Cam & Ray's Cold War Podcast

* Stalin’s speech in February 1946 wasn’t a declaration of war. * It wasn’t anything that couldn’t have been said in the past. * He issued no direct threats toward the United States, and emphasized above all else the security of the Soviet state and the communist experiment. * Rather, Stalin showed, if his previous words and actions had been insufficient, that he regarded the postwar world as a co...

* In October 1945, Navy Day 1945 in New York City, at the Commissioning of the aircraft carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman gave a speech. * Here’s a clip. * https://youtu.be/BjUz4BPWwbc?t=2m21s * FAKE TRUMAN ACCENT: “We don’t seek any more land – because we already took as much as we could from the Native Americans, and the Mexicans, and the Hawaiians, and the Spanish.” *...

* The military had long declared that radiation dissipated quickly in the atomic cities and posed little threat to the soldiers. * A 1980 Defense Nuclear Agency report concluded, “Medical science believes multiple myeloma has a borderline relationship with exposure to ionizing radiation. That is, there are some indications that exposure to radiation may increase the risk of this disease, but scien...

* TRUMAN ANNOUNCES THE BOMB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN_UJJ9ObDs * On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb over the center of Hiroshima, killing at least 70,000 civilians instantly and perhaps 50,000 more in the days and months to follow. * Three days later, it exploded another atomic bomb over Nagasaki, slightly off target, killing 40,000 immediately and dooming tens of...

* Truman met often with Byrnes in the first few months of his Presidency. * But there are almost no records or notes of what they discussed. * And that was apparently Byrnes’ preference. * He was known as being paranoid about leaks. * a very devious politician * Truman referred to him as his “conniving” secretary of state * Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who liked Byrnes and found him personal...

* By June 18 events had progressed to the point where Admiral Leahy was able to note privately in his personal diary: * It is my opinion that at the present time a surrender of Japan can be arranged with terms that can be accepted by Japan and that will make fully satisfactory provision for America’s defense against any future trans-Pacific aggression. * This is two months before Hiroshima. * But...

* On 15 August 1945, about a week after the bombing of Nagasaki, Truman tasked the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey to conduct a study on the effectiveness of the aerial attacks on Japan, both conventional and atomic. * Did they have an effect on the Japanese surrender? * The Survey team included hundreds of American officers, civilians and enlisted men, based in Japan. * They interviewed 700 Jap mil...

Our guest today is Alex Wellerstein, a self-described “historian of science, secrecy, and nuclear weapons”. He’s a Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Stevens Institute of Technology. He blogs here and is on Twitter here . He is also the creator of the NUKEMAP . Alex joined us to talk about the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan. Did Truman know Hiroshima conta...

Kistiakowsky and his team armed the device shortly after 5am and retreated to the control bunker. Their final task was to switch on a string of lights on the ground that would serve as an ‘aiming point’. The air force wanted to know what the effect of the blast would be on a B-29 30,000 feet up and some miles away. In case of an accident, Groves left Oppenheimer in the control bunkers and joined B...

Back to Alamogordo. The army leased a ranch in the middle of the Jornada del Muerto site and converted it into a military police station and field laboratory. They thoroughly vacuumed it to make a makeshift clean room and sealed its windows with black electrical tape. Just like Ray’s infamous kill room. Nearly 2 miles to the northwest, they marked out the spot for Ground Zero. Three concrete-roofe...

Today we have a special guest – Jeff Hogue from the “History of the Cold War” podcast . We invited Jeff on to chat about his thoughts on the bombing of Japan.  

On 6 June, Stimson again briefed Truman on S-1. * The briefing summarized the consensus of the Interim Committee, set up as an advisory group on atomic research. * It’s job was the advise on the proper use of atomic weapons in wartime and to develop a position for the United States on post-war atomic policy. * The committee comprised of Bush, Conant, Compton, the Under Secretary of the Navy, The A...

* Which brings us to April 1945. * Only weeks before Germany surrendered on May 7, FDR dies. * And Truman takes over as POTUS. * He knew nothing of the Manhattan Project or the atomic bomb. * He was briefed on it immediately by Sec of War Stimson. * By the time Truman took office, Japan was near defeat. * Keep in mind that the bomb was developed primarily to fight the Nazis. * But now that they ar...

Of course, while the bomb was being designed, they had to figure out how they were going to deliver it. And WHO was going to deliver it. Way back in March 1944, the US Army Air Force, with William Sterling “Deak” Parsons and his team at Los Alamos, developed two bomb models and began testing them with B-29 bombers. Thin Man, named for President Roosevelt, was the design carrying the plutoniu...

* President Roosevelt authorized the Manhattan Project to go full steam 26 days after Fermi’s success, on 28 December 1942 * The U.S. would end up spending $2 billion on it. (about $22 billion in 2018 dollars) * Do you know why it cost so much? * 130,000 people * When I thought of the Manhattan Project, I used to imagine it was a handful of guys sitting around a blackboard scribbling equations in...

Benn Steil is an American economist, author of a great new book on “The Marshall Plan” , and senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations.  

* Fission involved breaking apart the nuclei of heavy elements like uranium or plutonium. * Fusion involves forcing the nuclei of lighter elements, like hydrogen or deuterium, together. * And deuterium, which is basically heavy hydrogen, is far easier to get your hands on than uranium. * But there’s still not a ton of it. * There is one D atom in 6420 of H. * D accounts for approximately 0.0156% o...

* President Roosevelt responded to Einstein’s letter by setting up the Advisory Committee on Uranium under Lyman J. Briggs, director of the National Bureau of Standards. * Side note: his daughter Isabel would eventually marry Clarence Myers and go on to generate the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator with her mother. * Which is complete bullshit BTW. * The committee met for the first time on 21 October 1...

* In 1913, H. G. Wells wrote a book called The World Set Free * The novel begins: “The history of mankind is the history of the attainment of external power. Man is the tool-using, fire-making animal. . . . Always down a lengthening record, save for a set-back ever and again, he is doing more.” * In the book, the human race develops an atomic bomb. * This was written in 1913. * A few y...

* The Potsdam declaration on Japan was tricky. * It was drafted while Churchill was still PM. * In fact it was probably one of the last things he did as PM. * But it was signed by Attlee. * Stalin had to be involved, but he couldn’t sign it because the U.S.S.R. was still technically under a non-agression treaty with Japan. * Truman also wanted Chiang KaiShek to sign it. * Which meant it needed the...

* Episode 69. * Ray’s favourite number. * Have you actually had one yet, Ray? * Sister in law? * Truman had given his final approval to the plan to invade Kyushu, the southern most island of Japan, just two weeks before leaving for Potsdam. * A Russian invasion of Manchuria and Korea figured prominently in the grand strategy that underlay that plan. * Second, even an invasion of the home islands d...

Well the election result shocked everyone.  And the rest of the contingent at Potsdam weren’t very happy about it either.  We might think that the Soviets would be please to be dealing with a British government made up of socialists.  But that wasn’t the case.  Stalin didn’t like Attlee or the British Labour Party.  Despite Churchill’s attempts during the election to paint Labour as pro-Soviet, ne...

Attlee was Churchill’s lame duck deputy PM.  In fact he was the first Deputy PM the UK ever had.  I didn’t realise this, but in the UK the role of the Deputy PM isn’t like you’d expect, like it is in Australia or like the Vice-President in the USA.  The Deputy PM doesn’t take over if the PM is incapacitated or resigns.  If the PM is sick or dies, the Deputy does NOT take over.  In the UK, only the...

Stalin arrived in Potsdam a day late. Claimed he had a small heart attack. Might have been a ruse. It gave the others a day to take a tour of Berlin on July 16 and see the destruction first hand. During the first week of the conference, everyone was jubilant, having won the war – but Truman quickly learned the Russians weren’t going to give in to his demands, and the Allies and Stalin...

Prof Michael Neiberg is Chair of War Studies and Professor of History, Department of National Security and Strategy, US Army War College. He has also written a number of excellent books on the First World War   – as well as the book we are talking about today – Potsdam: The End of World War II and the Remaking of Europe .