Harry S. Truman photo

Statement by the President Concerning Preparations for Nuclear Tests in the Pacific.

April 12, 1946

PREPARATIONS for the atomic bomb tests in the Pacific are being pressed forward and I have been assured that the present target dates for the explosions will be met. I am in complete agreement with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy in their view that these tests are of vital importance in obtaining information for the national defense. Without the information from these experiments, designers of ships, aircraft and military ground equipment, as well as our strategists, tacticians, and medical officers, will be working in ignorance regarding the effects of this revolutionary new weapon against naval and other targets not previously exposed to it. These tests, which are in the nature of a laboratory experiment, should give us the information which is essential to intelligent planning in the future and an evaluation of the effect of atomic energy on our defense establishments.

Harry S Truman, Statement by the President Concerning Preparations for Nuclear Tests in the Pacific. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/232785

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