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In a memo to FDR, General MacArthur would write, "We should make every effort to get Russia into the Japanese war before we go into Japan, otherwise we will take the impact of the Jap divisions and reap the losses"I will not consider going into any part of the Japanese islands unless the Japanese armies in Manchuria are contained by the Russians." (1)
After three years of the most savage warfare against the German Nazis, where over 25 million Russian soldiers and civilians died, Russia was now prepared to enter into another war, only months later, with Japan to offer military support to the U.S., a country that had suffered minute losses in comparison.
When Admiral King, chief of naval operations, was informed that the Russians would definitely enter the fight against Japan, he was immensely relieved commenting "We've just saved two million Americans."
"They Will Never Allow Hitler to Have a Bomb"
By early Oct 1940, it was believed by the British that a bomb could be developed from U-235, and that the American branch was in consensus that the British were right.
Despite this, Roosevelt remained reluctant to authorize the bomb-production project. For almost two years more, FDR delayed any decision, despite prodding and increasingly strident demands from Churchill, and others.
In Oct 1941, nuclear physicist Niels Bohr and his wife would secretly meet with their old friend and colleague, Prof. Werner Heisenberg, in Sweden. Heisenberg was working for the Nazis, and briefed Bohr about their nuclear weapons program. He also reported to Bohr that he believed the scientists on the project would never allow Hitler to have a bomb (2).
By mid-1942, Roosevelt would be persuaded to approve bringing in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to manage a full-scale bomb-production project, named the Manhattan Engineering District, later known as the Manhattan Project.
The Manhattan Project under the direction of Vannevar Bush and Henry Stimson (U.S. Secretary of War), at its peak employed 120,000 people and built and ran 37 installations, at a cost of more than $2 billion.
No one thought of the Soviet Union as a possible threat at the time, but rather it was the horrifying possibility that Hitler could be the first to control a nuclear bomb.
Is Russia our "Friend" or our "Foe"?
Niels Bohr would flee Nazi occupied Denmark in Sept 1943, and arrive in Washington D.C. on Dec 8th 1943. Bohr was quickly recruited in becoming an advisor to the Manhattan Project, and would propose that the United States work, along with Britain and Russia, to set up international control and inspection of atomic energy, for use of atomic energy based on "cooperation" not conflict, and that Russia must be approached as soon as possible to create mutual trust.
FDR would assign Bohr to meet with Churchill in May 1944, in order to persuade him on the matter.
Needless to say, the meeting was an absolute disaster.
It was the thought of Churchill, and many in the U.S. military circles such as General Groves (who would go on record (3), that the Soviets, if ever, would only succeed in building an atomic bomb ten or more years after the Americans. And thus, to share knowledge with the Soviets was "unnecessary."
Although Bohr was the most outspoken on the subject, the reality was that the greater majority of the scientists working on the Manhattan Project were of a similar accord. From the first, discussions had been held between the scientists and the military as to the question of how long a lead time America would have.
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