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. Of course, the Allies ignored this for the reason that dropping the atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would intimidate Russia. The proposal has been characterized as the most comprehensive attempt by any American policymaker to leverage diplomacy in order to shorten the Pacific War. (Photo from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-BT), This shows "Little Boy" being raised for loading into the Enola Gay's bomb bay. [50]. [17], Scientists and officers held further discussion of bombing mission requirements, including height of detonation, weather, radiation effects (Oppenheimers 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. RG 218, Central Decimal Files, 1943-1945, CCS 381 (6-4-45), Sec. See Janet Farrell Brodie, Radiation Secrecy and Censorship after Hiroshima and Nagasaki,The Journal of Social History48 (2015): 842-864. 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. Tsar Bomba, (Russian: "King of Bombs") , byname of RDS-220, also called Big Ivan, Soviet thermonuclear bomb that was detonated in a test over Novaya Zemlya island in the Arctic Ocean on October 30, 1961. Upon becoming president, Harry Truman learned of the Manhattan Project, a secret scientific effort to create an atomic bomb. Thanks to Alex Wellerstein for the suggestion and the archival link. 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. Some historians believe President Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb in order to intimidate the Soviet Union whereas others believe it was a strictly military measure designed to force Japan's unconditional surrender. [9], RG 77, Correspondence ("Top Secret") of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946, file 25M. 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. On July 16, the first atom bomb was tested successfully at Alamogordo, N.M. On July 17, Truman sat down to talk with Stalin.
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