Transcript: FAS Podcast A Conversation with an Expert, Featuring Dr. Robert Standish Norris Part 1: 66 th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombing of Japan Length: 35 minutes Date released: August 9, 2011 Charles: Welcome everyone, to a special edition of the FAS podcast: A Conversation with an Expert. I am your guest host, Charles Blair, director of the Terrorism Analysis Project here at the Federation of American Scientists. My very special guest today is Federation of American Scientists Senior Fellow for Nuclear Policy, Robert Norris. Dr. Robert S. Norris is senior fellow here at the Federation of American Scientists. From 1984 until 2011 he worked at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) here in Washington, DC. Dr. Norris principle areas of expertise include writing and research on all aspects of the nuclear weapons programs of the United States, Soviet Union/Russia, Britain, France, and China, as well as India, Pakistan, and Israel. He was co-authored several volumes of the NRDC's Nuclear Weapons Databook series, specifically U.S. Nuclear Warhead Production, Volume II (1987); U.S. Nuclear Warhead Facility Profiles, Volume III (1987); Soviet Nuclear Weapons, Volume IV (1989); and British, French and Chinese Nuclear Weapons, Volume V (1994). More recent books include Making the Russian Bomb: From Stalin to Yeltsin (1995) and sections of Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 (1998). Dr. Norris has co-authored or contributed to the chapter on nuclear weapons in the 1985-2000 editions of the SIPRI Yearbook. He has written articles for Arms Control Today and Security Dialogue, and has written a well known and highly respected column for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987. He co-authored the online/dvd article on Nuclear Weapons of the Encyclopedia Britannica. A book that we will be discussing heavily today during my interview with Dr. Norris is the biography he wrote of General Leslie R. Groves, the head of the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb during World War II. The book, entitled Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project s Indispensable Man (Steerforth Press, 2002) has been favorably reviewed in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Assembly, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, and The Journal of Military History among other publications. It won the Distinguished Writing Award for best Biography of 2002 from the Army Historical Foundation. Dr. Norris received his Ph.D. in Political Science from New York University in 1976, and has taught at New York University, Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Miami University s European campus in Luxembourg, and American University in Washington, DC.
Welcome Stan. Stan: Thank you, Charles. Charles: Stan, over the next few months, my interviews with you are going to cover much of the history of nuclear weapons as well as the policy issues that surround the military and civilian applications of nuclear power. However, today, Stan and I will primarily focus on events related to the atomic bombings of Japan. As many of our listeners may well know, this is the 66 th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan. In fact, tomorrow, August 9 th, is the anniversary of the bombing of the city of Nagasaki. Stan, much has been written about the decision to use atomic bombs against Japanese civilian targets as opposed, for example, to a live say purely technical demonstration. In your marvelous and definitive 2002 biography of General Leslie Groves you explore this issue at length. I m going to quote a bit from the book beginning with a quote from General Groves and then I d like to get a little bit of your feedback on that. You quote Groves as saying, when talking about President Truman and his decision, that The responsibility taken by Mr. Truman was essentially, I think, the responsibility taken by a surgeon who comes in after the patient has been all opened up and the appendix is exposed and half cut out and he says, Yes! I think he ought to have the appendix cut out. That s my decision. Stan, you then write that, For Truman, the most logical thing to do was to continue the policies that had been initiated by Roosevelt, and continue to rely on a circle of advisors who were knowledgeable. As Groves told one officer you write, Truman did not so much say yes, as not say no. It would have indeed taken a lot of nerve to say no at that time. You wrap up this paragraph by saying, It would be more accurate to say that Truman decision was a decision not to overrule previous plans to use the bomb. Stan, my question about this is do you think that the general American narrative for using the bomb is accurate? Stan: Well, much has been written about the so-called decision to drop the atomic bomb, and it s very controversial to this day. I think when we look below the surface here we do see something that is maybe not well understood, and that is the enormous momentum that had been built up over the previous three years around the bomb to build it, and to test it, and then, of course, to use it. I really think that the decision to use the atomic bomb was implicit in the decision to make it in the first place. I think that at the center of all of this is General Groves, driving the train and building up incredible momentum. Truman, of course, had only become President in April of 1945 upon the death of Franklin Roosevelt, and enters the office and doesn t even know about it, really. He is told by his Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, that there is a weapon being developed that can end human civilization. All of this must weigh down very heavily on the new President, and in the face of having aids like Stimson or General Marshall, to go against this incredible momentum that has build up would have been terribly difficult to do. Charles: Very interesting. Let me just read another quote from your book that, again, touches on the decision or the actual implementation of dropping the bomb. You write that, (on pg. 378) In implementing any policy decision, regardless of what is decided at the top most level, there are numerous instrumental and operational details that come into play. How these details are implemented very much influences what happens. This is true with the decision to use the atomic bomb. Now, I know that right now you are working on the successor entitled to the SIOP, the Single Integrated Operation Plan, what is called the OPLAN, and this is a topic that we will be returning to in later
interviews, but I was wondering if you could just comment briefly on the implementation of policy as opposed to I think most people have the impression that policy is, sort of, driven by the policy makers, they decide how it gets played out but what you write here, and what I ve learned from you in talking in private about the OPLAN, is that you have a different opinion about that. Stan: Well, I m working on a piece with my colleague here, Hans Kristensen, on President Obama s Nuclear Posture Review. When the new President came in, he wanted to put his stamp on things, and, of course, had a very influential speech in Prague outlining how he thought the United States should pursue less reliance on nuclear weapons, and even take some first steps toward eliminating. We are in summer of 2011 the process of implementation of this Nuclear Posture Review. He has casted it in a very general fashion. As it works its way through all of the offices within the US government civilian and military, down to the level of a new war plan each department/agency/office has the opportunity to put its stamp on it, and in the process, perhaps, alter what it was that he intended in the first place. How it will all come out in the wash is unclear at the moment. It is this detailed manipulation/treatment of what comes from on high that the actual policy gets made. Charles: For most Americans, the words Manhattan Project have come to connote a massive governmental undertaking aimed at solving an immediate challenge. Stan, do you think it is possible to repeat such an effort with a current challenge? Or, given its historical timing and the Manhattan Project s extraordinary talent, was the project itself one of those events in history that only happens once? Stan: Well, I ve been asked this question many times and given it quite a bit of thought, and I ve concluded that I think it was actually unique. The circumstances surrounding the Manhattan Project World War II were ones of grave national danger. All the chips were on the table. We were fighting two foes, Japan and Germany. If they would have won, obviously, western civilization would have come just about to an end. What we have here is enormous mobilization of all the resources of the nation, with very talented individuals, an open check book no amount of money was spared, and all of this done in incredible secrecy. It was the best kept secret of the war. How do we would create all of this today is seemingly impossible; with global Earth and the press that is devoted to finding out things. I think the Manhattan Project is often pointed to as a kind of paradigm of things that we like about ourselves. We were able to solve a problem. In this case, making an atomic bomb and using it to end a horrible war. Whether or not it could be duplicated, I have my doubts. Charles: Very interesting. Moving from the historical to more of the situational aspects of the Manhattan Project, I d like to bring in a little bit of International Relations theory, specifically what is called Neo- Classical Realism, a prominent theory that has gained in popularity since the late 1990s. The historian and political scientist James Taliaferro has applied neoclassical realism to emulation and innovation by countries of certain technologies. He writes that, States with higher extraction and mobilization capacity but low external vulnerability have the luxury of engaging in innovation to enhance their long term security and power. 1 This hypothesis, to me, seems to apply to the Manhattan Project. In this case, the U.S. had enormous resources and a population that had been largely mobilized in many of the New Deal s projects. Additionally, while the situation with Germany and Japan was viewed as very serious, it didn t appear to be an immediate threat to the continental United States. Stan, do you think that others countries having 1 Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, State Building for Future Wars: Neoclassical Realism and the Resource-Extractive State, Security Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (2006), 476-477. Emphasis added.
these similar attributes during World War II could have innovated to the degree that the United States did, that is, could they have built a nuclear weapon? Or was there something uniquely American about the first atomic bombs; something that went beyond resources, mobilization, and perceptions of security? Stan: Well, of course, physics is physics. After the discovery of fission, it was immediately recognized by scientists all over the world that a bomb was a potential. Other countries besides the United States started to pursue these directions the UK, of course, and Germany itself. Those were two countries that I suppose might have mobilized themselves into making an atomic bomb. In the case of the United Kingdom, they decided to throw in their lot with the Americans, cut off their program, and came aboard. As far as Germany goes, of course we have a war situation, and Germany was faced with external threats. In the face of a huge number of military forces by the Soviet Union and the Western Allies, but Germany decided in the spring of 1942 that the war is going pretty well here, maybe we don t need an atomic bomb, and we have other priorities rockets, tanks, and all the rest of it. They aborted their program and kept it at a very very low level. Now, whether or not there is something uniquely American about the Manhattan Project and the US effort is an interesting question. Again, I think it appeals to something that we like to think about ourselves you know, we are a can do nation and we pull up our socks and get the job done. That s why it s still appealing almost seven decades later that it s the kind of spirit that we like to think about ourselves that we can get a problem solved. I think there is something a little special about the Manhattan Project; that it has this American flavor to it, and might not be duplicated in other countries that have other notions about who they are. Charles: It seems as well as when you look at the history, especially in the 1930s, when a lot of the physicists from Germany were leaving and coming to the United States, that the US s policy of allowing immigrants to come in and teach, try to gets its physics up to a world standard do you think that had a lot to do with it as well? The ability of the United States to embrace the expatriate community that was fleeing persecution. Stan: I think that has something to do with it. In fact, in reflecting back on why the Germans didn t go forward and why the Americans did some of it had to do with the sort of democratic spirit and this kind of culture within let s say the German university. Only the top professors knew what was going on. Where in the United States, Oppenheimer and the rest of them at Los Alamos and throughout, took ideas from everybody. It was a much more democratic thing. Thus, there was greater chance for argumentation and finding solutions to problems. I think there are differences in these two societies for example, Germany and the United States, as to why one succeeded and the other did not. Charles: Moving away from the scientific personalities and going back into the military personalities that were part of the Manhattan Project, I have alluded to your 2002 biography in my introduction on General Leslie Groves, really a fascinating biography. For people who haven t read it, it really describes how the commanding general for the Manhattan Project lived and what his role was. What, in general, during your three and a half years of researching and writing the book was the most surprising thing you discovered about General Groves? Stan: In other depictions of him, he is always sort of pushed to the sidelines- actually a lot of the credit is given to the scientists. For example in Richard Rhodes very fine book The Making of the Atomic Bomb, it is the scientists who are center stage, specifically scientists like Robert Oppenheimer. But if you look at what really happened during the Manhattan Project, it is really General Groves who is running the show. The thing that really came home to me and I think the secret of the whole business has to do with the Army Corp of Engineers. Groves is always depicted and described as an Army officer, but beyond that, what kind of Army officer? He is a West Point person, he grew up in the Army, his father was an Army
chaplain and all of this is important, but it is the culture of the Army Corp of Engineers that is the secret to Groves and the secret to why the Manhattan Project was structured and run the way it was. It was this culture that was most surprising to me, and I learned a great deal about it and I really think that it is very important. This corp of engineers is an extraordinary group of people who have great talent, the best and brightest out of West Point-the top most people always join the corp of engineers and these people are quite formidable, have great confidence in themselves, no project was too small for them. They built great things like the Panama Canal and incredible things across the United States rivers and dams, and when the time came to build the atomic bomb, certain people within the U.S. Government saw that this was going to be a job for the Army Corp of Engineers. We can hide the budget in there because it is enormous, and we can tap people who know how to get things done. The guy they tapped, Leslie Groves was an indispensible man. I think there were other Army Corp of Engineer people who could have done the job as well, but they would have to have been duplicates of General Groves. So, I guess for me, the most revealing thing I found out about him was the culture of the corps which was a revelation to me and the secret to the bomb. We were speaking of the culture of the corps of engineers, and there are some excerpts from a speech given by the Chief of Engineers, Major General Lytle Brown, who was chief from 1929-1933 and at a dinner, he gave a speech and this is what he said. No man who has large responsibilities is free from executive duties, no matter whether he is an engineer or builder. If he directs others, he performs executive duties. To do these duties well, he must have natural qualities beyond the ordinary. The knowledge of what these qualities are may tend to call them out of slumber and summon the will to strive for their development. The executive qualities are the same as those of commander. They are such as made possible rapid and accurate decisions and constancy in abiding by them. These qualities are quick intelligence, sound judgment, energy, strong will, and far above all else, a great moral courage. These qualities are greatly aided by a broad general knowledge of men and affairs. I think that sums up very well how these engineers see themselves and what they must have to succeed in their responsibilities. Charles: Moving back now to the scientists and the broader ramifications of the bomb itself. Robert Oppenheimer and especially, Neil Bohr are largely credited with understanding in a very profound sense that unleashing nuclear power was a real pivotal turning point in human history and today, I think we are very much in the early aftermath of that discovery s arrival, although I think it is common to forget that since there is so much change taking place around us. Can you put the environment of the 1930 s and the 1940 s into context, and by that I mean how did scientists working with the atom see their work in relation to the evolution of science and how did they view it in the larger context of world history? Stan: That is a very good question, and I think there are two prongs to the answer here. One is the sheer scientific adventure that they were engaged upon here. In terms of physics, the vision had just been discovered, and for some, it was a great adventure afoot as to whether or not it would be able to be controlled and unleashed in civilian form which was one thing that happened to it, but more importantly for the context of the war, whether or not they were able to make a workable bomb that would have some role in ending that war, which it did. So, there was then this intellectual adventure that Oppenheim and others talked about and that was appealing to them. As they got closer to the end in the spring of 1945 when they realized that yes, indeed, they were about to have a test and use the thing, the scientists (some of them, not all of them) decided to cross out of science into public policy field and began to organize and decide amongst themselves whether this was the best idea to use it on Japan. Of course the war ended in Germany in May and the bomb wasn t yet ready. The question of whether or not it may have been used in Europe is one we will never know. But, that scientist movement becomes very important, and after the
bomb is used twice on August 6 and 9 and the war ends on the 14 th of August, the scientists really mobilize themselves and realize they do have a role in public policy and in fact, the Federation of Atomic Scientists, which is the forerunner of the Federation of American Scientists gets formed in the fall of 1945. The magazine, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists becomes the main journal to inform the public, the press, and Congress about this new form of atomic energy, and I think that ever since, scientists have had a duplicate role here of pursing science but also being engaged and educators for us all in the atomic age. Charles: Looking back from the perspective that I have now, when I read a history of that era, and I think for a lot of people, up to the use of the bomb, there seems to be, from our historical vantage point, arguably a degree that the scientists were a little naive that they would be able to influence policy before the bombs were dropped. Do you think that was a product of their time, that this was simply a maturation process that needed to take place because clearly scientists now understand that they have a big responsibility in how their work gets translated into military application. But, it doesn t seem at that part that they really understood that it was out of their hands. Stan: I think that is true and I think the main reason for that is General Groves and his compartmentalization policy of keeping secrecy and control over the entire process so the scientists knew one thing, but they didn t know the timing or where. A few did, and they were a part of the process during the so called interim committee procedures; they were invited in to make comments and recommendations, but it was really out of their hands and General Groves meant to keep it that way in terms of even preventing some of these petitions from reaching President Truman or others until the bomb was used. Of course, then there was no secret anymore, the cat was out of the bag and scientists could weigh in certain ways although they were still bound by certain secrecy rules. But for the most part, I m not sure if it was naivety, it was just a matter of how they found themselves and they found themselves not in control of a policy which was dead set on use of the bomb. Charles: I look forward in subsequent interviews that we do to explore how the consciousness of scientists then changed in after first use and then they started to interject themselves into policy; I think it will be interesting to look at the progression of that. My final question for you today is a fairly general one and I will break it up into two parts. First, what are the main lessons of the atomic bombings of Japan to you and as a follow up to that, do you think that American policy makers today are generally cognizant of what those lessons are and do they apply them? Stan: Well, as far as the main lessons from the atomic bombing of Japan, I don t there is any single point of view for some. It was a decisive weapon that helped end a long war and avoided an invasion by allies which would have made Normandy look small. So for some then, the lesson is that it was a way to end the war and really war was the problem here, it had gone on so long and killed millions of people. For others, one of the lessons is that it was a mistake to have done it, that this is some sort of special weapon that should have not been used. The war (advocates of this view claim) was going to end anyway (this is a historical question that will never be solved), they claim it was the first shot of the Cold War that sent a signal to the Soviets to try and make them more pliable and it had more to do with that than just the use. Of course, the war itself had gone towards greater and greater violence if you will, there was concern whether we should bomb civilians early on, but of course the weapons were not very precise and did bomb cities in greater numbers and extent. General LeMay, on the night of March 9-10, 1945 attacked Tokyo with consequences that rivaled the causalities of the atomic bomb- 100,000 people killed. The boundaries then kept stretching and stretching and the atomic bomb was sort of in that tradition of greater and greater unleashing of violence. I think that in a matter of days it convinced the Japanese (who of course were already defeated but they had not surrendered yet), I think General Groves makes an interesting point when he says that they were certainly defeated (everyone long knew that), but they had not agreed to surrender and conditions of unconditional surrender were American policy and until they
did, greater and greater violence was unleashed upon them. During the Civil War, the South was defeated, I suppose after Vicksburg and Gettysburg but it wasn t until Appomattox that they surrendered. So, I think similar parallel situation can be pointed to at Japan and the bomb was the convincing case to make them surrender. Charles: So it seems (and this foreshadows our subsequent interviews that we will do when we get into the nitty gritty on this) that the current debate writ large is that yes, with the robust nuclear earth penetrator or with low yield warheads, nuclear weapons are actually weapons that you can use they have decisive effects, you can win battles or wars with them and that seems that was one lesson that was drawn out of World War II with the atomic bombings. The other one being that nuclear weapons have no use in terms of actual yield bearing detonations against an enemy, that they are more of a political tool to be used and have other virtues apart from use. Is that accurate to say? Stan: I think that debate still goes on, about the usability and the military value of them versus the political. Of course, this was the first use of it in the context of war. All that has happened to them in the aftermath; there are many directions. Of course these were very tiny bombs by contemporary standards 15 kilotons for Hiroshima, 21 kilotons for Nagasaki, these are almost insignificant in terms of types of bombs were developed during the Cold War when we crossed the hydrogen and thermonuclear threshold and made bombs thousand times that big and of course the numbers of them became extraordinary, the building of tens of thousands of them. All of the purpose of that is the story and the aftermath of WWII and there are many themes to be explored there why we built so many and what we thought their use was. And of course, this brings us back to President Obama s Nuclear Posture Review, in which he is wrestling with these same questions: why possess nuclear weapons, what is their purpose and do they have a military value in terms of if they were ever used. That is what is being done today in implementing a real nuclear war plan that the military is charged with developing about how they would be used if it ever came to that. Charles: It is going to be very interesting in subsequent interviews that we do to explore those issues that you just foreshadowed. For now, Stan, let me thank you very much for spending time with us today. Again, to those of you listening, if you would like to learn more about what Stan and I discussed today, please visit the FAS website at www.fas.org. For now, this concludes the FAS podcast. Thank you again for listening in today. Please tune in again next month for part two in my series of interviews with Dr. Robert Norris. Stan: Thank you Charles.