In effect, the U.S. was saying to the Soviet Union: "Observe our great power, and how we don't hesitate to use it. You know what we expect of you, and If you know what's good for you you'll behave yourselves." And the fact that Stalin knew the U.S. used the bomb when there was absolutely no military necessity for it to do so, and that the bomb was used against a civilian population, no doubt made this message all the more terrifyingly persuasive, as Truman no doubt intended. In short, the purpose in dropping the bombs was to scare the bejesus out of Russia, and there is no question that the U.S. succeeded in doing precisely that. The U.S. couldn't have been more explicit in its invitation to the Soviets to begin the nuclear arms race just as Szilard had feared.
With Truman's decision to use nuclear weapons on the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the cold war era of nuclear diplomacy had begun. The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not used as weapons of war, but rather as uniquely persuasive negotiating tools to effect a political settlement with our Russian allies, a settlement that would serve as a constant reminder to Russia of its subordinate status on the postwar world stage. Truman's Secretary of War Henry Stimson wrote in his diary that following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki there developed in the State Department "a tendency to think of the bomb as a diplomatic weapon," and that "American statesmen were eager for their country to browbeat the Russians with the bomb held rather ostentatiously on our hip."
The real purpose in incinerating two high-density civilian population centers, says Stimson , was "to persuade Russia to play ball." We also read in notes jotted down after his talks with President Roosevelt of "the necessity of bringing Russian orgn. into the fold of Christian civilization," and of the bomb as the means to accomplish this. So even before Truman took over the presidency upon Roosevelt's death in April 1945 -- long before the bomb had been built and tested -- the idea that the real purpose of the bomb was to keep the Russians in check was already in circulation. America's use of the atom bomb for this purpose was no mere afterthought.
General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan project (the allied effort to build an atom bomb) from 1942 to 1946, says he never bought into the idea that Russia was our "gallant ally:"
There was never, from about two weeks from the time I took charge, any illusions on my part, but that Russia was our enemy, and that the project was carried out on that basis." (emphasis mine)
Joseph Rotblatt, physicist and early contributor to the Manhattan project recounts how in March 1944, nearly 18 months before the first successful atomic bomb test, he was shocked to hear General Groves say in casual conversation, "You realize, of course, that the real purpose of making the bomb is to subdue our chief enemy, the Russians!"
This would have come as news to the atomic scientists at Los Alamos, New Mexico working on the Manhattan Project. They believed they were in a race against time to develop the bomb before the Nazis. If such a bomb could be built it was imperative that the "good guys" get there first. The only problem with this narrative, as General Groves makes quite clear, is that it just isn't true.
As early as mid-1943 the U.S. had learned through their British allies that the race with the Nazis to produce the bomb was pure fiction . By mid-1943 the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) had gathered enough evidence to convince them that the German atomic bomb program had already petered out . The scientists recruited for the Manhattan project had been duped.
Hard to believe that America would use nuclear weapons against an already defeated nation's defenseless civilian population to serve as an advertisement for its global postwar political ambitions -- an inducement to friend and foe alike to capitulate to U.S. peacetime demands and interests? Of course it's hard to believe. It's completely contrary to the propagandistic narrative we've been fed all our lives. Killing nearly a quarter of a million people just to make a political statement, and advance one"s political ambitions? That's not America! Indeed, that's the very definition of terrorism, pure and simple: using violence or the threat of violence as the means to achieve political ends. It's terrorism with a vengeance. Americans just don't do that kind of thing. Americans would never behave in such a horribly depraved and cruel manner. But, in fact, we did. And we still do. And it won't stop until America awakens to the truth about itself, apologizes, and makes amends.
Part II: America's Nuclear Madness Makes A Comeback (To follow in the next few days.)
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