Deathboats and Lifeboats:
- Truman did not use the atomic bomb, even though in a press conference on November 30, 1950, he did not deny the possibility.
- The government rushed to assure the world that Truman’s statement had been badly worded and they were never planning to use the A-bomb
- When MacArthur clearly disagreed with this policy, he was sacked (April 1951)
I.
- Weaponry and technology was quickly expanding. In times before, when new weapons had been invented, they were used. But the atomic bomb was much more powerful “several million times more potent”. Clausewitz graced us with his wisdom when he implied the object of war was to secure the state and wars had to be limited. This is one of the reasons A-bombs were only used on August 6 and 9 of 1945 to end WWII. The shock of the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led people to be much more reluctant to use this gruesomely effective weapon.
II.
- Harry S. Truman ordered the dropping of the A-bomb, he is the only person ever to have ordered off a nuclear weapon set to kill people. When Truman told a group of advisors in 1948 “… we have got to treat this differently from rifles and cannon and ordinary things like that …” he revolutionized the power of the military in wars. He insisted that a civilian agency would be in control of the atomic bombs and their production. He advised turning over all such weapons to the UN. Although his intentions were good, vague and conflicting ideas made his plan confusing and hard to deal with. In the end, though, Truman changed politics. “For by denying the military control over atomic weapons, he reasserted civilian authority over how wars were to be fought.” Finally, he denied the age old human pattern of, “when weapons are developed, they will be used.”
III.
- The United States and its Allies, not knowing necessary information about the locations and preparations of atomic bombs had to blindly trust that the commander-in-chief would use the atomic bomb on the Soviets if the attempted to occupy the rest of Asia. Stalin’s reaction to the American bombs would have a lot to do with determining the future of warfare. Attempting to persuade the Soviets to recognize the power of the atomic bomb and act accordingly, they encouraged officers to tour the ruins of Hiroshima and the horrors in the aftermath of the A-bomb. Stalin, an experienced dictator, know the importance of showing no fear, even if he felt it. He was afraid, though, and this caused him to launch his own A-bomb project, putting a large burden on the country’s economy with forced labor and neglect of health and environmental risks. Publicly, Stalin was confident and unafraid, in private he was afraid of his people’s reactions and knew that “atomic weapons can hardly be used without spelling the end of the world.” Funnily enough, if they had been open, both Truman and Stalin would have had similar opinions about the bomb. War has to become and instrument of policy, regardless of differences in culture, ideology, nationality and personal morality because with weapons that powerful, the alternative could be annihilation.
IV.
-At this point, 1950-1, Truman was much more worried about the possibility of the Chinese overtaking the American and South Korean troops fleeing down the Korean peninsula. Even though an atomic bomb may have been useful in fighting the Chinese troops, there were practicalities preventing it. One was where the bomb would be dropped. Few large targets (cities, industrial complexes, military bases and transportation networks) existed on the Korean peninsula. It would have been possible to bomb Chinese cities, but the political repercussions would have been extreme and neither side wanted an expanded war. In spring 1951, Chinese forces outran their supply lines and the UN troops began to regain territory to slightly north of the 38th parallel. Although armistice negotiations were set for July there would be no results and the war would continue on for two more years, but it did establish that the war would not expand and atomic weapons would not be used. Stalin did vouch for a drawn out war though, to give the Chinese troops time to study modern tactics and harm the Truman regime in America. Only one instance of a shooting war between the US and USSR ever occurred, an air battle, and because of the dangerous and necessary conflict, the two superpowers agreed on a cover-up.
V.
-Although weapons were now being developed and were hesitant to be used, scientists still explored the possibilities of another bomb, one using fusion instead of fission. This bomb (later called the hydrogen bomb) ‘projected a blast so great that no one could tell … what its uses in fighting a war might be.” The argument for developing these bombs was psychological, to scare the Soviet Union and boost US confidence and sense of security. The nature of warfare was again beginning to change; “the problem now was not so much how to defeat an adversary as how to convince him not to go to war in the first place.” Although the Americans did not know how these weapons would even be used, they had to convince the Soviets that, if necessary, they would use them. The Russians had already been working on a similar technology and the weapons race this time was much closer.
VI.
- The new weapons could make warfare total, and therefore purposeless. Truman and Stalin left office and life, respectively, in early 1953. Dwight D Eisenhower came into presidency unconvinced that the nature of warfare had fundamentally changed and there was a way to incorporate nuclear weapons into their arsenal. The reason for this was to prevent the US involvement in anymore Korea-like stagnant & limited wars and to make it clear that the US would respond to aggression by means it would choose. The BRAVO test in the Pacific in 1954 yielded 3 times the expected megatons and was 750 times more lethal than Hiroshima. Debris and radioactivity spread out and affected radiation detectors all over the world. Now the question was how would more bombs affect the world? Churchill and Soviet leaders agreed (not with each other, but in ideology) that hydrogen bombs would create world conditions impossible for life. Kremlin (USSR) and Churchill were both forced out of power in early 1955.
VII.
- The physical effects of thermonuclear explosions appalled him, “Atomic war will destroy civilization.” he said. A Soviet attack would destroy 65% of the population. He had reversed his previous statements that the US should use nuclear weapons “exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else.” Although many people believed the US should try to find ways to fight a limited nuclear war, Eisenhower insisted that, “If war came in any form, the US would fight it with every weapon in its arsenal because the USSR would surely do the same. He insisted on planning only for total war, to make sure a war would not take place at all.
VIII.
- The USSR tested its first air nuclear bomb in late 1955. It also had long-range bombers capable of reaching America. Khrushchev, the new Soviet leader, was convinced that nuclear weapons would “compensate for weaknesses in situations short of war.” Khrushchev boasted about the number of missiles and the technology the USSR had, but as his son said later “We threatened with missiles we didn’t have.” When, in 1956 Eisenhower ordered Britain and France to evacuate the Suez Canal, where they were trying to overthrow Nasser, because he had not been consulted first. At the same time Eisenhower had ordered this retreat, Khrushchev had threatened nuclear bombings if they did not leave. Not knowing of Eisenhower’s orders, Khrushchev was convinced his threats were successful. From 1957 to 1961, he continued to use this strategy.
IX.
- Americans attempted to infiltrate the Potemkin villages of the USSR with reconnaissance planes, balloons with cameras on them and spies. None of these worked, so on Independence Day in 1956, the Americans sent a U-2, the new American spy plane, over Moscow and Leningrad shooting excellent photographs of the Soviet capabilities. Although the Americans knew this was illegal, the Soviets were too embarrassed about their lies and inability to reach the U-2’s that they said nothing. On May 1st, 1960 the Russians shot down the last U-2 flight and threatened to put the pilot on trial for espionage. Having seen the quality of the photographs, Khrushchev knew his strategy of boasting was in trouble. Kennedy, after a string of embarrassments in the White House, called Khrushchev’s bluff, saying openly that the US was ahead in the nuclear race, and the Soviets lost again.
X.
-Cuban Missile Crisis. Khrushchev was elated when Cuba spontaneously revolted and became communist. To confront the Americans and to ‘give them a little of their own medicine’ Khrushchev sent many short- and medium-range missiles to Cuba, pointed at the US. Khrushchev was “so emotionally committed to the Castro revolution that he risked his own revolution, his country and possibly the world on its behalf.” Kennedy pledged that in return for Khrushchev’s removal of the missiles in Cuba, they would not invade the island again and secretly promised to take down the intermediate-range missile in Turkey.
XI.
-Ideas were put forth on ‘rules’ for nuclear war, such as targeting the military population only, but problems such as accuracy and after effects prevented this, as well as simple fear of someone breaking the rules. “What kept war from breaking out … was sheer terror.” McNamara, the Secretary of Defense, came up with his own plan mimicking Eisenhower’s. It was called Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). A series of Soviet-American agreements began to emerge, with topic such as abolishing nuclear tests in the atmosphere, restricting the number of missiles allowed to each side and the “open skies” policy of transparency. The Cold War could have destroyed humanity, “but because of the fear of such a war turned out to be greater than all of the difference that separated the US the USSR and their respective allies, there was now reason for hope that it would never take place.”
XII.
- “What nuclear weapons did was to make states see – even in the absence of a common language, ideology, or set of interests – that they shared a stake in each other’s survival, given the tiger they themselves had created but now had to learn to live with”
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