by A. J. Baime
“Following info regarding Manhattan”: Cominch & CNO to William D. Leahy, August 6, 1945, SMOF: Naval Aide to the President Files, box 6, Truman Papers.
“Captain,” Truman said: Log of the President’s Trip, July 7, 1945. Also Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman (New York: William Morrow, 1973), p. 282.
“Fine! Fine!”: Cynthia C. Kelly, ed., Manhattan Project: The Birth of the Atomic Bomb in the Words of Its Creators, Eyewitnesses, and Historians (New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007), p. 331.
“To the President”: Henry L. Stimson to Truman, n.d., SMOF: Naval Aide to the President Files, box 6.
“It’s time for us to get”: Log of the President’s Trip, July 7, 1945.
“tense with excitement”: “Truman Tells Warship Crew,” Los Angeles Times, August 7, 1945.
“Keep your seats, gentlemen”: Ibid.
“I guess I’ll go home”: “Truman Dramatically Announces Successful Use of Atomic Bomb,” Hartford Courant, August 7, 1945.
“somewhat excited and under some”: Diary of Eben A. Ayers, n.d., Eben A. Ayers Papers, box 6, Truman Library.
“I have got here what I think”: Transcript of Eben A. Ayers press conference, August 6, 1945, Ayers Papers, box 6.
“‘Sixteen hours ago an American’”: Ibid.
“Now, the statement explains”: Ibid.
“It’s a hell of a story!”: Ibid.
“a harnessing of the basic power”: Statement by the President of the United States, August 6, 1945, Truman Library, https://www.trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/viewpapers.php?pid=100.
“Their leaders promptly rejected”: Statement by the President, August 6, 1945.
“The Japanese began the war”: Ibid.
“I shall give further consideration”: Ibid.
Chapter 38
“The president stepped out”: Robert Ferrell, ed., Truman in the White House: The Diary of Eben A. Ayers (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991), p. 58.
“Come on up to the room”: Oral history interview, Eben A. Ayers, p. 54, Truman Library.
“Now, that may seem strange”: Ibid.
“[Truman] mentioned the terrible”: Diary of Henry L. Stimson, August 8, 1945, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers, Yale University Library.
“When you punish your dog”: Ibid.
“practically all living things”: “Russia Attacks Japan, Second Atomic Bombing!,” Los Angeles Times, August 9, 1945.
“The crew said, ‘My God’”: “One Atomizer Erases 60% of Jap City,” Daily Boston Globe, August 8, 1945.
“the most revolutionary”: “Atom Bomb Crew’s Story!” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 8, 1945.
“Welcome home!”: Conversation from transcript of Truman press conference, PSF:PCF, box 51, Truman Papers.
He owed the Metropolitan Poultry: Truman bank records, Bess W. Truman Papers, box 9, Truman Library.
“had not been able to solve”: W. Averell Harriman to Harry S. Truman and James F. Byrnes, August 9, 1945, SMOF:MRF, box 1.
“war trophies”: Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: 1945; Year of Decisions (New York: Honecky & Honecky, 1955), p. 424.
“America asks that you take”: “Pall Rising 20,000 Feet,” Los Angeles Times, August 10, 1945.
“We are on our way to bomb”: William L. Laurence, “Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki Told by Flight Member,” New York Times, September 9, 1945.
“Joint Army-Navy-Civilian”: Alex Wellerstein, “Nagasaki: The Last Bomb,” New Yorker, August 7, 2015.
“I watched the assembly”: Laurence, “Atomic Bombing.”
“This second demonstration”: Truman, Memoirs, p. 426.
“The Japanese Government today”: Ibid., p. 427.
“Byrnes stopped while reading”: The Price of Vision: The Diary of Henry A. Wallace 1942–1946, ed. John Morton Blum (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), p. 474.
“all those kids”: Blum, Diary of Henry A. Wallace, p. 474.
“beg us to accept unconditional”: Richard B. Russell Jr. to Truman, August 7, 1945, Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb Research File, Truman Library.
“I certainly regret the necessity”: Truman to Russell, August 9, 1945, ibid.
“From the moment of surrender”: Directive to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Armies, PSF, box 159, Truman Papers.
“Rumors flew, switchboards jammed”: “Truman Calmest Man in Capital as World Awaits,” Daily Boston Globe, August 11, 1945.
“the calmest man in town”: Ibid.
“The real significance”: “Canadians’ Work on Weapon Told,” New York Times, August 7, 1945.
“Our savage generation cannot”: “What the Atomic Bomb Means—a Digest of Opinion,” New York Times, August 12, 1945.
“We have spent more than”: Statement by the President of the United States, August 6, 1945, Truman Papers, https://www.trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/viewpapers.php?pid=100.
“My initial thought upon”: Clark Clifford with Richard Holbrooke, Counsel to the President: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 1991), p. 57.
“skeptical”: W. Averell Harriman to James F. Byrnes, August 11, 1945, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945v06/d409.
“the Soviet forces, therefore”: Ibid.
“The Allied Powers should reach”: Harriman to Byrnes, cable 2, August 11, 1945, quoted in Truman, Memoirs, p. 430.
“most heated discussion”: Ibid., p.431
“Victory was already assured”: “The Past Four Months: Unequalled in History,” New York Times, August 12, 1945.
“fratricidal war”: Truman, Memoirs, p. 434.
“nothing short of a miracle”: Patrick Hurley to Harry S. Truman, September 12, 1945, SMOF:MRF, box 1, Truman Papers.
“Conclusions I have reached”: Edwin W. Pauley to Truman, August 10, 1945, Foreign Relations: Diplomatic Papers, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945v07/d118.
“The President desires that such”: Joint Chiefs of Staff to Douglas MacArthur and Chester W. Nimitz, cable, August 11, 1945, William D. Leahy Papers, Records of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, box 9, record group 218, National Archives, College Park, MD.
“Secular history offers few”: Edward R. Murrow, In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, 1938–1961 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), p. 102.
“I have received this afternoon”: Transcript of Truman press conference, August 14, 1945, Truman Library, https://www.trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/viewpapers.php?pid=107.
“We want Harry!”: “Truman Replies to Shouts of Crowd, ‘We Want Harry,’” Christian Science Monitor, August 15, 1945.
“[Truman] was on the White House”: “Truman Leads Cheering Throngs in Capital’s Wildest Celebration,” Atlanta Constitution, August 15, 1945.
“Harry’s such a wonderful man”: David McCullough, Truman (New York: Touchstone, 1993), p. 462.
“I told her,” he later recalled: Truman, Memoirs, p. 438.
“the wildest celebration”: “Truman Leads Cheering Throngs.”
Epilogue
“We can set no bounds”: Clement R. Attlee to Harry S. Truman, September 25, 1945, Albert M. Cornelius Papers, box 1, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library.
“For President Truman the postwar”: Robert J. Donovan, Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1977), p. 107.
THE BUCK STOPS HERE!: “The Buck Stops Here Desk Sign,” Truman Library, https://www.trumanlibrary.org/buckstop.htm.
“a powder keg ready to explode”: Commander in Chief Army Air Forces Advance Tokyo Japan to War Department, cable, September 18, 1945, William D. Leahy Papers, Records of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, box 9, record group 218, National Archives, College Park, MD.
“Harry S. Truman was no ‘accidental’”: Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman (New York: William Morrow, 1973), p. 43.
“as cancer and other long-term�
��: “The Manhattan Project: an Interactive History: The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima,” United States Department of Energy, https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1945/hiroshima.htm.
“It is my opinion that the use”: William D. Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman Based on His Notes and Diaries Made at the Time (New York: Whittlesey House, 1950), p. 441.
“all war is immoral”: Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1995), pp. 21–22.
“The face of war is the face of”: Henry L. Stimson, “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,” Harper’s, February 1947.
“I regarded the dropping”: George C. Marshall, transcript of interview, February 11, 1957, Marshall Foundation, http://marshallfoundation.org/library/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2014/05/Marshall_Interview_Tape14.pdf.
“The historic fact remains”: Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 6, Triumph and Tragedy (New York: Bantam, 1962), p. 546.
“It occurred to me”: James Carroll, House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), p. 44.
“The simplest explanation”: Stephen Ambrose and Douglas Brinkley, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (New York: Penguin, 2011), p. 48.
“You know, many times”: Oral history interview, George Tames, pp. 39–40, Truman Library.
“Then,” recalled a photographer: Ibid.
“Harry S. Truman is now”: “Obama’s Legacy Will Be Like Truman’s,” Boston Globe, February 18, 2015.
“Americans felt leaderless”: Jonathan Daniels, The Man of Independence (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1971), p. 19.
“I do the very best I know how”: “Good Men at Work,” Life, February 5, 1951.
Index
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
* * *
21-point program, 331, 356
A
Aiken, George, 124
Alexander, Harold, 206
al-Ilah, Abd, 220–21
Allen, George, 10, 11, 53, 109, 110
Allied Reparations Commission, 157, 322
Allies. See also Potsdam meeting
occupation zones in Germany, 207
Allison, Sam, 285
Ambrose, Stephen, 359
American Institute of Public Opinion, 258
Anderson, Clinton P., 224
Arnold, Henry Harley “Hap,” 147–50, 216–17
atomic bomb. See Manhattan Project
Attlee, Clement, 265, 295, 320, 324–25, 340
Augusta, 267, 273–74, 276, 330–31, 341
Austria, Russians close borders, 193
Ayers, Eben, 32, 118, 132, 168, 222–23, 231, 272, 339–40
Aylward, James P., 71, 72, 74
B
B-29 bomber, 8, 147–49, 191, 214, 334
Bainbridge, Kenneth T., 272
Barkley, Alben, 27, 83, 93–95, 100, 102, 123, 192
Barrows, Roberta, 158, 198–99
Bell, Jack, 125
Berenstein, Dave, 83
Bernadotte, Folke, 174
Bevin, Ernest, 325
Biddle, Francis, 27, 30, 224
Biffle, Leslie, 6, 27, 123–24
Bird, Kai, 235
Blaisdell, Thomas, 114
Blumentritt, Günther, 180
Bockscar, 345
Boettiger, Anna and John, 26
Bohlen, Charles, 16, 126–27, 165–66, 183, 289, 295, 303
Boring, Floyd, 198
Boston Daily Globe, 215
Boston Globe, 109, 268, 360
Bradley, Omar, 7, 36
Braun, Eva, 180
Bricker, John W., 10
Brinkley, Douglas, 359
British Second Army, 150
Brooke, Alan, 309
Brown, Tillie, 156–57
Bruenn, Howard, 23–24
Buchanan, James, 119
Bullitt, William, 17
Bush, Vannevar, 170, 190
Byrd, Harry, 94
Byrnes, James F., 338. See also Japan; Potsdam meeting
atomic bomb, 126, 172–73, 190–91, 233, 236–37, 338
relationship with Truman, 84
Roosevelt and vice presidency, 93–97, 100, 102, 113
secretary of state for Truman, 144, 224, 258–59, 262, 265–66, 268
USSR and Stalin, 125–26, 161, 272, 321
C
cabinet and cabinet meetings, 155
first cabinet meeting called, 27, 30
team building, 155
Truman announces changes, 224
Cadogan, Alexander, 280
Canfil, Fred, 67, 73, 82, 86, 92–93, 106, 272, 275, 308, 356
appointed U.S. marshal, 159
Chaney, Verne, 58
Chapman, Oscar, 67
Chiang Kai-shek, 208, 271, 313, 317, 350
Chicago Defender, 159
Chicago Tribune, 109, 150, 248
Chiles, Henry, 63
China, 208, 271–72, 351, 356
Christian Science Monitor, 68, 107
Churchill, Winston, 16–18, 20, 122, 128, 140, 186–87, 242–43, 279–80
atomic bomb, 172, 299–300, 359
election at end of war, 275–76
iron curtain, 194
meeting with Stalin and Truman, 193–94
reaction to Roosevelt’s death, 36
on Russia, 130, 182
Clark, Bennett “Champ,” 71, 104
Clark, Tom, 224, 342
Clifford, Clark, 200, 202, 349
Cochran, John J., 73
Compton, Arthur, 169, 172, 235–36
Compton, Karl T., 170, 190
Conant, James, 170
concentration camps liberated, 7, 150, 179
Connally, Tom, 83, 94, 259
Connelly, Matthew J., 85–87, 108, 113, 118, 140–41, 143, 156–57
Crim, Howell, 31, 185
Crowley, Leo, 203
D
daily routine, President’s, 117, 139, 140. See also Truman, Harry S., vice president
Daly, John Charles, 29
Danaher, John, 131
Daniels, Jonathan, 9, 27, 30–32, 110, 118, 132, 142, 360
Davies, Joseph, 30, 166–67, 196, 209, 213, 242–43, 295
Davis, Jimmie, 189
de Gaulle, Charles, 130, 140, 240–41, 243
Delano, Laura, 21, 22
Democratic convention 1944
Roosevelt role, 94–95, 98–99, 102
vice-presidential nomination, 10, 95–98, 100–105
“Wallace letter,” 99–100
Democratic National Committee, 109
Dempsey, Miles, 150
Dewey, Thomas, 10, 94
Dingell, John, 131
Donovan, Robert J., 356
Donovan, William “Wild Bill,” 205
Dorsett, Lyle W., 72
Douglas, William O., 95, 99, 102
Drescher, George, 278
Drury, Allen, 13, 106, 144
E
Eaker, Ira C., 248
Early, Stephen, 23–28, 30, 32, 83, 157
Easley, Harry, 12, 111
Eden, Anthony, 136, 280, 295, 305
Einstein, Albert, 169
Eisenhower, Dwight D., “Iron Ike,” 7, 36, 181, 240, 319
atomic bomb, 358
Germany, 7–8, 186, 188
in northern Italy, 206
Potsdam meeting preparations, 267–68
return to Washington, 254
Enola Gay, 334, 343
Essary, Helen, 142
Evans, Tom, 35, 97, 110
F
Faris, Edgar, 77
Farrell, Thomas, 285, 312
federal budget, 153–54, 202
Ferebee, Thomas, 336–37
Fermi, Enrico, 70, 235, 284
Ferrell, Robert H., 65
Fields, Alo
nzo, 184, 202
Floyd, Charles “Pretty Boy,” 69
Flynn, Ed, 96
Ford Motor Company, B-24s, 120
foreign relations. See also Poland; Potsdam meeting; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR); Yalta Conference
communiqué to Stalin, 136
meeting on Soviet Union, 163
Truman’s meeting with Molotov, 163
Forrestal, James, 30, 121, 155, 210, 248
Franck, James, 253
Fulton, Hugh, 86
G
Gallup, George, poll on 1948 presidential race, 223–24
Gannon, Robert, 348
Garr, Vietta, 202
Germany, 173, 303, 310
Himmler’s offer of surrender, 174–75
occupation by four Allies, 181–82
Soviet soldiers looting, 322
Truman tours Frankfurt, 319
Gillette, Guy, 77
Goebbels, Joseph, 180
Goichi Oshima, 337–38
Göring, Hermann, 80, 232–33
Graham, Wallace, 278
Great Britain, meeting with King George VI, 330
Grew, Joseph, 143, 203, 208, 218, 241, 271, 275
Gromyko, Andrei, 295
Groves, Leslie, 168–71, 190–91, 283, 285, 286, 311–12, 348
Guillain, Robert, 214
H
Hanford, Washington. See Manhattan Project
Hannegan, Robert, 95–97, 99, 101–2, 157, 201
Harding, Warren G., 132
Harriman, Averell, 18–22, 35, 114, 136–37, 163–64, 295
diplomatic career, 162
and Poland, 165
and USSR, 127, 163, 166, 210, 344
Harrison, George L., 286
Harty, Tom, 4, 25
Hassett, Bill, 21, 27, 140, 339
Hayden, Carl, 347
Hehmeyer, Walter, 107, 200
Helm, Edith, 184
Higgins, Andrew, 120
Hillman, Sidney, 97
Himmler, Heinrich, 174, 232
Hinde, Edgar, 63
Hirschfelder, Joe, 285
Hiss, Alger, 260
Hitler, Adolf, 36, 70, 104, 150–51, 179–80