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The first atomic explosion made an indelible impression on those who witnessed it. The 16-mm film was donated to the Hoover Institution Archives by Harold Agnew, a physicist who monitored the bombing from the Great Artiste. The Hiroshima explosion as seen from the Great Artiste, the instrument plane that accompanied the Enola Gay on its bombing mission. These two countries soon plunged headlong into a Cold War, characterized by increased nuclear proliferation and threats, that ultimately contributed to the bankruptcy of the Soviet Union. That piece of paper not only led to the bombing, the capitulation of Japan, and the end of World War II but reduced world and economic leadership to two: the United States and the Soviet Union. foreign policy for the next half century. But it heralded the nuclear age-the determining element of U.S. Why do I find this footnote to history so fascinating? In and of itself, it is not. Hopkins Jr., an unknown major, the strike order indicates only that the ordnance that the flight will be carrying is “special.” The special bomb turned out to be a twenty-kiloton atomic bomb that obliterated Hiroshima, Japan. This document and the strike order for the bombing of Nagasaki three days later are housed in the Hoover Institution Archives. The orders were issued to the crew of the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber chosen to drop the first atomic bomb. The original strike order for the bombing of Hiroshima, dated August 5, 1945. The order, pulled from a military bulletin board, eventually made its way to the Hoover Institution Archives, where it now resides. It is an innocuous-looking government document-the ordnance manifest for a bombing run on August 6, 1945. One of my favorite documents in the Hoover Archives is not a museum-quality piece of art or a rare document penned by one of history’s leading characters.