Atomic Bomb Propaganda

When the Manhattan Project accelerated from theoretical physics to the actual engineering phase of the atomic bomb, Washington policy makers were determined to gain a propaganda advantage. Although no one knew precisely when the atomic bomb would be introduced into the Pacific War, senior civilian and military elites had resolved that, once that fateful decision was executed, they would inundate the American public and the international community with extremely positive and jingoistic justifications for the cataclysmic arrival of the nuclear age. In the United States, nuclear propaganda preparations began during the Roosevelt administration and intensified during the first months of the Truman presidency. The United States carefully orchestrated with the United …show more content…
When the atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima on 6
August 1945 and World War II became a nuclear war, senior leaders of all three countries delivered five carefully coordinated announcements on that same day. In the United States, the many drafts of presidential and secretary of war statements initially recognized the global peril of nuclear weapons’ proliferation.
As the day of atomic bombing approached, however, the drafts increasingly envisioned that America would enjoy a prolonged atomic monopoly and barely mentioned the need for international arms control. Starting in 1945, the proposed public rhetoric of the drafts became wartime propaganda,