It’s Complicated: The Decision Around Dropping the Atomic Bombs on Japan.
Ted Aldrich will be speaking about all the factors that went into the decision by President Harry Truman to drop atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945 and, to a lesser extent, about some of the key figures who influenced the decision. In his 2022 book, The Partnership, Aldrich devoted a chapter to the discussions that took place between members of the High Command about how to end the war in Japan. Since publication of his book last year, he has been invited twice by Colgate University to lecture to a class studying all aspects of the atomic bomb. This past spring, Aldrich served on a panel with historian Evan Thomas and journalist/author Barbara Slavin at the Stimson Center in Washington D.C. which was devoted to addressing the reasons for using the atomic bomb on Japan.
DMA members can expect to hear about all the misconceptions regarding the decision that have emerged over the years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He will attempt to take the audience back in time to July 1945 and firmly in the shoes of those saddled with the terrific responsibility of ending a War that had already killed approximately 420,000 Americans and wounded another 670,000.
Edward “Ted” Aldrich was born and raised in Rowayton, Connecticut. He attended Colgate University majoring in economics and political science before receiving an MBA in finance from Boston College. He then began a career in banking with UBS in New York. He spent thirteen years with UBS working in New York, Zurich, and London specializing principally in commodities. Aldrich held senior positions at Deutsche Bank and Fortis before launching a trade and commodity finance business at Mizuho Bank, a business he ran for eleven years. Aldrich currently works as the head of corporate development for Auramet Trading, one of the world’s largest physical precious metals merchants in the world.
Aldrich’s love of history began on the day he entered the 2nd grade at Rowayton Elementary School and saw portraits of all the U.S. presidents on the wall of his classroom. Since that day one of his primary hobbies has been the study of history. Today, he has a library of nearly 700 books, most of which he read during his thirty plus years of commuting by train back and forth from Connecticut to Manhattan. His first book, The Partnership: George Marshall, Henry Stimson, and the Extraordinary Collaboration that Won World War II (published last year) was written on his commute over a seven-year period (Aldrich spoke to the DMA about The Partnership last May and is still on a book tour).
Aldrich and his wife Susan Scull Aldrich (a Darien native and daughter of DMA member Pete Scull) have lived in Westport since 1999 where they raised three sons. Along with history, Aldrich’s main interests are soccer (he played four years at Colgate and still plays in a Westport men’s league), piano, and gardening (his wife is a prominent landscape designer who designs landscapes from Greenwich to Fairfield).
Speaker arranged by Charles Salmans
Speaker Summary
Ted Aldrich provided a compelling review of the background, issues and factors that went into the decision to drop 2 atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945 that ultimately led to surrender by Japan. He took us through the timeline for both the development of the bomb and the rapid progression from the formation of a committee in May 1945 to decide what to do once the bomb was finalized until the bombs were dropped on August 6 and 9, 1945.
Noteworthy was the fact that President Truman didn’t even know the bomb project existed when he was sworn in on April 12, 1945, yet the decision was made to drop the bomb 3 months later. Ted took us through the steps that occurred between these dates, the key players in the process (with a focus on Henry Stimson and George Marshall, the subjects of Ted’s book, “The Partnership”), and the factors that led to the decision to use the atomic bomb. While there were many factors (some quite ancillary), the greatest of these was: the need to put an end to the war; the belief that more US (and, ultimately, Japanese) lives would be saved by a rapid end to the war; and, that anything short of showing the Japanese the destruction they would endure in the face of this new weapon would not bring about an end to the war based on Japan’s until-that-point’s demonstration that they would never surrender despite the losses that they had already endured. To prove his point, Ted shared that, even after the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, there was a 3-3 deadlock among Japanese leaders as to whether they should surrender.
All-in-all, an insightful, engaging presentation and Q&A on what was one of the most critical, and afterwards controversial, decisions in the history of warfare. Ted also made the clear point that, at the time, there was actually little controversy and broad support for the decision to drop the bombs and that, in his opinion, it was the right decision and likely saved millions of US and Japanese lives despite the loss of life from the bombs.