World's First Nuclear Bomb Test

Meanwhile, a group of scientists in Chicago spurred on by [Leo] Szilard, organized an informal committee n the social and political implications of the bomb. In early June 1945, several members of the committee produced a twelve-page document that came to be known as the Franck Report, after its chairman, the Nobelist James Franck. It concluded that a surprise atomic attack on Japan was inadvisable from any point of view: “It may be very difficult to persuade the world that a nation which was capable of secretly preparing and suddenly releasing a weapon as indiscriminate as the [German] rocket bomb and a million times more destructive, is to be trusted in its proclaimed desire of having such weapons abolished by international agreement.”… Truman never saw the Franck Report; it was seized by the Army and classified. (p. 297)

One day, Oppenheimer called Robert Wilson into his office and explained that he was a consultant to the Interim Committee that was advising [Secretary of War Henry L.] Stimson on now the bomb should be used. He asked Wilson for his views. “He gave me some time to think about it…. And so I came back and said I felt that it should not be used, and that the Japanese should be alerted to it in some manner.” Wilson pointed out that in just a few weeks they would be conducting a test of the bomb. Why not invite the Japanese to send a delegation of observers to witness the test? (p. 298)

科学者たちは、米国政府が日本の暗号をすべて解読しており、「無条件降伏」を「国体護持の条件付き」にした上で、ソ連を仲介にしてまで終戦を図ろうとしていることを詳細には知らなかった。知っていれば原爆投下への反対はもっと激しかったに違いない。

Two weeks after Oppenheimer wrote his June 16 memo summarizing the views of the science panel, Edward Teller came to him with a copy of a petition that was circulating throughout the Manhattan Project’s facilities. Drafted by Leo Szilard, the petition urged President Truman not to use atomic weapons on Japan without a public statement of the terms of surrender: “… the United States shall not resort to the use of atomic bombs in this war unless the terms which will be imposed on Japan have been made public in detail and Japan knowing these terms has refused to surrender…” Over the next two weeks, Szilard’s petition garnered the signatures of 115 Manhattan Project scientists. A counter-petition mustered only two signatures. (p. 302)

そして、1945 年７月12 日午前５時30 分、米国は人類初の核兵器実験を秘密裡に実施する。