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73 years ago today: After being told that another atomic bomb would be ready to use on Japan in a week, Truman orders that no further bombs would be dropped without his express opinion. He tells his cabinet that he couldn't stand the thought of killing "all those kids."pic.twitter.com/enzlRqLPsP
This is, in my view, the moment at which Presidential unilateral control over the use of nuclear weapons is born. Not in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where Truman ceded almost all control to the military and the Department of War. But in the non-use of nuclear weapons, afterwards.
The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 would give the President the control over letting the military have access to nuclear weapons, which Truman jealously kept to himself for almost his entire Presidency (in 1951, he said they could have 9 weapons, but weren't allowed to use them).pic.twitter.com/4YSZFOZEhT
Throughout his Presidency, Truman privately reinforced the idea that he did not want the military to have the ability to use nuclear weapons. It is a curious turn for someone so associated with their use in WWII and the defense of that use.pic.twitter.com/hSGNrjF2xN
In September 1948, the National Security Council, with Truman's blessing, codified that the President — and only the President — could authorize the employment of nuclear weapons. Though the details have changed over the years, this is still how use authority is regarded today.pic.twitter.com/WJxAufQHUb
As John F. Kennedy would later note, the fact that the President of the US had the power to use nuclear weapons wasn't some logical outcome — "History had given him this power" to kill hundreds of millions at a moment's notice.pic.twitter.com/5Usslm8YVN
That this power was originally implemented as a means to stop a trigger-happy military from using nuclear weapons is, perhaps, an irony in a period in which people wonder whether the military would serve as a check to stop a trigger-happy President.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/11/22/if-trump-wants-to-use-nuclear-weapons-whether-its-legal-wont-matter/?utm_term=.1696b6b01eda …
I've spent a lot of time in the last few years tracing the history — sometime pretty soon, @avnercohen123 and I will have a new website up dedicated to the past, present, and future of Presidential nuclear control, with documents, articles, oral histories, and more.
Out of curiosity, who wrote that note back to Groves saying Truman was ordering a stop?
George C. Marshall.
That's one hell of a signature.... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_C_Marshall_Signature.svg …
He was one Hell of a Soldier.
Transcriptions, sources, and background to Truman's order to stop the atomic bombing are here: http://www.dannen.com/decision/bomb-halt.html …
Very informative thread Alex. Thanks for posting.
His reference to kids is striking, and unsurprising. There’s something a/b kids, & future generations, that became a trope and a moral grammar for nuclear restraint during the Cold War—a kind of rhetorical wedge for inserting humanitarian considerations into strategic discourse.
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