2 - The Hiroshima Decision

Summary

This chapter provides the background of the decision; it narrates the bare facts, which all historians of the decision would agree on. Albert Einstein’s letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 alerted him to the danger posed by possible German attempts to build an atomic bomb. We trace the origins of the Manhattan Project and the events leading to use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japanese wartime strategy hoped to achieve a decisive battle that would compel the Allies to negotiate an end to the war. The bare facts don’t speak for themselves; they must be interpreted. “A catalogue of undoubted and indubitable information, even if arranged chronologically, remains a catalogue. To become a history, facts have to be put together into a pattern that is understandable and credible….” When historians explain the narrative of events which we tell in this chapter, they will differ in a host of ways depending on what facts they choose to emphasize, the questions they ask, their generational and national perspectives, and their personal background.