The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945
Page 146
Yet, however much the world in general and the press representatives in particular may chafe under this secretiveness, it must be regarded as inevitable for this kind of meeting, and as part of the price for its success. For this is no San Francisco conference called upon to put the finishing touches to a blueprint already drafted. This conference, though it has a solid basis of commonly accepted principles to work upon, will involve some fundamental decisions out of which the blueprint for the new world is to emerge. These decisions will pertain to both war and peace.
They will pertain to war because it is now evident that the war against Japan will be one of the main topics on the agenda. The presence of President Truman’s and Prime Minister Churchill’s top military, naval and air advisers is proof of that. And any decision made regarding that war would automatically fall into the category of military secrets, to be disclosed only in future military action. Nobody except the enemy would want them announced in advance.
But to a large extent secrecy at this stage is also justified in respect to the decisions regarding the future peace. For these decisions, even if they involve nothing more than the practical application of principles previously agreed upon, involve all the many difficult problems which have set Europe aflame for centuries. They involve the issue of borders over which any nation is ready to fight at the drop of a hat; they involve the heartbreaking problems of restoration and reconstruction, of millions of displaced persons and projected new expulsions, of staving off hunger and disease which must lead to chaos and anarchy. It is inevitable that the three countries should have differing views on many of these problems. But it is also evident that if these differences are to be reconciled, as they must be, it is far better to talk them over first in a confidential exchange of views than to blare them forth in a public meeting where any nation, once it has proclaimed its stand, can change it only with great difficulty, if at all. And since the discussions are likely to affect the interests of many other nations, any premature publication would precipitate a storm of rival pressure propaganda which might make any agreement utterly impossible.
To some this will seem to smack of “secret diplomacy,” contrary to the “shirt-sleeve diplomacy” of President Wilson and its motto of “open covenants openly arrived at.” But even President Wilson never contemplated, as his own practice at Versailles showed, that every development at every phase of every conference should be immediately trumpeted to the world. Real secret diplomacy is based on secret agreements secretly arrived at and kept secret from the world. There is nothing secret about the fact that the Big Three are meeting to reach agreements, and President Truman has specifically announced that he will make no secret commitments and will report to Congress immediately upon his return. With that America will be satisfied.
JULY 19, 1945
TOKYO PEACE BID VIA STALIN DENIED
Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, July 18—Renewed reports of a Japanese peace offer met with denial today when a State Department spokesman declared that no official proposals of terms had been received from the Japanese Government.
When the spokesman was asked concerning reports that Marshal Stalin had gone to the Postdam Conference with terms that the Japanese were prepared to accept for the termination of the Pacific war, he indicated that the State Department had no knowledge of such an offer.
The statement issued by Acting Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew on July 10, in which he said no peace proposals directly or indirectly had been received from the Japanese Government “still stands,” the spokesman said. On that occasion Mr. Grew declared that the United States would accept only unconditional surrender.
Advices from Germany reported that President Truman intended to return to this country almost immediately after the conclusion of the Potsdam conference, and that plans for extended trips to various European and Mediterraneon countries had been abandoned. Peace feelers by unauthenticated Japanese sources, mentioned by Mr. Grew in his previous statement, together with the expectation of Presiden Truman’s early return are believed to account for the speculation on the possibilities of an early end to the war with Japan.
JULY 22, 1945
BIG THREE ACHIEVE MARKED PROGRESS TOWARD ACCORD ON PEACE IN EUROPE, U.S. DELEGATION AT POTSDAM REPORTS
By RAYMOND DANIELL
By Wireless to The New York Times.
BERLIN, July 21—The United States delegation at the tripartite conference let it be known today that Premier Stalin, Prime Minister Churchill and President Truman had made considerable progress toward agreement on how the peace of Europe, won at so great a cost to all three nations and many lesser ones, could be preserved.
Since the first formal session Tuesday the leaders of the three major powers have met every day, including today, notwithstanding a British victory parade, which Mr. Churchill reviewed this morning from a stand in the Charlottenburger Chaussee in the Tiergarten.
With the Prime Minister in the reviewing stand were Clement R. Attlee, Labor party chief; Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and most of Britain’s serving field marshals. Gen. George C. Marshall, Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King and Gen. Henry H. Arnold were among the Americans who attended what was primarily a British show.
YALTA POINT CITED
It is believed that one of the problems that have occupied considerable time of the Big Three conference is the question of how to integrate the economy of partitioned Germany, part of which has been opened to the Poles by the Russians without waiting for any clarification or implementation by the other Allies of the decision reached at Yalta to compensate Poland for the loss of her eastern marshes with territory in the West taken from Germany.
UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Harry Truman and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin at the Potsdam conference, July 1945.
As a result, it is reported, hundreds of thousands of Germans from Pomerania and the land east of the Oder River are being evicted by the Poles before the creation of any machinery for the transfer of the population and are beginning a migration westward. About 9,000,000 Germans are said to be affected.
It was explained today that a large part of the work of the conference is done by experts and members of subcommittees who toil far into the night and report on their progress at the daily conference of Foreign Secretaries. The latter, Vyacheslaff M. Molotoff, Mr. Eden and James F. Byrnes, decide then which subjects are ready for discussion by the Big Three and prepare the agenda for the next meeting of their leaders. In this much time is saved and the Prime Minister, Premier and President are spared the wasted effort of discussions that could lead nowhere for lack of some pertinent facts.
Observers speculated on the effect of the British elections on the timing of the conference.
There is little doubt among British political observers here that Mr. Churchill’s Conservative party will emerge from the election with a majority in the Commons. There is, however, some doubt among them whether British constitutional practice requires his presence in England the day election results are announced or immediately thereafter.
Of course, if Labor won the election, both he and Mr. Attlee would probably have to return to England, Mr. Churchill to hand in the seals of office as the King’s First Minister and Mr. Attlee to attempt to form a Government. There are some who hold that the Prime Minister will have to be back in London anyway to go through the formalities of re-forming his Government, and for that reason today’s statement that much of the serious business of the conference had already been done was noted with interest.
JULY 27, 1945
VOTE LEAVES STALIN LAST OF INITIAL BIG 3
POTSDAM, Germany, July 27 (AP)—News of the British Labor party’s election triumph produced the political sensation of the year among delegations of the three great Allied powers in Potsdam today.
The defeat of Prime Minister Churchill’s Government apparently marks the second break in the original Big Three and leaves Premier Stalin as the only member of that triumvirat
e.
The first break was the death April 12 of President Roosevelt, whose place was filled by President Truman.
Clement R. Attlee has been attending the Potsdam conference with Mr. Churchill and thus is fully informed on the discussions.
The first impression here this afternoon was that Mr. Attlee would extend Mr. Churchill the courtesy of an invitation to return to Potsdam as a member of his delegation. But it was only a guess and few appeared to believe that Mr. Churchill would accept in view of the British voters’ verdict.
There was no authoritative information at once available to clarify the question as to how soon Mr. Attlee himself might be able to come back, but in most quarters it was believed that this would be within two or three days at most or the conference recess would become a formal adjournment.
There was no comment from President Truman and Premier Stalin.
The presumption was that plans were being made for continuance of the conferences here with Mr. Attlee.
JULY 27, 1945
CHURCHILL IS DEFEATED IN LABOR LANDSLIDE BRITISH TURN LEFT
War Regime Swept Out as Laborites Win 390 of 640 Seats
CHURCHILL BIDS ADIEU
By HERBERT L. MATTIEWS
By Cable to The New York Times
LONDON, July 26—In one of the most stunning election surprises in the history of democracy, Great Britain swung to the Left today in a landslide that smothered the Conservatives and put Labor into power with a great majority.
Winston Churchill has resigned as Prime Minister and Clement R. Attlee has accepted the King’s invitation to form a Laborite Government. The Liberals went down to an equally surprising defeat. The world, which looked to Britain for a guiding trend, has had its tremendous answer. Today and tomorrow and for months or years to come, the Left is the dominating power in global politics.
When the final result came in from the constituency of Hornchurch at 10:30 P. M., Labor had a staggering total of 390 scats out of a Parliament of 640, of which the holders of thirteen seats will not be known until early in August.
In the last Parliament, Labor had only 163 and in its greatest previous triumph, in 1929, it had 288.
CONSERVATIVES CUT TO J95 SCATS
The Conservatives had fallen from 358 seals to 195. The Liberals, too, lost seven seals and now have only eleven members in Parliament.
Adding fourteen Liberal Nationals and one National, the former Government is down to 210 seats, whereas if the Liberals, Independent Labor with three seats, the Commonwealth with one, the Communists with two and the Independents with ten are added to Labor, one gets a total of 417.
Such a tremendous majority means that the Labor party can confidently count on a full five year tenure of office, for it cannot be beaten on any vote of confidence.
Winston Churchill at the rear of Downing Street on his way to hand in his resignation to King George VI, July 26, 1945.
Out of nearly 25,000,000 votes, Labor alone won nearly 12,000,000. The Conservatives got a little more than 9,000,000 votes. The Labor party did not lose a single seat to the Conservatives, although it gained 130 from that party.
The results were a personal, decisive repudiation of Mr. Churchill as a peacetime leader. He himself personalized the election; he had asked that votes be cast for him so that he would be returned to power. The answer came not only in an overwhelming defeat for his party but even in his constituency of Woodford, where he was opposed only by a candidate whom he called “Tom-fool” Hancock, 10,500 persons out of 38,000 voted against him. His son, Maj. Randolph Churchill, and his son-in-law, Duncan Sandys were defeated.
JULY 29, 1945
BRITISH VOTE REFLECTS DEEP-SEATED FORCES
By CLIFTON DANIEL
By Wireless to The New York Times.
LONDON, July 28—British voters had a choice between Churchill and change. When the ballot boxes were opened this week they had chosen change and Britain had joined the European swing to the Left. Britain had been in the swing all along, but during ten years without a general election no one had been able to gauge the extent of the fact.
If Americans now wish to understand why the British people with seemingingratitude turned Winston Churchill out of office, they must first appreciate the depth of the yearning here for a change in the conception, functions and performance of government. That urge overrode all other considerations.
BREAK WITH PAST
To its own undoing the Conservative party underestimated the popular impulse. Beguiled by the personality of Mr. Churchill and deceived by the outward apathy of the voters, disinterested observers, including this writer, failed to perceive the irresistibility of that impulse in the English people.
But it is now apparent that by installing a Labor Government at Westminster the British people intended to make a clean break with the past the past of unemployment and doles, the past of appeasement and unpreparedness, the past of war and suffering, the past of unfulfilled promises and national frustration.
Whatever they may have gained or failed to gain by their votes, it is plain most of the British people were seeking somehow a guarantee for the future, a guarantee for the fulfillment of post-war hopes and schemes that have no relation to the muddling uncertainty that characterized years between the wars.
ALLIED PLEDGES ARE FIRM
There is no question of the new Attlee Government’s repudiating any of the broad international agreements undertaken by Britain in the five war years under Mr. Churchill, for the leaders of the Labor party participated in them all, as they have participated in the San Francisco and Potsdam conferences.
The victorious Labor party, which its opponents try to stigmatize with the label of “socialist,” is by no means a party of working-class revolution. Its domestic and foreign policies are not so alien to the modern British mind as the Conservatives would have had the voters believe.
But the British vote for Labor does represent a profound and fundamental change in political trends. For the ballots cast have turned out of office not only a party but a class.
AUGUST 7, 1945
FIRST ATOMIC BOMB DROPPED ON JAPAN
By SIDNEY SHALETT
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 6—The White House and War Department announced today that an atomic bomb, possessing more power than 20,000 tons of TNT, a destructive force equal to the load of 2,000 B-29’s and more than 2,000 times the blast power of what previously was the world’s most devastating bomb, had been dropped on Japan
The announcement, first given to the world in utmost solemnity by President Truman, made it plain that one of the scientific landmarks of the century had been passed, and that the “age of atomic energy,” which can be a tremendous force for the advancement of civilization as well as for destruction, was at hand.
At 10:45 o’clock this morning, a statement by the President was issued at the White House that sixteen hours earlier—about the time that citizens on the Eastern seaboard were sitting down to their Sunday suppers—an American plane had dropped the single atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, an important army center.
JAPANESE SOLEMNLY WARNED
What happened at Hiroshima is not yet known. The War Department said it “as yet was unable to make an accurate report” because “an impenetrable cloud of dust and smoke” masked the target area from reconnaissance planes. The Secretary of War will release the story “as soon as accurate details of the results of the bombing become available.”
But in a statement vividly describing the results of the first test of the atomic bomb in New Mexico, the War Department told how an immense steel tower had been “vaporized” by the tremendous explosion, how a 40,000-foot cloud rushed into the sky, and two observers were knocked down at a point 10,000 yards away. And President Truman solemnly warned:
“It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Postdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do
not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on this earth.”
MOST CLOSELY GUARDED SECRET
The President referred to the joint statement issued by the heads of the American, British and Chinese Governments, in which terms of surrender were outlined to the Japanese and warning given that rejection would mean complete destruction of Japan’s power to make war.
What is this terrible new weapon, which the War Department also calls the “Cosmic Bomb”? It is the harnessing of the energy of the atom, which is the basic power of the universe. As President Truman said, “The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.” “Atomic fission”—in other words, the scientists’ long-held dream of splitting the atom—is the secret of the atomic bomb. Uranium, a rare, heavy metallic element, which is radioactive and akin to radium, is the source essential to its production. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, in a statement closely following that of the President, promised that “steps have been taken, and continue to be taken, to assure us of adequate supplies of this mineral.”
The mushroom cloud at the time of the explosion, 1,640 feet above Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945.
The imagination-sweeping experiment in harnessing the power of the atom has been the most closely guarded secret of the war. America to date has spent nearly $2,000,000,000 in advancing its research. Since 1939, American, British and Canadian scientists have worked on it. The experiments have been conducted in the United States, both for reasons of achieving concentrated efficiency and for security; the consequences of having the material fall into the hands of the enemy, in case Great Britain should have been successfully invaded, were too awful for the Allies to risk.