S/AE Files
Memorandum by the Acting Secretary of War ( Patterson )89 to President Truman
Proposed Action for Control of Atomic Bombs
This memorandum is in response to your request for the views of those present at cabinet meeting on September 21st, concerning the action to be taken for future control of atomic bombs, particularly in reference to Russia.
I am in thorough agreement with the position taken by Secretary Stimson in his memorandum to you of September 11th. His memorandum recommends that, after discussion with Britain, we should approach Russia with a proposal to make an agreement limiting use of the atomic bomb as an instrument of war and encouraging development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. Such an approach, more specifically, might lead to a proposal to stop work on the manufacture and further development of the atomic bomb as a military weapon, provided Russia and Britain should make the same engagement; and we might also state our readiness to impound the atomic bombs we have on hand, provided the three powers should agree that none would use the atomic bomb as an instrument of war unless all agreed to such use. We should also state our willingness to provide for exchange of benefits of future developments for use of atomic energy for industrial and humanitarian purposes.
As I see the matter, the great need is to do everything in our power to make sure that the atomic bomb is controlled in the way best calculated to insure world peace, not merely for the next ten or twenty years but for the long-range future.
The best qualified experts, meaning the scientists, industrialists and Army officers who have been most closely engaged in the production of the atomic bombs, have advised Secretary Stimson that they have no doubt that Russia could, without any aid or assistance from us, produce atomic bombs within a period of from four to twenty years. In other words, we can take it as fairly certain that our present control of atomic bombs to the exclusion of Russia will not extend beyond twenty years at the outside.
That fact, to my mind, is of the most fundamental importance, and it should serve as the guide to our international policy. It means, as I see it, that we should exert our best efforts to prevent an armament race in production of atomic bombs, even though we now have [Page 55] and probably would continue for some time to have the military advantage of a start in such a contest.
There is another fundamental consideration. Our best-qualified scientists who have worked on production of atomic bombs have also advised Secretary Stimson that the waging of war by use of atomic bombs, as they are likely to be developed further if an armament race is carried on, may well mean the end of civilization. If these men are right, and they may be, their conclusion makes it all the more compelling that an international arrangement for control of atomic bombs be arrived at.
Secretary Stimson’s recommendations, it may be noted, do not include the point that the secret ordnance procedures having to do with production of atomic bombs as weapons of war should be revealed to Russia or any other nation.
[For a report on the Soviet Union’s interest in and capacity for unilateral development of atomic energy, see despatch 2151, September 30, from Moscow, volume V, page 884.]
[On October 3, 1945, President Truman sent to the Congress a Special Message on Atomic Energy; for text, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President, April 12 to December 31, 1945 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1961), pages 362–366. For an account of discussions leading to this message, see The New World, 1939/1946, pages 408–427.]
- Under Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson became Secretary of War on September 27, 1945.↩