Interim Committee considers ‘demonstration’ of atomic bomb 70 years ago this hour (May 31 1945)


Video: 'Peter Jennings - Hiroshima: Why the Bomb was Dropped (1995)' (May 31, 1945, 32:09/39:27)

(Thursday, May 31, 1945, 10:00 a.m.-1:15 p.m./2:15 p.m.-4:15 p.m. EWT; during World War II) — The Interim Committee, created by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson at the urging of leaders of the Manhattan Project (a research and development project that produced the first atomic bombs), met secretly today at the Pentagon to consider the idea of giving the Japanese a non-combat demonstration of the new weapon of mass destruction.