Stimson's Diary: Why Kyoto Was Spared and Nagasaki Was Not

Kyoto and the atomic bomb: in May 1945 the Target Committee ranked Kyoto first on its list of atomic targets. Then Secretary of War Henry Stimson struck it off, refused when the generals asked for it back, and took it to President Truman. Nagasaki, never one of the planners' five finalists, was added in handwriting the day before the strike order went out. How does a list decide which city lives? This History Forensics case file follows the paper trail: the Target Committee minutes of 10-11 May 1945, Stimson's diary, the "pet city" cables from Potsdam, Truman's own Potsdam diary, the July 25 strike order signed by General Thomas Handy, the Bockscar mission of August 9, and General Marshall's handwritten note that the next bomb was "not to be released over Japan without express authority from the President." It also checks the famous honeymoon story against the dates. There is no evidence for it. Casualty figures are the U.S. Department of Energy's estimates. It takes no position on whether the bombings were justified. Documents shown: Summary of Target Committee Meetings on 10 and 11 May 1945 (NARA RG 77); US Army target map of Kyoto, June 1945 (Groves files, NARA RG 77; composite by Alex Wellerstein); 509th Composite Group memo on reserved targets, May 1945; Stimson diary, June 6 and July 24, 1945 (Library of Congress copy); Truman's Potsdam diary, July 25, 1945 (Truman Library / NARA, excerpts); Handy to Spaatz, July 25, 1945 (NARA 542193); Groves to Marshall with Marshall's note, Aug 10, 1945. People and places: Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War, 77 in 1945. Gen. Leslie R. Groves, head of the Manhattan Project. President Harry S. Truman. Gen. George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff. Maj. Charles W. Sweeney, pilot of Bockscar. Kyoto, imperial capital for more than a thousand years. CHAPTERS 0:00 Cold Open: The First Name 1:30 The Second Meeting 4:55 The Kingpin 7:52 The Pet City 11:06 The President's Diary 12:44 The Honeymoon Story 15:08 And Nagasaki 16:54 The Backup 19:55 Express Authority 21:18 What the Paper Shows SOURCES Primary Target Committee minutes, 10-11 May 1945, NARA RG 77, via the National Security Archive: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-bo... Handy to Spaatz, 25 July 1945, NARA ID 542193 FRUS, Conference of Berlin (Potsdam) 1945, vol. II, docs 1307-1308: https://history.state.gov/historicald... Truman, Potsdam diary, 25 July 1945, Truman Library (NARA 183568382) Henry L. Stimson diary, 1945 (Library of Congress copy, via NSA); Stimson, "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb," Harper's, Feb 1947 Groves to Marshall, 10 Aug 1945, with Marshall's note (NSA Doc. 82) Scholarship and reference Alex Wellerstein, "The Kyoto Misconception," in The Age of Hiroshima (Princeton UP, 2020); Restricted Data blog posts (2014, 2015, 2023) U.S. Department of Energy, The Manhattan Project: An Interactive History (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, "The harrowing story of the Nagasaki bombing mission" (2015) IMAGE CREDITS AND LICENSES Documents: US government records, public domain (NARA, Library of Congress, Truman Library, National Security Archive). Kyoto target map: US Army, public domain; stitched composite by Alex Wellerstein (nuclearsecrecy.com). Photographs (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons): Groves with map of Japan (DOE Oak Ridge); Stimson outside the White House, Aug 1945, and at Gatow, July 1945 (NARA); Churchill, Truman and Stalin at Potsdam (NARA 198958); Truman, 1945 (Edmonston Studio); Enola Gay entering hard-stand, Aug 6, 1945 (NARA 519393); Truman cabinet meeting, Aug 10, 1945 (NARA 199145); Kyoto, 1935 (National Museum of Denmark, no known restrictions). Umekoji roundhouse, Kyoto, 2012, by calflier001, CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons). Character designs are based on portraits: Stimson, Groves, Truman, Marshall and Sweeney (Harris and Ewing, U.S. Army and NARA photographs, public domain). Other people are generic figures. MUSIC 'Overshadow' by cinameng - CC0 / public domain Crypto Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... 'Shadows and Dust' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au Lost Time Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... 'Undertow' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au Illustrations and some animation in this video were created with AI tools; documents shown are real historical records.