A brief but violent flurry broke out at the end of November, 1945, when the news services carried accounts of the destruction of five Japanese cyclotrons. Two were in the Institute for Physical and Chemical Research at Tokyo, two were a part of Osaka Imperial University, and one was at Kyoto Imperial University.
There followed a period of very heavy correspondence for my office and that of the Secretary of War, and a number of papers were generated by the General Staff for internal consumption. Many scientific and intellectual societies joined individual citizens in protesting the destruction. They compared us to the Germans who burned the Louvain Library in 1914 and again in 1940, and denounced the Army’s act as wanton and a crime against mankind—which it was not—and went on to label it stupid—which it most certainly was.
When the storm broke, I immediately tried to find out just how this situation had come about. Even today, with the benefit of considerable hindsight and after much thought, it is still impossible for me to reconstruct completely the chain of events that combined in this instance to produce a very serious error. However, although the complete story is not known, and probably never will be, it is possible to piece together enough of it to provide a valuable insight into some of the problems that grow out of any operation as large as that conducted by the War Department at the end of World War II.
The General Staff, on September 5, 1945, had issued instructions that all enemy war equipment be destroyed, except new or unique items, which were to be saved for examination. This directive was most explicit in requiring that “Enemy equipment not essentially or exclusively for war which is suitable for peacetime civilian uses should be retained.”
This was amplified by a Joint Chiefs of Staff cable on October 30 to the commanders in the Pacific area and China, instructing them to seize all facilities for research in atomic energy and related matters, and to take into custody all persons engaged in such research. Although I do not believe I was consulted in the preparation of these instructions, I did eventually see the copy that was furnished to the Army for its information, and I most certainly would have concurred in the message as sent if I had been consulted. When the JCS cable arrived in my office, I called in one of my officers and went over its contents with him. We had long known of the existence of the five cyclotrons, and I was particularly anxious that special measures be taken to ensure that they were properly secured, in accordance with the JCS cable, but not destroyed. Yet, in the light of what followed, it is evident that I did not make my intentions clear.
On November 7, a message to General MacArthur was prepared by my office to go out in the name of the Secretary of War. The next day, this message was cleared through Mr. Patterson’s office as a routine matter, without being brought to his personal attention. It was dispatched over his own special channels, which I sometimes used. As sent, the message ordered the destruction of the five cyclotrons in which we were interested, after all available technical and experimental data had been obtained from them.
On November 24, General MacArthur’s headquarters in Tokyo reported by cable to the JCS that the cyclotrons had been seized on the twentieth, and that their destruction had commenced on the twenty-fourth. This report is especially interesting for two reasons: first, it referred only to the JCS cable, which ordered seizure—not destruction—of research facilities (apparently Tokyo was becoming confused at this point); and second, it was given unusually wide distribution, one copy being designated for me, among others.
The destruction of the cyclotrons should have come to an abrupt halt at this precise moment. However, of the nine persons in authority who were sent copies of General MacArthur’s cable of November 24, not one—myself included—actually saw it. Every one of the nine copies seems to have been noted, initialed and filed by subordinate staff officers, in spite of all the detailed instructions that existed in every headquarters to prevent just such an occurrence.
In my own office, the confusion stemmed at least in part from the fact that the officer handling this matter was fairly new to the project, and was unaccustomed to our way of operating. Any officer with more experience in the project would have questioned my apparent desire to have the cyclotrons destroyed, and if I had persisted would have urged me to reconsider my decision. I am sure that the other responsible officials who were similarly unaware of what was going on were faced with similar problems.
And so the destruction of the cyclotrons continued to completion. Not until the story broke in the newspapers did this policy matter finally come to the attention of persons at the policy-making level.
The first realization that something was wrong came in General MacArthur’s headquarters when, on November 28, a cable arrived in Tokyo from the General Staff, requesting that one of the cyclotrons be returned to the United States for re-erection and study. As these five units had just been reported destroyed, the discrepancy was immediately brought to General MacArthur’s attention and he promptly dispatched a cable to General Eisenhower, personally, to acquaint him with the possibility that conflicting instructions had been emanating from the War Department. Apparently, Eisenhower (who by now had succeeded General Marshall as Chief of Staff) never saw this message, for no action was taken at that time.
The story broke on November 30, when the United Press reported that the cyclotrons had been destroyed by our occupation forces in Japan. Almost immediately, under a Tokyo date line, the New York Herald Tribune quoted sources within General MacArthur’s headquarters as saying that orders from General Eisenhower directing that the cyclotrons be destroyed had been carried out.
These same sources went on to state that the destruction of cyclotrons had been initiated on orders from Washington and implied, I think correctly, that the authorities in Tokyo had complied with them most reluctantly. This report led to inquiries from the United Press, asking the War Department to clarify the differences that seemed to have sprung up between Washington and Tokyo.
The Tokyo dispatch had an immediate effect on the General Staff, and on December 2, General Hull cabled Lieutenant General R. K. Sutherland, MacArthur’s Chief of Staff, that no such instructions as had been reported in the press from Tokyo had ever been issued by the War Department. He did indicate, however, that some part of the misunderstanding might attach to the War Department through its total failure to comment on MacArthur’s cable of November 24 announcing that the destruction had begun.
On December 3, Mac Arthur replied to Hull’s cable of the second with one directed to Eisenhower. In it he pointed out that he had received special instructions from the Secretary of War to destroy the cyclotrons, and went on to mention his attempt of November 28 to bring the matter of conflicting instructions to the personal attention of the Chief of Staff. He expressed his opposition to the destruction of the cyclotrons, and closed by stating that it had been necessary to issue the Tokyo news release in order to contradict false allegations made in the American press, since no action had been taken in Washington to correct the impression that the responsibility for the decision to destroy the cyclotrons lay with the occupation forces.
On the same day, General Hull, acting for the Chief of Staff, assured General MacArthur that he had acted correctly and indicated that the situation resulted entirely from a failure to co-ordinate outgoing messages in Washington.
We could not correct the destruction. There remained for us a very bad public relations situation which had been greatly aggravated by the wide variations between the statements from Tokyo and those from Washington. At that time, Secretary Patterson was considering a proposal that the War Department’s response to criticism of the cyclotrons’ destruction should be along the line that:
... the action taken was in implementation of the established policy of the United States that the Japanese should be prevented from engaging in any activity related in any way to war making.
In order to ensure peace for generations to come we desire to eliminate to the maximum extent possible, the Japanese war-making potential. While it is recognized that a cyclotron may be used for scientific research in other fields, it is essential to the carrying out of atomic bomb research which our government believes should be prohibited to naturally belligerent and dishonest nations.
We cannot afford to pay the price twice that we have had to pay once. . . .
This did not appeal to me at all, and after we had discussed the matter at some length, Patterson finally approved the following explanation for release:
General MacArthur was directed to destroy the Japanese cyclotrons in a radio message sent to him in my name. That message was dispatched without my having seen it and without its having been given the thorough consideration which the subject matter deserved. Among other things, the opinion of our scientific advisers should have been obtained before a decision was arrived at.
While the officer who originated it felt that the action was in accord with our established policy of destroying Japan’s war potential, the dispatch of such a message without first investigating the matter fully was a mistake. I regret this hasty action on the part of the War Department.
Secretary Patterson signed this statement himself. Only the general policy of the War Department precluded the mention of my name as being the responsible officer. I have always felt that Mr. Patterson took great pains in this case, as in every other, to avoid any appearance of passing the buck to me.
The press as a whole seemed quite surprised by this frank and open admission of error. As a result, this incident quickly lost its news value and the clamor soon subsided.
The lessons to be learned from this affair are many. They were brought home most forcibly to me; and others both within and without the military service can benefit from them just as well. The commander must always make his intentions unmistakably clear to his subordinates; I did not do so in this case. Even the most successful and competent organization will not continue automatically to produce perfect work when large numbers of new people are brought into it without previous experience or training; my confidence in the MED as an organization probably exceeded its capability at this time. There are many dangers inherent in turning over high-level matters to staff officers who have not been thoroughly prepared for their responsibilities; no matter what it cost us in effort, we should have provided formal training for these early replacement officers. Yet, over all these other lessons looms the basic truth that was demonstrated here again, that honest errors, openly admitted, are sooner forgiven.