The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [190]
He closed his eyes, a sharp shake of his head. Don’t do that, Harry. This isn’t a backyard spat, and this is a hell of a lot more important than punching a bully in the eye. This is a secret, and if there’s one man on this earth who doesn’t need to hear about it, it’s Stalin. Churchill knows, thank God for that. He knew from the beginning, and I guess it makes sense that FDR would have brought him into the ring. The Brits were aching pretty bad, too much blood, too much gloom. Even if Churchill had to keep his mouth shut, at least we could let him know that we were working like hell to stick something new up our sleeve. The thing that stirs my coffee is that, from what we know now, Hitler was doing the same thing. Whether this big damn son of a bitch actually fires off or not, I’m a lot happier that we’re testing this thing over some desert in New Mexico than some Nazi bastard doing it over London. God, I can’t even think about that.
There had been additional meetings, some with the military men who stood guard over the Manhattan Project, some with the physicists themselves. With every piece of new information, Truman had become increasingly amazed that the secret had been as well kept as it had. This is Washington, for God’s sake. Between Drew Pearson and William Randolph Hearst, you know damn well that FDR’s enemies would have paid big to expose something as big as this. Jap agents had to be throwing money around every military base, every Washington hotel, trying to find out any little ditty they could. This one could have made somebody rich as hell. But so far, the secret is still … a secret. Damn impressive.
The latest word had come just prior to his boarding the Augusta, that the first test would come very soon in the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The plan was for three bombs to be built, one for the test, and the others for use against targets in Japan. The arguments over targets had begun in earnest, and Truman knew that the military men would be the best qualified to make that decision. The city most favored was Kyoto, a city of such importance to the Japanese that its destruction would surely bring the Japanese to the peace table. But Kyoto’s importance was the primary reason Truman vetoed it as a target. The city was more historical than military, a religious and cultural center like no other city in Japan. Truman had insisted that the target be someplace with more military significance, a direct strike into the heart of Japan’s war machine. The list had been assembled, and the advisors had come up with four that made the most sense. Truman had studied the short list with no real sense of the priorities of each, though the military men had offered suggestions why each, or any, was important. Truman had the list still, studied it in his mind now. Kokura, Hiroshima, Niigata, and Nagasaki. I can’t really tell them which one is the best target. I just don’t have that answer. It might depend on weather, of course, and it might be the pilot’s decision, the ultimate discretion, which target can be hit. Damn, what a place to put a bomber pilot.
Throughout the meetings, the physicists, especially Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi, had been adamant that this bomb would end the war. Even though nothing like this had ever been used before, and even though no one really knew just what might happen when it detonated, there had been no hesitation among those men that the bomb be used directly against a Japanese target. Truman agreed with the military men who had been enthusiastic about the possibilities of what this weapon could do. The Japanese