Nuclear Weapons: Then and Now

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC.
Good morning, everyone. This week marks the 81st anniversary of the United States' actual first use of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. It dropped another one three days later on Nagasaki.
Today, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, nine countries possess nuclear weapons, the United States, Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea.
And of course, nuclear weapons are more in the news than usual this year with the war in Iran. One of the rationales for all the death and destruction in this war is that Iran, out of all the countries in the world because of the militancy of its regime, would be especially likely to actually use a nuclear weapon if it had one, as well as use that possibility as a background threat to intimidate enemies during more conventional warfare. That's one of the rationales for this war. But what would it actually take for Iran or its biggest enemy, Israel or any other country to decide to actually pull the nuclear trigger in today's world knowing what we know about the likely effects? What are the best ways to prevent those scenarios? With us for this, Fred Kaplan, author of two relevant books, The Wizards of Armageddon, first published in 1983, described as the untold story of the small group of men who devised the plans and shaped the policies on how to use the bomb, and his book, The Bomb, Presidents, Generals and the Secret History of Nuclear War. That one is a history of American nuclear weapons policy, including analyses of president's actions from Truman all the way to Trump, published in 2021 Fred also writes the War Stories column for Slate, and is a frequent guest on military affairs here. Fred, thanks for coming on for this. Welcome back to WNYC.

**Fred Kaplan** (2:09)
Thanks for asking me.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:11)
How was the decision made to actually use an atomic bomb at the end of World War II? Who considered what kinds of moral and military trade-offs?

**Fred Kaplan** (2:23)
Well, you know, in a strange way, there was no decision to use the bomb. There was a decision to build the bomb, and once it was ready to be used, it was used.
And once a second bomb came down the line, it was used. There was no separate decision, OK, now do we go ahead after destroying Hiroshima to drop a second bomb on Nagasaki? No, it kind of was in lockstep.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:54)
It was in lockstep. Why was it that simple considering the way we think about nuclear weapons used today?

**Fred Kaplan** (3:04)
Well, nobody thought about nuclear weapons much back then except for a couple dozen of the scientists who were working on it. There was some debate high up within the Truman administration. The bomb was built. The origins of this, let's go back to that. In 1939, Albert Einstein sent a note to Franklin Roosevelt, President Roosevelt saying the Germans are working on an atom bomb. It would be incredibly destructive.
We should start building one as well to deter them and or defeat them first. Okay, Germany surrenders in the spring of 1945 Japan is still in the war. And we're about to send a lot of troops to invade the Japanese island. The war in the Pacific has been just savage, absolutely brutal.
The estimate at the time was that about 30,000 American troops would die if they invaded the island of Japan. So here you have this big bomb that was ready to go. And the question, the operative question was not, why should we use this? But why not?
Things like radiation and a prospect of a nuclear arms race, and things like that, they weren't considered. Now there was some consideration, actually because of a letter that was written by Leo Szilard, one of the Manhattan Project scientists, who in fact wrote Einstein's letter under Einstein's signature to Roosevelt, saying, look, how about a demonstration of this bomb's destructiveness? Out in the middle of the ocean, everybody watches as a warning of what could happen if you don't surrender. There was some serious thought of that, and the argument was, well, look, what if that bomb is a dud? What if it doesn't go off? Then any bomb that we drop after that is going to have less effect because the Japanese might think, well, that one worked but the first one didn't, so let's keep going. They also doubted whether just the appearance of a bomb from a distance would really have any impact.
It's unclear really whether Truman himself, who by the way when he was Roosevelt's vice president, was never even told about the Manhattan Project. He didn't learn about the Manhattan Project until several days after he took over after Roosevelt's death. It's unclear whether he even listened. He was not aware of Szilard's letter urging a demonstration, and it's unclear whether he took part in any of the debates over whether to go ahead and drop it. So Truman's decision to drop the bomb was actually a decision not to stop a process that was already well in momentum.