Final Blog

The book The Untold History of the United States has been a fascinating, aggravating and equally offending. A book that has kept me avoiding it as much as I have read. Thankfully it’s an easy read. Looking back through the at this semesters readings I feel there are two topics that I feel require an extra look; atomic weapons after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and one that wasn’t in the book but inspired mush discussion in class which was the completion of the interstate highway system inside the city of Baltimore.

Potential use of Atomic Weapons over Baltimore

In my previous blog Truman’s Options I made the point for the use of the atomic bombs versus Japan. I stated the book The Untold History of the Unites States would have you believe that no other option was never even thought of. The book goes so far as to say that certain high-ranking officers in the U.S. military even opposed the bomb and everything the bomb stood for. General MacArthur was quoted as saying that the bomb was “completely unnecessary from a military point of view”. (Kuznick n.d.) MacArthur was in the field and wasn’t in on any other strategies or plans after the war. The book goes onto mention how Truman became joyful when he learned the test was a success. It also says “ a revolver made all men 6 foot tall, the successful atomic bomb test made the diminutive Truman a giant who towered over the worlds most fearsome dictators”. (Kuznick n.d.)  The book basically makes Truman out to be a man who had this new toy and couldn’t wait to use it. What I would like to remind this book is that we can look back now, almost 70 years later, and say we’ll we didn’t have to drop the bomb. That’s true but like any bad situation you’re in, you don’t know just how it will end. To this day I feel that the decision to drop it was the right one. What the book doesn’t do though is offer any of the other options that Truman and his staff had available to him at that time. So I thought I would research and see what some of the other options were. I even looked at the work of Nathan Donohue who has already done this for us and here are the options that Truman had available, pros and cons, for using the bomb that the book didn’t show:

“Ending the war at the earliest possible moment - The primary objective for the U.S. was to win the war at the lowest possible cost. Specifically, Truman was looking for the most effective way to end the war quickly, not for a way to not use the bomb.

To justify the cost of the Manhattan Project - The Manhattan Project was a secret program to which the U.S. had funneled an estimated $1,889,604,000 (in 1945 dollars) through December 31, 1945.

To impress the Soviets - With the end of the war nearing, the Soviets were an important strategic consideration, especially with their military control over most of Eastern Europe. As Yale Professor Gaddis Smith has noted, “It has been demonstrated that the decision to bomb Japan was centrally connected to Truman's confrontational approach to the Soviet Union.” However, this idea is thought to be more appropriately understood as an ancillary benefit of dropping the bomb and not so much its sole purpose.

A lack of incentives not to use the bomb - Weapons were created to be used. By 1945, the bombing of civilians was already an established practice. In fact, the earlier U.S. firebombing campaign of Japan, which began in 1944, killed an estimated 315,922 Japanese, a greater number than the estimated deaths attributed to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The firebombing of Tokyo alone resulted in roughly 100,000 Japanese killed.

Responding to Pearl Harbor - When a general raised objections to the use of the bombs, Truman responded by noting the atrocities of Pearl Harbor and said that “When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast.”” (Donohue 2012)

(Credit: Center for Strategic & International Studies)

Donohue then goes onto inform us of the cons that Truman and his staff had to consider:

“Intensifying conventional bombing and the naval blockade - General MacArthur felt that air power alone could force a Japanese surrender within six months with little risk to American lives. However, it was also argued that this might be a best-case scenario where in actuality it could take substantially longer.

Allowing the Japanese to retain the Emperor - This plan was predicated on mitigating the call for unconditional surrender by Japan. Both Secretary of War Stimson and Acting Secretary of State Grew felt that this was an essential policy because of the dedication and fanaticism of the Japanese people towards the Emperor Hirohito, whom the Japanese believed to be a deity. 

Waiting for the Soviet Union to enter the war - This had been a primary objective of President Roosevelt in his negotiations with the Soviet Union at the Yalta Conference. Nevertheless, the Committee believed that a Soviet invasion of Manchuria would be helpful but not decisive by itself.” (Donohue 2012)

            But what about life after the use of atomic weapons in a place we call home? Would we survive? For the sake of my argument and topic, we all live at 1420 North Charles Street Baltimore,MD and Japan was to detonate an Atomic bomb at the intersection of Light and Pratt Streets. Since I’m not a nuclear physics my preliminary answer would be…maybe but you wouldn’t be unscathed. The Federation of American Scientists have already studied some of the potential effects and here are a few of their findings

Air Bursts. An airburst is an explosion in which a weapon is detonated in air at an altitude below 30 km but at sufficient height that the fireball does not contact the surface of the earth. After such a burst, blast may cause considerable damage and injury. The altitude of an airburst can be varied to obtain maximum blast effects, maximum thermal effects, desired radiation effects, or a balanced combination of these effects. Burns to exposed skin may be produced over many square kilometers and eye injuries over a still larger area. Initial nuclear radiation will be a significant hazard with smaller weapons, but the fallout hazard can be ignored as there is essentially no local fallout from an air burst. The fission products are generally dispersed over a large area of the globe unless there is local rainfall resulting in localized fallout. In the vicinity of ground zero, there may be a small area of neutron-induced activity, which could be hazardous to troops required to pass through the area. Tactically, air bursts are the most likely to be used against ground forces.

Credit: FAS

Surface Burst. A surface burst is an explosion in which a weapon is detonated on or slightly above the surface of the earth so that the fireball actually touches the land or water surface. Under these conditions, the area affected by blast, thermal radiation, and initial nuclear radiation will be less extensive than for an air burst of similar yield, except in the region of ground zero where destruction is concentrated. In contrast with air bursts, local fallout can be a hazard over a much larger downwind area than that which is affected by blast and thermal radiation.

Subsurface Burst. A subsurface burst is an explosion in which the point of the detonation is beneath the surface of land or water. Cratering will generally result from an underground burst, just as for a surface burst. If the burst does not penetrate the surface, the only other hazard will be from ground or water shock. If the burst is shallow enough to penetrate the surface, blast, thermal, and initial nuclear radiation effects will be present, but will be less than for a surface burst of comparable yield. Local fallout will be very heavy if penetration occurs.

High Altitude Burst. A high altitude burst is one in which the weapon is exploded at such an altitude (above 30 km) that initial soft x-rays generated by the detonation dissipate energy as heat in a much larger volume of air molecules. There the fireball is much larger and expands much more rapidly. The ionizing radiation from the high altitude burst can travel for hundreds of miles before being absorbed. Significant ionization of the upper atmosphere (ionosphere) can occur. Severe disruption in communications can occur following high altitude bursts. They also lead to generation of an intense electromagnetic pulse (EMP), which can significantly degrade performance of or destroy sophisticated electronic equipment. There are no known biological effects of EMP; however, indirect effects may result from failure of critical medical equipment.

Credit : FAS  http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/effects.htm

With that being said I feel that the effects of a blast of even a small nuclear weapon in Baltimore would make the survival alone hard. Factoring in the environment, social, economic, psychological and political scene would make the city uninhabitable for years to come.

Baltimore Interstate System

This topic was brought up in class and there was a heated discussion that followed. Should we have built it or be thankful we didn’t? Each side was louder than the other. Well I am on the side that we should have built at least the I-70 portion  as long as we also built the Red Line and kept the trolley system.

In my career I have always had engineering jobs that require me to travel daily. For a week I might be in Silver Spring and the net week I might be in Parkton. Every week day, morning and night, I have to drive and fight traffic and it gets annoying. The opening of the ICC brought some relief to my commute but would it have been made even better by the completion of I-70? I don’t know. Now as I type this I am reminded of my hatred for my car and my jealousy for New York City. Don’t get me wrong but as much as I love my car, the freedom it provides and the ability to get myself where I want to go whenever, I would prefer to live in a place where mass transit was accepted. A place where I could ride from Hunt Valley to Columbia to White Marsh if I desired on rails.

While there is little to no evidence of any scholarly work done on the subject, David W. Barton, Jr. gives us a little background on the interstate highway debacle of the 60’s and 70’s in Baltimore. He states “in the 1960s, Baltimore neighborhoods like Mt. Vernon, Federal Hill, and Fells Point were all in danger of serious disfigurement in the name of the Interstate Highway system.  Among other strategies, highway planners were proposing to level Federal Hill, build an elevated highway along the Fells Point and Canton waterfronts, and “enhancing” the experience of the Washington Monument by creating a highway scenic loop around Mt. Vernon place.

Baltimoreans worked together to rescue the city from this potential fate.  Join us as we welcome David W Barton, Jr., Chairman of Baltimore City Planning Commission during that crucial period.  Mr. Barton will be BAF’s first informal Brown Bag speaker.  Mr. Barton helped lead local efforts that were ultimately successful in preserving the character of our historic communities surrounding the downtown business district.  During the 60s Mr. Barton was also Chairman of the Baltimore Regional Planning Commission, a member of the 5th District Federal Reserve Board (MD, VA, WV, NC), creator of Baltimore Washington Common Market Economic Development Commission and instrumental in bringing Larry Reich to Baltimore.” (Baltimore Architecture Foundation http://baltimorearchitecture.org/2010/11/03/baltimore-rescued-from-the-interstate-highway-system-i83-i95-i70-in-the-1960s/)

My position on this heated argument is simple; building roads is fine as long as you have rapid mass transit or a trolley system in place with green space to offset the etr roads.

CREDIT: HIGHWAYS OF THE FUTURE

Bibliography

Donohue, Nathan. Understanding the Decision to Drop the Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. august 10, 2012. csis.org/blog/understanding-decision-drop-bomb-hiroshima-and-nagasaki (accessed february 13, 2013).

Kuznick, Oliver Stone and Peter. The Untold History of the Unites States. New York: Gallery Books.

Federation of American Scientistshttp://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/effects.htm

Baltimore Architecture Foundationhttp://baltimorearchitecture.org/2010/11/03/baltimore-rescued-from-the-interstate-highway-system-i83-i95-i70-in-the-1960s/