“The Most Awful Responsibility” and “American Experience: Bombshell”

Disclosure: Alex Wellerstein has been a friend for at least a decade. I followed the development of his ideas for “The Most Awful Responsibility” as he published them on his blog and elsewhere. I also discussed some aspects of them with him because of something I was writing at that time.

“American Experience: Bombshell” overlaps with Alex Wellerstein’s “The Most Awful Responsibility.” Alex himself appears on camera in “Bombshell” to offer historical insight, and the 1947 Harper’s article by James Stimson that sets the narrative that “Responsibility” refutes is a part of “Bombshell” as well.

“Responsibility” lays out an interpretation of President Harry Truman’s experience with atomic weapons that is counter to much of today’s received wisdom. That wisdom is derived from the Harper’s article: the costs of an invasion of Japan were weighed against the costs of atomic bombing of Japan, and the decision was made. Gar Alperovitz modified that basic understanding in the 1960s by arguing that perhaps the biggest part of the decision had to do with the entry of the Soviet Union into the war and the desire to scare them off with new superweapons.

By looking at the evidence in a new way (listen to Rob’s and my interview of Alex), Alex says, it appears that Truman never made a decision. In fact, there was not one particular time when men (it was pretty much all men then) sat around a table and weighed the costs of an invasion of Japan, the Soviet Union’s part in the war, and dropping the bombs. Rather, the Manhattan Project began out of concerns that Germany might build an atomic bomb, and it was simply assumed that the bomb would be used in the war. Meetings were held on specific aspects of its use.

Truman may have misunderstood the nature of the Japanese targets and after the Nagasaki bomb declared an end to the atomic bombings. He then went on to define much of the shape we see today in nuclear command and control.

“Bombshell” likewise considers the content of messages given to the public by the government about atomic weapons. The mismatch here is between the government’s interpretation – that they ended the war and thus were good – and the reality of what happened to people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Harper’s story of a carefully weighed decision is part of that.

General Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project, controlled information closely even after the bombs had been dropped, along with a “brain trust” of advisors who oversaw the Manhattan Project for the government. His chosen communicator, William L. Laurence, from the New York Times, helped in that effort. Independent journalists, particularly Charles Loeb and John Hersey, gave a more complete story.

Both the book and the program are about how we take in information. Framing of information is critical to how we understand it. Truman’s actions, capped by the Harper’s article, and the limited way Manhattan Project information was released shaped public undetstanding of atomic weapons. It was easy to fit subsequent information into those narratives.

Those limitations apply within the government as well. Truman’s limited understanding of atomic weapons and the Manhattan Project allowed the momentum built up by the war and the Manhattan Project to continue through the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Closer to the present, it can be argued that the expansion of NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union came about not because of a single considered decision but rather by a series of events requiring action.

With the lack of formal decision-making, individuals can drive action. The “Signalgate” conversation that included journalist Jeffrey Goldberg wound up with a question about actions to be taken, and the agreement by participants that Stephen Miller could give them the President’s preference.

Both the book and the program are worth your time.