Editing Henry L. Stimson (section)

===Atomic bomb===
{{Further|Manhattan Project|Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki}}
[[File:Photograph of Secretary of War Henry Stimson, evidently arriving at the White House for a Cabinet meeting. - NARA - 199142.jpg|thumb|Stimson arriving for a Truman cabinet meeting in August 1945]]
As Secretary of War, Stimson took direct and personal control of the entire atomic bomb project, with immediate supervision over Major General [[Leslie Groves]], the head of the [[Manhattan Project]]. Both Roosevelt and Truman followed Stimson's advice on every aspect of the bomb, and Stimson overruled military officers when they opposed his views.<ref>Sean Malloy, ''Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Bomb Against Japan'' The Manhattan Project, Department of Energy at mbe.doe.gov</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b4stimson-henrylewis.htm |title=Henry Lewis Stimson|access-date=2011-06-20 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100611232440/http://hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b4stimson-henrylewis.htm |archive-date=2010-06-11}}</ref> 

One example of Stimson using his authority in this regard is an episode in which Stimson changed the list of potential targets for the first (and if necessary second) attacks on Japan using the new atomic bombs produced by the [[Manhattan Project]].  The original target list included the city of [[Kyoto]], a place of immense cultural and historical significance to the Japanese people.  While Kyoto may have satisfied the military criteria for a useful target, Stimson objected, declaring in a meeting if the [[Interim Committee]] on June 1, 1945, "...there was one city that they must not bomb without my permission and that was Kyoto."<ref>Private Diary entry of Henry L. Stimson, June 1, 1945, as archived by Doug Long at http://www.doug-long.com/stimson5.htm</ref>

Stimson's reasons for this decision have been obscured by popular myth.  One well-traveled story is that Stimson didn't want to bomb Kyoto because he had spent his honeymoon there, and presumably had a nostalgic or sentimental attachment to the city (this motive is one of the only assertions made by Stimson's character in the hugely popular 2023 film ''[[Oppenheimer (film)|Oppenheimer]]'').  There is no concrete evidence for this version of events, nor is there any record of Stimson ever expressing such a motive.  Stimson did travel briefly to Kyoto in 1926, and spent a night there in 1929 as well, but both of these visits were more than 30 years after he and his wife married.<ref>{{Citation |last=Wellerstein |first=Alex |title=The Kyoto Misconception: What Truman Knew, and Didn't Know, about Hiroshima |date=2020-01-14 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780691195292-004/html |work=The Age of Hiroshima |pages=34–55 |access-date=2024-01-06 |publisher=Princeton University Press |language=en |doi=10.1515/9780691195292-004 |isbn=978-0-691-19529-2|s2cid=225044563 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Wellerstein |first1=Alex |title=Henry Stimson didn't go to Kyoto on his honeymoon |url=https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2023/07/24/henry-stimson-didnt-go-to-kyoto-on-his-honeymoon/ |website=Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog |access-date=25 July 2023}}</ref>

In his personal diary, Stimson recorded his concern that annihilating such an important cultural site could generate long-lasting hostility among the Japanese people, which could in turn make Japan more friendly to the Soviet Union.  In July 1945, while attending the Potsdam conference between Truman, Churchill and Stalin, which took place only two weeks before the first atomic bomb was dropped, Stimson wrote: 

{{blockquote|I again gave [Truman] ...my reasons for eliminating one of the proposed targets.  He again reiterated with the utmost emphasis his own concurrence on that subject, and he was particularly emphatic in agreeing with my suggestion that if elimination was not done, the bitterness which would be caused by such a wanton act might make it impossible during the long post-war period to reconcile the Japanese to us in that area rather than to the Russians.<ref>Private Diary entry of Henry L. Stimson, July 24, 1945, as archived by the National Security Archive of George Washington University, at https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/28467-document-48-stimson-diary-entries-july-16-through-25-1945</ref>}}

The Manhattan Project was managed by Major General Groves (Corps of Engineers) with a staff of reservists and many thousands of civilian scientists and engineers. Groves nominally reported directly to General [[George Marshall]], but Stimson was really in charge. Stimson secured the necessary money and approval from Roosevelt and from Congress, ensured that Manhattan had the highest priorities, and controlled all plans for the use of the bomb. Stimson successfully tried to get "[[Little Boy]]" (the Hiroshima bomb) dropped within hours of its earliest possible availability. Japan was to be forced to surrender, and the bombing of Hiroshima August 6 was likely a finishing blow for Tokyo.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Art|first1=Robert J.|last2=Waltz|first2=Kenneth Neal|title=The Use of Force: Military Power and International Politics|url=https://archive.org/details/useofforce00robe|url-access=registration|year=2004|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|page=[https://archive.org/details/useofforce00robe/page/179 179]|isbn=9780742525573}}</ref>

Stimson ultimately concluded if the U.S. had guaranteed the Japanese preservation of the imperial constitutional monarchy, Japan might have surrendered and prevented the use of atomic bombs.<ref>David F. Schmitz, ''Henry L. Stimson: the first wise man'' (2001) p 153.</ref> Historians debate whether the impact of continued blockade, relentless bombing, and the [[Soviet Union]]'s invasion of [[Manchuria]] would have forced Japanese Emperor [[Hirohito]] to surrender some time in late 1945 or early 1946 without the use of atomic bombs but with massive Allied casualties.<ref>{{cite journal|author= Barton J. Bernstein|title= "Seizing the Contested Terrain of Early Nuclear History: Stimson, Conant, and Their Allies Explain the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb," Diplomatic History 17 (Winter 1993): 35–72|journal= Diplomatic History|volume= 17|pages= 35–72|doi= 10.1111/j.1467-7709.1993.tb00158.x|year= 1993}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Alperovitz |first1=Gar |title=The decision to use the atomic bomb and the architecture of an American myth |date=1995 |publisher=Knopf |location=New York |isbn=978-0679762850 |edition=1st}}</ref>

After American journalist [[John Hersey]]'s [[Hiroshima (book)|account]] of the Hiroshima atomic bombing became a media sensation, Stimson and others published their own article "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb". It argued the atomic bombings saved the Japanese from themselves, that demonstrating it would have been impractical, and American casualties from a potential invasion would exceed 1 million, although military documents from July 1945 estimated under 200,000 casualties ([[Operation Downfall#Estimated casualties|other estimates]] put the casualties as high as 4 million). Stimson also sidestepped questions such as the suffering of the victims and the radioactive qualities of the bombs, saying they had a "revolutionary character" or "unfamiliar nature". Because his article was the first official account of the reasonings behind the bombings, news outlets that were covering Hersey's ''Hiroshima'' began to cover Stimson's article instead. President Truman commended Stimson, and [[McGeorge Bundy]], who had worked with Stimson on the article, later wrote, "We deserve some sort of medal."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Blume |first1=Lesley M. M. |title=Fallout : the Hiroshima cover-up and the reporter who revealed it to the world |date=2020 |location=New York |isbn=9781982128517 |pages=153–157 |edition=First Simon & Schuster hardcover}}</ref>