Should the atomic bombs been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

[oralloy]

I just want to point something out right now, hindsight is 20-20. We now know that radiation causes cancer and other defects, we didn't know that at the time of the bombing or for several years afterwords. When we dropped it we thought it would work like a really big conventional weapon. Don't pull out "We knowingly hurt them for generations" because we didn't.

Actually, the dangers of radiation were published by Hermann Joseph Muller in 1927, which eventually helped win him the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1946.

And by the time of the A-bomb program, a number of people had been known to have died from radiation (most notably Marie Curie).

We didn't hurt them for generations though. Only people who were present at the explosion received a serious radiation injury.

 

[oralloy]

I am sorry but the events of August 6 and 9 are easily defined by one word. Terrorism!. Terrorism from the part of the US. Terrorism, according to the Academic Consensus Definition is: "Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby - in contrast to assassination - the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought" (Schmid, 1988 ).

So, technically, it was a terrorist act. Sorry, but it is true.

The A-bombs do not fit that definition in at least two ways.

First, the A-bombs were overt military strikes, not the attacks of (semi-) clandestine actors.

Second, the A-bombs were aimed at actual military targets, not at innocent victims selected to generate a message.

 

[Max Lazer]

Nonsense on many levels here. One of your problems is that you are emotional instead of rational. How do you expect an entire city, no, 2 entire cities to evacuate all their civilians?. And how in gods name are civilians supposed to force military personnel to hand over the weapons and abandon their duties???. Don't be ridiculous, you can't let feelings and blind patriotism become more important than innocent people's lives.

First, you must separate the people running a country from the people living in the country. Not everyone in Nazi Germany hated the Jews and wanted to see them gassed. Likewise, not everyone in Japan wanted to attack Pearl Harbor and kill Americans. To whine that the Japanese started it is a silly schoolboy attitude and to claim retribution on the civilians is just downright bullying. Stop hiding behind the flimsy words by saying, "It's war!" as if to point out that playing foul is expected during wartime. It isn't!, and the military has rules for this. That is why there is a war crimes tribunal and a code of conduct during warfare.

Secondly, the lives of people who are utterly detached from the act of war and are killing no one should never be the target of a lethal attack. This is why 9/11 was such a horrific event, remember? It was the loss of innocent civilians and private property that makes it so abhorrent. Our nuclear terrorist attacks on Japan were far, far worse. I can accept a certain amount of civilian casualties that are an unfortunate consequence of military engagement with armed forces, but that is something entirely different and on a much smaller scale.

Of course it's emotional; it's what I believe, having read books and watched news programs. I am aware that the civilians of enemy nations don't all share the same views as their leaders. This does not excuse them from the repercussions of (in Germany's case) their democratically elected leaders. The civilian population outnumbers the military. In every Axis nation, the military was also civilian controlled, just as in the nations of the western allies (The U.S.S.R. made a kinda blend...). They could do something, but sadly coercion and propaganda are very potent tools. Nevertheless, this does not give civilians a green card for sitting by and watching their nations do stupid things. America is reaping the results of its populace elected a moron and his criminal lackeys (bosses?) to run the country not once, but twice in a row!

Japan suffered terribly for the foolish choices of its leaders. One reason for this is that, unlike in Italy and Germany, the government remained firmly in control. The populace didn't rise up with dissenting leaders, as in Italy, and while most of Germany's military leadership simply needed Hitler dead to finally issue the surrender they had known was needed for a year, the Japanese military was in charge of the government, moved only by the word of their civilian emperor.
I do not know much about Hirohito, but it interests me what would have happened if he had tried to issue a surrender earlier in the war...but that's not my specialty.

Now, I don't believe in attacking civilians who are not closely related to the military (theoretically, EVERYONE is tied to the military because they generate income, which is collected as taxes, some of which goes to the military). Back in the 1940's, EVERYONE was closely tied to the armed forces due to the necessity of mobilization. Even a simple farmer in the countryside is helping the war effort. It's less true nowadays, where a cyber attack on bank records is more damaging than an attack on civilians.
Civilians in general ought to be spared the terrors of war. HOWEVER, they should not be a factor in winning the war for the attackers. If a military base or factory lay inside a large city, the civilian casualties, no matter how high, should only be considered in the light of whether the attackers will have to take care of them after wards, and how. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as has been repeatedly established, contained legitimate war targets, staffed by the people who lived in the cities. One choice was to take out the military targets using mass fire bombing raids (because they had no precision weapons then), which had been done to other Japanese cities without any apparent effect on the Japanese leadership. The other was to take out the military targets and their civilian staffs in a single, awe inspiring blow that would confirm, once and for all, that the United States could grind Japan into dust, providing the Soviets didn't rape their way across the islands first.

Speaking of that, I kindly ask that you and Meatball not talk about the bombings as if they were the greatest crime of the war. Provide evidence that this is true, next to the millions of people in Eastern Europe and China who suffered at the hands of their occupiers, their own people, and their "saviors." You want to discuss unnecessary assaults on civilians? The Soviets lined up nuns in front of their monasteries in order for them to be gang raped in order. The area that Poland occupies today used to be part of Germany. Germans no longer have claim to that region because most of the Germans in that land fled west in terror of what the Red Army would (and did) do to them.

 

[Xbowhyena]

I think it was what needed to be done. War would have dragged on much longer with many more lives lost if a quick surrender had not been reached. Also, we told them we would do it. They didn't do anything, we dropped the bomb. We say we'll do it again, they still don't surrender, we drop ANOTHER bomb. Point is, we warned them, we gave em 2 chances. It was a terrible thing it was to kill innocent people, but every human life is worth the same. Countless more would have died if not for the early surrender of Japan, and don't forget civilians died in the bombing of Pearl Harbor as well. We also didn't know the true effects of the bomb, no one did. The radiation was something that wasn't intended. But many more people died during the holocaust than during this bombing, and if Japan hadn't surrendered early like this, it's likely that the US would have spent much more time forcing Japan to surrender whilst Jews were dying in the camps. You have to think of these things on the largest scale possible, I'm probably missing some event that would play into this as well. The basis of this whole thing was practically Triage. Japanese civilians died, but it is probable that more Jews could have died in the camps along with American soldiers fighting against the Japanese soldiers. It's an awful thing that triage has to decide on civilian lives, but it was forced by Hitler killing Jews because he was pretty much an ass. It wasn't a good thing, and it wasn't a bad thing; it just happened.

 

[oralloy]

I feel compelled to say this; but firebombing of Japan was just as effective as nuclear bombs, without the lasting effects.

But it didn't get them to surrender. The point of the nuclear bombs was very much to say "look, just stop or we'll wipe you off the face of the earth." Firebombing was very effective but essentially just an advance on expected technology. Waves of planes can be seen, defeated or prepared for. But a lone bomber that can level an entire city in one run was unheard of, almost biblically powerful.

Importantly the US kept it very quiet that they didn't have the ability to rapidly mass produce these weapons yet.

Define rapidly. The next A-bomb was a week from being dropped on Japan when they surrendered. After that, we were expecting to have another 3 in September, another 4 in October, another 5 in November, and seven or more additional bombs in December.

Section 8.1.5 here does a good job of detailing our A-bomb production infrastructure at the time:

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq8.html#nfaq8.1.5

 

[Fronken]

Using atomic weapons should be declared a crime against humanity, due to its lasting effect on those who live where it was dropped.

But as many already have stated, when it comes to WW2, it was the lesser of two evils, so america did the right thing dropping them.

 

[oralloy]

just plain no. the war was basically over anyway, they just HAD to test it....

its a monument to human stupidity.

They had already tested it in New Mexico.

The war was not basically over until Japan surrendered.

 

[Caliostro]

(one of the 8 or so posts in a row]

You know, there's a fucking Edit button right there if you forgot something... You can quote more than one person at the time, just don't spam the damn thread...


On topic: Should the bombs have been dropped? Yes. It ended the war. Say what you will but hadn't those bombs leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nobody knows how long the war would have lasted... Too many people sacrificed their lives for too long. Was a chance to end it, and they took it. The world had seen this war for too long, and even though nowadays you'd think everyone was extremely excited about it and out to defend their country, like most series, movies, games and documentaries make you think, truth is people just wanted it to be over... They just wanted peace.

Was it the best option? Nobody can say. Nobody. It looked like the best option, and that's all there is to it.

Was it right? Is anything in war right? Not really. Necessary? Most likely.

 

[oralloy]

Ok. Seriously. I'm really starting to wonder. Can people read my posts at all? Can you read this? Reply if you can read this.

Our own government released a report a year later saying they knew at the time the bombing was unnecessary. Japan had no physical military infrastructure left! They just wanted to keep their emperor, but even if we had stood by, and according the the report, done absolutely nothing, they would have surrendered unconditionally.

They had been trying to surrender since 43'.

I can read it.

The report does conclude that the bombs were unnecessary. But it does not conclude that we knew it at the time.

In fact, the only person who thought the bombs were unnecessary at the time was Ike, and everyone else thought he was nuts for thinking so.

Japan did not try to surrender until August 10, 1945, by which time both A-bombs had already been dropped.

 

[Dragonearl]

Nonsense on many levels here. One of your problems is that you are emotional instead of rational. How do you expect an entire city, no, 2 entire cities to evacuate all their civilians?. And how in gods name are civilians supposed to force military personnel to hand over the weapons and abandon their duties???. Don't be ridiculous, you can't let feelings and blind patriotism become more important than innocent people's lives.

First, you must separate the people running a country from the people living in the country. Not everyone in Nazi Germany hated the Jews and wanted to see them gassed. Likewise, not everyone in Japan wanted to attack Pearl Harbor and kill Americans. To whine that the Japanese started it is a silly schoolboy attitude and to claim retribution on the civilians is just downright bullying. Stop hiding behind the flimsy words by saying, "It's war!" as if to point out that playing foul is expected during wartime. It isn't!, and the military has rules for this. That is why there is a war crimes tribunal and a code of conduct during warfare.

Secondly, the lives of people who are utterly detached from the act of war and are killing no one should never be the target of a lethal attack. This is why 9/11 was such a horrific event, remember? It was the loss of innocent civilians and private property that makes it so abhorrent. Our nuclear terrorist attacks on Japan were far, far worse. I can accept a certain amount of civilian casualties that are an unfortunate consequence of military engagement with armed forces, but that is something entirely different and on a much smaller scale.

Of course it's emotional; it's what I believe, having read books and watched news programs. I am aware that the civilians of enemy nations don't all share the same views as their leaders. This does not excuse them from the repercussions of (in Germany's case) their democratically elected leaders. The civilian population outnumbers the military. In every Axis nation, the military was also civilian controlled, just as in the nations of the western allies (The U.S.S.R. made a kinda blend...). They could do something, but sadly coercion and propaganda are very potent tools. Nevertheless, this does not give civilians a green card for sitting by and watching their nations do stupid things. America is reaping the results of its populace elected a moron and his criminal lackeys (bosses?) to run the country not once, but twice in a row!

Japan suffered terribly for the foolish choices of its leaders. One reason for this is that, unlike in Italy and Germany, the government remained firmly in control. The populace didn't rise up with dissenting leaders, as in Italy, and while most of Germany's military leadership simply needed Hitler dead to finally issue the surrender they had known was needed for a year, the Japanese military was in charge of the government, moved only by the word of their civilian emperor.
I do not know much about Hirohito, but it interests me what would have happened if he had tried to issue a surrender earlier in the war...but that's not my specialty.

Now, I don't believe in attacking civilians who are not closely related to the military (theoretically, EVERYONE is tied to the military because they generate income, which is collected as taxes, some of which goes to the military). Back in the 1940's, EVERYONE was closely tied to the armed forces due to the necessity of mobilization. Even a simple farmer in the countryside is helping the war effort. It's less true nowadays, where a cyber attack on bank records is more damaging than an attack on civilians.
Civilians in general ought to be spared the terrors of war. HOWEVER, they should not be a factor in winning the war for the attackers. If a military base or factory lay inside a large city, the civilian casualties, no matter how high, should only be considered in the light of whether the attackers will have to take care of them after wards, and how. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as has been repeatedly established, contained legitimate war targets, staffed by the people who lived in the cities. One choice was to take out the military targets using mass fire bombing raids (because they had no precision weapons then), which had been done to other Japanese cities without any apparent effect on the Japanese leadership. The other was to take out the military targets and their civilian staffs in a single, awe inspiring blow that would confirm, once and for all, that the United States could grind Japan into dust, providing the Soviets didn't rape their way across the islands first.

Speaking of that, I kindly ask that you and Meatball not talk about the bombings as if they were the greatest crime of the war. Provide evidence that this is true, next to the millions of people in Eastern Europe and China who suffered at the hands of their occupiers, their own people, and their "saviors." You want to discuss unnecessary assaults on civilians? The Soviets lined up nuns in front of their monasteries in order for them to be gang raped in order. The area that Poland occupies today used to be part of Germany. Germans no longer have claim to that region because most of the Germans in that land fled west in terror of what the Red Army would (and did) do to them.

But see we are not talking about China or the USSR or Germany. We are talking about Japan. I am not in disagreement weather if it was the right thing to do or not. I stated before that I am glad that it was done because it brought an end to the war when it did. But I am also acknowledging it as a cheap and dirty ticket out. The nuclear bombings and fallout of the two cities IS a MAJOR event. You can't ignore it or downplay it no matter how much you try. It happened and innocent civilians died.
I say innocent because that is what they are...innocent!. Why must they pay the ultimate price because they picked a leader that turned out to be incompetent?. Why should they pay the ultimate price because of their belief in the emperor. I mean if the civilians knew in full intention what the consequences was then yes, I would agree with your point. But in Japan they had no forewarning of the nukes.

What your saying is that because they believe in an idea that is foreign to yours it is fine to terminate them!. The civilians are not the enemy, they are not the ones that can fight back. It is those with the weapons that you have to overpower!

 

[Credge]

When the time came to decide whether to use the A-Bomb, the Allies had already fire-bombed Dreseden and Tokyo, and if you haven't read about the horrific loss of life those bombing raids caused, then you can't begin to understand the decision-making process that led to dropping the A-Bomb.

As I said, it wouldn't have mattered if we hadn't dropped them. We would have firebombed them instead.

 

[oralloy]

(one of the 8 or so posts in a row]

You know, there's a Edit button right there if you forgot something... You can quote more than one person at the time, just don't spam the damn thread...

I did combine one set of replies to the same person.

I suspect that if I reply to a bunch of different people in one post, they may complain, but I'll give it a try.

I'm not going through the entire thread in one setting though. When I pause for awhile and then come back to answer later, I think I should make a new post.

in short, yes it was needed to cause the end of the war. The goal was not to kill as many people as possible, it was to elimite infrastructure and dissable their ability to porduce more weapons.

hehe no it wasn't. If we wanted to cripple their infrastructure and stop them from producing more weapons why not use strategic military strikes against main producing factories and docks and harbors and you know, stuff that would do what you said.

Actually, that's exactly what we did do. What do you think the Nagasaki bomb was aiming to destroy?

As I said before, japan had the samurai soul, that means giving in wasn't an option. America could have shown japan what they were going to do if they did'nt stop, but america didn't eve bother warning them. America also had complete air superiority over japan. so japan couldn't stop the attack even if america had bothered to warn them.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki both received leaflets before the A-bombs informing them that they were on the shortlist of targets for large-scale aerial attack.

In addition, the Potsdam Proclamation told Japan that they faced annihilation if they didn't surrender.

And after Hiroshima, Truman announced that we would be dropping more nukes on Japan unless they surrendered.

What more warning could we have given them without jeopardizing operational security?

u do realize that if the US would have stormed japan, the Japanese government would have made everyman women and child fight, and all of japan would have been destroyed! so would u rather lose 50,000 lives or 10 million, that ten million doesn't count the 4-6 million Americans that would have been killed in the assault!

oh and the UN should arrest bush if so how come they dont arrest the leader of north korea or cuba? why just americans?

Your assumptions aren't entirely accurate. Japan has not been invaded for a very long time, I doubt that women and very young children would have fought. In any case, how would this be different from much of Europe and the US? We all had conscription and many of those who went to war were under 18.

Firstly, I doubt the US would have reverted to a significant ground offensive against Japan. They were simply spread to thin and lacked adequate resources. Under the rules of war you should not fight with the intention of killing, it should be avoided with prisoners taken where necessary.

Actually we were planning a massive ground invasion. The predicted casualties for the planned invasion were worse than what we later suffered in the Vietnam and Korean Wars combined.

.... wandering back to the topic, as reprehensible as I find nuclear weapons, those shouting "war crime" (Ragdrazi, in particular) should probably consider that the two devices actually saved more Japanese lives than they cost.
Though a costly invasion could theoretically have been necessary, a far more likely scenario is that the island is subjected to prolonged conventional bombing, and the deaths from this and the starvation of the island after it's isolation would have been far greater than the death toll from two nuclear weapons, and at far greater expense and risk to Allied lives to boot.

That being said, it is worth nothing that 22 American Generals and Admirals opposed the use of nuclear weapons against Japan, most notably Ernest King, Curtis Lemay, and Eisenhower.

Actually, Ike was the only military man who argued against the nukes.

And since the scientists were basing their opposition on the possibility of a post-war arms race, Ike was the only one whose opposition to the bombs was based on "lack of necessity" even if you count non-military men.

LeMay's reaction to Nagasaki was to join with Nimitz, Twining, and Spaatz in pushing Washington to drop the next A-bomb on Tokyo.

(Indications are that they were persuasive in those arguments, and had Japan waited another week to surrender, Hirohito would likely have gotten a real close look at a nuclear explosion.)

 

[epitaf]

i know a littl emore then i should if we hadnt dropped the bomb on japan then they woudnt have surrender they woudve fought until there was no males left they acted a bit like the vikings they thought death in battle for ur ruler was the greatest death and that the estimated casuelties was 2 million on just the american front. so either scare them to surrender or waste lives takeing the mainland

 

[Corneliusthederelict]

When the time came to decide whether to use the A-Bomb, the Allies had already fire-bombed Dreseden and Tokyo, and if you haven't read about the horrific loss of life those bombing raids caused, then you can't begin to understand the decision-making process that led to dropping the A-Bomb.

As I said, it wouldn't have mattered if we hadn't dropped them. We would have firebombed them instead.

Except firebombing had no real affect on the morale, much like Hitler's bombing of civilian targets on Britain. The introduction of new technology scared the Japanese shiteless. They were ready to come to terms after Hiroshima, only under the condition they could still regard the Emperor as semi-divine, which was refused by America...hence Nagasaki.

 

[Barry93]

We could've dropped two atomic bombs, or we could've lost tens of thousands of more soldiers.

it's not that difficult of a decision. Hey, they started it, they can only blame themselves.

 

[00010101]

I think there could've been other ways to go about this, instead of having dropped the atomic bomb. If you think about it, the US military could've targeted the key figures in Japan during the war and take them out. Without someone to assume the leadership role of the nations military, the structure of the military would crumble, rendering them helpless for the time being. The US could've gotten an upper hand, enough to go into the heart of Japan and hold the city until remaining government officials surrendered. HOWEVER, the war had been raging on for a while and too many resources were used during the war, which would've fueled the need to end the war quickly The A-Bomb provided this quick finish. And if you think about it, without this historical event, Japan wouldn't be where it is now and the world wouldn't have truly known about the devastation of nuclear weaponry.

 

[bookboy]

Ok, to every person who claims that the use of the atomic bombs was racially motivated. let me inform you that even a casual glance at any book containing a definitive history of the Manhatten project or the U.S. involvement in WW2 will inform you that the main target was indeed Germany until they were forced back across their own borders in 1944. Japan then became the target by default, Germany became the target again during the 1944 ardennes offensive, but then the bombs were dropped on Japan because Germany surrendered first. the bombs were chosen because at the time no one had any idea about the future effects such as multi-generational radiation poisoning, and the only other options were a siege, which had already proven fruitless against the Japanese on other islands, or a marine invasion which would have cost even more lives than the casualty estimates from the A bombs.

 

[bookboy]

1st bomb: 99.99% NO! - It's a desecration against nature

How is it a desecration against nature?. Nuclear fission is a natural occurrence in the very star that gives us life. It is quite a common occurrence in nature, maybe I am nitpicking your statement but still I thought I had to point that out.

actually, Nuclear FUSION is what occurs in stars. they mash atoms together with intense force which creates relatively little radiation.
Nuclear FISSION is the ripping apart of large atoms which creates smaller atoms and large amounts of radiation.

the bombs dropped on Hiroshima (U-235 bomb) and Nagasaki (plutonium bomb) were fission devices.

 

[Max Lazer]

But see we are not talking about China or the USSR or Germany. We are talking about Japan. I am not in disagreement weather if it was the right thing to do or not. I stated before that I am glad that it was done because it brought an end to the war when it did. But I am also acknowledging it as a cheap and dirty ticket out. The nuclear bombings and fallout of the two cities IS a MAJOR event. You can't ignore it or downplay it no matter how much you try. It happened and innocent civilians died.
I say innocent because that is what they are...innocent!. Why must they pay the ultimate price because they picked a leader that turned out to be incompetent?. Why should they pay the ultimate price because of their belief in the emperor. I mean if the civilians knew in full intention what the consequences was then yes, I would agree with your point. But in Japan they had no forewarning of the nukes.

What your saying is that because they believe in an idea that is foreign to yours it is fine to terminate them!. The civilians are not the enemy, they are not the ones that can fight back. It is those with the weapons that you have to overpower!

Something I learned from reading No Simple Victory, by Norman Davies (I highly recommend it) is that you cannot narrow your view like that. We may be talking about Japan, but that doesn't mean that the other powers are out of the discussion. That's why I say that, in the grand scheme of the war, the atomic bombings stand out only as the first (and only) use of nuclear weapons in warfare. The casualties are worth mentioning only for the amount of time it took to inflict them. The "major event" is the use of the weapons and their effects; the suffering is simply a minor detail of the effects, not the main focus.
Yes, they were innocent civilians. Innocent civilians who were citizens of a country that the U.S. was at war with, who lived in cities that held viable military objectives, who, despite being warned, did not leave (even if they were not allowed, that sends a sharp message about the conduct of their government, not the U.S. military).
The Japanese civilians did not know the bombs were coming, yes, but as others have pointed out, the threat of "the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland" carries a rather significant connotation, does it not?
As for that last statement, do you know nothing of the concept of total war (domestic and military)? Yet again I must remind you that WWII to was the height of total war; the ENTIRE workforce was mobilized for the sole purpose of winning the war. Where the devil do you think the weapons come from? Magic wizards? Do-it-yourself field kits? They certainly didn't have assembly line robots back then do get the job done. In total war EVERYTHING is a target, including civilians. As long as they can do anything other than gather rubble to rebuild their homes, they are helping their nation's cause, and are thus influencing the war. A classic example of this is the Soviet Union. Despite horrendous losses of men and matériel, came back and defeated Germany and her allies because they saved and moved a large portion of their industry east. The Germans could not reach the Soviet production plants (which were manned by civilians), which allowed the Soviets to continually recoup their losses in the field at a much higher rate than the Germans, whose civilian/slave-manned production plants were under continuous allied air assault.

I don't believe others should die for their beliefs. I think war is the least desirable option. However, when it comes to war, I don't believe in holding back (except those always-necessary reserves, they have to wait their turn). Whether an enemy delivers a pinprick or a sledgehammer blow to you, you should use all resources in your power to crush him/her into fine grains if they do not surrender first. If the civilians don't want to force the government to give in, or give themselves up, than that's their issue (although truthfully, the Germans didn't have an attractive option either way, save fleeing west from the Red Army).

 

[crimson5pheonix]

I just want to point something out right now, hindsight is 20-20. We now know that radiation causes cancer and other defects, we didn't know that at the time of the bombing or for several years afterwords. When we dropped it we thought it would work like a really big conventional weapon. Don't pull out "We knowingly hurt them for generations" because we didn't.

Actually, the dangers of radiation were published by Hermann Joseph Muller in 1927, which eventually helped win him the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1946.

And by the time of the A-bomb program, a number of people had been known to have died from radiation (most notably Marie Curie).

We didn't hurt them for generations though. Only people who were present at the explosion received a serious radiation injury.

Hmm, you learn something new everyday. He was probably considered a bit fringe scientist and never really noticed by mainstream America. I'm not entirely sure though. I know at one point, radiation pills were sold as a cure all and it was either right about then or in the late 1800's and I don't remember when it was.