ON HOW VARIOUS ASPECTS OF THE "MYTH" WERE CREATED--

• President Truman actively suppressed portions of his journal which suggested his awareness that the war appeared likely to end once Russia attacked.

  It had previously been thought the journal was simply misfiled. However, new evidence shows that the President personally directed that it be kept under wraps:

  The journal was held by the widow of the President's former press secretary, Charlie Ross, and at Truman's request was kept locked in her safe deposit box. It was kept even from White House aide Eben Ayers, who had been expressly directed by the President to prepare an account for him of the atomic bomb decision during the Potsdam Conference. (See pp. 554-555, Chapter 44)

  A letter to the president from Mrs. Ross dated October 16, 1951, explains:

  Over the phone yesterday . . . Mr. Ayers asked [about] any notes he [Charlie Ross] may have had on the atomic bomb explosion. There is one envelope of notes marked "Private and Confidential," a typed copy of some personal notes of your own of the Potsdam trip you had loaned him. He had these typed from your own notes by his secretary . . . and--so the accompanying note says--returned the original to you. Part of it is in diary form.

  Also, as you may recall, I still have where he placed it in our safety deposit box, the story Charlie wrote--while it was fresh in his mind -- of the decision to use the bomb. (See p. 554, Chapter 44)

  The next day, October 17, 1951, Truman replied:

  I think you had better keep those private papers of Charlie's in the safety deposit vault because I am sure we have all the information that was contained in them. (See pp. 554-555, Chapter 44)

  Truman told Ayers "to drop the matter as far as Mrs. Ross is concerned." (See p. 555, Chapter 44)

  (As noted, the journal--made public in 1979--shows that after Stalin confirmed Russia would join the war Truman wrote: "Most of the big points are settled. He'll be in the Jap War on August 15. Fini Japs when that comes about.") (See above; see pp. 241-242, Chapter 19)

• Other evidence of the President's effort to keep information secret is abundant. (See pp. 543-561, Chapter 44)

  - For instance, Ayers later also recalled:

  He [Truman] had in his own office, or more properly, the office of his secretary, Miss Rose Conway, personal files which I do not believe were accessible to or seen by anyone other than Miss Conway and the President. I know that in my work on the President's papers, during 1951 and 1952, I found it practically impossible to get from Miss Conway anything from these files for my use, despite the President's having assured me that everything was to be available to me. (See pp. 548-549, Chapter 44)

  - Samuel I. Rosenman, Truman's close friend and counsel, expressed real concern (in an oral history interview conducted for the Library) that Truman would not get the historical recognition he deserved because--as late as 1969--

  so many of his papers have not been made available. I don't agree with that. He has kept them under his own supervision. . . . (See p. 552, Chapter 44)

• President Truman repeatedly mis-stated well documented facts concerning casualty estimates, the nature of the target (civilian versus military), and advice he was given by military leaders.

• On casualties he gave various estimates on various occasions:

  - On August 9, 1945 he stated to "the men and women of the Manhattan Project":

  Atomic bombs have now been successfully employed against the enemy.

  A grateful nation, hopeful that this new weapon will result in the saving of thousands of American lives, feels a deep sense of appreciation for your accomplishment. (See p. 515, Chapter 42)

  - To the annual Gridiron Dinner on December 15, 1945 he explained that at the time he made the decision to use the atomic bomb:

  It occurred to me that a quarter of a million of the flower of our young manhood was worth a couple of Japanese cities, and I still think they were and are. (See p. 516, Chapter 42)

  - On April 6, 1949 the president told a group of new Democratic senators and representatives that he

  made that decision because I thought 200,000 of our young men would be saved by making that decision, and some 3[00,000] or 400,000 of the enemy would be saved by making that decision. (See p. 516, Chapter 42)

  - On April 28, 1959 Truman told students at Columbia University simply that "the dropping of the bombs stopped the war, saved millions of lives." (See p. 517, Chapter 42; emphasis added above and below for clarity.)

• Truman also helped invent numbers "for the record":
  In 1952 Thomas L. Cate, a scholar helping to prepare the official history of the Air Force in World War II, wrote Truman to ask about the decision to use the atomic bomb. Truman's initial thought--and his idea of what to tell Cate--was set down in a handwritten draft response dated December 31, 1952:
  I asked Gen. Marshall what it would cost in lives to land on the Tokio plane [sic] and other places in Japan. It was his opinion that 1/4 million casualties would be the minimum cost as well as an equal number of the enemy. The other military and naval men present agreed. (See p. 517, Chapter 42)

  As he reworked the draft, a White House aide, Kenneth W. Hechler, noticed a problem with the response: Truman's estimate of "1/4 million casualties" was considerably different from an (unsubstantiated) "over a million casualties" estimate previously published by Secretary of War Stimson in a 1947 Harper's article and repeated in his memoirs. (See p. 518, Chapter 42; p. 466, Chapter 38) Hechler brought the problem to the attention of another White House aide, David D. Lloyd, in a January 2, 1953, memorandum:

  On page 2, it is stated: "I asked Gen. Marshall what it would cost in lives to land on the Tokio plane [sic] and other places in Japan. It was his opinion that 1/4 million casualties would be the minimum cost as well as an equal number of the enemy." Stimson says in his book On Active Service, p. 619: "We estimated that if we should be forced to carry this plan to its conclusion, the major fighting would not end until the latter part of 1946, at the earliest. I was informed that such operations might be expected to cost over a million casualties, to American forces alone." I think it is important that the President's casualty figure be changed to conform with that of Secretary Stimson, because presumably Stimson got his from Gen. Marshall; the size of the figure is very important. (See pp. 517-518, Chapter 42)

  Lloyd promptly prepared a memorandum to Truman on the basis of Hechler's observations which pointed out:

  In your draft, you state that General Marshall told you that a landing in Japan would cost a quarter of a million casualties to the United States, and an equal number of the enemy. Mr. Stimson, in his book written by McGeorge Bundy, says that Marshall's estimate was over a million casualties. Your recollection sounds more reasonable than Stimson's, but in order to avoid a conflict, I have changed the wording to read that General Marshall expected a minimum of a quarter of a million casualties and probably a much greater number -- as much as a million. (See p. 518, Chapter 42)

  Although neither Hechler nor Lloyd seem to have bothered to check any actual records of casualty estimates ("your recollection sounds more reasonable")--and although Stimson's estimate had no documentary basis whatsoever (see below, pp. 23-24)--Truman approved Lloyd's revision as if it were historical fact.

  A photostatic copy of the final version of the president's letter was reproduced and published as an authoritative source in the official U.S. Army Air Forces history. (See pp. 517-518, Chapter 42)

• In this letter, too, the President attempted to explain how its was that the order to use the atomic bomb was issued on July 25--before Japan responded to the Potsdam Proclamation--even though he repeatedly claimed the decision was made only after Tokyo's response was received on July 28. (See pp. 543-548, Chapter 44)

• On why Hiroshima was targeted: President Truman offered various reasons which are not supported by the evidence now available:

  - In a December 31, 1946 letter to Secretary Stimson the president wrote:

  If you will remember our conversation in Potsdam, we came to the conclusion that the bomb should be dropped on a town which was engaged almost exclusively in war work. Hiroshima was the town picked out and then Nagasaki was the second one. (See p. 522, Chapter 42)

  (Neither city was deemed important--or targetted--because it was a war production center.) (See above pp. 14-15)

  - In Mr. President, a 1952 book prepared by his journalist friend William Hillman, he stated:

  I . . . asked Stimson to indicate on the map what cities the military would favor as targets, if Japan did not surrender, and we had to use the bomb. Among the targets was Hiroshima, an army center and military supply port; and, Nagasaki, a major seaport containing large industrial establishments.

  I then agreed to the use of the atomic bomb if Japan did not yield. (See p. 521, Chapter 42)

  It is true that the headquarters of the Fifth Division, the Second Army, and the Chugoku regional army were located in Hiroshima. However, as previously noted the idea that the city was selected primarily because of its military importance at this point in the war is incorrect. (See p. 521-525, Chapter 42)

  The idea that Hiroshima had been bombed because it was "a military supply port"--as proposed in Mr. President--is also wrong; nor is there any evidence suggesting this. Moreover, Japanese shipping was already extremely crippled, and Hiroshima harbor had been successfully mined during Operation Starvation. On June 18 Marshall had informed Truman not only that U.S. air and sea power had already "greatly reduced movement of Jap shipping south of Korea," but that it "should in the next few months cut it to a trickle if not choke it off entirely." (See p. 522, Chapter 42)

  - There also is no basis for the argument that Nagasaki was selected because it was a seaport. Although there is still some confusion about some details of the Nagasaki bombing, the Mission Planning Summary for Nagasaki defines the target as the commercial part of the city where there were large numbers of civilian homes. (See pp. 533-534, Chapter 43)

• Secretary Stimson was convinced by Harvard President James B. Conant to help put down growing public criticism of the bombings in the early postwar period. The myth of a million casualties stems from this effort. (See pp. 445-450, 466-468, Chapter 38; as well as the Stimson Section of Book II.)

  With the help of a young McGeorge Bundy--later to become John F. Kennedy's National Security advisor--an article Stimson penned for Harper's Magazine in 1947 became the primary source of established wisdom for two decades. In it the specific "million" estimate is offered not once but twice. Stimson suggests that had the bomb not been used, "the major fighting would not end until the latter part of 1946, at the earliest. I was informed that such operations might be expected to cost over a million casualties, to American forces alone."

  A 1985 study by Rufus E. Miles, Jr., concluded that "the number of American deaths prevented by the two bombs would almost certainly not have exceeded 20,000 and would probably have been much lower, perhaps even zero."

  At virtually the same time Barton Bernstein demonstrated in greater detail that even if a November Kyushu landing had actually occurred--and, moreover, continued without interruption to the end--it might have cost a maximum of 20,000 deaths.

  The highest estimate discovered in the various planning reports prepared prior to the decision--assuming both the 1945 landing and the full-scale 1946 invasion to have taken place--was in the range of 40,000 to 46,000 deaths. (See pp. 466-467, Chapter 38)

  There would have been no casualties had the war ended before the November landing, which as we now know appeared likely by July.

• Policy thinking concerning the role of the atomic bomb in diplomacy vis-a-vis Russia was also suppressed--particularly in Stimson's published memoirs--because postwar policy-makers (e.g., George F. Kennan; Secretary of State George C. Marshall) objected to making such information public. (See pp. 479-485, Chapter 39; see below pp. 26-30 for representative illustrations of diary items excised from the memoirs.)

• A close student of Byrnes' activities--Robert Messer--has documented the extraordinary lengths to which Byrnes went to control information related to his activities as secretary of state. Here is one illustration:
  Byrnes' efforts at manipulating history include his deliberate editing, altering and at times even fabricating evidence of his past as it is recorded in the documents and other manuscript sources. . . .
  Byrnes' manipulation of his personal papers goes beyond the normal limits of genteel dishonesty. Extensive research of these archival records leads unavoidably to the conclusion that they have been systematically doctored. . . .

  For instance:

  Correspondence that for years was meticulously collated and preserved with an attached carbon copy of Byrnes' response suddenly begins to include incoming letters and memoranda on sensitive subjects from which Byrnes' reply has been detached.

  And:

  In 1954 the persistent scholars at the Department of State approached Byrnes' former associates . . . for any records they might have relating to the Potsdam Conference of July, 1945. One such associate was Walter Brown, Byrnes' long time friend. . . . Byrnes did not know that during the conference Brown had kept a detailed daily journal recording Byrnes' activities and his private utterances concerning the negotiations. . . .

  Byrnes was at first furious when he learned of the existence of such a diary. However, Byrnes' initial anger soon subsided and he eventually turned this record, too, toward his own uses.

  The edited "excerpts" of Brown's diary entries for July 1945 that Byrnes eventually sent the State Department alter the meaning and substantially destroy the significance of Brown's diary. . . . The alterations and deletions indicated in Byrnes' own hand throughout the copy of the diary sent him by Brown, distort and at times totally reverse the meaning of the actual contemporary record.

  "Having made certain that the State Department would no longer trouble with the Brown diary," Messer observes:

  Byrnes sent what he titled "Excerpts From Notes of Walter Brown" to the State Department with his "best wishes."
  In manipulating evidence in this way Byrnes was able to extend his control over the historical record beyond his personal manuscript collection to influence the official documentary histories compiled by the Department of State. These official sources in turn have been relied on by scholars throughout the world. When asked directly by individual private scholars for information on some of the same subjects for which he had sent the State Department his own manipulated evidence, Byrnes with the straightest of faces politely referred the inquiring historian to the official State Department record. (See pp. 204-205, Chapter 15)

• Numerous subsequent public statements by Byrnes systematically distort various aspects of the decision. (See Chapter 46)

• General Leslie R. Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, prevented a petition by concerned scientists urging Truman not to use the atomic bomb without spelling out precise terms to Japan from ever reaching the president.

  The petition was withheld from the public for almost 20 years. Groves arranged to keep key documents under his personal control even after his retirement. (See pp. 190-196, Chapter 14; and pp. 603-607, Chapter 47)

• The Joint Chiefs of Staff rewrote important documents suggesting their awareness Japan had been suing for peace before the atomic bomb was used.
  In 1946, the Joint Chiefs of Staff began preparing a statement for Congress on the impact of atomic weapons on warfare. A majority of the Joint Chiefs explicitly agreed with and "signed off" on the following opening formulation:
  The atomic bombs dropped in Japan had two primary effects: first, although the Japanese had already initiated diplomatic action leading to surrender, the actual ending of the war was accelerated with the probable saving of thousands of lives; and second, a profound revolution in military thought has resulted. (Emphasis added.)

  The chiefs reversed themselves--and eliminated the critical language--when "attention was called to the possible implication to be drawn by the public that the atomic bombs were dropped on a people who had already sued for peace. . . . " (Emphasis added.) (See pp. 625-626, Chapter 49)

• There are huge gaps in the record (In general, see the discussion in Chapter 8 and Chapters 15-17). Some documents were rewritten to eliminate important information; many were kept secret for decades. Explicit instructions were also given by top officials to discuss certain controversial issues only orally and to leave no written records. For instance:

  - In early April 1945, a memorandum from Vice Admiral C. M. Cooke to Admiral Ernest King states:

  In making an outline of the factors bearing on our strategy against JAPAN, I have not included very much about RUSSIA. In this there are so many political aspects that it seems better for them not be be [sic] included in a Joint Chiefs of Staff paper, but, nevertheless, they should be borne in mind in any oral conversations with the President. (See p. 97, Chapter 8)

  - A May 18, 1945 memorandum found in the papers of Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy states:

  10:30 Joseph Grew (Under Secretary of State) telephoned re Committee of Three Minutes - asked that one page be briefed for the record and that part of the original report [be] destroyed. [The meeting in question dealt extensively with Russian issues.] (See p. 97, Chapter 8)

  - As a matter of policy General Groves avoided committing anything to writing whenever possible. When General Marshall asked him to take over foreign intelligence on atomic energy matters in the fall of 1943, for instance, "as was customary, nothing was put in writing." (See p. 602, Chapter 47)

  - In a 1959 letter to Groves one Army Air Forces liaison officer (Lieutenant General Roscoe C. Wilson) recalled that when he first began working with the project,

  . . . I was explicitly directed not to keep records. . . . I was told to report to you for instructions; to share no confidences with anyone; to keep no records; to report to no one in the AAF [Army Air Forces] except [General Oliver P. Echols] and [Air Forces Commander] General Arnold: my reports were to be verbal or in my own handwriting. (See p. 602, Chapter 47)

• "Friendly" historians were given privileged access to top secret government information well in advance of other scholars as they prepared early accounts of the decision. (See pp. 615-622, Chapter 48)

Guide: Part IV

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