Truman's handwritten consent on A-bomb statement found

Aug. 3, Kyodo - A handwritten message by then U.S. President Harry Truman consenting to the language of a statement that would be released after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Japan has been found in a library in Missouri.

The message Truman wrote on July 31, 1945 while attending the Potsdam Conference in Germany, was in reply to a cable from Secretary of War Henry Stimson, who requested Truman approve the statement as soon as possible. The handwritten message was found in the Harry S. Truman Library.

Truman's message on the back of the cable said, ''Release when ready but not sooner than Aug. 2.'' Aug. 2 was the day the president left Potsdam.

The message was typed and sent to Stimson immediately, before Truman received -- later that same day -- the text of the public statement to which Stimson had referred in his cable.

The typed version of the message has been open to the public at the National Archive in Washington.

In his cable, dated July 30, Stimson told the president, ''The time schedule on Groves' project (to develop the atomic bomb) is progressing so rapidly that it is now essential that (a) statement for release by you be available not later than Wednesday, Aug. 1.''

Truman's handwritten reply read, ''Reply to your 41011 suggestions approved. Release when ready but not sooner than Aug. 2.''The atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.

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