長崎原爆投下から74周年、二番目の投下の妥当性のなさを論じる

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

The decision to drop the second bomb when it was dropped was not made by Truman, Stimson, or even Groves — it was made on the island of Tinian, by lower-level people. It was not part of a grand strategy, contrary to popular opinion. blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/08/09/why…

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

In fact, archival evidence points to Truman not knowing it was going to happen. He had seen the strike order that gave the Army incredible leeway in terms of using more bombs after the first. But at Potsdam, when he asked the "schedule," he was shown this telegram: pic.twitter.com/p4OFg9v1Cr

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

It says that the first bomb "of tested type" should be ready by 6 August, and the second one around 24 August. A big interval... if you don't realize that there was another bomb, the "untested type" that was dropped on Hiroshima.

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

(Truman's personal role in the bomb decision, per General Groves, was "one of noninterference—basically, a decision not to upset the existing plans." He was told many of the plans, but it's not clear he totally understood them, or the details. Again, he had a lot on his plate.)

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

Truman was pretty removed from the atomic bomb work. He also had a lot on his plate at Potsdam. He got totally fixated on the Trinity test, and I don't think he realized there were going to be two bombs ready in early August. All planning discussions were about the first use.

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

(The idea that Truman "decided" to use the bombs is an after-the-fact story that Truman and others liked to tell, to make the use of the bombs seem more deliberated over than it was. Many other people made decisions, but Truman himself participated in very few of them.)

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

Separately, most Japanese archival evidence shows that the Nagasaki bombing did not materially have an effect on the Japanese high command, either. They learned about it during a meeting they were having to discuss Hiroshima and the Soviet invasion.

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

This was the same meeting where they decided to put forward an offer of conditional surrender (which the US rejected). There isn't any evidence that the Nagasaki attack changed anyone's point of view in that room.

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

Absence of evidence is not absence of effect, but it clearly wasn't a crucial part of it. The idea that the Japanese didn't believe that the US had more atomic bombs is mostly untrue. If Nagasaki hadn't happened, it seems likely that little would have changed regarding surrender.

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

This is why many people who have studied it have found Nagasaki not that justifiable. Ted Telford, the chief US prosecutor at Nuremberg, concluded that had had "never heard a plausible justification of Nagasaki."

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

(If your argument is, "the Japanese [people] were evil and deserved it," then clearly the issue of plausible justification isn't an issue for you. I always get many replies to this effect.)

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

I think one can come up with "plausible justifications" for Hiroshima, even if they are debatable. Nagasaki is definitely a trickier moral issue, if your concern is with not slaughtering masses of civilians unnecessarily.

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

(I understand where they are coming from, especially from people who are from countries brutalized by the Japanese military. I don't think that justifies targeting children, as I've written on here before. But I understand it.)

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

Anyway, the most important consequence of Nagasaki, in my opinion, was that it greatly disturbed Truman. He had just gotten the casualty reports from Hiroshima and was already unnerved. He didn't know another bombing was going to happen so quickly. His attitude quickly soured.

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

The next day, he got a memo from General Groves saying they'd have another bomb ready in a week or so. Truman's reply was immediate: no further bombs were to be dropped without his express authority. He told his cabinet he couldn't bear to kill "all those kids." pic.twitter.com/NvthB4Ymvd

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

Truman's reclamation of authority, and insisting that all further nuclear use orders be routed through the President (and not the military), changed the nature of US nuclear weapons going forward. He reinforced this many times in his later presidency.

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

In fact, he outright refused to give the military "custody" over the bombs themselves — they didn't actually *have* the nukes that were being produced in the Cold War, they were kept by the civilian Atomic Energy Commission. (He eventually gave them 9. Eisenhower changed this.) pic.twitter.com/l7jqRFJC9c

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

In his later presidency, Truman always feared what would happen if you gave the military access to nukes. He thought they did not understand, as he told a number of military and AEC figures in 1948, that they were not "military weapons," but "used to wipe out women and children." pic.twitter.com/pahh9pWrmX

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

So for me, the ultimate importance of Nagasaki is not that it was the "second" bomb used in combat. It is that it was — so far — the **last** bomb used in combat. And if we're very lucky, and very wise, it might stay that way. /THREAD newyorker.com/tech/annals-of…

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

(NB: I realize I left off the caption for those graphs! These are from a website on "The President and the Bomb," on the history and policy of Presidential use authority, that I plan to debut by the end of the month.) pic.twitter.com/ue7pFnFHzP

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein

(For more background on the "custody" issue — in which the physical weapons were denied from the military in the early Cold War — see my writing here.) blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/01/30/the…