Henry Stimson and the Origin of America's Attachment to Atomic Weapons (1985)

HENRY STIMSON AND THE ORIGIN OF AMERICA'S ATTACHMENT TO ATOMIC WEAPONS John L. Harper .t the beginning of his article "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb" in the February 1947 issue of Harper's, Henry L. Stimson observed, "No single individual can hope to know exactly what took place in the minds of all those who had a share in these events, but what follows is an exact description of our thoughts and actions as I find them in the records and in my clear recollection." Both the disclaimer and the decision to address the issue of the bomb were elegant of the man, an attorney of renown and in 1947 the living symbol of bipartisanship and disinterested public service. Stimson was a rare breed even then, an authentically progressive and internationalist Republican. On the question of atomic weaponry few could match his personal knowledge and experience. None could question his special authority to speak. That troubling question was much on the minds of informed and sensitive observers throughout 1946. The ill-fated Baruch Plan for U.N. control of atomic energy filled the news, as did the bomb's first postwar explosion at Bikini Atoll. Above all, perhaps, there was the appearance of John Hersey's stunning reportage, "Hiroshima," on the first anniversary of the bomb's explosion. The editors of the New Yorker devoted extraordinary space to Hersey "in the conviction that few of us have yet comprehended the all but incredible destructive power of this weapon, and that everyone might well take time to consider the terrible implicaJohn L. Harper is visiting assistant professor of U.S. foreign policy and European studies at SAIS during 1984—85, and a member ofthe resident faculty at the Bologna Center. 17 18 SAIS REVIEW tions of its use." On the bomb's fortieth anniversary there is no better way to glimpse, if not fully to comprehend, the effects of nuclear war. Former Secretary of War Stimson (previously Hoover's secretary of state) was moved to speak in a moment of public consternation about the bomb's moral implications and about the general break-down of SovietAmerican relations. Under such circumstances an elder statesman should not necessarily be expected to pay strict heed to the canons of "historical objectivity." What he chose to say and—as we shall see—not to say reflected not only his deep conviction that American action had been justified in August 1945, but also his exceptional concern for an agreement on atomic weapons with the Russians on the eve of the cold war in early 1947. The Harper's article provides an effective case for the use of the bomb against Japan as well as a reasonably complete account of Stimson's role in the affair.1 It is not, however, a comprehensive explanation of "the decision." In particular, it fails to show why American leaders, including Stimson himself, preferred to end the war with the use of atomic bombs rather than in some other way. Stimson's article is thus a convenient point of departure for a more general discussion of the decision to use the bomb and of the effects of that decision on subsequent American attitudes and policies. In particular , Stimson's account provides insight into the rather complex state of mind ofthe protagonists, the inseparable combination ofcalculations and hopes, of rational arguments and pure emotions that affected official thinking about the bomb—and, one is tempted to say, that have governed such thinking ever since. The story suggests that even before their first use the bombs had acquired that "top heaviness as instruments of our national policy,"2—those semi-hypnotic, totemic qualities that have since enshrined it at the center of American defense and foreign policy. What follows is offered in the conviction that America has remained attached to nuclear weapons in part for the same "reasons" ever since. On the bomb's fortieth anniversary we might well take time to consider once again how this lasting relationship began. As a defense of the bomb's use against Japan, Stimson's article is a meticulous and compelling brief. Athough the Air Force and the Navy did not think a...