Hiroshima and the Cold War

Going Deeper

The following links will help you widen your knowledge:

The Atomic Bomb - a timeline.

American Experience - detailed set of articles relating to the bomb, from a modern Anerican PoV.

Stalin's reaction to the bomb - speaking with the American ambassador two days after Hiroshima.

Interview with David Holloway - one historian's interpretation of Stalin's reaction.

Historian Walter LaFeber on Truman's Soviet Policy & the Bomb - long-winded but clear

The Day the Cold War broke out? - did the atomic bomb change Truman's relations with the Soviet Union?

Truman's Diary and Papers - an insight into his thinking about the Bomb. 

Did Truman tell Stalin? - a collection of documents which investigate whether Truman 'duped' Stalin about the Bomb at Potsdam.

1.  WHAT: Dropping the bomb

By May 1945, the Japanese were clearly losing the war in the Pacific; they started making requests for a peace.  Stalin told Truman at Potsdam of 'telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace’ (it was refused; instead the Potsdam Conference called on Japan to surrender unconditionally).  In fact, the Japanese offered to surrender on 3 August, but their offer was rejected because it wasn’t an ‘unconditional’ surrender.

Instead, on 6 August 1945, the B29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb (nicknamed ‘Little Boy’) on Hiroshima.  The temperature in the centre of the bomb was 50 times hotter than the surface of the sun.  Winds swept out from the centre at 500 mph; everything in a two-mile radius was flattened.  The mushroom cloud rose to 50,000 feet.  The Americans estimated at 117,000 people were killed – the Japanese put the figure at a quarter of a million.

Three days later, on 9 August, the Americans dropped another bomb, on Nagasaki, and the Japanese surrendered.

2.  WHY was the Bomb dropped?

For many years, (‘traditional’) historians were prepared to take Churchill and Truman’s words at face value, and accepted without question the official explanation that the bomb was dropped to end the war in Japan quickly, saving millions of American casualties (see Sources A and B). 

In 1965, however, revisionist historian Gar Alperovitz wrote Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam.  Alperovitz turned the whole question on its head, claiming: 

1. the Japanese were on the verge of surrender in August 1945;

2. Truman dropped the atomic bombs because he wanted to end the war before the USSR could enter the war in the Pacific and claim the lands promised them at Yalta. 

3. the bomb was dropped to impress the Soviets, and persuade them to relax their grip on eastern Europe. 

For Alperovitz, Truman caused the Cold War when he dropped the Bomb.

3.  HOW did the Bomb help to cause the Cold War?

Historians have offered two suggestions: 

Possibility ONE: The atomic bomb changed STALIN'S attitude

Historians have suggested a number of ways in which the atomic bomb might have alienated Stalin:

1. The traditional argument was that Stalin was angry because Truman did not tell him about the Atomic Bomb.  Truman, the story goes, was deliberately vague when he mentioned the Bomb to Stalin on 24 July – he just quickly mentioned in passing that the USA had ‘a new weapon of unusual destructive force.’ Truman didn't specifically call it an atomic bomb, and he certainly didn’t say he was going to use it against Japan.  Stalin merely nodded, and witnesses were convinced he hadn’t realised the implication of what he had just been told.  When the Americans dropped the bomb, the argument goes, Stalin was furious that he had been duped, and this was how the Bomb caused the Cold War (see Source C).

2. It is almost certain, however, that this thesis is not true in such a simplistic way - all the evidence shows that Stalin knew the Americans were working on the atomic bomb. 

   Soviet sources DO suggest, however, that straight after Truman told him about the ‘new weapon’, Stalin gave orders for Soviet scientists to develop their own nuclear weapon – so news of the atomic bomb DID provoke a nuclear arms race (see Source D). 

3. There is no doubt that Stalin saw the dropping of the Bomb as directed more at Russia than Japan: ‘They are killing the Japanese and intimidating us’ he told Molotov.  (To be fair, western politicians were hopeful it would have this effect.)

   Stalin’s reaction, argues historian David Holloway, was to play 'hard ball', and he instructed his diplomats to take a tougher position against the west.  Then in February 1946, he gave the famous ‘Bolshoi speech’ accusing America of using its atomic advantage for imperialism.  In this way, it is claimed, the atomic bomb directly caused the entrenched positions of the Cold War. 

Possibility TWO: The atomic bomb changed TRUMAN'S attitude

There are historians who think that the atomic bomb caused the Cold War, not because it provoked Stalin to seek confrontation, but because it encouraged Truman seek confrontation.

When Truman knew that he had the bomb:

1. His attitude at the Conference became more aggressive,

2. He switched from pro-Soviet advisors (such as Davies) to anti-communist advisors such as Stimson and Byrnes.

3. He dropped the Bomb on Hiroshima to get the Japanese to surrender quickly, before Stalin had a chance to enter the war in the Pacific.

4. He developed an attitude of confrontation - 'I'm sick of babying the Soviets'.

◄  Source E

On 27 October 1945, Truman made a speech about US foreign policy, which outlined twelve key points.  These included a promise that the US did not want any territory, and did not intend to go to war with any country, small or large. 

However, he also announced that the USA would be seeking defensive military bases, and that he did not intend to share the secrets of the atomic bomb with anybody.  The speech alarmed the British, who saw it as increasing the tension between America and the Soviet Union, and also as an affront to the close diplomatic relationship between Britain and the United States. 

This cartoon by the British cartoonist David Low appeared in the Evening Standard on 30 October 1945. 

Click here for the interpretation