FDR s secretary of war stifles Truman s inquiry into suspicious defense plant
On this day in 1943 President Franklin D.Roosevelts secretary of war Harry Stimson phones then-Missouri Senator Harry S.Truman and politely asks him not to make inquiries about a defense plant in Pasco Washington.World War II was in full swing in 1943 and Truman was chairing a Senate committee on possible war profiteering committed by American defense plants.
In the process of investigating war-production expenditures Truman stumbled upon a suspicious plant in the state of Washington and asked the plant managers to testify in front of the committee.Unbeknownst to Truman this particular plant was secretly connected with a program to develop an atomic bombthe Manhattan Project.When Stimson one of a handful of people who knew about the highly classified Manhattan Project heard about Trumans line of questioning he immediately acted to prevent the Missouri senator from blowing the biggest military secret in world history.On June 17 Truman received a phone call from Stimson who told him that the Pasco plant was part of a very important secret development.
Fortunately Stimson did not need to explain further Truman a veteran and a patriot understood immediately that he was treading on dangerous ground.Before Stimson could continue Truman assured the secretary you won t have to say another word to me.Whenever you say that [something is highly secret] to me thats all I want to hear.
If [the plant] is for a specific purpose and you think its all right thats all I need to know.Stimson replied that the purpose was not only secret but unique.Americas secret development of the atomic bomb began in 1939 with then-President Franklin Roosevelts support.Even after Truman became Roosevelts fourth-term vice president in 1944 the project remained such a tightly controlled secret that Roosevelt did not even inform Truman that it existed.
Only after Roosevelt died from a stroke in early April 1945 did Stimson inform Truman of the nature of the Manhattan Project.The night Truman was sworn in as Roosevelts successor he noted in his diary that Stimson told him the U.S.was perfecting an explosive great enough to destroy the whole world.On April 24 1945 Stimson and the Army general in charge of the project Leslie Groves gave President Truman a full briefing on the development status of the atomic bomb.
Before the year was out the new president would be faced with a decision whether or not to use the most powerful weapon then known to man.
