved. The bombs did, however, bring an end to the most destructive war in history. The Manhattan Project that produced it demonstrated the possibility of how a nation's resources could be mobilized.

Pandora's box was now open. The question that came flying out was, "How will the world use its nuclear capability?" It is a question still being addressed on a daily basis.

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After The Bomb

Survivors of the Atomic Blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki share their stories

Photographs by HARUKA SAKAGUCHI | Introduction By LILY ROTHMAN

When the nuclear age began, there was no mistaking it. The decision by the United States to drop the world’s first atomic weapons on two Japanese cities—Hiroshima first, on Aug. 6, 1945, and Nagasaki three days later—was that rare historical moment that requires little hindsight to gain its significance. World War II would end, and the Cold War soon begin. New frontiers of science were opening, along with new and frightening moral questions. As TIME noted in the week following the bombings, the men aboard the Enola Gay could only summon two words: “My God!”

But, even as world leaders and ordinary citizens alike immediately began struggling to process the metaphorical aftershocks, one specific set of people had to face something else. For the survivors of those ruined cities, the coming of the bomb was a personal event before it was a global one. Amid the death and destruction, some combination of luck or destiny or smarts saved them—and therefore saved the voices that can still tell the world what it looks like when human beings find new and terrible ways to destroy one another.

Today, photographer Haruka Sakaguchi is seeking out those individuals, asking them to give a testimony about what they lived through and to write a message to future generations. As the anniversaries of the bombings approach once again, here is a selection of that work.

Yasujiro Tanaka age: 75 / location: nagasaki / DISTANCE from hypocenter: 3.4 km

TRANSLATION

“You are only given One life, So cherish this moment Cherish this day, Be kind to others, Be kind to yourself”

“I was three years old at the time of the bombing. I don’t remember much, but I do recall that my surroundings turned blindingly white, like a million camera flashes going off at once.

Then, pitch darkness.

I was buried alive under the house, I’ve been told. When my uncle finally found me and pulled my tiny three year old body out from under the debris, I was unconscious. My face was misshapen. He was certain that I was dead.

Thankfully, I survived. But since that day, mysterious scabs began to form all over my body. I lost hearing in my left ear, probably due to the air blast. More than a decade after the bombing, my mother began to notice glass shards growing out of her skin – debris from the day of the bombing, presumably. My younger sister suffers from chronic muscle cramps to this day, on top of kidney issues that has her on dialysis three times a week. ‘What did I do to the Americans?’ she would often say, ‘Why did they do this to me?’

I have seen a lot of pain in my long years, but truthfully, I have lived a good life. As a firsthand witness to this atrocity, my only desire is to live a full life, hopefully in a world where people are kind to each other, and to themselves.”

Sachiko Matsuo 83 / Nagasaki / 1.3 km

“Peace is our number one priority.”

“American B-29 bombers dropped leaflets all over the city, warning us that Nagasaki would ‘fall to ashes’ on August 8. The leaflets were confiscated immediately by the kenpei (Imperial Japanese Army). My father somehow got a hold of one, and believed what it said. He built us a little barrack up along the Iwayasan (a local mountain) to hide out in.

We went up there on the 7th, the 8th. The trail up to the barrack was rugged and steep. With several children and seniors in tow, it was a demanding trek. On the morning of the 9th, my mother and aunt opted for staying in the house. “Go back up to the barrack,” my father demanded. “The US is a day behind, remember?” When they opposed, he got very upset and stormed out to go to work.

We changed our minds and decided to hide out in the barrack, for one more day. That was a defining moment for us. At 11:02am that morning, the atomic bomb was dropped. Our family – those of us at the barrack, at least – survived the bomb.

We were later able to reunite with my father. However, he soon came down with diarrhea and a high fever. His hair began to fall out and dark spots formed on his skin. My father passed away – suffering greatly – on August 28.

If it weren’t for my father, we may have suffered severe burns like Aunt Otoku, or gone missing like Atsushi, or been lodged under the house and slowly burned to death. Fifty years later, I had a dream about my father for the first time since his death. He was wearing a kimono and smiling, ever so slightly. Although we did not exchange words, I knew at that moment that he was safe in heaven.”

Takato Michishita 78 / Nagasaki / 4.7 km

“Dear young people who have never experienced war,

‘Wars begin covertly. If you sense it coming, it may be too late.’

Within the Japanese Constitution you will find Article 9, the international peace clause. For the past 72 years, we have not maimed or been maimed by a single human being in the context of war. We have flourished as a peaceful nation.

Japan is the only nation that has experienced a nuclear attack. We must assert, with far more urgency, that nuclear weapons cannot coexist with mankind.

The current administration is slowly leading our nation to war, I’m afraid. At the ripe age of 78, I have taken it upon myself to speak out against nuclear proliferation. Now is not the time to stand idly by.

Average citizens are the primary victims of war, always. Dear young people who have never experienced the horrors of war – I fear that some of you may be taking this hard-earned peace for granted.

I pray for world peace. Furthermore, I pray that not a single Japanese citizen falls victim to the clutches of war, ever again. I pray, with all of my heart.

“‘Don’t go to school today,’ my mother said. ‘Why?’ my sister asked.

‘Just don’t.’

Air raid alarms went off regularly back then. On August 9, however, there were no air raid alarms. It was an unusually quiet summer morning, with clear blue skies as far as the eye can see. It was on this peculiar day that my mother insisted that my older sister skip school. She said she had a ‘bad feeling.’ This had never happened before.

My sister begrudgingly stayed home, while my mother and I, aged 6, went grocery shopping. Every- one was out on their verandas, enjoying the absence of piercing warning signals. Suddenly, an old man yelled ‘Plane!’ Everyone scurried into their homemade bomb shelters. My mother and I escaped into a nearby shop. As the ground began to rumble, she quickly tore off the tatami flooring, tucked me under it and hovered over me on all fours.

Everything turned white. We were too stunned to move, for about 10 minutes. When we finally crawled out from under the tatami mat, there was glass everywhere, and tiny bits of dust and debris floating in the air. The once clear blue sky had turned into an inky shade of purple and grey. We rushed home and found my sister – she was shell-shocked, but fine.

Later, we discovered that the bomb was dropped a few meters away from my sister’s school. Every person at her school died. My mother singlehandedly saved both me and my sister that day.”

Shigeko Matsumoto 77 / Nagasaki / 800 m

“I pray that every human being finds peace. Matsumoto Shigeko”

“There were no air raid alarms on the morning of August 9, 1945. We had been hiding out in the local bomb shelter for several days, but one by one, people started to head home. My siblings and I played in front of the bomb shelter entrance, waiting to be picked up by our grandfather.

Then, at 11:02am, the sky turned bright white. My siblings and I were knocked off our feet and violently slammed back into the bomb shelter. We had no idea what had happened.

As we sat there shell-shocked and confused, heavily injured burn victims came stumbling into the bomb shelter en masse. Their skin had peeled off their bodies and faces and hung limply down on the ground, in ribbons. Their hair was burnt down to a few measly centimeters from the scalp. Many of the victims collapsed as soon as they reached the bomb shelter entrance, forming a massive pile of contorted bodies. The stench and heat were unbearable.

My siblings and I were trapped in there for three days.

Finally, my grandfather found us and we made our way back to our home. I will never forget the hellscape that awaited us. Half burnt bodies lay stiff on the ground, eye balls gleaming from their sockets. Cattle lay dead along the side of the road, their abdomens grotesquely large and swollen. Thousands of bodies bopped up and down the river, bloated and purplish from soak- ing up the water. ‘Wait! Wait!’ I pleaded, as my grandfather treaded a couple paces ahead of me. I was terrified of being left behind.”

Yoshiro Yamawaki 83 / Nagasaki / 2.2 km

“‘The atom bomb killed victims three times,’ a college professor once said. Indeed, the nuclear blast has three components – heat, pressure wave, and radiation – and was unprecedented in its ability to kill en masse.

The bomb, which detonated 500m above ground level, created a bolide 200-250m in diameter and implicated tens of thousands of homes and families underneath. The pressure wave created a draft up to 70m/sec – twice that of a typhoon – which instantly destroyed homes 2km in radius from the hypo- center. The radiation continues to affect survivors to this day, who struggle with cancer and other debilitating diseases.

I was 11 years old when the bomb was dropped, 2km from where I lived. In recent years, I have been diagnosed with stomach cancer, and have undergone surgery in 2008 and 2010. The atomic bomb has also implicated our children and grandchildren.

One can understand the horrors of nuclear warfare by visiting the atomic bomb museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, listening to first-hand accounts of hi- bakusha survivors, and reading archival documents from that period.

Nuclear weapons should, under no circumstances, be used against humans. However, nuclear powers such as the US and Russia own stockpiles of well over 15,000 nuclear weapons. Not only that, technological advances have given way to a new kind of bomb that can deliver a blast over 1,000 times that of the Hiroshima bombing.

Weapons of this capacity must be abolished from the earth. However, in our current political climate we struggle to come to a consensus, and have yet to implement a ban on nuclear weapons. This is largely because nuclear powers are boycotting the agreement.

I have resigned to the fact that nuclear weapons will not be abolished during the lifetime of us first generation hibakusha survivors. I pray that younger generations will come together to work toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

“One incident I will never forget is cremating my father. My brothers and I gently laid his blackened, swollen body atop a burnt beam in front of the factory where we found him dead and set him alight. His ankles jutted out awkwardly as the rest of his body was engulfed in flames.

When we returned the next morning to collect his ashes, we discovered that his body had been partially cremated. Only his wrists, ankles, and part of his gut were burnt properly. The rest of his body lay raw and decomposed. I could not bear to see my father like this. ‘We have to leave him here,’ I urged my brothers. Finally, my oldest brother gave in, suggesting that we take a piece of his skull – based on a common practice in Japanese funerals in which family members pass around a tiny piece of the skull with chopsticks after cremation – and leave him be.

As soon as our chopsticks touched the surface, however, the skull cracked open like plaster and his half cremated brain spilled out. My brothers and I screamed and ran away, leaving our father behind. We abandoned him, in the worst state possible.”

Emiko Okada 80 / hiroshima / 2.8 km

“War is one of two things: either you kill, or get killed.

Many children are victimized by poverty, malnutrition, and discrimination to this day.

I once encountered an infant who died of hypothermia. In its mouth was a small pebble.

Children are our greatest blessing.

I believe that grownups are responsible for war. Emiko Okada”

“Hiroshima is known as a ‘city of yakuza.’ Why do you think that is? Thousands of children were orphaned on August 6, 1945. Without parents, these young children had to fend for themselves. They stole to get by. They were taken in by the wrong adults. They were later bought and sold by said adults. Orphans who grew up in Hiroshima harbor a special hatred for grownups.

I was eight when the bomb dropped. My older sister was 12. She left early that morning to work on a tatemono sokai (building demolition) site and never came home. My parents searched for her for months and months. They never found her remains. My parents refused to send an obituary notice until the day that they died, in hopes that she was healthy and alive somewhere, somehow.

I too was affected by the radiation and vomited profusely after the bomb attack. My hair fell out, my gums bled, and I was too ill to attend school. My grandmother lamented the suffering of her children and grandchildren and prayed. “How cruel, how so very cruel, if only it weren’t for the pika-don (phonetic name for the atomic bomb)…” This was a stock phrase of hers until the day that she died.

The war was caused by the selfish misdeeds of adults. Many children fell victim because of it. Alas, this is still the case today. Us adults must do everything we can to protect the lives and dignity of our children. Children are our greatest blessing.”

Masakatsu Obata 99 / nagasaki / 1.5 km

“I often think that humans go into war to satisfy their greed. If we rid ourselves of greed and help each other instead, I believe that we will be able to coexist without war. I hope to live on with everyone else, informed by this logic.

This is just a thought of mine – each person has differing thoughts and ideologies, which is what makes things challenging.”

“I was working at the Mitsubishi factory on the morning of August 9. An alert warning went off. ‘I wonder if there will be another air raid today,’ a coworker pondered. Just then, the alert warning turned into an air raid warning.

I decided to stay inside the factory. The air raid warning eventually subsided. It must have been around 11. I started to look forward to the baked potato that I had brought for lunch that day, when suddenly, I was surrounded by a blinding light. I immediately dropped on my stomach. The slated roof and walls of the factory crumbled and fell on top of my bare back. ‘I’m going to die,’ I thought. I longed for my wife and daughter, who was only several months old.

I rose to my feet some moments later. The roof had been completely blown off our building. I peered up at the sky. The walls were also destroyed – as were the houses that surrounded the factory – revealing a dead open space. The factory motor had stopped running. It was eerily quiet. I immediately headed to a nearby air raid shelter.

There, I encountered a coworker who had been exposed to the bomb outside of the factory. His face and body were swollen, about one and a half times the size. His skin was melted off, exposing his raw flesh. He was helping out a group of young students at the air raid shelter.

‘Do I look alright?’ he asked me. I didn’t have the heart to answer. ‘You look quite swollen,’ were the only words I could muster. The coworker died three days later, or so I’ve heard.”

Kumiko Arakawa 92 / nagasaki / 2.9 km

Ms. Arakawa has very little recollection of how she survived the bombing after August 9, having lost both of her parents and four siblings to the atomic bomb attack. When asked to write a message for future generations, she replied, “Nani mo omoitsukanai (I can’t think of anything).”

“I was 20 years old when the bomb was dropped. I lived in Sakamotomachi – 500m from the hypocenter – with my parents and eight siblings. As the war situation intensified, my three youngest sisters were sent off to the outskirts and my younger brother headed to Saga to serve in the military.

I worked at the prefectural office. As of April of 1945, our branch temporarily relocated to a local school campus 2.9km away from the hypocenter because our main office was beside a wood building (author’s note: flammable in case of an air strike). On the morning of August 9, several friends and I went up to the rooftop to look out over the city after a brief air raid. As I peered up, I saw something long and thin fall from the sky. At that moment, the sky turned bright and my friends and I ducked into a nearby stairwell.

After a while, when the commotion subsided, we headed to the park for safety. Upon hearing that Sakamotoma- chi was inaccessible due to fires, I decided to stay with a friend in Oura. As I headed back home the next day, an acquaintance informed me that my parents were at an air raid shelter nearby. I headed over and found both of them suffering severe burns. They died, two days later.

My older sister was killed by the initial blast, at home. My two younger sisters were injured heavily and died within a day of the bombing. My other sister was found dead at the foyer of our house. There are countless tombstones all over Nagasaki with a name inscription but no ikotsu (cremated bone remains). I take solace in the fact that all six members of my family have ikotsu and rest together peacefully.

At age 20, I was suddenly required to support my surviving family members. I have no recollection of how I put my younger sisters through school, who we relied on, how we survived. Some people have asked me what I saw on my way home the day after the bombing, on August 10 – ‘surely you saw many dead bodies,’ they would say – but I don’t recall seeing a single corpse. It sounds strange, I’m sure – but it is the truth.

I am now 92 years old. I pray everyday that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren spend their entire lives knowing only peace.”

Fujio Torikoshi 86 / hiroshima / 2 KM

“Life is a curious treasure.”

“On the morning of August 6, I was preparing to go to the hospital with my mother. I had been diagnosed with kakke (vitamin deficiency) a few days earlier and had taken the day off school to get a medical exam. As my mother and I were eating breakfast, I heard the deep rumble of engines overhead. Our ears were trained back then; I knew it was a B-29 immediately. I stepped out into the field out front but saw no planes.

Bewildered, I glanced to the northeast. I saw a black dot in the sky. Suddenly, it ‘burst’ into a ball of blinding light that filled my surroundings. A gust of hot wind hit my face; I instantly closed my eyes and knelt down to the ground. As I tried to gain footing, another gust of wind lifted me up and I hit something hard. I do not remember what happened after that.

When I finally came to, I was passed out in front of a bouka suisou (stone water container used to extinguish fires back then). Suddenly, I felt an intense burning sensation on my face and arms, and tried to dunk my body into the bouka suisou. The water made it worse. I heard my mother’s voice in the distance. ‘Fujio! Fujio!’ I clung to her desperately as she scooped me up in her arms. ‘It burns, mama! It burns!’

I drifted in and out of consciousness for the next few days. My face swelled up so badly that I could not open my eyes. I was treated briefly at an air raid shelter and later at a hospital in Hatsukaichi, and was eventually brought home wrapped in bandages all over my body. I was unconscious for the next few days, fighting a high fever. I finally woke up to a stream of light filtering in through the bandages over my eyes and my mother sitting beside me, playing a lullaby on her harmonica.

I was told that I had until about age 20 to live. Yet here I am seven decades later, aged 86. All I want to do is forget, but the prominent keloid scar on my neck is a daily reminder of the atomic bomb. We cannot continue to sacrifice precious lives to warfare. All I can do is pray – earnestly, relentlessly – for world peace.”

Inosuke Hayasaki 86 / nagasaki / 1.1 km

“I am very thankful for the opportunity to meet with you and speak with you about world peace and the implications of the atom bomb.

I, Hayasaki, have been deeply indebted to the Heiwasuishinkyokai for arranging this meeting, amongst many other things. You have traveled far from the US – how long and arduous your journey must have been. Seventy two years have passed since the bombing – alas, young people of this generation have forgotten the tragedies of war and many pay no mind to the Peace Bell of Nagasaki. Perhaps this is for the better, an indication that the current generation revels in peace. Still, whenever I see people of my own generation join their hands before the Peace Bell, my thoughts go out to them.

May the citizens of Nagasaki never forget the day when 74,000 people were instantaneously turned into dust. Currently, it seems Americans have a stronger desire for peace than us Japanese. During the war, we were told that the greatest honor was to die for our country and be laid to rest at the Yasukuni Shrine.

We were told that we should not cry but rejoice when family members died in the war effort. We could not utter a single word of defiance to these cruel and merciless demands; we had no freedoms. In addition, the entire country was starving – not a single treat or needle to be seen at the department store. A young child may beg his mother for a snack but she could do nothing – can you imagine how tormenting that is to a mother?

“The injured were sprawled out over the railroad tracks, scorched and black. When I walked by, they moaned in agony. ‘Water… water…’

I heard a man in passing announce that giving water to the burn victims would kill them. I was torn. I knew that these people had hours, if not minutes, to live. These burn victims – they were no longer of this world.

‘Water… water…’

I decided to look for a water source. Luckily, I found a futon nearby engulfed in flames. I tore a piece of it off, dipped it in the rice paddy nearby, and wrang it over the burn victims’ mouths. There were about 40 of them. I went back and forth, from the rice paddy to the railroad tracks. They drank the muddy water eagerly. Among them was my dear friend Yamada. ‘Yama- da! Yamada!’ I exclaimed, giddy to see a familiar face. I placed my hand on his chest. His skin slid right off, exposing his flesh. I was mortified. ‘Water…’ he murmured. I wrang the water over his mouth. Five minutes later, he was dead.

In fact, most of the people I tended to were dead.

I cannot help but think that I killed those burn victims. What if I hadn’t given them water? Would many of them have lived? I think about this everyday.”

We would not be where we are today if it weren’t for the countless lives that

were lost due to the bombing, and the many survivors who have lived in pain and struggle since. We cannot shatter this momentum of peace – it is priceless. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died under the insurmountable greed of the Japanese military elite class. We cannot forget those young soldiers who silently longed for their parents, yearned for their wives and children as they passed away amidst the chaos of war. American soldiers have faced similar hardships. We must cherish peace, even if it leaves us poor. The smile pales when peace is taken from us. Wars of today no longer yield winners and losers – we all become losers, as our habitats become inhabitable. We must remember that our happiness today is built upon the hopes and dreams of those that passed before us.

Japan is a phenomenal country – however, we must be cognizant of the fact that we waged war on the US, and received aid from them afterwards. We must be cognizant of the pain that we inflicted upon our neighbors during the war. Fa- vors and good deeds are often forgotten, but trauma and misdeeds are passed on from one generation to the other – such is the way the world works. The ability to live in peace is a country’s most prized commodity. I pray that Japan continues to be a shining example of peace and harmony. I pray that this message resonates with young people all over the globe. Please excuse my handwriting.

Ryouga Suwa 84 / hiroshima / entered the affected area after the bombing and was exposed to radiation

“Within the Buddhist vernacular, there is a bird called the gumyouchou. This bird has one body and two heads. Even if two entities have differing ideologies or philosophies, their lives are bound together by a single form – this is a Buddhist principle manifested in the form of a bird.

It would be ideal if we could all cultivate in us the ability to dignify each other instead of getting upset over our differences.”

“I am the 16th generation chief priest of Johoji Temple in Otemachi. The original Johoji Temple was within 500m of the hypocenter. It was instantly destroyed, along with the 1300 households that used to make up the area that is now called Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. My parents remain missing to this day and my sister Reiko was pronounced dead.

I, on the other hand, was evacuated in Miyoshi-shi, 50km away from the hypocenter. I am what you would call a genbaku-koji (atomic bomb orphan). I was 12 years old at the time. When I returned to Hiroshima on September 16 – one month and 10 days after the bomb attack – what remained of the property was a cluster of overturned tombstones from the temple cemetery. Hiroshima was a flat wasteland. I remember feeling shocked that I could make out the Setonai Islands in the distance, which used to be inhibited by buildings.

In 1951, the temple was relocated to its current address. The new Johoji was rebuilt by the hands of our supporters and thrived along with the eventual revival of Hiroshima City. We practice an anti-war and anti-nuclear weapons philosophy here and have partnered with the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park every year to coordinate lectures and events and pursue hibaku building restoration projects.”

Haruka Sakaguchi is a photographer based in New york City

Paul Moakley , who edited this photo essay, is time ‘s Deputy Director of Photography

Lily Rothman is time ‘s History and Archives Editor

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From Harlem to Hiroshima: African Americans and the bomb, 1945--1988

From Harlem to Hiroshima examines the African American community's response to the nuclear threat. Beginning with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this dissertation explores the shifting response of black leaders and organizations, and of the broader African American public to the evolving nuclear arms race and general nuclear threat throughout the postwar period. Because of the understandable focus on African Americans' unique oppression, historians have often entirely ignored them when addressing other important issues, such as the nuclear threat that imperils all human beings. This omission comes despite the fact that African Americans, as part of the larger human community, have as great a stake as any other group of American citizens. In fact, given the increasing urban concentration of African Americans, they face a greater risk when it comes to nuclear war and terrorism than do most Americans. Since 1945, black leaders consistently fought for nuclear disarmament, often connecting the nuclear issue with the black freedom struggle in America and liberation movements around the world. They advocated nuclear disarmament, even when it was abandoned by other groups during the McCarthy era, allowing the fight to abolish nuclear weapons to reemerge powerfully in the 1970s and beyond. Black leaders never gave the nuclear issue up or failed to see its importance. And opposition to the bomb kept a host of other interrelated issues on the front burner.

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USC Film School's Vice Dean Akira Mizuta Lippit On Reaction To ‘Oppenheimer' In Japan & How Release Uncertainty Became Inseparable From Film's Content; Then Box Office Surged – Guest Column

Editor's note:  When Christopher Nolan's eventual Best Picture Oscar winner  Oppenheimer  began its global rollout last summer, a question mark hung over whether it would ever see the inside of a cinema in Japan, given the sensitive subject matter. Ultimately, the film released there eight months later, swiftly becoming the top-grossing Hollywood title of the year and continuing to hold that position (now at $11.6M). Nine weeks in, it is still playing on more than half of the market's Imax screens, and in local currency (¥1.774B) is Nolan's fourth-highest-grossing picture ever there. 

USC School of Cinematic Arts Vice Dean of Faculty Akira Mizuta Lippit has shared with Deadline his thoughts on the pre- and post-release reactions to the film in the market. Lippit - who is Japanese on his mother's side and Jewish on his father's - says the stakes of Oppenheimer  and its reception couldn't have been higher since the film forges a point of contact between those two cultures and ethnicities.

Here’s Lippit’s take:

During a recent trip to Tokyo, a cab driver overheard this author discussing the Japanese reception to  Oppenheimer . Upon arrival to our destination, he turned to say, "I saw  Oppenheimer  three times in Imax. I love Christopher Nolan." 

This particular taxi driver is not alone in Japan in being "maniakku" (maniac), a term often used to refer to Japanese cinephiles. In fact, many have flocked to Imax screenings of the film, and some have traveled abroad to see screenings of Nolan's own preferred format of 70mm. According to film scholar Wakae Nakane, a new term, "Moppenheimer," has entered circulation, referring to those who see the film multiple times.

Among the various aftershocks of "Barbenheimer" was the uncertainty of when, if ever,  Oppenheimer  might be released in Japan. Unlike any other foreign market, Japan was, after all, already inscribed in the film as its destination, its epilogue. Barbie  opened in Japanese theaters on August 11, but no release date was announced for  Oppenheimer  until January 2024. 

August would not have been the time to release  Oppenheimer  in Japan. The 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima, then Nagasaki, on August 6 and 9, respectively, followed by the end of the war after Japan's surrender on August 15 that year, would have seemed insensitive at the very least, and might have been seen by some as provocative. But the delay in scheduling and announcing a release date for  Oppenheimer  in Japan, and the possibility that the film might never be released in Japan, became its own story.

Previous films about Japan, good and bad, some offensive or ignorant, have nonetheless enjoyed box office success in Japan. Michael Bay's  Pearl Harbor  (2001), marketed as a love story, was embraced by Japanese audiences, as was Edward Zwick's speculative fiction,  The Last Samurai  (2004), among many others. Rob Marshall's  Memoirs of a Geisha  (2005), a little less so, but for different reasons. Japan, it seems, is used to being misrepresented and understands that the Japan reflected in Hollywood films is often an imagined and even imaginary Japan.

In contrast to those examples, which take extensive liberties with subject matter and history,  Oppenheimer  laid claim to historical accuracy. This was a serious film, and as such, fell into a different category from many of the Orientalist fantasies that have marked Hollywood's incursion into Asia generally, Japan specifically.

Still, the very question of a theatrical release took on symbolic value in its absence, exacerbating the question of whether  Oppenheimer  did enough to address the consequences of developing and deploying atomic weapons. The meme-driven Barbenheimer  campaign, depicting Margot Robbie and Cillian Murphy set against a mushroom cloud didn't help matters.

The delay and uncertainty regarding the release of  Oppenheimer  eventually became inseparable from the content of the film itself.  Oppenheimer  the film became a narrative about its deferred release; the film had become radioactive. When the release date of the film was finally announced, it was as if the film itself had become its own sequel.

For the Japan release of  Oppenheimer , Universal partnered with Bitters End with whom it works on more specialty titles. The film opened with a disclaimer warning viewers about scenes of atomic testing.

Responses were mixed. Activist groups had mobilized in advance to denounce the elision of Japan and the effects of the atomic bombings. Former Hiroshima mayor Takashi Hiraoka criticized the film's omission of the depiction of the bombings. 

Still, others lauded the film as a step forward: the United States, and Hollywood in particular, was finally willing to portray the moral struggles and conflicted conscience of the man known as the "father of the atom bomb." Some viewers forgave the film for its omission of Japan, noting that it was about the man and not a history of atomic weapons and their use on civilian populations in Japan.

Nolan himself was active in  Oppenheimer 's release, participating in various forums to discuss the film, its objectives, scope and the rationale for any exclusions. He endorsed the idea, proposed by  Godzilla Minus One  director Takashi Yamazaki, that Japan should respond to  Oppenheimer  with a film of its own about the creation and use of the atom bomb from its perspective.

Strangely, and contrary to the political outcry reported extensively in the U.S.,  Oppenheimer  has done very well in Japan and its box office has propelled the film to become Nolan's most successful ever abroad.

Still, the central question regarding the film remains whether it excludes Japan, which is to say whether Japan is missing from the place where it should be in  Oppenheimer . And how to determine this? After all, the epilogue or postscript to the Manhattan Project is that the atom bomb was swiftly deployed on August 6 and 9, 1945. How could Japan not be part of the story?

Film scholar Ryan Williams has presented a brilliant analysis of one scene of the film in which Robert Oppenheimer is unable to look at a documentary film about the effects of atomic radiation on human bodies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The camera rests on Oppenheimer as he averts his gaze from the screen. The audience hears the film's narrator describe these gruesome effects offscreen. Never does the audience see the documentary, nor is Oppenheimer able to bear those scenes of human devastation. Instead, one sees Oppenheimer's reaction, his revulsion, perhaps, his feelings of guilt and shame. One sees Oppenheimer's own inability or refusal to see what the consequence of his creation were.

Where is Japan at this moment, Williams asks. Offscreen, elsewhere, framed both within and without the film's diegesis. Is this an excision of Japan from the film? Is the person Robert Oppenheimer synonymous here with the eponymous film?  This is where the film reaches its moral or political climax. What if the film excludes Japan because Oppenheimer himself does? And, what about the inclusion of a scene in which Oppenheimer is unable to face the effects of his creation, the very inclusion of the annihilation of Japan?

What is missing in this scene is the image. This film,  Oppenheimer , which imagines so much, which puts so much into images, is unable at this moment, to imagine Japan. To imagine the infernal hell-scape. Despite Nolan's directorial majesty, Hoyte Van Hoytema's exceptional cinematography, and the world's most advanced VFX, the destruction of Japan by atomic weapons remains in the film and elsewhere  unimaginable .

Perhaps there are no possible images of this destruction. And, perhaps the absence of images, as opposed to the endless fantasies of an imaginary Japan, is the only possible response to the atomic age that J. Robert Oppenheimer and Christopher Nolan's  Oppenheimer  reveal. Such revelation exposes nothing, because  there is nothing to see . This blinding flash - revealing not only nothing, but nothingness itself - is in the end the atomic apocalypse.

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• ‘Oppenheimer' Opens In Japan Amid Reports Of Praise Mixed With Discomfort: Reactions
• ‘Oppenheimer' Director Christopher Nolan And Star Cillian Murphy On The Slow Fuse That Led To Their Big Bang At The Box Office