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N0KFQ > TODAY 24.04.12 18:06l 64 Lines 3000 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Apr 24
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Sent: 120424/1536Z 21490@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.49
Apr 24, 1945:
Truman is briefed on Manhattan Project
President Harry Truman learns the full details of the Manhattan
Project, in which scientists are attempting to create the first
atomic bomb, on this day in 1945. The information thrust upon
Truman a momentous decision: whether or not to use the world's
first weapon of mass destruction.
America's secret development of the atomic bomb began in 1939
with then-President Franklin Roosevelt's support. The project was
so secret that FDR did not even inform his fourth-term vice
president, Truman, that it existed. (In fact, when Truman's 1943
senatorial investigations into war-production expenditures led
him to ask questions about a suspicious plant in Minneapolis,
which was secretly connected with the Manhattan Project, Truman
received a stern phone call from FDR's secretary of war, Harry
Stimson, warning him not to inquire further.)
When President Roosevelt died on April 14, 1945, Truman was
immediately sworn in and, soon after, was informed by Stimson of
a new and terrible weapon being developed by physicists in New
Mexico. In his diary that night, Truman noted that he had been
informed that the U.S. was perfecting an explosive great enough
to destroy the whole world.
On April 24, Stimson and the army general in charge of the
project, Leslie Groves, brought Truman a file full of reports and
details on the Manhattan Project. They told Truman that although
the U.S. was the only country with the resources to develop the
bomb--eliminating fears that Germany was close to developing the
weapon--the Russians could possibly have atomic weapons within
four years. They discussed if, and with which allies, they should
share the information and how the new weapon would affect U.S.
foreign-policy decisions. Truman authorized the continuation of
the project and agreed to form an interim committee that would
advise the president on using the weapon.
Although the war in Europe ended in May 1945, Stimson advised
Truman that the bomb might be useful in intimidating Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin into curtailing post-war communist expansion
into Eastern Europe. Truman agreed and said that if the weapon
proved feasible I'll certainly have a hammer on those [Russians].
Meanwhile the war with Japan dragged on and it looked to many as
if the Japanese would never surrender. On July 16, the team of
scientists at the Alamogordo, New Mexico, research station
successfully exploded the first atomic bomb. Truman gave Stimson
the handwritten order to release when ready but not sooner than
August 2 on July 31, 1945.
The first bomb was exploded over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and
a second was dropped on Nagasaki on August 8. The Japanese
quickly surrendered. Although other nations have developed atomic
weapons and nuclear technology since 1945, Truman remains the
only world leader to have ever used an atomic bomb against an
enemy.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: n0kfq@winlink.org
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