Authors: David McCullough
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Presidents & Heads of State, #Political, #Historical
A young captain in the party started toward the piano mumbling something about not knowing how to read music but that he would take a stab at it if I would tell him when to turn. Whereupon…the President waved him aside with a sweeping gesture and volunteered to do the job himself! Just imagine! Well, you could have knocked me over with a toothpick!
Thank goodness I was able to get through the waltz in creditable, if not sensational, manner, despite the general excitement and the completely unexpected appearance of President Truman in the role of page-turner. Imagine having the President of the United States turn pages for you!…But that’s the kind of man the President is.
Truman was delighted to see Stalin so obviously enjoying himself. “The old man loves music,” he told Bess. “Our boy was good.”
By Friday the 20th, the week nearly over, there was still no further word on the test explosion in New Mexico. But when Truman invited Generals Eisenhower and Omar Bradley to lunch, the talk, according to Bradley’s later account, focused on strategy in the Pacific and use of the atomic bomb.
Bradley, a fellow Missourian, had never met Truman until now and liked what he saw. “He was direct, unpretentious, clear-thinking and forceful.” To Bradley it seemed that Truman had already made up his mind to use the new weapon. Though neither Bradley nor Eisenhower was asked for an opinion, Eisenhower said he opposed use of the bomb. He thought Japan was already defeated. To Stimson earlier he had expressed the hope that the United States would not be the first to deploy a weapon so horrible. In time, however, Eisenhower would concede that his reaction was personal and based on no analysis of the subject.
Eisenhower also advised Truman not to beg the Russians to come into the war with Japan, though he acknowledged that “no power on earth could keep the Red Army out of that war unless victory came before they could get in.”
If Truman, as implied in his diary, truly believed that “Manhattan” would bring such victory instantly, this would have been the time for him to have said so. But he did not, which suggests either that he was still less than sure about the bomb, or that, contrary to Bradley’s impression, he had still to make up his mind.
“But all of us wanted Russia in the war,” he would tell his daughter some years later. “Had we known what the bomb would do we’d never have wanted the Bear in the picture.”
Lunch over, accompanied by the two generals, Truman went again to Berlin, to the American sector this time, to speak at the raising of the flag that had flown over the Capitol in Washington the day Pearl Harbor was attacked. The ceremony took place in a small cobbled square in glaring sunshine. Stimson and General Patton were present, the tall, theatrical Patton resplendent in buckled riding boots, jodhpurs, and a lacquered four-star helmet. Patton seemed to glow from head to foot. There were stars on his shoulders, stars on his sleeves, more stars than Truman had ever seen on one human being. He counted twenty-eight.
Truman spoke without notes and with obvious emotion, choosing his words carefully, as he stood shoulders braced, thumbs hooked in the side pockets of his double-breasted suit, his eyes shadowed by his very un-military western-style Stetson. It was his own kind of speech—exactly what his address to the United Nations was not—and the first public pronouncement by any of the Big Three since arriving in Germany:
We are here today to raise the flag of victory over the capital of our greatest adversary…we must remember that…we are raising it in the name of the people of the United States, who are looking forward to a better world, a peaceful world, a world in which all the people will have an opportunity to enjoy the good things of life, and not just a few at the top.
Let us not forget that we are fighting for peace, and for the welfare of mankind. We are not fighting for conquest. There is not one piece of territory or one thing of a monetary nature that we want out of this war.
We want peace and prosperity for the world as a whole. [Here the thumbs came out of the coat pockets, his freed hands chopped the air in unison, the familiar gesture, as he stressed each word, “
peace and prosperity for the world as a whole.”
] We want to see the time come when we can do the things in peace that we have been able to do in war.If we can put this tremendous machine of ours, which has made victory possible, to work for peace, we can look forward to the greatest age in the history of mankind. That is what we propose to do.
It was not what Abraham Lincoln might have said, or what Robert Sherwood might have written for Franklin Roosevelt, but it was deeply moving, even for hard-shelled reporters and old soldiers. “What might easily have been made a routine patriotic display,” wrote Raymond Daniell of
The New York Times,
“and hardly a day passes without one in Berlin, was turned into a historic occasion by the President’s simple, homely declaration of the faith that had sent millions of American boys into battle far from home for a belief few of them could express.” As no one had anticipated, Truman made it a moment “of lasting inspiration to all of us who were there,” recorded General Lucius D. Clay. “While the soldier is schooled against emotion,” Clay wrote years later, “I have never forgotten that short ceremony as our flag rose to the staff.”
On the ride back, Truman was in a generous mood. Turning to Eisenhower he said out of the blue, “General, there is nothing you may want that I won’t try to help you get. That definitely and specifically includes the presidency in 1948.”
Bradley remembered trying to keep a straight face. Eisenhower looked flabbergasted. “Mr. President,” he replied, “I don’t know who will be your opponent for the presidency, but it will not be I.”
That night, recording his thoughts on the day’s session at the conference table, Truman said only that “Uncle Joe looked tired and drawn today and the P.M. seemed lost.” The main topic had been Italy. Little was accomplished.
Before noon on Saturday, July 21, Henry Stimson received by special courier the eagerly awaited report from General Groves, the first description of the first nuclear explosion and, as Stimson said, an “immensely powerful document.” By early afternoon he and General Marshall had reviewed it together, and at 3:30 Stimson brought it to the President. Byrnes was summoned, the doors were closed. Stimson began to read aloud in his scratchy old man’s voice.
The test had been “successful beyond the most optimistic expectations of anyone.” The test bomb had not been dropped from a plane but exploded on top of a 100-foot steel tower. The “energy generated” was estimated to be the equivalent of 15,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT.
For the first time in history there was a nuclear explosion. And what an explosion…. For a brief period there was a lighting effect within a radius of 20 miles equal to several suns in midday; a huge ball of fire was formed which lasted for several seconds. This ball mushroomed and rose to a height of over ten thousand feet before it dimmed. The light from the explosion was seen clearly at Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Silver City, El Paso and other points generally to about 180 miles away. The sound was heard to the same distance in a few instances but generally to about 100 miles. Only few windows were broken although one was some 125 miles away. A massive cloud was formed which surged and billowed upward with tremendous power, reaching the substratosphere at an elevation of 41,000 feet, 36,000 feet above the ground, in about five minutes, breaking without interruption through a temperature inversion at 17,000 feet which most of the scientists thought would stop it. Two supplementary explosions occurred in the cloud shortly after the main explosion. The cloud contained several thousand tons of dust picked up from the ground and a considerable amount of iron in the gaseous form. Our present thought is that this iron ignited when it mixed with the oxygen in the air to cause these supplementary explosions. Huge concentrations of highly radioactive materials resulted from the fission and were contained in this cloud.
The report described how the steel from the tower had evaporated, and the greenish cast of the pulverized dirt in a crater more than 1,000 feet in diameter.
One-half mile from the explosion there was a massive steel test cylinder weighing 220 tons. The base of the cylinder was solidly encased in concrete. Surrounding the cylinder was a strong steel tower 70 feet high, anchored to concrete foundations. This tower is comparable to a steel building bay that would be found in a typical 15 to 20 story skyscraper or in warehouse construction. Forty tons of steel were used to fabricate the tower which was…the height of a six story building. The cross bracing was much stronger than that normally used in ordinary steel construction. The absence of the solid walls of a building gave the blast a much less effective surface to push against. The blast tore the tower from its foundations, twisted it, ripped it apart and left it flat on the ground. The effects on the tower indicate that, at that distance, unshielded permanent steel and masonry buildings would have been destroyed…. None of us had expected it to be damaged.
Groves also included the impressions of his deputy, General Thomas F. Farrell, who was with Oppenheimer at the control shelter.
“Everyone in that room knew the awful potentialities of the thing that they thought was about to happen,” reported Farrell, who wrote of the explosion’s “searing light” and a “roar which warned of doomsday,” and described how, when it was over,
Dr. Kistiakowsky…threw his arms around Dr. Oppenheimer and embraced him with shouts of glee. Others were equally enthusiastic. All the pent-up emotions were released in those few minutes and all seemed to sense immediately that the explosion had far exceeded the most optimistic expectations and wildest hopes of the scientists. All seemed to feel that they had been present at the birth of a new age….
In his conclusion, Groves wrote, “We are all fully conscious that our real goal is still before us. The battle test is what counts….”
To read it all took Stimson nearly an hour. Whether Truman or Byrnes interrupted with questions or comments is unknown. But when Stimson stopped reading, Truman and Byrnes both looked immensely pleased. The President, in particular, was “tremendously pepped up,” wrote Stimson. “He said it gave him an entirely new confidence and he thanked me for having come to the Conference and being present to help him this way.”
Indeed, all three men felt an overwhelming sense of relief—that so much time and effort, that so vast an investment of money and resources had not been futile. It was not just that $2 billion had been spent, but that it was $2 billion that could have been used for the war effort in other ways. The thing worked—it could end the war—and, there was the pride too that a task of such complexity and magnitude, so completely unprecedented, had been an American success.
Clearly, Truman was fortified by the news. It is hard to imagine that he would not have been. That he and Byrnes felt their hand might be thus strengthened at the bargaining table with the Russians in time to come is also obvious—and perfectly understandable—but by no means was this the primary consideration, as some would later contend.
Truman went directly from the meeting to the Cecilienhof Palace where, as the next session got under way, the change in him was pronounced. He was more sure of himself, more assertive. “It was apparent something had happened,” wrote Robert Murphy, a political adviser to General Eisenhower. Churchill later told Stimson he could not imagine what had come over the President. (When Stimson went to see the prime minister the next day, to read him Groves’s report, Churchill’s response was more emphatic than Truman’s by far: “Stimson, what was gunpowder?” exclaimed Churchill. “What was electricity? Meaningless. This atomic bomb is the Second Coming in Wrath.”)
In an exchange across the table, Stalin said the three governments should issue a statement announcing a renewal of diplomatic relations with the former German satellite nations of Romania, Bulgaria, and Finland. When Truman disagreed, Stalin said the questions would have to be postponed.
“We will not recognize these governments until they are set up on a satisfactory basis,” said Truman.
Again they addressed the thorny question of Poland. In vague language at Yalta it had been agreed that Poland was to get new territory on the west, from Germany, to compensate for what Russia had taken from Poland on the east. At issue was Poland’s western border and the fact that the Polish government of the moment (and the Red Army) had already taken over what had been a sizable part of Germany. Truman thought such matters should be settled at the peace conference. It had been agreed, he said, that the Germany of 1937 was to be the starting point.
“We decided on our zones. We moved our troops to the zones assigned to us. Now another occupying government has been assigned a zone without consultation with us…. I am very friendly to Poland and sympathetic with what Russia proposes regarding the western frontier, but I do not want to do it that way.”
In other words, the Russians could not arbitrarily dictate how things were to be, and there would be no progress on reparations or other matters concerning Germany until this was understood.
“I am concerned that a piece of Germany, a valuable piece, has been cut off. This must be deemed a part of Germany in considering reparations and in the feeding of Germany. The Poles have no right to seize this territory now and take it out of the peace settlement. Are we going to maintain occupied zones until the peace or are we going to give Germany away piecemeal?”
He was not contentious, only unequivocal. Churchill was delighted. Eden thought it the President’s best day thus far, as did Leahy, though Leahy was certain the Russians had no intention of changing their course in Eastern Europe, regardless of what was said. Poland was a “Soviet
fait accompli,”
thought Leahy, and there was little the United States or Britain could do about it, short of going to war with the Russians, which was unthinkable.