Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Hirohito & Hitler: What Might Have Happened if the A-Bomb Had Been Ready Early

Jim Mangi

Feb. 2022 · Frontline Books

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On 2 August 1939, the renowned theoretical physicist Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt in which he declared that ‘it might become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium’. He went on to declare that ‘extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed’. Shortly after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Congress allocated substantial funds to allow research to be undertaken to follow through on Einstein’s idea and build an atomic bomb. Few, if any, could have imagined what they had agreed to support. But what if actual events had taken a different course? The First Atomic Bomb: An Alternate History to the Ending of WW2 is a highly accurate, thoroughly researched, alternative history presenting a narrative of events exploring what might have happened if the atom bomb had been available somewhat earlier than it really was. What if the atomic bomb had been ready for deployment in, say, February 1945? Had the atomic bomb been ready sooner, how would this have affected the war in Europe, and in particular Germany’s surrender? What would the impact have been in the war in the Pacific against Imperial Japan, and how would the Soviets have reacted? And what would the following Cold War have looked like? These are all questions and scenarios that the author rigorously examines. Solidly based on real people and actual events, in this book James Mangi describes the Manhattan Project to build the atom bomb getting an earlier start after President Roosevelt appointed an energetic scientist, Walter Mendenhall, to study the feasibility of the bomb, instead of the more traditional bureaucrat, Lyman Briggs, he actually chose. This scenario, he reveals, might well have produced a war-ending atomic bomb earlier, the effects of which rippled through the post-war world.

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After somewhat accidentally volunteering for, and serving in Vietnam, JIM MANGI earned a PhD in ecology and spent 40 years in the professional “What If?” business. The consulting firm he built traced the effects of planned projects on the environment and communities. Besides civil projects like power plants and factories, he worked on military projects ranging from battle tanks, to combat aircraft, to ICBM’s and space vehicles, some of which he can talk about. After selling his multi-million-dollar firm, he turned from predicting What If? futures, to constructing What If? pasts. He seeks to give the citizen reader some food for thought about how we got to where we are. Victor Borge said, ‘Making predictions is hard, especially about the future’. Making good predictions about the past is hard too, but it’s thought provoking and entertaining. Jim now lives in Michigan, USA where he chairs Dementia Friendly Saline and is a caregiver for his wife.