Evening star., 1947-01-28

dered. Such an ultimatum was is
sued at Potsdam.
When it was rejected, Mr.. Stim-
son said, the American leaders
turned to the newly available atomic
bomb as a weapon which might
produce the necessary shock in
Japan, Strengthening the position
| of those who wished peace, and
weakening that of the military
party"
-Four Targets Approved.
Mr.. Stimson said that, when de-
tailed plans Of the operation were
brought to him for approval, he
struck from the list of. suggested
targets the city of Kyoto/ shrine
of Japanese art and culture. -Four
targets, including Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. were approved, he said.
The former Secretary stressed that
the final decision to use the bomb
was In line with the thinking Of
President Roosevelt and other off,
cials throughout the war.
"At no time," he said, from 1941
to 1945, did I ever hear it suggested
by the President, or by any other
responsible member of the Gov
ernment, that atomic energy should
not be used in the war. All of us
understood the terrible response
bility involved In our attempt to
unlock the doors to such a devas-
tating weapon; President Roosevelt
particularly spoke to me many
times of his awareness Of the cata-
strophic potentialities of our work.
"But, he continued, I'VE were at
war and the work must be done. I
therefore emphasize that it was
our common objective, throughout
the war, to be the first to produce
an atomic weapon and to Use it."
Aware Of Problems.
Through the series of memoranda
and conferences leading up to the
Hiroshima blast, cited by Mr.. Stim-
son, ran an urgent note of aware
ness by American leaders of atomic
control problems now engaging the
worlds attention.
Thus on March is, before America
had the bomb and four months be-
fore it had been tested, Mr.. Stim-
son was telling Mr.. Roosevelt '.how
important it was to get ready"
II went over with him." the former
Secretary wrote in his diary, "the
two schools of thought that exist
in respect to the future control after
the war of this project, in case it is
successful, one of them being the
secret close-in attempted control Of
the project by those who have it
now, and the other being the inter-
national control based upon freedom
both of science and of access"
On April Is, in giving President
Truman his first briefing on the
atomic secret, Mr.. Stimson said in
a memorandum that no other ma
ton could challenge our controlling
position "for some years." He added,
however, that other nations, even
small ones, probably would be able
in the future to make atomic bombs
more easily and quickly than we
were then making them. He said
that with the bomb even a small
nation might conquer a strong but
unsuspecting nation within a very
few days"
Civilization at Stake. q,
THE world in its present state
of moral advancement compared
with its technical development would
be eventually at the mercy of such
a weapon" Mr.. Stimson told Mr..
Truman. "In other words, modern
civilization might be completely
destroyed" .la
The world, he went onto predict,
| would have to revise its ideas of
international cooperation to cope
with this new menace. Even then,
he said, both inside any particular
country and between the nations of
the world, the control of this weapon
will undoubtedly be matter Of the
greatest difficulty and would involve
such thoroughgoing rights of in
spection and international controls
as we have never heretofore
contemplated"
America, Mr.. Stimson said in that
early memorandum, would have to
face the question of whether to
share the then nonexistent bomb
with other nations. If we shirked
our moral responsibility, he said,
ours would be a large share Of the
responsibility for the disaster to