The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [194]
Stalin had not yet arrived at the conference, and Truman had received a carefully worded intelligence report that the Soviet leader might have suffered a mild heart attack. The news had inspired a cascade of feelings, some of them distinctly unsympathetic, but very quickly after Truman’s arrival, Soviet officials had come to call, assuring him that Stalin would arrive the following day. No one mentioned a heart attack.
The house Truman occupied was called the Little White House, a diplomatic nicety from the Soviets that mattered little to anyone, not the least because the house was yellow. But Truman’s entourage was busy in every available space, spread out in other houses down the street. The officials who had accompanied Truman included Secretary of State James Byrnes and Truman’s press secretary, Charles Ross. Military men were there as well, most prominently his chief of staff, Admiral William Leahy, who for a while had held the same position under Roosevelt. Leahy was the one loud voice close to Truman who objected completely to the construction and use of the atomic bomb, an unexpected voice against using a weapon of such magnitude. Truman respected Leahy, as had Roosevelt, but Leahy’s viewpoint was distinctly in the minority, and the admiral seemed to accept that with a grudging acknowledgment, though he never failed to be a bug in Truman’s ear about the fatefulness of the decision. I sure as hell don’t need that right now, he thought.
Truman held the note in his hand, glanced at it one more time. For the moment all the important matters that the conference was to address seemed utterly trivial. He knew Churchill was housed about two blocks away, wondered about making another visit, this one unofficial, just to … talk. He studied the note again, thought, Churchill will know of this soon enough. This isn’t about gossip, after all. Hey, Winny, look what we did!
He sat, but couldn’t stay still, rose again, went to the window. Babelsberg had been a German resort town, thick woods, something of an artists’colony. But all that had been erased, the three-story house where he stood just one more piece of the Soviet occupation. The house faced a lake, and he stared at that now, imagined Germans swimming, a holiday, full of joy and whatever passed for carefree to Germans. But his heart was racing, and his eyes rose past the water, staring into blank sky, any thoughts of carefree far removed. He tossed the paper on the table, realized, right now, I have to just … shut up. But by damn, this is a day we will remember. Maybe the whole world. The paper seemed to float slightly, pushed by a gentle breeze from some open window beyond the door. He moved quickly, picked it up, folded it, stuck it in his pocket. He couldn’t help the shivers, the strange excitement, knew that Leahy’s doubts were about to be realized with as much gravity as the enthusiasm of the men who had pushed so very hard for the creation of the massive weapon.
The note had come to him in a specially coded message from the secretary of war, Henry Stimson. The wording had been cryptic and vague, lest any Soviet agent might examine it, but the code had been prearranged, and Truman knew exactly what Stimson was saying. It had happened at 5:30 A.M., in the bleak desert near Alamogordo. Under the gaze of the men who had created it, watched by military men and carefully chosen newspaper reporters, the first atomic bomb had been exploded. It had worked.
The man who could rightfully be called the Father of the Bomb, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, had