Cousins:
Well, my first awareness came in picking up a copy of the
New York Times, and I stared at the headline. I must have read the headline
4 or 5 times before I went on to the news story. It was a
tremendous shock. I don't think I felt elation. The big question that
occurred to me was...How is it that we didn't demonstrate the power of
the bomb before using it on human beings? That was my...dumb impression.
That afternoon I spoke at the Waldorf Astoria before a group of businessmen
-- Found them all in a state of great elation over this. And I raised that
question. I...I remember saying to them, Yes, the war is drawing to an
end, but I'm not sure that it was necessary to kill 100,000 or more human
beings in order to bring this about. And then in the...months and
years after the bomb, the bits and pieces began to come in about the
decision to drop the bomb. Things that had not been told to the American
people. One thing for example that had not been shared with the American
people was that...the United States was racing against a deadline with
respect to ending the war. And that...a test demonstration would have
used up valuable time. Well, what do we mean when we say, valuable time and
what is the deadline? The United States and Soviet Union had agreed
that the Soviet Union would come into the war on August the 15th, 1945.
This had been agreed at Yalta where the date that had been set at that
time was August 8th, 1945. But... at the time that date was set, which
was at Yalta, Germany had not been defeated. Roosevelt was still alive.
Then when President Truman went to Potsdam in Germany to meet with
Premier Stalin the firm date...was fixed as August the 15th, 1945.
But once we discovered, and this was on July the 16th while...from the
period of July the 16th through the 25th while Truman was at Potsdam at the
approximate period at the end of the last 2 weeks in July. When Truman got
word that the United States had successfully tested an atomic bomb at
Alamogordo, suddenly things changed. Because now, we recognized that it
would be possible to finish off Japan without the assistance of the Soviet
Union. Now this may...the decision may have been justified. My point is that
the American people were not told exactly what the situation was. We were
given the impression that the bomb was necessary in order for it to avoid an
invasion. We were not told that the reason for dropping the bomb was that
we, having persuaded the Soviet Union to come into the war, we now
discovered a way of ending a war without the help of the Soviet Union.
I...I have been looking at the actual documents and there's some
very interesting... There's some very... We got some very interesting
material here which demonstrates that the bomb was not necessary to win the
war. For example, Truman's own journal which...was lost...as a
matter of fact for a number of years because Charles Ross, the Presidential
secretary had borrowed...the papers and hadn't returned them. And so...
they were missing. But they finally turned up. And in these papers we read
from Truman's journal that...We read that Truman kept pressing Stalin for
his specific plans on entering the war. But then...and in fact the moment
that he had this unequivocal assurance, he wrote in his diary...on July
the 17th. He said, "Most of the big points are settled." reporting his
conversation with Stalin. "He'll be in the Jap war on August the 15th. Japan
is finished when that comes about." Then the next day he wrote in his diary
that he believed that Japan would fold just when it learned... at the point
when it learned that the Soviet Union would come into the war. So there's no
question about the fact that Truman believed that the war was going to end
very soon. And that just the fact that the Soviet Union was coming into the
war would be enough to get Japan to pull out. But now we...we find some
other entries here. Incidentally we find that in his entry of July
18th, 1945, the President gave additional evidence that Japan was ready to
quit the war because he said that he'd received from Stalin a copy of a
document...in which the attempt of the Soviet... the attempt of Japan to
seek peace terms was revealed. Since the Soviet Union was not then at war
with Japan, Japan wanted Moscow to use its good offices with Washington to
ask for peace terms. Stalin gave Truman at Potsdam the cablegram, the
actual cablegram, in which on the authority of the Emperor the Soviet
Union was asked to inquire about peace terms. So it is not true to say,
and this is the impression that President Truman gave the American people,
that Japan was resolute on keeping... on continuing the war. And that only an
invasion could have brought about Japan's defeat. Well, we have some
additional information here. First that on hearing the news that the United
States had an atomic bomb, President Truman wrote in his diary that the
United States had an obligation to issue a warning about the existence of
the bomb. His actual words were: "Even if the Japs are savage, ruthless,
merciless and fanatic," he wrote, "We as the leader of the world for the
common welfare cannot drop the terrible bomb on the old capital anew." And
then he wrote that he had issued...an order for a warning to Japan about
the bomb asking them to surrender and save lives. Well, this was not done.
Why was this not done? It was not done...because of the fact as I said
that they wanted to get the war over with before the Soviet Union came in. A
warning would have used up time. A test demonstration would have used up
time. Now here we have James F. Byrnes, his testimony. Byrnes was Secretary of
State under Truman. He accompanied Truman to Potsdam. In an interview he
gave on August the 15th... to US News and World Report, he answered a
question. The question was: Did we want to drop the bomb as soon as possible
in order to finish the war before Russia came in? Byrnes replied, "Of course
we were anxious to get the war over as soon as possible." But this was a
rather equivocal answer and so the interviewer persisted, "Was there a
feeling of urgency to end the war in the Pacific before the Russians became
too involved?" Now at this point, Byrnes was unambiguous. Quote: "We wanted
to get through the Japanese phase of the war before the Russians came in."
close quote. Now this was amplified in the diaries of James Forestall…in
which... Who was then the Secretary of the Navy. In his...diaries he
wrote, "I talked with Byrnes now at Potsdam. Byrnes said he was most eager to
get the Japanese affair over with before the Russians came in." Close quote.
Now we come to Leo Szilard the...famous physicist who was one of the
prime...scientific figures in the development of the bomb. He had some
conversations with Secretary Byrnes. And he repeated the same points that
Byrnes had told US News and World Report. And then he added that he, Szilard,
was told by Secretary Byrnes that he and President Truman, Byrnes and Truman
believed the use of the bomb on a live target before the war was over was
necessary to make an impression on the Russians and to make them more
manageable in a post war world. Now what about this question concerning
Japan's military situation at that time. Was it true that...Japan
was going to fight to the bitter end making an invasion necessary. Let's
look at the testimony of Admiral William D. Leahy who...was the military
aide to the President and the...and who wrote... his memoirs under the
title, I Was There. In these memoirs...Admiral Leahy wrote that all the
evidence available to him indicated that Japan was on the verge of surrender
even before the bomb was dropped. He, Leahy, said that he was opposed to the
use of the bomb on human being both on military and moral grounds. I now
quote from...from Leahy's memoirs. "It is my opinion that the use of this
barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in
our war against Japan." The Japanese were already defeated," said Leahy,
"and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the
successful bombing with conventional weapons. My own feeling is that in
being the first to use the atomic bomb we had adopted an ethical standard
common to the barbarians of the dark ages" Close quote. General Eisenhower.
Eisenhower wrote that he shared Leahy's moral repugnance over the use of the
bomb on a live target. In Eisenhower's book, Mandate the Change, we
find his reaction on learning from Secretary of War Stimson about the fact
that the bomb that we intended to use it. Quote. We now quote Eisenhower.
"Due to Stimson's recitation of the relevant fact, I had been conscious of a
feeling of depression. And so I voice...voiced to Stimson my grave
misgivings. First on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated
and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary. Secondly, because I
thought our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a
weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory to save American
lives." George C. Marshall who was Chief of Staff. Marshall told the
President he thought that we ought to have a demonstration bombing perhaps
against a naval installation distant from a population settlement. Finally,
what about the chiefs of staff themselves. In 1946, there was a publication
published by the department the Department of...War Department in what was
called...Japan's Struggle to End the War issued by the US Strategic
Bombing Survey. Even if the bomb...atomic bomb had not been dropped, the
survey found, I now quote, "...air supremacy over Japan could have exerted
sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the
need of an invasion certainly prior to the end... to the 31st of December,
1945. And in all probability prior to the first of November, 1945." We have
other quotations here from... the military figures, but I think
that...that the evidence is clear that we've tried to re-write
history.