Put that all together and you get the biggest bomb ever made, a hellish concoction. You get the Dark Force.
CHAPTER TEN
THE TIMES WERE TERRIFYING, Oppenheimer recognised.
Roosevelt’s successor, Harry S. Truman, inherited an unfinished war, as well as the Casablanca doctrine of “unconditional surrender”. His presidency began on April 12, 1945 while he was still in a state of shock after being summoned unexpectedly to the White House.
“Harry, the President is dead,” Mrs. Roosevelt had told him.
They were in her study. It was late in the afternoon. This news dumbfounded the grim-faced Vice President.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” he whispered when he’d recovered his voice and composure.
“Is there anything we can do for you?” the First Lady had asked candidly in response. “For you are the one in trouble now.”
The new President was 60 years old.
After serving his country faithfully during World War 1, he’d operated a clothing store which later went bankrupt. After this business failure, he’d entered politics.
As a Vice President, he’d been an isolated figure, as Roosevelt had kept him largely uninformed about his foreign affairs portfolio.
Soon after becoming President, the Manhattan Project gave him possession of the biggest gun ever invented. The small-town Southern gentleman was now the most powerful world leader.
Yet, Truman was a disciplined, able and decisive man, and he rose to the challenges of the Presidency. Always smart in his beloved double-breasted suits, he was intent on becoming a methodical President, basing every decision on the available facts and then moving on to the next issue, forgetting about ones he’d already decided about.
First, though, there was a war to win, against the gangster government of Hitler in the West and against the fanaticism of the military imperialists of Japan in the East. Hitler’s aggression had already cost fifteen million lives. To Truman, the German leader was a “demon of a man”, an unstable and vain European Caesar.
By May 8, he was able to announce the defeat of Germany. What a start to his term of office! Flags of freedom flew across Europe. The Atlantic War was over.
Following victory in Europe, attention shifted to Japan and on how to end the Pacific War. It had been a fierce and costly war which began on December 7, 1941. America could now use its hard-won bases on the Pacific islands like Tinian, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, to launch attacks against the Japanese homeland. Their armed forces were still four-million strong and they were mobilizing a national volunteer army for a massive last stand.
Soon after taking office, Truman had set up an Interim Committee to advise him on the potential use of the atom bomb as a way to end the conflict. This committee was chaired by the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson. Already in his seventies, and recalled from retirement by Roosevelt to get the US Army ready for America’s entry into the war, he was the elder statesman of the group. He’d been educated at Yale and Harvard Law School. He’d enjoyed a long and distinguished career in public service. Stimson refused to demonize the Japanese and, in fact, was known to admire them.
This body had recently reached consensus, on May 31 and June 1, that the bomb, once ready, should be used against Japan without prior warning.
Admiral D. Leahy, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, however, didn’t believe it was necessary, or morally right, to use the atom bomb. In fact, he thought it would be an inhuman act not worthy of a Christian country.
Leahy was the highest-ranking dissenter. He was known for his directness of expression and honesty. He was considered an elder statesman whose word was influential. The sea blockade and conventional air bombing, he’d argued, would be sufficient to force the enemy to surrender. He was appealing for mercy, for ethical conduct in war, for an old code which regarded the targeting of defenseless women and children with military weapons as barbaric. Leahy also disliked the idea of killing civilians with radiation. It seemed to him to be akin to poison gas or other types of internationally outlawed chemical and biological weapons.
But the tide was already turning against this old-fashioned gentleman of war. It had become increasingly accepted that Churchill’s total war, his “victory at all costs” policy, had helped Britain and the Allies defeat Germany, laying waste many of the enemy’s cities in the process. Equally, it was contended that total war would, in the end, beat Japan into submission.
Truman didn’t ask for a report on the advantages and disadvantages of using the untested bomb. Nor did he consult with General MacArthur. His was a negative decision not to interfere with, or reverse, the course already set by a lengthy, collective decision-making process. Under immense pressure, he took a leap in the dark, gambling with the future of the world.
Acting Chief of Staff, General Thomas Handy, had informed General Carl Spaatz, commanding officer of the Army Strategic Air Forces, that the 509 Composite Group, 20th Air force had been assigned to deliver the “special” uranium bomb early in August.
The operational instructions had been drafted by Groves. He’d sent the plan, with no stated authority on it, to General Henry Arnold, Commanding General of the U.S. Army Air Forces, for final approval on July 24. Arnold did approve, as expected, as did Stimson, thus setting in motion the mission to Hiroshima. Then it had been sent for final approval to Chief of Staff, General Marshall. After that, the command had been issued to Spaatz.
Secretary Stimson and President Truman didn’t interfere with the authorisation of this military plan. Although they weren’t active participants in the formulation of the plan, they’d already given their consent to the idea of using the bomb as a weapon to end the Pacific War.
Throughout the decision-making process, there’d been high levels of secrecy, a secrecy that runs contrary to the principles of science and which holds huge ethical hazards. Even the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not see this final plan. The four Chiefs were only told what they needed to know for their specific duties.
General Groves had exercised virtually unfettered control of the Manhattan Project. But there was a contradiction at the heart of his thinking. On the one hand, he’d argued that it was President Truman’s ultimate decision to drop the bomb. At the same time, he’d labelled the President’s role as one of “non-interference” in the decision-making process. In other words, the President’s real role was not to change, or upset, pre-existing plans. But whose plans? In essence, a military elite had expropriated power in a governance vacuum.
Operating the bomb production plants was so complex and so innovative that it was impossible to manage the project using the existing rules and paradigms of government. Groves had abandoned normal operating procedures. And it’s a fact that General George Marshall gave Groves direct authority to conduct the operational planning for the dropping of atom bombs on Japan. Normally, a project manager like Groves would have worked with the Operations Planning Division (OPD) to draw up the military plan. But Marshall took this job away from the OPD and gave it to Groves. Groves informed Arnold of this new power.
Nor was there any approval from Congress to drop the atom bomb. The Dark Force had been born in the darkness of secrecy. Its womb was a moral vacuum. There was a political vacuum left behind by Roosevelt’s death, too.