How the 33rd President of the United States planned to bomb the USSR and why he could not arrange a nuclear apocalypse

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

After testing atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States had no doubt that it had a clear military advantage over the weakened Soviet Union. For four years America was considered the only country that possessed nuclear weapons, and this became the main reason for the emergence of plans to bomb the USSR. One of these plans was "Totality", developed to this day with an unclear purpose - to misinform the enemy or really attack him.

How did the political situation develop on the world stage after the Second World War?

Yesterday still allies, today already enemies, standing on the brink of a new grandiose war - this is how you can characterize the relations of the United States and Great Britain with the Soviet Union after the victory over Nazi Germany. The beginning of the confrontation between the world powers was announced by the famous statement made by the former head of the British government, Winston Churchill. While visiting Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, the former prime minister spoke about the need for English-speaking countries to achieve a predominant military advantage over the Soviet country.

Nine days after this loud announcement, an interview with I. Stalin appeared in the Pravda newspaper. In it, the Soviet leader assessed Churchill's words, pointing out that they were identical to Hitler's speeches once uttered. From that day on, the latent enmity of ideological opponents acquired an open character, as a result of which interstate relations sharply escalated, leading to the start of a nuclear arms race.

The most powerful bombs were developed by scientists in fascist Germany; during the war, the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union worked on their projects. In 1945, thanks to a multi-year nuclear program known as the Manhattan Project, the first atomic explosive device was tested in New Mexico. Just a month after the experimental explosion, the Americans used new weapons against Japanese cities: dropping two bombs, they destroyed more than 200,000 people in total.

Having achieved in this way a quick surrender of Japan and becoming the world's first nuclear power, the United States decided not to stop - they planned to make the USSR the next conquered country.

For what purpose was the Totality plan developed?

Totality (all-encompassing) is the first plan developed in 1945 for an attack on the Soviet Union, involving the use of nuclear bombs. The project was led by the order of Harry Truman, General of the Army, the future 34th American President - Dwight David Eisenhower. Proof of the thoroughness with which the US military approached the case, served as research to find "the strategic vulnerability of the USSR to a limited air attack."

The analysis of the information received on the topic was supplemented with the following words: "The United States must become a leader in organizing a world counteroffensive in order to mobilize and strengthen its own forces to undermine the power of the communist government."It was possible to do this only by relying on American "atomic capabilities", under which General Curtis LeMay, who commanded the nuclear bombings of Japan, meant "depopulation of vast territories to the state of rudimentary remnants of the former human activity on them."

In other words, Operation "Totality" implied a large-scale destruction of the Soviet population, with the transformation of the USSR into a huge, almost deserted zone. To make this "humane" plan a reality, it was necessary to use not two bombs, but, of course, much more.

What the Totality plan envisaged

Unlike Japan, which, in fact, was used by the United States as a testing ground for nuclear tests, and not the capture of the country, the Soviet Union was planned to be occupied after the attack. But in order to do this without human losses on our part, it was supposed to first strike a simultaneous blow on all large populated cities of the USSR: Moscow, Tbilisi, Leningrad, Baku, Tashkent, Kuibyshev, Gorky, Saratov, Kazan, Grozny, Yaroslavl, as well as on all industrial centers of the Urals and Siberia.

In total, the list included 20 strategic targets for which the same number of atomic bombs was required. Of course, the United States did not have such an arsenal of explosive devices in 1945 - the only ready-made bombs had already been used in Japanese cities. However, five years later, in 1950, the number of American nuclear weapons reached almost 300 units - at that time, this was 6 times the reserves of the USSR, which had only five nuclear bombs in service.

Aware of its superiority, the United States ceased to be limited to 20 cities - ideas of a more voluminous scale related to the extermination of people appeared in the military minds. The Totality plan is outdated, new projects have appeared.

Plan Totality - Truman's Giant Atomic Bluff?

The version that "Totality" was only a disinformation ploy to mislead Moscow appeared in 1979. This assumption was put forward by the military historian David Alan Rosenberg in his article published in the thematic edition of the Journal of American History.

In favor of his point of view, he argued that by 1946 the United States had managed to produce only nine bombs, while at least 20 appeared in the plan for a nuclear attack. In addition, in his opinion, America did not have a sufficient number of long-range bombers capable of delivering explosive devices by appointment. Therefore, the historian concluded that the Totality plan was nothing more than Harry Truman's "giant atomic bluff".

Soviet, and then Russian, historians believed that such plans were not implemented, not only because of the lack of the necessary weapons at that time, but also because of the countermeasures that were developed by the specialists of the USSR. Lacking an equal number of atomic weapons, the Soviet Union paid much attention to air defense, having achieved significant success in this area. At the same time, work was underway to create atomic weapons, which appeared in the country already in 1949, thereby depriving America of unconditional superiority.

It was extremely difficult to obtain information about the USSR's nuclear weapons, given the efforts of American counterintelligence. Therefore, a feat can be considered Operation Enormoz, knowing what role Soviet intelligence agents played in the creation of a nuclear bomb in the USSR.