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Office of the President Docel~ber20, 1948 Secretcsy of Defense You hme asked my ccmments regu~ing BEST COPY AVAILABLE release of the Bikini Report. This is a very ccmplex question, ~~d it is Put in a new Phase by ‘eason ‘f tliearticle by Bradley Dewey in T~leAtlantic” But it 1s only 2 put ‘f a On the release of the report itself, I have nev~r seen any harm in letting it out, and i see some good. ~~ne time Wo the Stzte D~?~tmcnt~ I believe, felt that i;s release just at the moment would DC Untlnely, but I think this time is now past. Certainly with tnc deletions that There are still being made a certain number cf wild statments about atomic bcnbs r.nda factual st~tenent wculd help in this regard. Hence from this stancpcir-talcne I see no objection to r~lease. On the other homd, for the Frcsident to order release just at this ziomwntwould cppczr ta ho mdcin: a rel~ase under pressure, in the light to realize tim.the would not hesitate fo~ a mownt to take mIY step whztcvur if hc thcugnt it m importm.t one in the public intcrsst, whei!~erit 3A t;.isis not aplaced him in an apparently unfavorable light m not. crucial matter, and I also believe that if I were in his pl:~ceI.vould hence hesitate to ordur release just when tnis t.ypcof pressure im.dbeen will outlim it in t;lisletter. be highly salutary if careful.lyand deliberaicly lild~. But I would not confine this to atorlicbombsj I Yiouldincl~de also the subject of biological There arc tro a@Ls to a public statcrwnt and both of thcm I think are of these weapons ‘wouldt.nd to quiet fears ra;hcr than othcnttise,would tend in fact to replace unreasoning terror with a calm dctcxmination to face unpleasant facts. I think tne Ame?ican public generally is now in the frnc of rind where it would do just that, if ~giventhe authoritative f~ctual basis for so dcing. AS you and I know, none of thcsv ;*~eaponsis tormrrzw of ‘uorldwide scope it would be a terrible war, but I have no
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reason to believe that it wculd be r,crcfearful than the last one in its over-all ccmscqucncos. I see n~ indication after long study that warfme a n.uchgreater impmtance d civil aefensu, and else,undoubtc.dlyan acc~leration of the pace of mm, but I do riotmyself “bclicvctnct my of the new ag.ncics mill h so mmrwhd.rring that it almc would be the dcternining mans for irposing cw will m the enem;~,ncm do I believe thzt the sot-back that civilization would receive from.a war in t!R near future past. I believe that if the people of this country, the sound, common scms~ people cvu-ywhere, had the rcasmed factual basis for understmding This is certa.iniyan objective of greet moment. Q~’s’o;:ZJ. Ther~ is, hcwever, the second aspect of the ~ fmfare to exminu all ,ofthe pertinent tcchnic:~linfm;12tion
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I have not consulted }iith otkmrs in ‘writingthis letter. It has cnly my first thou&ts r-ridI certainly fuel that :mdificction in the ddzils at least would cccuw as soon as an able group Were ~at~.eredt~geth~r” My ~rincipal p~’int,11OWCVW, is that while I d:)not regard the release uf \he Bikini Report as a ~.~attcrof crucial irmwdiacy, I nevertheless feel