Liveblogging World War II; july 20, 1945: Henry Stimson
The Henry Stimson Diary and Papers:
At eleven thirty five General Groves' special report was received by special courier. It was an immensely powerful document, clearly and well written and with supporting documents of the highest importance. It gave a pretty full and eloquent report of the tremendous success of the test and revealed far greater destructive power than we expected in S-1....
I made an appointment with the President for as soon as he could see me, which was at three-thirty.... At three o'clock I found that Marshall had returned from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and to save time I hurried to his house and had him read Groves' report and conferred with him about it.... I then went to the 'Little White House' and saw President Truman. I asked him to call in Secretary Byrnes and then I read the report in its entirety and we then discussed it. They were immensely pleased. The President was tremendously pepped up by it and spoke to me of it again and again when I saw him. He said it gave him an entirely new feeling of confidence and he thanked me for having come to the [Potsdam] Conference and being present to help him in this way....
I then left the 'Little White House', picked up Bundy, and went to the Prime Minister's house where we conferred with him and Lord Cherwell. I turned over the paper to Churchill and he began reading it but was interrupted a few minutes before five in order to hurry to the Big Three Conference at five o'clock. He asked me to return on the following morning to finish up the report....
Massage and dinner, and then in the evening about ten-thirty two short cables came in from Harrison indicating that operations would be ready earlier than expected, and also asking me to reverse my decision as to one of the proposed topics . I cabled, saying I saw no new factors for reversing myself but on the contrary the new factors seemed to confirm it.
