The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb

Truman Informs Stalin

American and British coordination for an invasion of Japan continued, with November 1 standing as the landing date. At a meeting with American and British military strategists at Potsdam, the Russians reported that their troops were moving into the Far East and could enter the war in mid-August. They would drive the Japanese out of Manchuria and withdraw at the end of hostilities. Nothing was said about the bomb. This was left for Truman, who, on the evening of July 24, approached Stalin without an interpreter to inform the Generalissimo that the United States had a new and powerful weapon. Stalin casually responded that he hoped that it would be used against Japan to good effect. The reason for Stalin's composure became clear later when it was learned that Russian intelligence had been receiving information about the S-1 project from Klaus Fuchs and other agents since summer 1942.

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