The Amazing Saga of Manhattan Project Engineer Who Tried to Halt the Atomic Bombings
Plus: Seeing mushroom clouds from both sides now.
Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including “Hiroshima in America,” “Atomic Cover-up,” and the recent award-winning“The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood—and America—Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” He has directed three documentary films since 2021, including two for PBS (plus award-winning “Atomic Cover-up”). He has written widely about the atomic bomb and atomic bombings, and their aftermath, for over forty years.
A sure sign of the cultural impact of a hit movie is that, after the first week, we are still seeing one article after another inspired by it, from the often silly (who is buying Oppie’s hat?) to the serious. Somewhere in between is this interesting piece in today’s New York Times on imagery of the mushroom cloud, from the ‘50s and ‘60s (e.g. Dr. Strangelove) through to The Day After and much more in the 1980s, to Asteroid City and Oppenheimer now.
Nolan returns the nuclear explosion from the realm of symbolism to a primal zone of fears and urges — a cataclysm created by other human beings like us.
But let’s not forget Arnold and Jamie Lee in True Lies (with the real Terminator behind them)
When an Obscure Engineer Tried to Prevent the Atomic Attacks
After toiling in a top-secret government program for two to three years, many scientists who were part of the Manhattan Project, and not at Los Alamos, finally learned in 1945 that all that work was aimed at creating a revolutionary new weapon, the atomic bomb, and with Germany defeated it might very well still be used--over Japanese cities in the months ahead. Indeed, this would occur, seventy-eight years ago next week. This eventuality deeply troubled some of them, fearing the toll on civilians, and the uncharted radiation effects that would result, as well as setting a precedent for future use.
Yet none of them took these concerns public. Wartime security controls were still very much in place and anyone who did leak or speak to the press faced severe penalties. A key Chicago scientist, Eugene Rabinowitz, later recounted that he deeply considered speaking out. It wasn't so much that he opposed any possible use of the bomb but that—I find this profound—Americans deserved to know, in advance, what was likely about to be done by their leaders, in their names. There is no record of anyone else within the massive Manhattan Project--with sprawling sites in a several states--coming close to doing that.
One of the most famous scientists who played a key early role in developing the bomb, Leo Szilard, did mount an earnest private campaign, gaining the support of dozens of atomic scientists in the project. We see a little of this in Oppenheimer, once via Szilard and a couple of times raised by Teller. They petitioned President Truman to never use, or at least hold off using, the new weapon until Japan was given a much longer period to surrender, or possibly demonstrate the power of the bomb for the enemy before actually dropping it over a city. The petition was blocked (partly by Oppie) from reaching the desk of the president before it was too late.
This has been documented by historians for decades. Almost nothing has been reported about the saga of the one true internal "whistleblower" within the bomb project, a man whose name is almost lost to history: Oswald C. Brewster. And he took his warning straight to the president himself.
Brewster was an engineer for a leading Project contractor, the Kellex Corporation, living in New York City. Deeply involved with the separation of uranium isotopes, he supported the race with Germany for the bomb. Then, on May 24, 1945, risking arrest and long imprisonment for security violations--indeed he would later claim he was followed by agents and his phone tapped--he penned a powerful and prescient 3000-word letter and transmitted it through U.S. Army channels to Truman, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and the new (very pro-bomb) Secretary of State James Byrnes.
Brewster warned that an atomic bomb would easily destroy any large city and a massive number of civilians, spread dangerous radiation, and inspire many other countries to race for their own such weapon. Therefore he opposed using it against reeling and surrounded Japan. While admitting this was an "unpopular and minority view" among his peers--and might be considered by some "treason"--he felt duty-bound, as one of the relatively few Americans who knew about this plan, to take his protest to the top.
Brewster recognized the key factor influencing the decision to drop the bomb: all of Truman's advisers, tightly bound to the Project and its success, had strong personal or career reasons for making sure the new weapon was utilized (as did Oppenheimer). There was as well the need to justify having spent $2 billion, a truly massive number then, to create it. He pleaded for Truman to seek "disinterested counsel" from "unbiased" observers, a brilliant, much-needed proposal.
Japan could be used as a “target” for a “demonstration” of the bomb, but his preference was for non-use, rather than “bring upon the world the tragedy of unrestrained competitive production of this material.” Once the bomb was unleashed, even the U.S.’s closest allies would want the bomb because “how could they know where our friendship might be five, ten, or twenty years hence….
This thing must not be permitted on earth. We must not be the most hated and feared people on earth, however good our intent must be....I beg you of you, sir, not to pass this off because I happen to be an unknown...There surely are men in this country to whom you could turn, asking them to study this problem.
Against all odds, the letter (unlike Szilard's petition) reached Stimson's desk, and he read it. Rather than rejecting the argument and/or its threat to security, he urged General George C. Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, to peruse this "remarkable document" from an “honest man” and share "the impress of its logic," just as the key high-level discussions about using the bomb against Japan was reaching a climax at the May 31 meeting of the Interim Committee.
This session is re-created in Oppenheimer in accurate detail. As it happens, the minutes seem to show that neither Marshall nor Stimson mentioned the Brewster letter, or reflected its contents in their comments. Oppenheimer himself took the lead in shooting down the idea of any “demonstration.”
Stimson, nevertheless, then delivered the letter directly to Truman himself, not knowing that the president had been sent his own version. Somehow O.C. Brewster's message had reached the top. Part of the letter:
There was no indication, however, that Truman read any version of it or discussed it with anyone. The decision had been pretty well set by then, and he was traveling to Potsdam to confirm from Joseph Stalin that Russia would, as promise, declare war on Japan by mid-August ("Fini Japs" when that occurs, Truman wrote in his diary, even without the use of the new bomb). There he also issued his ultimatum to Japan to surrender unconditionally, and when that did not occur, the first atomic weapon was dropped over Hiroshima on August 6, and then over Nagasaki on August 9. Then Truman allowed Japan to keep its emperor, a major "condition" that might have ended the war sooner.
Two months later, with the bomb project no longer secret, atomic scientists were now a little more free to voice their urgent concerns. A group of them even inspired the MGM studio in Hollywood to launch the first movie to dramatize the story of the bomb and warn against making even more powerful weapons. But Hollywood, like Washington, was not ready to take this warning seriously, and Truman and the military soon turned the movie, The Beginning or the End, into little more than pro-bomb propaganda (see my book with same title).
There is no record of Brewster's response to the utter rejection of the entire spirit of his "whistleblower" letter, and he faded deep into obscurity--though he was never arrested for any security breaches.
>Post-script: When I wrote a version of the above three summers ago, I received an email, amazingly, from Brewster’s great-grandson, Joshua Brewster, calling my piece “a great conversation starter within the family.” It seems that Oswald was known as “Owl” and Joshua confirmed, “We don't have any record of a response from Truman or his administration.” Among other personal reflections, he told me:
Oswald's personal journey was interesting. He considered himself a pacifist, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre while serving in the American Field Service as an ambulance driver [in World War I] as opposed to the military. He was struck by shrapnel—I have his helmet. He was worried about Germany in WWII, so he felt it was appropriate to join the Manhattan Project. He was technologically brilliant (patents on a number of topics) and at the same time interested in having his opinions/thoughts heard.
Though sadly, not followed, in the case of the new earth-shattering weapons in the spring and summer of 1945.
Note: Just now available, an expanded e-book version of my Atomic Cover-up with 6000 new words on Oppenheimer (the man, the movie, The Bomb). Paperback not yet updated but will be in a few days….
When you leave out Japan had been trying to surrender for a year you are posting propaganda, not facts.
We were making glow in the dark watches, dinnerware, statues out of uranium products into the 1960's.
Yet we are supposed to believe illiterate fishermen grasped the concept immediately?
WHEN WE DIDN'T?
When their news didn't even report it?
Historians who refuse to look at the other sides history of the same event are merely propagandists.
Truman was in the KKK. He only quit because they wouldn't allow Catholics, he thought Catholics hated minorities on the same level the klan did. Japanese were subhuman to him.
So why Nagasaki?
We dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki just to make a movie!
Major Charles Sweeney noticed a slight ongoing fuel leak on the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Bockscar. He could not call off the mission as time was of the essence.
He had to drop the Fat Man on Kokura because the cameras had failed at Hiroshima. Truman had been told 2 weeks earlier from Stalin that the Emperor was trying to surrender, though Stalin didn't tell Truman he had actually been trying to surrender for a year. At any moment Japan might surrender and ruin our chance to get footage of the blast.
Truman knew he had to justify the incredible cost of our atomic program and wanted a clean image he could use. We actually did have footage of a test done two weeks before, but that footage was too sterile. Film of Japan being hit was to be used to silence those who questioned the program.
Of all the wars that Democrats had begun or inherited in the 20th Century, the war in the Pacific was the only one it ever won.
Major Sweeney had to understand that with a fuel leak he might not come back. No matter, two planes were meeting him to film and record the blast.
The plane reached Kokura but the city was obscured by clouds and smoke, as the nearby city of Yawata had been firebombed on the previous day.
Everything had happened so fast missions couldn't be called off. It was impossible to film Kokura. The plane headed towards the nearby Christian city of Nagasaki.
Nagasaki was the Christian capital of Japan. From the 16th through the 19th Centuries traders coming to the port made the city the only one in Japan with direct outside contact.
The Japanese did not trust the Christians, and would not allow them in the military.
Bockscar arrived over Nagasaki but the other two planes were lost in the smoke from Yawata. He flew round and round for a half hour using up precious fuel when one of the planes arrived and luckily had both cameras and measuring instruments onboard. The plane found an opening in the clouds and dropped the bomb.
A firebombing of the cities hospital a few weeks earlier had convinced the townspeople to move the children out of the city. 80,000 people were vaporized within seconds.
A lot of kids became orphans immediately. Tens of thousands more would die of radiative effects over the days and years. Now I know what you're thinking. Did we get the film?
YES! The greatest military success the Democrats ever had in the 20th Century was preserved on film. Sweeney's plane made it back as well.
Oddly, the film is rarely shown ( usually the test footage is shown) and Hiroshima takes center stage in news accounts.
Also oddly, the record for number of people killed to make a movie has never been acknowledged.
There's more:
The man who said we saved a million lives made up the number. The true number has been revealed:
MYTH :
Dropping the Bomb Saved a Million American Lives
Truman started out saying that "thousands and thousands" of American lives were saved by using the atom bomb. Later, in his memoir, he bumped it up to 500,000. And later still, he topped it off to a cool million.
But what would the actual death toll have been had the U.S. made a land invasion?
According to Stanford historian Barton Bernstein's research of declassified documents, the worst-case scenario proposed by military officials was 46,000 deaths for U.S. forces if they invaded both Kyushu and Honshu islands.
50,000 lives is nothing to sneeze at, but it's clear that the exponential growth in death toll is a belated justification for using the bomb. And when you consider the number of American casualties in both the Pacific and European theaters totaled 405,000, the number seems all the more inflated.
As reported in the Los Angeles Times in 2005:
"The hard truth is that the atomic bombings were unnecessary. A million lives were not saved.
Indeed, McGeorge Bundy, the man who first popularized this figure,
later confessed that he had pulled it out of thin air in order to justify the bombings
in a 1947 Harper's magazine essay he had ghostwritten for Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson."
In a cable intercepted on July 12, 1945, Hirohito revealed that he was ready to end the war on the condition that the monarchy be granted immunity from war crimes -- conditions which the U.S. only accepted after dropping two atomic bombs on the country.
There is only one question to ask the Democratic Party deniers on the atomic bombs.
They insist the bombs changed Japan's thinking and ended the war. OK. The one demand they had for one year before the bombs were dropped was that they keep their Emperor. OSS, our World War 2 Intel group had intercepted Japanese communications and knew they were trying to surrender. Stalin told us they wanted to end the war 2 weeks before Hiroshima and all they wanted was to keep their Emperor.
So we dropped two atomic bombs on civilians.
Then Truman said they could keep their Emperor.
The other reason for deploying the bomb was the knowledge that the Kyushu invasion was off the table. In late June, following the end of the Okinawa campaign in which the US Navy had suffered their worst losses other than the Guadalcanal campaign, Admiral Nimitz, the US Pacific Theater Commander, wrote a letter to the Joint Chiefs in which he stated that the Navy could no longer support an invasion of Japan because they could not sustain the expected losses (the Japanese had over 5,000 kamikazes ready to deploy; they had only used 1,500, of which the majority were shot down, to bloody the Navy's nose at Okinawa). I know my father, who had survived the sinking of one of the radar picket destroyers, sat down on the afternoon of my birthday in 1945, and wrote me a letter to be delivered in the event of his death, which he expected, having just that morning received new orders to another radar picket destroyer for the invasion, in which he told me who he was, why he'd become my father in the middle of a world war, and what he hoped for me in the future. I found that letter in a box after he died in 1988.
I once interviewed Colonel William Barber (MOH for Chosin) who in 1945 was the most junior company commander in the Sixth Marine Division, having achieved that promotion through attrition of his seniors at Iwo Jima. He told me that in September, after the surrender, the officers of the Sixth Marines visited the beach they had been scheduled to hit, and were able to view the defenses and speak to the officers who would have opposed them. According to him, it was the unanimous opinion after doing that, that the division would never have gotten off the beach, and that there would have been no way to organize an evacuation.
These facts were known by Truman and the others. Rather than risk the Russians successfully invading Hokkaido and taking the country from the undefended north, they deployed the bomb - which actually had no effect on the Japanese, since they had already lost 3X the A-bomb losses in the fire raids by the B-29s. The Japanese surrendered to us to avoid that fate, and told us that of course it was the bombs. Which allowed them to get off for all their war crimes, since they were the war's Big Victim of the Bombs, and allowed us to base the foreign policy of the country on bullshit for the past 78 years.