Oliver Stone

[Prashant Kumar]

Just re your 2), the physicists at Los Alamos did calculations to determine
whether an atomic bomb would ignite the atmosphere (forget and am too lazy
to find out when). So it's a safe bet that distinctions between atomic and
regular bombs hadn't crystallised in the political psyche.

P.

On Monday, January 21, 2013, Joe Allonby wrote:

> 1) Truman was a politician, not a soldier. His understandable
> deference to the generals at the time helped create the problem that
> he had to deal with later in MacArthur. I'm looking around for
> evidence that Truman said "Drop these here two big bombs on those
> there cities."
>
> 2) Again, did anyone who was not a physicist or advanced chemist
> understand what went down at Alamogordo? Or did they just think BIG
> FUCKING BOMB?
>
> 3) I think we're in agreement here.
>
> I really don't know the answer to 1 & 2, but I'm going to spend some
> time today between football coverage looking into it.
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 5:59 PM,  <malignd at aol.com> wrote:
> > 1.  You think Truman gave A bombs to generals to use at their discretion
> > and, if they felt like dropping one on a Japanese city, that was up to
> them?
> >
> > 2.  Destructive power?  The bomb was tested ...
> >
> > 3.  Can't say, but I strongly suspect the answer is no.
> >
> > Did Truman give specific orders for the use of A-bombs at Hiroshima
> > and Nagasaki? Or did he simply give the weapons to generals who then
> > did what generals do?
> >
> > Were any of the people making political decisions and calculations at
> > the time aware of the destructive power and potential threat of these
> > new weapons that had never been used before?
> >
> > Did people flying in propeller planes envision ICBMs tipped with
> > fusion bombs and the threat of global thermonuclear war?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com>
> > To: malignd <malignd at aol.com>
> > Cc: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> > Sent: Thu, Jan 17, 2013 10:45 am
> > Subject: Re: Oliver Stone
> >
> > Did Truman give specific orders for the use of A-bombs at Hiroshima
> > and Nagasaki? Or did he simply give the weapons to generals who then
> > did what generals do?
> >
> > Were any of the people making political decisions and calculations at
> > the time aware of the destructive power and potential threat of these
> > new weapons that had never been used before?
> >
> > Did people flying in propeller planes envision ICBMs tipped with
> > fusion bombs and the threat of global thermonuclear war?
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 6:10 PM,  <malignd at aol.com> wrote:
> >> My memory of the facts as presented in that book were that the Japanese
> >> were
> >> looking to negotiate a peace and that this was communicated through the
> >> Russians, who had still not declared war on Japan, but were going to.
>  The
> >> US knew of this (as I recall) both through diplomatic traffic from
> Russia
> >> and from our own intelligence.  The timing of the bombing then (given
> that
> >> Russia was about to become a declared adversary) was to keep Russia away
> >> from the negotiating table once surrender was taken.  I'm simplifying,
> but
> >> the book is rich in this sort of thing and well documented.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
> >> To: malignd <malignd at aol.com>
> >> Cc: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> >> Sent: Wed, Jan 16, 2013 9:27 am
> >> Subject: Re: Oliver Stone
> >>
> >> interesting. i'll have to read that one.  I'm curious though whether
> >> Truman and Co. had irrefutable proof of a impending Japanese
> >> surrender. If memory serves there was still no inkling of such after
> >> Hiroshima. Maybe some of the scientists who worked on the bomb had
> >> reservations but from all I've read about the event there was still
> >> many die hards in Japan who wanted to fight to the end.
> >>
> >> On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 5:25 PM,  <malignd at aol.com> wrote:
> >>> Suggested reading is Martin Sherwin's excellent book on the bombing of
> >>> Japan, A World Destroyed.  Very strong argument that there was little
> >>> moral
> >>> hand-wringing.  from the get-go, the idea was to drop a bomb for
> >>> geopolitical reasons:  to bring the USSR to bay in the post-war era,
> for
> >>> which purpose it failed.
> >>>
> >>> Original research at the time the book was written, benefiting from
> >>> Carter's
> >>> Freedom  of Information act.
> >>> -----Original Message-----
> >>> From: Paul Mackin <
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