This could be one of the reasons for the US nuclear strike on Japan
On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, on August 9, on Nagasaki. What for? The official version is that America wanted to hasten Japan's surrender. And at the same time - to intimidate the USSR. Just in case. But the counterintelligence officer, former KGB lieutenant colonel Igor Atamanenko, has his own opinion.
“It's not easy to intimidate,” Atamanenko explains. - The fate of Eastern Europe has already been decided by the Big Three during the Crimean and Potsdam conferences, no new meetings were foreseen. I think Truman intended first of all to warn the USSR against actions in Asia Minor.
Janissary plans in Transcaucasia
- Until November 1941, the Soviet High Command, fearing an attack by the Japanese, kept a huge army in the Far East. More than a million soldiers and officers, tanks, guns and aircraft are common knowledge. Only after receiving information, including from the legendary intelligence officer Richard Sorge, that Japan would not enter the war in the near future, dozens of Siberian divisions were transferred to Moscow.
Much less often people remember that 20 of our divisions were on the border with Turkey. And not only in the republics of the Soviet Transcaucasia, but also in Iran, in the area of the city of Tabriz, in the very place where the borders of the USSR, Turkey, Iraq and Iran converged.
Under an agreement signed in 1921, the Soviet government had the right to send its troops to Iran if some third power tries to turn its territory into a base for military action against our country. And as soon as information appeared in August 1941 that Turkey had concentrated about a million soldiers on the border with Armenia in order to occupy our part of the Transcaucasus, the Soviet High Command introduced first 12 and then 8 more divisions into Iranian territory. This action cooled the hot heads in the Turkish headquarters. They decided to postpone the invasion until Hitler took Moscow. Didn't wait.
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Head of the City Committee of Istanbul
- By May 1945, it became clear that the countries of Eastern Europe liberated by the Red Army would choose the socialist path of development. Among some members of the Presidium of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the idea of returning to the USSR the original Armenian lands, forcibly annexed by Turkey in 1918, gained popularity,”Atamanenko continues. - And establish Soviet power in Asia Minor.
After the Crimean conference, held on February 4-11, 1945 in Yalta, Stalin spoke at a meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU (b). And he said something like the following:
“The lands of the Armenians, conquered by the Turks, make up almost one third of the entire area of modern Turkey, in fact, its entire northeastern part from the city of Kars to the city of Erzurum and further to the west. Moreover, the Armenian Highland with the valley of Lake Van is the most fertile part of all of Turkey, which today not only feeds it, but also the whole of Asia Minor, that is, the Turks provide grain to all neighboring countries, profiting from the Armenians. It's time to put an end to the plundering of our brotherly people!
With one powerful thrust of our three armies concentrated in the Tabriz region, we can pass from the Iranian border to Istanbul. The lands that are supposed to be liberated were part of the Russian Empire until 1917.
Secondly, we have claims of another order against Turkey. She turned the Black Sea area into her inland sea, completely blocking our passage through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles to the Mediterranean Sea. At the same time, the fascist ships used these straits unhindered throughout the Second World War.
I propose to the Presidium to instruct the communists Mikoyan and Malenkov to develop and submit for discussion proposals on the post-war reconstruction of Turkey."
Of particular importance was the capture of Istanbul and the return of its historical name Constantinople.
- Wait, is it fixed somewhere? I've never heard of such a speech …
- I know about her from the stories of the legendary intelligence officer Gevork Andreevich Vartanyan. His father, an illegal Soviet intelligence agent Andrei (Andronik) Vartanyan, who was acting in Iran under the guise of a businessman, was planned to be appointed 1st secretary of the Istanbul city committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
- The intelligence officer was hardly allowed to attend the Politburo meeting …
- Vartanyan Sr. was informed about the leader's speech by the "Stalinist People's Commissar" Anastas Mikoyan.
Full back
“Truman made the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan only after the head of the American military intelligence reported that the Red Army divisions were being redeployed in the Tabriz region, they were moving to the border with Turkey,” says Igor Atamaneko. - The American president understood why, during the negotiations in Potsdam, Stalin so persistently sought to get a part of the Italian fleet (which the USSR was entitled to as reparations) as soon as possible. Having entered the Dardanelles Strait, warships could provide support from the west to the Red Army units advancing on Turkey from the east.
When Stalin was informed about the results of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, about the destruction and casualties that had occurred there, he canceled the campaign to Istanbul. Until better times.
Legend has it that Stalin said: they say, the Turks should thank the Japanese all their lives … He understood: since the Americans dropped bombs on Japan, they could drop them on Turkey if our troops invade there.
In Hiroshima, about 140,000 people died, in Nagasaki (pictured) - about 74,000. Over the next years, tens of thousands more died due to the effects of radiation. Photo: World History Archive
DIRECT SPEECH
Take over the Bosphorus
“I know that after the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the leadership of the USSR planned to annex the Bosphorus Strait (located on the territory of Turkey. - Ed.), Which is of strategic importance,” said Viktor Nikolaevich Vlasov, a former intelligence officer, veteran of the Great Patriotic War. - I personally participated in the preparation in 1945 of the operation to seize the Bosphorus Strait by ours. On a secret order, he arrived as part of a division in Azerbaijan, in the city of Lankaran. From there we went to Iran, to Tabriz. Ground forces from Tabriz were to
reach the straits with the support of aviation and the Black Sea Fleet. The task was to occupy the straits. The operation took three days. We just turned around, and already the lights out. US military intelligence got wind of this and thwarted all plans. But the details of this operation are classified, and I cannot talk about it.
ANOTHER OPINION
"There are no documents to support this theory."
“There is no official information about the territorial claim of the Soviet Union against Turkey,” says Vadim Lukov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry. - This is only an interesting version, but not documented. Rather, there could be encroachments on the territory of Iran, because at that time there were Soviet troops in northern Iran, which were introduced there in 1942. But in any case, the possible encroachments of the USSR on other territories could not be the main argument for the US nuclear bombing of Japan.
The main reason for this action was to intimidate the Soviet leadership, the Soviet people. It was a show of strength. It is well known (there is evidence of this) that Churchill literally glared at Stalin at the moment when Truman informed him that the United States had a bomb. The Soviet leader did not show any reaction to this message with a single movement of his muscle - to the disappointment of both Churchill and Truman. But in fact, on the same day, he ordered to activate our scientists who worked on nuclear weapons (they will appear in the USSR in four years, in 1949 - Ed.). Obviously, America threw the bomb on Japanese territory, but aimed at the Soviet Union.
Thus the Cold War began.
FROM THE DOSSIER
Igor Grigorievich ATAMANENKO, 66 years old.
Retired KGB lieutenant colonel.
In 1972 he graduated from the translation faculty of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages named after M. V. M. Toreza, in 1992 - the Literary Institute. Author of books on the history of intelligence and the history of the USSR. He worked in intelligence and counterintelligence agencies from 1972 to 1990.
Igor Atamanenko (left) with intelligence officer Gevork Vartanyan, whose father almost became the secretary of the Istanbul City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Photo: personal archive
ANNA VELIGZHANINA