Source 1President’s News Conference about Atomic Energy

191. The President's News Conference Following the Signing of a Joint Declaration on Atomic Energy– Part 1 Background: The following reading is from a speech given by US President Harry S. Truman where he discusses his ideas and plans to make sure that nuclear weapons/atomic bombs will not be used for war.November 15, 1945[With Prime Minister Attlee of Great Britain and Prime Minister King of Canada] A prime minister is a high government position.

This [meeting] is headed "The President of the United States, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the Prime Minister of Canada, have issued the following statement.

"1. We recognize that the [use] of recent scientific discoveries to [change] war has [given] mankind means of destruction [previously] unknown, [and military cannot stop it or defend anyone against it] and in the employment of which no single nation can in fact have [all of the weapons by themselves].

"2. We [want] to [focus on] the responsibility for [coming up with ways] to [make sure] that the new discoveries shall be used for the benefit of mankind, instead of [for] destruction, rests not on our nations alone, but upon the whole civilized world. Nevertheless, the progress that we have made in the development and use of atomic energy demands that we take a [lead] in the matter, and we have [decided to meet] together to [discuss] the possibility of international action:

"(a) To prevent the use of atomic energy [atomic bombs/nuclear weapons] for destructive purposes.

"(b) To promote the use of recent and future advances in scientific knowledge, particularly in the [use] of atomic energy, for peaceful and [caring] ends.

"3. We are aware that the only complete protection for the civilized world from the destructive use of scientific knowledge [is to keep war from happening]. No system of [protections] that can be devised will…guarantee against [the building of] atomic weapons by a nation [who is angry and] aggressive. Nor can we ignore the possibility of the development of other weapons, or of new methods of warfare, which may [result in] a great threat to civilization as the military use of atomic energy.

"4. Representing, as we do, the three countries which [have] the [necessary] knowledge to the use of atomic energy, we declare [at the beginning] our willingness, as a first contribution, to [continue on] with the exchange of fundamental scientific information and the interchange of scientists and scientific literature for peaceful ends with any nation that will [return the same wishes for peace].

"5- We believe that the fruits of scientific research should be made available to all nations, and that freedom of investigation and free interchange of ideas are [important] to the progress of knowledge. In [fulfillment] of this policy, the basic scientific information [that is important] to the development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes has already been made available to the world. It is our intention that all further information of this [kind] that may become available from time to time shall [also be treated this way]. We trust that other nations will adopt the same policy, [which will create] an atmosphere of confidence [on all sides] in which political agreement and cooperation will [continue to grow and get better].

"6. We have considered the question of the [release] of detailed information concerning the practical industrial [use] of atomic energy. The military [abuse] of atomic energy depends, in large part, upon the same methods and processes as would be required for industrial uses.

"We are not convinced that the spreading of the information regarding the practical application of atomic energy, before it is possible to [be proven] effective, [equal], and enforceable safeguards acceptable to all nations, would contribute to a constructive solution of the problem of the atomic bomb. On the [other hand], we think it might have the opposite effect. We are, however, prepared to share, on a [give-and-take] basis with others of the United Nations, detailed information concerning the practical industrial application of atomic energy just as soon as effective enforceable safeguards against its use for destructive purposes can be [created].

Source: Provided courtesy of The American Presidency Project. John Woolley and Gerhard Peters. University of California, Santa Barbara.

Source 2 The Story of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945)

Background Information: First-hand accounts from survivors [show] the bomb’s impact on Hiroshima’s people. The following "Voice

of Hibakusha" eyewitness accounts of the bombing of Hiroshima are from the program HIROSHIMA WITNESS produced by the

Hiroshima Peace Cultural Center and NHK, the public broadcasting company of Japan.

Mr. Akihiro Takahashi was 14 years old, when the bomb was dropped. He was standing in line with other students of his junior high school, waiting for the morning meeting 1.4 km away from the center. He was under medical treatment for about year and half. And even today black nail grows at his finger tip, where a piece of glass was stuck.“The heat was tremendous . And I felt like my body was burning all over. For my burning body the cold water of the river was as precious as treasure. Then I left the river, and I walked along the railroad tracks in the direction of my home. On the way, I ran into another friend of mine, Tokujiro Hatta. I wondered why the soles of his feet were badly burnt. It was unthinkable to get burned there. But it was undeniable fact the soles were peeling and red muscle was exposed. Even I myself was terribly burnt. I could not go home ignoring him. I made him crawl using his arms and knees. Next, I made him stand on his heels and I supported him. We walked heading toward my home repeating the two methods. When we were resting because we were so exhausted, I found my grandfather's brother and his wife, in other words, great uncle and great aunt, coming toward us. That was quite coincidence. As you know, we have a proverb about meeting Buddha in Hell. My encounter with my relatives at that time was just like that. They seem to be the Buddha to me wandering in the living hell”. Ms. Akiko Takakura was 20 years old when the bomb fell. She was in the Bank of Hiroshima, 300 meters away from the hypocenter. Ms. Takakura miraculously escaped death despite over 100 lacerated wounds on her back. She is one of the few survivors who was within 300 meters of the hypocenter. She now runs a kindergarten and she relates her experience of the atomic bombing to children.“Many people on the street were killed almost instantly. The fingertips of those dead bodies caught fire and the fire gradually spread over their entire bodies from their fingers. A light gray liquid dripped down their hands, scorching their fingers. I, I was so shocked to know that fingers and bodies could be burned and deformed like that. I just couldn't believe it. It was horrible. And looking at it, it was more than painful for me to think how the fingers were burned, hands and fingers that would hold babies or turn pages, they just, they just burned away. For a few years after the A-bomb was dropped, I was terribly afraid of fire. I wasn't even able to get close to fire because all my senses remembered how fearful and horrible the fire was, how hot the blaze was, and how hard it was to breathe the hot air. It was really hard to breathe. Maybe because the fire burned all the oxygen, I don't know. I could not open my eyes enough because of the smoke, which was everywhere. Not only me but everyone felt the same. And my parts were covered with holes”. http://www.hiroshima-remembered.com/history/hiroshima/page14.html

Source 3 Nagasaki Timeline

Background: The following reading was produced by a member of the American military during World War II. It tells of the process for dropping the 2nd Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki, Japan in 1945.

9 Aug 1945At about 11:00 AM, bombardier Captain Kermit Beahan aboard Bockscar, previously unable to find his original aiming point near the center of Nagasaki, found a break in the clouds directly over another aiming point. This aiming point was over the Urakami Valley [that was basically the] Nagasaki suburbs, which had industrial complexes [used for] war production. Beahan signaled that he was ready to proceed with the attack.

At 11:00 AM, the Great Artiste, the scientific aircraft, dropped instruments attached to three parachutes. Also inside this package was an unsigned letter to Professor Ryokichi Sagane, a leading nuclear physicist of Japan who had befriended American nuclear physicists prior to the war, urging him to advise Japanese leadership to surrender to avoid further atomic attacks.

11:01 AM, Beahan released the bomb over Urakami. 43 seconds later, the "Fat Man" bomb containing about 6.4 kilograms of Plutonium 239 detonated at the altitude of 469 meters over the halfway point between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works in the south and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works (a factory producing torpedoes for naval attacks) in the north. Ground Zero was about 3 kilometers northwest of the original aiming point near the center of Nagasaki. The resulting blast was much greater than the "Little Boy" blast that devastated Hiroshima three days earlier. Somewhere between 40,000 to 75,000 people were immediately killed by the explosion [similar to] the detonation of 21 kilotons of TNT, and everything within 1 kilometer from Ground Zero were reduced to total ruin. Fires were started as far as 3.2 kilometers from Ground Zero. The heat generated by the bomb was estimated at 3,900 degrees Celcius, and the blast created winds up to 1,005 kilometers per hour in speed. Because the detonation had taken place in a valley, the center of Nagasaki was shielded by the mountains and hills that surrounded Urakami, thus large parts of Nagasaki were relatively unharmed by the initial blast. By the end of 1945, death tolls directly related to "Fat Man" reached 80,000.About 2,000 of the deaths at Nagasaki were Korean workers.

As Bockscar flew toward Okinawa after the bombing, Sweeney did everything he could to conserve fuel. He lowered the speed of his propellers, while he lowered his [height] to increase his speed rather than using his fuel. When he had Okinawa in sight, one of his engines gave out. After he was not able to get any control tower's attention, he fired off every single emergency flare he had in Bockscar, and his apparently strange act finally got someone attention, and made a safe landing quite literally on the last drops of fuel. As the B-29 aircraft was surrounded by fire trucks and ambulances (his display of flares signaled all kinds of emergencies), a high-level order came from Tinian Island, requiring the crews at Okinawa to give whatever Bockscar required for a return trip to Tinian.George Weller, one of the first reporters to reach Nagasaki after the attack, and certainty the first western journalist to do so, wrote a report that was [edited] and would not become published until Jun 2005. In it, he noted:

Look at the pushed-in [front] of the American embassy, three miles from the blast's center, or the face of the Catholic cathedral, one mile in the other direction, torn down like gingerbread, and you can tell that the [atomic bomb] spares nothing in its way.

Source 4Hiroshima Before & After the Bomb

After the Bomb

Before the Bomb

Source 5 Artwork from Japanese Artists who experienced the atomic bombing of

Hiroshima or Nagasaki

Charred Child by Yamashita Masato (1973)

Kihara Toshiko (1975)–People who died in the water tank. Suffering middle-school students. A horse in agony. A mother and child.

Source 6: Statistics about the Atomic bombs dropped in Japan TABLE A: Estimates of Casualties

Hiroshima Nagasaki

Pre-raid population 255,000 195,000

Dead 66,000 39,000

Injured 69,000 25,000

Total Casualties 135,000 64,000

TABLE B: Relation of Total Casualties to Distance from where the bomb hit the

ground

Distance from X,feet Killed Injured Missing

TotalCasualties

Killedper square mile

0 - 1,640 7,505 960 1,127 9,592 24,7OO

1,640 - 3,300 3,688 1,478 1,799 6,965 4,040

3,300 - 4,900 8,678 17,137 3,597 29,412 5,710

4,900 - 6,550 221 11,958 28 12,207 125

6,550 - 9,850 112 9,460 17 9,589 20

Photographs of both atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945.

Diagram of Little Boy Diagram of Fat Man(dropped on Nagasaki) (dropped on Hiroshima)