Truman Harry

Truman and Groves, an Explosive Letter Re: The Bomb

Harry Truman, The Man Who Dropped The Bomb to Leslie Groves, the Man Who Developed it. Single page typed letter signed, 7.25" x 10.5", on Harry Truman's personal letterhead. Dated "September 4, 1963", and signed by Truman as "Harry Truman". Written to Leslie Groves, the designer of the Manhattan Project and in response to allegations raised in a published article in "Look" Magazine on the decision to deploy the "Bomb".

The publics questions, allegations, debate, concerns, paranoia and rage over Truman's decision to drop the Bomb to end WWII, show no sign of abating even though nearly 20 years have passed at the time of this correspondence. Truman's letter offered here, is in response to both an article published in "Look" Magazine titled "18 Years Later: Look Lifts the Secrecy Lid on the Fight Over the A-Bomb", and to his receipt of an incredible letter from Leslie Groves. His letter clearly shows that the two men were still dodging public aftermath from the decision to use the bomb as a means to end WWII, but now with additional disclosures, and new allegations. The lot offered here includes the original typed letter signed by Harry Truman to Leslie Groves, a photocopy of Groves original letter to Truman regarding the "Look" article, and an original copy of "Look" Magazine dated August 13, 1963 containing the revealing 'blow the lid off" article, which made numerous rash allegations regarding the procedures, decisions, and protocols revolving around the Manhattan Project and several of the instrumental personal involved. Including "Why Scientists Wanted to Warn Japan", "Why the President Never Saw their Protest", "Why Gen. Marshall Opposed Surprise Attack", "Why We Shrugged off a Forecast of Missile Dropped Super Bombs"

The article held such explosive implications that it forced Leslie Groves to immediately write to Harry Truman in response to "Look's" article. To fully understand the interchange between Truman and Groves, requires minimally a brief synopsis of the article shown below (a lengthy article of 5 oversized typed pages, each 10.5" x 13"):



President Truman, faced with one of the great moral decisions of human history, was denied access to the petitions of many American nuclear scientists who opposed the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima without adequate warning.

Blow by blow account of the futile efforts of scientists … to dissuade President Truman from releasing the frightful power of the atom on the Japanese, including a bundle of scientific petitions and statements, largely opposed to unrestricted use of the A-bomb on Japan, all of which never reached President Truman-- although they were addressed to him, and Col. Kenneth Nichols, production chief of Manhattan, urged Groves "that these papers be forwarded to the President of the United States with proper comments"

Gen. George Marshall, estimated that if instead the U.S. invades Japan, as many as 42,000 casualties/American deaths can be expected in the 1st month, and closer to 1 million if Japan fought until the bitter end.

As early as September 1944, months before the device was tested, two distinguished American's, James Conant president of Harvard Univ., and Vannevar Bush, president of the Carnegies Institution of Washington, warned Secretary of War Henry Stimson of future "super-super" bombs that could be delivered by guided missiles (the earliest prediction of a super arms race)

Almost all American leaders privy to the atomic secret were concerned about possible Russian duplicity ….

Nowhere in the Manhattan papers is there any indication that President Truman ever made an affirmative decision to drop the bomb. Rather, he seems to have proceeded on the assumption that the bomb would be dropped when ready. The papers tend to confirm a recent statement by Groves that Truman "was like a little boy on a toboggan" who never had an opportunity to say yes. All he could have said, Groves argued, was no. That word of the President was never uttered.

Look Magazine also presented many accounts of scientist and military personal who had written to Truman regarding reservations of how to deploy the bomb with the primary concerns one of giving Japan the opportunity to surrender, and a refusal will be followed by the use of a new weapon … to even suggesting that instead the U.S provides a military demonstration in Japan to be followed by a renewed opportunity to surrender before a full use of the weapon is employed.

Many expressions of where to deploy the bomb also occurred with the vast majority opting for either military bases and surrounding personal, or to manufacturing locations but all with first warning Japan so they would evacuate.


Grove's highly defensive letter in response was immediately issued to President Truman denying all the journalistic claims. The content of Grove's letter is shown below:

" … It has long been my practice not to take public issue with reporters. However I would like to assure you personally that the reference to "a little boy on a toboggan" bears little resemblance to anything I can recall saying. Particularly objectionable to me were the words, "a little boy", which with my respect for the office of the President and for you, I could never have used in any such way as is implied.

Actually you did make an affirmative decision to drop and bomb and we all knew it. More-over there could have been nothing more affirmative on your part than your approval through Secretary Stimson and General Marshall before its issuance in Washington, and I have always assumed that this was brought to your attention at that time.

I never got any impression that General Marshall was opposed to, or even doubtful about the use of the bomb. If he had had any such feelings I am sure he would have mentioned them to me. This he did not do.

The article also implied that I withheld from Secretary Stimson, and hence from you, the fact that some of the scientists felt that the bomb should not be used. Their feelings were thoroughly discussed with Mr. Stimson at a meeting of the Interim Committee at which the Scientific Panel was also present, as were General Marshall and myself. Previous to this meeting Mr. Stimson had been kept fully informed by me at all times of these attitudes. I am sure he passed all pertinent information on to you.

The petitions contained nothing new and they were delivered to Mr. Stimson at the earliest possible moment. This was on his return to Washington from Potsdam. If I had sent them to Potsdam immediately they would have arrived after his departure from there and thus would have been seriously delayed in reaching him.

In basing their article almost solely on the Manhattan District files the writers ignore the fact that every effort was made throughout the project to avoid, as much as possible, putting top-secret material on paper. For this reason only persons acquainted with the intimate details of the project operations can interpret them properly…"



Truman's typed response to Groves shows both one of reassurance, but also perhaps one of a President who has had to endure constant negative allegations, and is just wearied by 20 years of mudslinging:



An incredible explosive inside look at these two men. Of significant importance is that nearly another 55 years later, and our current view of history from that era, still represents Groves as having made the statements as shown in the original "Look" article, thus begging the question of what really transpired in the Manhattan Project. Today it is even believed that Groves anticipated Russia's imminent invasion into Japan with the probable outcome that Japan would surrender before Groves actually got to trial the bomb, the result of which would have been a stale mate of never being able to use this weapon of mass destruction. It is even modern theory that the need to deploy the bomb had a hidden agenda to kick-start the Cold War rather than end the Second World War, with the purpose being one more to impress the Soviet Union than to cow Japan. New studies of the US, Japanese and Soviet diplomatic archives suggest that Truman’s main motive was to limit Soviet expansion in Asia. With the vast majority of the secret meetings never written down, the true story of the Manhattan project will never surface.


However, what we can say is that regardless of the endless debate of why Japan surrendered, and whether the "bomb" was necessary, the deployment of the bomb officially launched the start of the arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States for years to come. Incredibly rare and private correspondence from one of the most controversial moments in history!

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.