“A Little Touch of Harry in the Night”
The new president always stood to greet visitors. After twelve years of Franklin Roosevelt and his wheelchair, this was quite a change.
April 12, 1945 had found Vice-President Harry Truman presiding over the Senate, listening to a rambling speech on the implications of a water treaty with Mexico that the upper house was moving to ratify. Well, not really listening – instead, he was composing a note to his mother and sister. Truman’s biographer describes him thusly: He had dressed for the day with customary care, in a double-breasted gray suit with a white handkerchief in the breast pocket neatly folded so that three corners were showing, a white shirt, a dark blue polka-dot bow tie. He looked scrubbed and well-barbered, the picture of health and self-possession.
President Harry S. Truman. (National Archives)
At four minutes to five, the speaker at last sat down. A move to adjourn for the day was introduced and hurriedly approved. Truman exited the Senate chamber, and using his knowledge of the Capitol Building to his advantage, slipped away from his Secret Service detail and made his way to House Speaker Sam Rayburn’s office in the basement for a whiskey and a chat.
Upon arriving and joining Rayburn and couple of others, including House Parliamentarian Lewis Deschler and White House liaison James Barnes, Truman was told he had a call from the White House. Truman dialed the number and the White House Press Secretary told him to come there “as quickly and quietly as possible” and to use the main entrance from Pennsylvania Ave.
Truman thought perhaps he was being called to a meeting with the president. If so, it would be only their third such meeting since the inaugural back in January. He arrived at 5:25 pm. He went at once to the private residence on the second floor and found Eleanor Roosevelt waiting. She stepped forward, put her hand on his shoulder and said, “Harry, the President is dead.” Harry S. Truman of Missouri was now the 33rd President of the United States.
After a brief swearing-in ceremony in the Oval Office, Secretary of War Henry Stimson took Truman to the side and told him of “a new explosive of unbelievable power” but said little else. President Harry Truman finished the day quite as in the dark as to the nature and extent of the Manhattan Project as Vice-President Harry Truman had been at dawn.
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson (National Archives)
The following day, Truman was given a bit more extensive briefing by Jimmy Byrnes, a man described by Roosevelt as “the Assistant President.” It was not until April 25 that Truman received a full briefing on the project from Stimson, Groves and the members of the OSRD. Even then, he was slow to grasp just what they were saying. His only previous knowledge of the Manhattan Project was when, as a senator, his committee looking into possible waste in military spending was warned off the project by secretary of War Henry Stimson himself. It says much for both men that Truman took Stimson at his word.
Also, it has to be remembered that President Harry Truman had a heaping plate of other very important matters in front of him. The war in Europe was ending but there was still a lot of horror and killing to come. Then there was the whole question of economic recovery as well as most of the European industrial and communications infrastructure lay in ruins and millions of refugees milled about the continent.
At home, the question of postwar economics began to get serious consideration. Internationally, the United States was leading the way in the formation of the United Nations and already, the first organizational meeting was scheduled to be in San Francisco.
Finally, in the Pacific, the battle of Okinawa was raging and was shaping up to be one of the bloodiest campaigns of a long and bloody trail to Tokyo. The Japanese government was offering no hope for an early surrender and planning was already underway for Operations OLYMPIC, the invasion of Kyushu; and CORONET, the invasion of Honshu. Tokyo is located on Honshu. The casualties for those two operations were expected to dwarf all that had come before. Indeed, Marshall expected a minimum of 250,000. In anticipation of the casualties from a Japanese invasion, enough Purple Hearts were manufactured that the supply has only recently been used up. Those medals were given out through Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm and the opening stages of Iraqi Freedom.
7th InfantryDivisionCemetery on Okinawa. (17th Infantry Regiment Assn,)
After the surrender of Germany on May 7, 1945, a meeting of the “Big Three” (Stalin, Churchill and Truman) was scheduled to take place in Potsdam, just outside Berlin. This conference was intended to shape the postwar world. The three leaders would work out differences, plan for postwar European reconstruction, delineate zones of responsibility and co-ordinate strategy for dealing with Japan. One of Truman’s main goals was to secure a firm date from Stalin as to when the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan. It must be explained that the USSR sat out most of the Pacific War as a neutral. The Soviets and the Japanese had fought a series of battles in 1939 along the Manchurian border. The Soviets under Georgi Zhukov whipped the Japanese 21st Army and an armistice was quickly agreed upon. The Japanese ever after lived in mortal fear that once the Russians were done with the Germans they would turn their attention east.
The Potsdam Conference, in one of those historical coincidences, began on July 16th, the same day as the Trinity shot. The results of the test were transmitted to Stimson in a cryptic message: “Operated on this morning. Diagnosis not yet complete but results seem satisfactory and already exceed expectations.”
It was quite a conference. It was the last time Stalin would meet with an American president. Winston Churchill was facing an election in Britain and would be replaced as Prime Minister by Clement Atlee in mid-conference. It was the first time Truman had ever really been involved in foreign relations and diplomacy. By all reports he performed well.
Churchill, Truman and Stalin at the Potsdam Conference. (Truman Library)
In the background, decisions were reached as to when and how the atomic bomb would be used. There was never any doubt it would be used. In the aftermath of the bombings and during the Cold War to follow, many would hint that the bomb was used to intimidate the Russians more than to defeat the Japanese. While there were some in the American delegation who had thought that (mainly Jimmy Byrnes), Truman was not one of them, nor were Marshall, Stimson, Churchill or Atlee. Also some revisionists have seized on a petition drawn up by Leo Szilard urging caution in employing the new weapon. Upon reading the petition, it becomes obvious that Szilard was arguing that the Japanese be warned of the impending use of the bomb, not arguing against its use.
Truman revealed his true feelings in a letter to his wife: I’ll say that we’ll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won’t be killed! That’s the important thing.
During World War I, Truman had seen front-line combat as an artillery battery commander. He knew wherefrom he spoke.
As to the decision itself, Lt. George Elsey who was in the Office of Naval Intelligence and assigned to the “Map Room” that traveled with the president and kept him current on military affairs around the world wrote, “Truman made no decision because there was no decision to be made. He could no more have stopped it than a train moving down a track … It’s all well and good to come along later and say the bomb was a horrible thing. The whole damn war was a horrible thing.”
Speaking later of the “decision” Truman said, The final decision of where and when to use the atomic bomb was up to me. I regarded the bomb as a military weapon and never had any doubt that it should be used. The top military advisors to the President recommended its use, and when I asked Churchill he unhesitatingly told me that he favored the use of the atomic bomb if it might aid to end the war.
Policy becomes action: the operations order to drop the atomic bomb. (National Archives)
After the TRINITY test shot, the full power of the atomic bomb was transmitted in yet another cryptic message, again to Stimson from George Harrison of the S-1 (Atomic Bomb) committee of the OSRD: Doctor (Groves) just returned most enthusiastic and confident that the little boy is as husky as his big brother. The light in his eyes discernable from here to Highhold (about250 miles) and I could have heard his screams from here to my farm. (about 50 miles)
Towards the end of the conference, Truman told Stalin that a new and highly destructive weapon had been developed. Stalin merely grunted and said he hoped it would be put to good use. Stalin, of course, had been kept up to date on the Manhattan Project by KGB agents working in it. The most critical was a British physicist named Klaus ***hs. ***hs was aided and abetted by several Americans including Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. ***hs would escape to the Soviet Union after the war. The Rosenbergs would be executed in the 1950s and become a leftist cause for years to come.
At the end of the conference the Big Three put out a joint declaration calling for the unconditional surrender of Japan. Truman had also gotten a commitment from Stalin that the Red Army would attack the Japanese in China by the middle of August. Indeed an entire Soviet Front (equal to and American Army Group, about 1.5 million troops) was assembling in Siberia under Marshal Zhukov for the attack.
The Japanese leadership was divided in opinion. The civilians (who had virtually no power) were all for seeking the start of negotiations. The military (who actually ran things) were determined to fight to the last man. The Emperor sided with the military and his word was law.
The Japanese foreign ministry made a few feelers to the Russians but was greeted with non-committal answers. The Foreign Minister himself was in some danger from this as he could have been arrested and beheaded for his actions.
The Foreign Minister, Sato, sealed the fate of Japan when he responded to a question regarding the Potsdam Declaration by saying a Japanese phrase that can mean several things, among which is “to kill it with silent contempt.” Apologists later argued that he merely meant “No comment.” I don’t buy it. Sato was speaking for the entire Japanese government and the Emperor and his generals would have used much stronger language.
The Japanese may have been beaten. However, defeat in the field and surrender are - as any student of the American Civil War will attest - are two entirely different things.
