ABSTRACT
On September 15, 1945, exactly one month after the surrender of Japan, and less than two weeks after the ceremony on the USS Missouri ended the Second World War, Major General Lauris Norstad of the Army Air Force sent a memorandum to Manhattan Project chief General Leslie Groves. It concerned how many atomic bombs the US should aim to stock in its arsenal for “M-day,” or the start of mobilization for a new war. Its estimate of a minimum requirement of 123 and an optimum of 466 bombs was accompanied by a map showing Russia's “population and industrial concentrations,” with figures for the number of bombs required to destroy each location. Norstad stated, “It is obvious that the immediate destruction of the complete list of 66 cities would have a … devastating effect on Russia. Therefore, an optimum requirement for atomic bomb stocks would be the number necessary to obliterate all of these cities.”
