Editor’s Note

—No official record of the substance of the conversation at this meeting has been found. The Log (ante, page 17) indicates that Truman and Churchill conferred for an hour at Truman’s quarters beginning at 12:15. It appears from Stimson’s diary entry for July 22 (ante, page 225) and the passage from Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, page 638, summarizing Groves’ report,1 that this is the meeting referred to by Churchill in the following passage (also on page 638): “The President invited me to confer with him forthwith. He had with him General Marshall and Admiral Leahy.”

Cf. the following passage in Truman, Year of Decisions, page 419: “The final decision of where and when to use the atomic bomb was up to me.… I regarded the bomb as a military weapon and never had any doubt that it should be used. The top military advisers to the President recommended its use, and when I talked to Churchill he unhesitatingly told me that he favored the use of the atomic bomb if it might aid to end the war.”