A Collection of Primary Sources
Updated National Security Archive Posting Marks 70th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings of Japan and the End of World War II
Extensive Compilation of Primary Source Documents Explores Manhattan Project, Petitions Against Military Use of Atomic Weapons, Debates over Japanese Surrender Terms, Atomic Targeting Decisions, and Lagging Awareness of Radiation Effects
New Information Spotlights General Dwight D. Eisenhower's Early Misgivings about First Nuclear Use
General Curtis Lemay's Report on the Firebombing of Tokyo, March 1945
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 525
Edited by William Burr
Originally posted - August 5, 2005
First updated - April 27, 2007
Latest update - August 4, 2015
For more information, contact:
William Burr - 202 / 994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
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 bomb." This virtually unknown evidence from the diary of Robert P. Mieklejohn, 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, 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 This update presents previously unpublished material and translations of difficult-to-find records.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. Mieklejohn 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.
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