Soviets Say 1st Atom Bombs Were Cold War ‘Blackmail’

The atomic bombs the United States dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not needed to win the war against Japan but were intended to “blackmail” the Soviet Union, the Soviet media charged Tuesday.

The charges came as Moscow began a five-month moratorium on nuclear testing and brushed off President Reagan’s offer to have the United States refrain from nuclear explosions sometime in the future.

Radio Moscow said the President’s proposal, disclosed in a meeting with reporters Monday, was “hazy” and full of “lengthy speculations” about recent Soviet nuclear testing.

Reagan Called Vague

Tass, the official news agency, said Reagan had no “concrete answer” when asked how long it might take to complete U.S. nuclear tests before he would agree to a joint Soviet-American test ban.

The Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, chose Tuesday, the 40th anniversary of the Hiroshima blast, to begin a moratorium on nuclear testing that he said will continue until the end of this year. It will remain in effect permanently if the United States also refrains from testing, Gorbachev said.

White House spokesmen had said earlier that a moratorium is not in the interest of the United States at this time and recalled that the Soviets broke off a testing halt in 1961 with a major series of nuclear blasts.

Reagan Statement

On Tuesday, Reagan issued a Hiroshima anniversary statement, saying this is “a time not only for reflection but for action” on limiting the danger of nuclear war. Then he added a note of caution:

“We must never forget what nuclear weapons wrought on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Reagan’s statement said. “Yet we must also remain mindful that our maintenance of a strong nuclear deterrent has for four decades ensured the security of the United States and the freedom of our allies in Asia and Europe.”

The President had argued Monday that the Soviet Union is ahead of the United States in the development and modernization of nuclear weapons, and he noted that it had just completed a series of tests. The Soviet proposal for a moratorium by both superpowers, he said, would mean that “we would then not be able to catch up with them.”

He added that his Administration is not willing to join Moscow in a testing moratorium until the United States completes the tests needed to develop a warhead for the proposed Midgetman missile.

‘Contrary to Logic’

Tass said Tuesday that the President’s view that a moratorium would be one-sided in favor of Moscow is “contrary to logic and facts.” Radio Moscow reported Reagan’s justification for not joining the test ban and did not directly reply to his statement on recent Soviet nuclear tests. But it quoted a Defense Ministry spokesman as saying that the United States has carried out 30% more tests than the Soviet Union in the history of nuclear experiments.

The Hiroshima anniversary was used by the Soviet press as an occasion to print anti-American broadsides.

“There was no military reason to use the nuclear weapons to defeat Japan,” Pravda said in a commentary. “It was done not for achieving a military victory over an enemy, but for political blackmail of an ally (the Soviet Union).