The Atomic Bomb: The Origin of the Cold War
The US government’s use of the Atomic Bomb to end World War Two did more than secure a victory for the Allies, it agitated an already unstable relationship between the United States of America and the Soviet Union and set the stage for a fifty-year period of paranoia where the two countries competed for nuclear superiority in an event known today as the “Cold War.”
President Harry S. Truman’s (D-Missouri) decision to end World War Two by way of the use of two atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was not an easy decision.
Prior to the war the possibility of the use of the atomic bomb was not even an option and if it was not for early intelligence gathered of Nazi Germany’s intentions to build a similar bomb, the United States may have never possessed such a weapon at this point in time. The atomic bomb brought victory for the allies, devastation for the country of Japan, and exacerbated the already uneasy relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Paranoia raised the tensions between the two countries of competing ideologies and introduced a new method of silent warfare. The United States of America’s use of the Atomic Bomb to end World War Two did more than secure a victory for the Allies, it agitated an already unstable relationship between the United States of America and the Soviet Union and set the stage for a fifty-year period of paranoia where the two countries competed for nuclear superiority in an event known today as the “Cold War.”
In 1939, two years before the Japanese Navy bombed Pearl Harbor, and two years before the United States of America official entered World War Two, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (D-New York) received a letter from renowned physicist Albert Einstein explaining a dire situation.
Albert Einstein acting on his belief that it was his responsibility to provide such information to the President of the United States, informed President Roosevelt of the believed progress of Nazi Germany’s nuclear program based on Germany’s recent stopped sales of uranium from the Czechoslovakian mines it overtook and American scientist observations of nuclear energy progress at Germany’s Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute in Berlin.[1]
Moreover, Einstein would provide recommendations to President Roosevelt of actions to take to ensure that the United States nuclear efforts were achieved before Nazi Germany could develop such a devesting bomb of estimated capability. This interaction between Einstein and President Roosevelt prompted expeditious action and created defined roles and responsibilities for both the role of the scientist and politician.
The role of the United States scientist in the development of the atomic bomb, was not simple but rather straight forward when examined beside that of the politician. The scientist put all of his effort in its creation, the politician, primarily President Roosevelt, dictated how it would be used.
The wartime use of the atomic bomb was never seriously questioned, and from October 9, 1941, forward, President Roosevelt, Secretary of War Henry Simson (R-New York), and other key members of the “top policy group” decided that the creation of the bomb was necessary for the United States total war effort, and its creation was essentially justification for its use.[2]
Overtime the intended use of the bomb shifted from a potential wartime win-all, to a powerful post-war diplomatic tool. This is evidenced by policies implemented by President Roosevelt starting in 1943 that were carried over to the Truman Administration, that focused on the diplomatic use of the atomic bomb and rhetoric that fostered a pro-Anglo-American relationship and anti-Soviet sentiment inspired by British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill.[3]
The United States use of the atomic bomb to end World War Two demonstrated the just how powerful the United States monopoly over nuclear weapons could be post-war. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin responded defensively, and by 1946 serious efforts to develop an atomic bomb were underway.
The Soviet Union’s operation began in 1946 in the Southern Ural Mountains when the Soviet Unions first plutonium came under control of GULAG-Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (NKVD) with Lavretti Beria, Sergei Kruglov, and Ivan Tkachenko as its leading officers charged with building a nuclear weapons complex fit to compete and defend the Soviet Union against the United States nuclear monopoly.[4]
The development gave rise to a class-ranking system within the Soviet Union that dictated what each individuals role was in the development, and featured a lengthy bout of nuclear pollution in the pursuit of the Soviet Union’s first atomic weapon.[5]
US politicians’ response to the Soviet Union’s efforts of nuclear weapon development as equally as defensive and paranoid. Once source of evidence that proves this to be true is a declassified document of a memorandum from the Director of Central Intelligence to the Executive Secretary of National Security Council on April 20, 1949, discussing intelligence that concerned the Soviet Union’s atomic energy program and possible defense measures.
The Director of Central Intelligence explains that in order to for the United States to develop adequate defense measures, it must develop counter measure strategies, as well as effectively identify the locations of the Soviet Union’s major atomic energy installations.[6] The methods suggested to be able to accomplish these goals were: setting up radar networks, improving fighter planes, perfecting civilian defense plans, and understanding the chain of events that happened following the use of the first atomic bomb henceforth.[7]
In the short time from its creation to the beginning of the Cold War, the atomic bomb did more than just win a war by bringing Japanese cities to ruin, it created an environment of many contentions between two of the biggest powers in the world in the war’s aftermath.
The Soviet leaders now in fear of the United States nuclear monopoly and the power imbedded within, was desperately determined by paranoia to develop its own nuclear bomb stockpile in the name of defense. Equally as paranoid, the United States was determined to be able to counter any measurable capability of the Soviet Union and to not fall from its position as the most dominate nuclear power.
Altogether, the United States use of the atomic bomb to end World War Two proved to be a catalyst to launch the two countries of competing ideologies into a new kind of war, a silent kind of war for nuclear superiority in a period driven by paranoia that spanned fifty-years know today as the “Cold War.”
Bibliography
Martin J. Sherwin. “The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War: U.S. Atomic-Energy Policy and Diplomacy, 1941–45.” The American Historical Review 78, no. 4 (1973): 945–68. https://doi.org/10.2307/1858347.
Brown, Kate. “Securing the Nuclear Nation.” Nationalities Papers 43, no. 1 (01, 2015): 8–26. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2014.977856. http://ezproxy.apus.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fscholarly-journals%2Fsecuring-nuclear-nation%2Fdocview%2F2698635136%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D8289.
United States Director of Central Intelligence. Letter to Executive Secretary of the National Security Council. “Atomic Energy Program of the USSR.” Digital National Security Archive, April 20, 1949. http://ezproxy.apus.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fgovernment-official-publications%2Fatomic-energy-program-ussr%2Fdocview%2F1679085128%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D8289.
Einstein, Albert. “Document007.” Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. August 2, 1939. https://www.fdrlibrary.org/documents/356632/390886/document007.pdf/3483329d-7b68-442d-953d-eb91e0c5c9b1.
[1] Albert Einstein, “Document007,” Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. August 2, 1939. https://www.fdrlibrary.org/documents/356632/390886/document007.pdf/3483329d-7b68-442d-953d-eb91e0c5c9b1.
[2] Martin J. Sherwin, “The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War: U.S. Atomic-Energy Policy and Diplomacy, 1941–45,” The American Historical Review 78, no. 4 (1973): 945–68. https://doi.org/10.2307/1858347.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Kate Brown, “Securing the Nuclear Nation,” Nationalities Papers 43, no. 1 (01, 2015): 8–26. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2014.977856. http://ezproxy.apus.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fscholarly-journals%2Fsecuring-nuclear-nation%2Fdocview%2F2698635136%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D8289.
[5] Ibid.
[6] United States Director of Central Intelligence, Letter to Executive Secretary of the National Security Council, “Atomic Energy Program of the USSR,” Digital National Security Archive, April 20, 1949. http://ezproxy.apus.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fgovernment-official-publications%2Fatomic-energy-program-ussr%2Fdocview%2F1679085128%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D8289.
[7] Ibid.
