This is why, in a much more real and also famous case, President Truman was validly angered and told “that son of a bitch”, Oppenheimer, to fuck off, after Oppenheimer decided to be a drama queen at Truman. Oppenheimer was trying to have nuclear weapons be about Oppenheimer’s remorse at having helped create nuclear weapons. This feels obviously icky to me; I would not be surprised if Truman felt very nearly the same.
I did sympathise with Truman in the way that scene is portrayed in Nolan’s movie more than most seem to have (or even, that the movie intended to). But I am not sure that wasn’t just Truman making the bombs about him instead—he made the call after all, it was his burden to bear. Which again sort of shifts it from it being about, you know, the approximately 200k civilians they killed and stuff.
Truman only made the call for the first bomb; the second was dropped by the military without his input, as if they were conducting a normal firebombing or something. Afterward, he cancelled the planned bombings of Kokura and Niigata, establishing presidential control of nuclear weapons.
There is also recent debate about whether Truman was even well informed about the fact that Hiroshima was a city rather than a “purely military target”, eg see the book The Most Awful Responsibility, well reviewed by many including Richard Rhodes, as well as the excellent interview with the author by Dan Carlin.
Huh, I knew there wasn’t the sort of plan you’d naively expect where the US gov/military command observes the response of the Japanese gov/military to one of their cities being destroyed by unthinkable godlike powers and then decides what to do next. I didn’t know that president Truman literally didn’t know about/have implicit preemptive control over the 2nd bombing.
Dan Carlin recently did a Hardcore History Addendum show about Truman called Atomic Accountability. It was an interview with Alex Wellerstein who brings into question how much Truman actually knew about the location of the first bomb being dropped. Truman (possibly) thought that rulling out Kyoto (which was number one on the list), meant he was ruling out cities as targets, and didn’t know Hiroshima was a city. This seems wild, until you factor in how all the information is being fed to him, how long he’d known about the nuclear program and what the competing military interests were. Worth a listen if you’re into the topic as it’s a new perspective.
Thanks, I hadn’t seen this. I agree Truman thought Hiroshima was mostly a military base. IIRC you can see him make basic factual errors to that effect in an early draft of a speech.
I did sympathise with Truman in the way that scene is portrayed in Nolan’s movie more than most seem to have (or even, that the movie intended to). But I am not sure that wasn’t just Truman making the bombs about him instead—he made the call after all, it was his burden to bear. Which again sort of shifts it from it being about, you know, the approximately 200k civilians they killed and stuff.
Truman only made the call for the first bomb; the second was dropped by the military without his input, as if they were conducting a normal firebombing or something. Afterward, he cancelled the planned bombings of Kokura and Niigata, establishing presidential control of nuclear weapons.
...amazing.
There is also recent debate about whether Truman was even well informed about the fact that Hiroshima was a city rather than a “purely military target”, eg see the book The Most Awful Responsibility, well reviewed by many including Richard Rhodes, as well as the excellent interview with the author by Dan Carlin.
Huh, I knew there wasn’t the sort of plan you’d naively expect where the US gov/military command observes the response of the Japanese gov/military to one of their cities being destroyed by unthinkable godlike powers and then decides what to do next. I didn’t know that president Truman literally didn’t know about/have implicit preemptive control over the 2nd bombing.
Dan Carlin recently did a Hardcore History Addendum show about Truman called Atomic Accountability. It was an interview with Alex Wellerstein who brings into question how much Truman actually knew about the location of the first bomb being dropped. Truman (possibly) thought that rulling out Kyoto (which was number one on the list), meant he was ruling out cities as targets, and didn’t know Hiroshima was a city. This seems wild, until you factor in how all the information is being fed to him, how long he’d known about the nuclear program and what the competing military interests were. Worth a listen if you’re into the topic as it’s a new perspective.
The book in which Alex Wellerstein really makes the case was also released yesterday, buy it here!
Thanks, I hadn’t seen this.
I agree Truman thought Hiroshima was mostly a military base. IIRC you can see him make basic factual errors to that effect in an early draft of a speech.