ON THIS DAY – AT 9:44 A.M. ET:   This is related to the two posts below.  It was on this day in 1945 that the United States conducted its "Trinity" test – the test of the first nuclear bomb.  Called "the gadget," the device was detonated in the New Mexico desert, having been developed by the Manhattan Project, under the direction of J. Robert Oppenheimer. 

The Manhattan Project got its name because some of the earlier nuclear experimentation was done at Columbia University, in Manhattan.  The project was actually launched just prior to World War II, when President Roosevelt was warned by Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard of nuclear experiments in Nazi Germany.  To his credit, FDR understood the implications.

It's important to note that the first operational atomic bomb was used against Hiroshima, an important Japanese industrial, transportation, and military hub, on August 6th, only three weeks after the Trinity test.  We read today the term "breakout time," as applied to Iran.  How long would it take Iran to "break out" into the building of an operational bomb once it had the knowledge and materials to do so?  We learn from 1945 that the time could be very short, a matter of weeks.  And there is no guarantee that we could detect the construction.

There has always been controversy over our use of the atomic bomb, some of it serious, some of it drummed up by the political left.  Some say Japan would have surrendered even if we hadn't used the bomb, and these critics point to a peace faction within the Japanese government.  They also say we attacked a nation that was essentially defenseless, its military shattered by our campaign in the Pacific.

The critics are wrong.  Japan may have had a peace faction, but the nation was controlled by its military, which had no intention of surrendering.  Indeed, we now know that the military was planning to mobilize the civilian population to rush the invasion beaches had we invaded Japan, no matter how many millions would be killed.  As for the state of Japan's defenses, it was true that its air arm and Navy had been largely neutralized, but the Japanese army was essentially intact, and could be called upon to defend the holy soil.

It should be noted that the use of the atomic bomb was not controversial among the millions of Americans serving in the Pacific, or their parents. 

July 16, 2014