S8 Ep185: Selecting the Target and Stimson's Intervention to Save Kyoto: Colleague Evan Thomas explains that the Target Committee sought to destroy a city to demonstrate the bomb's power, initially selecting Kyoto until Stimson overruled General Groves to save the

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John Batchelor

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🗓️ 13 December 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

Selecting the Target and Stimson's Intervention to Save Kyoto: Colleague Evan Thomas explains that the Target Committee sought to destroy a city to demonstrate the bomb's power, initially selecting Kyoto until Stimson overruled General Groves to save the cultural capital, with the Interim Committee dismissing a demonstration strike and deciding to bomb war plants surrounded by worker housing despite incoherent discussions regarding radiation dangers.

1931 TOKYO

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Batch with Evan Thomas. His new book is Road to Surrender,
0:10.1	three men in the countdown to the end of World War II. Roosevelt is dead. He dies in early April.
0:17.1	Harry Truman is now in office. It is late May, 1945. The Germans have surrendered. Hitler is dead. The men in Europe are waiting to either come home, either to come home, or to be reassigned to the operations in the Pacific, whatever is coming, to end the war with Japan. Two committees gather in Washington. They're both
0:41.3	critical to the A-bob, the atomic weapon, which has not yet been tested. That won't be till
0:47.2	July, the Trinity test. But in any event, it's been assembled at great cost, and Henry
0:53.0	Simpson feels the burden of it, as he says
0:55.4	at one point, I spent $2 billion, and he's very pleased to hear that it works in Trinity.
1:01.4	But in any event, they're not quite sure what it can do as these committees meet.
1:07.0	The first committee is called the Target Committee, and it is the genius and extension of a man named Groves, General Groves, in charge of Trinity and before that taking part in the Manhattan Project.
1:21.3	Evan, what is the Target Committee and what is their decision making?
1:25.4	The Target Committee is choosing the target for this new weapon for S-1.
1:30.6	And they are military men and scientists, but mostly military men, who focuses on showing off how
1:39.4	terrible this weapon is.
1:41.4	And, you know, in 1945, bombing was not the most accurate thing in the world.
1:47.9	They were not reliably accurate. So they are concerned in finding a city, they want to hit a whole city.
1:57.1	They don't, to aiming it, they would like it be morally preferable to hit a military target,
2:03.0	say, an army base, navy base, but really they want to hit a whole city to make sure they can hit it.
2:09.2	And they are looking at cities.
2:13.5	Their choice, or General Groves' choice, is Kyoto, which is the ancient capital of Japan,
2:19.9	a beautiful city, which is full of people and actually has quite a lot of military activity.
2:24.3	That's the one he and his target was wanted to hit.
2:26.7	They also look at Hiroshima, another big city, also with military implications because
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