Auction Date:2010 May 20 @ 05:00 (UTC-7 : PDT/MST)
Location:11901 Santa Monica Blvd. #555, Los Angeles, California, 90025, United States
Typed letter signed by Harry S. Truman in Independence, Missouri dated 9 June 1971. Addressed to Mr. Winston Dabney, Chairman, Los Alamos Veterans Reunion Committee, Los Alamos, New Mexico, letter reads in full: “Your letter of May 19, was received together with the Silver Coin and the Bronze Coin commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the Los Alamos reunion. Also, I was pleased to receive the mounted sample of fused sand of the New Mexico desert. It was interesting to read of your project and its past history and I am fully aware of the great contribution that was made by Scientific Laboratory in the creation of the nuclear weapons where the first test was made in Alamogordo on July 16, 1945. It pleases me to know that those who participated on that had a reunion of the members in commemoration of that occasion. The coins and the mounted sample will be placed in the Truman Library with other articles relating to the atomic age. Mrs. Truman joins me in thanking you for your good wishes and please extend to all of the members of your reunion our good wishes.” Master Sergeant Winston Dabney was a member of the Special Engineering Detachment at Los Alamos. The “mounted sample of fused sand” sent by him to Truman was a sample of trinitite formed in the crater of the desert floor when the first atomic bomb was exploded. In his book “Memoirs: Year of Decisions” Truman wrote, “The final decision of where and when to use the atomic bomb was up to me. Let there be no mistake about it. I regarded the bomb as a military weapon and never had any doubt that it should be used.” This is only the second letter we know of in which Truman refers to the atomic bomb. The other, a 1961 TLS to a newspaperman, referred to Hiroshima and Nagasaki ''…the dropping of those bombs is what ended the war…'' One page measuring 7.25'' x 10.5”. Excellent condition.
Auction Location:
11901 Santa Monica Blvd. #555, Los Angeles, California, 90025, United States
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