Events for politicians and authors, members of media, business and military leaders and more. The march 2020 closures of many businesses across our great country Dragon Foundation is bringing events online to ensure we are still delivering worldclass content even if you cant get to our hilltop to watch it in person. In this weeks center for Public AffairsVirtual Event we bring you Chris Wallace, anchor of fox news sunday. 2014 marked his 50th year in the broadcasting industry, hes participated in coverage of nearly every Major Political event and also secured highprofile interviews with dignitaries and u. S. Leaders. For the past three years Chris Wallace has broadcast a sunday morning show live from the Reagan Library air force one pavilion abChris Wallace is with us today to speak about his new book countdown 1945 the extraordinary story of the atomic bomb in the hundred 16 days change the world. An unforgettable account of the lives of the ordinary american and japanese civilians in wartime. As where is the american soldiers fighting in the pacific. The order to launch opossum bowl invasion in japan. The story of how and 116 days harry truman goes from being Vice President to completely cut out of the fdr white house to suddenly becoming the president , not only historian its a story of scientists, flight crew and others. We invite you to enjoy our Virtual Program coming to you from our air force one pavilion Leadership Academy oval office with Chris Wallace and Reagan FoundationInstitute Executive director john hi bush Chris Wallace, congratulations, what a terrific book. As you may know, we have a lot of guests come to the Reagan Library with good books and are not able to read them all. I could not put this one down. This is a terrific book, a thriller really, a historical thriller i just loved it. Congratulations on not just the first step a thats awfully nice. The idea of the historical thriller seems to be out there because my favorite review was one of the Washington Post that said, i know what happened in 1945 but this book is a thriller and a lot of people have said that its a page turner they couldnt put it down and im thrilled because, frankly, thats exactly what i wanted to do. I think so much history is written, in the distant past we know what happened, why did it happen track thats not at all what i wanted to do i wanted to take you into the moment and this case its countdown 1945 115 days that changed the world. The key moment is those goals 116 days from april 12 1945 when truman is summoned to the white house he thinks to talk to president roosevelt and then he finds out that roosevelt is dead and he has sworn in and Henry Stimson secretary of war takes him aside afterwards and says, i need to tell you about an immense project to create the most devastating weapon in history as the first inkling Vice President , now president truman has of the existence of the Manhattan Project and to take you not just truman as he struggling in making the decision but the scientists at los alamos that dont know whether the gadget as they call the atom bomb would work until 21 days before the bombing and the flight crew of the enola gay, who on the mission during their mission to hiroshima the 1500 miles to hiroshima from tinian island dont know if the bomb when they drop it because its never been dropped out of a plane whether the aftershocks will knock them out of the sky. Thats what i was trying to do in the fact that you and some other people have said that it was a page turner and a thriller, im thrilled. My father after he was b29 pilot in the Army Air Force i was riveted as you can imagine but your father doesnt need to have been in the Army Air Corps to like this book. Really well done. You put us in the room where it happens on many occasions and thats just a masterful job. Well done. Thank you. Thats exactly what i was trying to do. And there are so many dramatic moments. Truman has a meeting with his war cabinet on june 18 and Henry Stimson, secretary of war is there, George Marshall german general of the army is there, all the top brass and they are discussing now that the nazis have surrendered on may 8 how theyre going to finish and win the war against the japanese and for about 45 minutes there is a long discussion of the invasion of japan how many troops it will take, how long it will prolong the war. Hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides. The is assistant secretary of war named john mccoy who ended up being a major figure in the century fifth Century America high commissioner of germany, the head of the world bank. He was a junior guy there and truman says nobody gets out of the room without telling what they think. Mccoy asks Henry Stinson his boss and says, go ahead he says i think we ought to have her head examined if we dont at least discuss the bomb. That was literally in this war cabinet the first time in this meeting they had been talking about casualties and length of invasion and how bloody it would be and nobody ever said yeah but we might have a bomb until he said basically it was dismissed at that point largely because it has never been tested. It was a test of july 18 21 days before the bomb was used against hiroshima. For factly back in june truman viewed it as a science project. So many historical moments you wrote about, chris, i wonder, i know you are a student of history, what is it that made you choose this particular moment . Its a funny story. I had the idea of doing exactly what i talked about, take a key moment in history and try to put you in it. At the time they didnt know all this there face with these momentous challenges and they dont know whats gonna happen, like talking about reagan and what ended up happening in terms of gorbachev, i was fortunate enough to cover six years of dragon abbut having covered it in real life, the drama of aand these enormous discussions and the possibility that they might ban all Nuclear Weapons and then it all falls apart. To say that reagan failed is one thing, to say they went there with these hopes and have this meeting and creates tremendous sense of suspense. I wanted to do that but i did have a subject. In february of 2019 it was the day that President Trump was gonna deliver his state of the Union Address and nancy pelosi, the speaker of the house, invited several tv anchors over to her hideaway in the capital and this is the hideaway that a lot of speakers have and tradition in washington that if the speaker had the president are of opposing parties can this is true for republican president , democratic speaker, vice versa, that the speaker will deliver prebull before the president delivers the speech to tell you all the reasons its bad. Were sitting in this room and nancy pelosi says, this is the board of education. I dont think the other folks in the room knew but i knew that the board of education had been sam rayburns hideaway and this was where he would have people come after hours to gossip or plot strategy or have abVice President truman was a regular there. On april 12 after he finished presiding over the senate he went over, pelosi is telling us the story it was in in this room he was told they wanted to speak to him and he calls and speaks to a white house official who says you need to get to the white house as quickly and quietly as possible. He said jesus christ and general jackson. [laughter] which i had never heard before. I thought to myself, thats it. Thats my story. Thats the one im going to delve into and try to create a historical thriller and as it turns out i didnt know then, 116 days from when he is alerted Emma Roosevelt has died and hes president until the bomb has dropped on hiroshima. Your first book, chris, some writers report after their first book they had a fabulous time, they love the experience and some found it miserable. How did you find writing your first book . Yes. [laughter] it is a very odd experience. Its a roller coaster. There are times when you get a delicious fact. That what is so exciting. I didnt know that when truman, i knew the story about jesus christ and general jackson but i didnt know when i started the project that when truman gets the white house and sworn in his alerted for the first time about the existence of the Manhattan Project and there are so many juicy details. One of the details abnow they are at tinian island, the launchpad for the flight to hiroshima about 1500 miles and somebody says, look, if we put this 10,000 pound bomb, which was very inappropriately called little boy come in the front of the plane, then we have to put a bunch of extra gas in the back of the plane so that it wont fall down, it will be carried and the plane might crash on takeoff. And if its an atom bomb then we have an atomic explosion at the u. S. Makes on tinian island that will destroy us and dont do anything to the japanese. They suddenly say, this is only two days before the mission they turned to the chief workmens officer a guy named dee parsons and said can you do that . He said i never have but i guess i will learn. He sits on the plane on the ground in tinian island in sweltering heat working on it trying to do it and when they finally take off with an unarmed bomb to get off safely in their on their way to hiroshima he gets and cradles to the bomb bay next to little boy and has to take off some of the case and do some of the rewiring and and they have to take off the safety plugs and put in the arming plugs and its only then midway through the flight that the bomb is actually armed and ready to go. The detail that is just a joy. To go back to your question, moments like that its a joy. Then there are times and you are just trying to, how do i tell the story . How do i put all these different elements together. You think, this is hard work. My daughter is in publishing and at one point, shes been in publishing for 10 years, not at my publisher. There is no reverse nepotism. I said to her, writing a book is hard work and she rolled her eyes and said, g dad, im glad you discovered that. [laughter] its tough to make a living. Chris, did it surprise you, it did me, truman didnt know the first thing about the building of this bomb. Then i read that youd written abonly had spoken a couple times during this fourth term of the presidency. But it just seems almost feeble as a Vice President to not have been written into something as pertinent as this. I guess that was the case. Lot of people have asked me about that. It does seem incredible. Hes been Vice President for 82 days and he had met privately, hed been in big meetings but he met privately with roosevelt twice in those 82 days. This is roosevelts fourth term. This wasnt his first or even his second Vice President and he had gotten pretty good at ignoring Vice President s and i think he thought, Vice President s come and go i got my work cabinet and those of the people i count on to make these decisions and he had just short of shunted off to the side. I mentioned the fact that stimson takes him aside on the day he is sworn in and says, im gonna tell you about this project but he knows truman is overwhelmed. He just become the president. He said im going to give you some time to settle in and then i will come back. On april 25 13 days later he comes into the oval office to brief president truman now that he has settled in, not even quite two weeks. Meanwhile general Leslie Groves who is the real military commander of the Manhattan Project is snuck in through underground tunnels and one of the reasons was theyd given this a lot of thought at the pentagon they thought of the two come in through the front door together that people are gonna wonder what if groves, who built the pentagon, he was the big mission man, what they were doing together so he snuck in and they gave truman a detailed document to read which really explained the Manhattan Project in historical detail and technical detail and truman complained he said i dont like reading long documents like this and groves said, mr. President , we cant say it any more briefly or simply its a complicated project. Thats how out of touch he was with it. Of course by the end at the time that it counted when he made the decision he knew he had mastered all of it. Another remarkable afrom reading your book is 125 thousand people, americans, working on this Manhattan Project and not a word gets out. It just amazes me. You are exactly right. Its one of the things that astonished me too. People say to me, what was it that youre covering from ups and downs and ins and outs in washington today . What was it like writing this book . I said one of the things i enjoyed most about writing, researching and writing and talking about the book is it has absolutely nothing to do with donald trump. [laughter] its not a knock on the president is just to say that it took me away from all the stuff we are in and goes precisely to your point because you are exactly right, they been working on this project for almost 3 years, 2 years. 125,000 people at oak ridge tennessee uranium enrichment los alamos working on the bottom, Warren Richmond and hanford washington flight crews in wendover utah and not one word licks about the project. I thought to myself, if you have 125,000 people today working on a secret project to bake apple pie, by day two somebody would tweet this is outrageous, its immoral, im gonna blow the whistle. It was a simpler time it was a time when the country was more unified, everybody pulled together at common cause to win the war against the nazis and the japanese. Boy, could we use that now. You are not kidding. Its fascinating about how you wrote the book, of course you cover major ainvolved in the project from truman to groves and evan heimer but you also chose to focus in on deco tell the listeners about those two. If it was a great juxtaposition throughout the book. One of the things we wanted to do with this book as i very much wanted, not just to be on the top level because of course the war wasnt just on the top level of this sides. He would engage all of america. One of the stories i wanted to tell was homefront. We found abthere are websites and where there is commentary about various people. Amazingly we found two people who are still alive. Obviously all the big players are long gone. Ruth was a 19yearold girl she had volunteered to work at oak ridge at the uranium enrichment facility. She didnt know what it was she just knew it was a big factory end there were these giant machines called peloton machines. The women, it was a different time, they would call it the a athey basically had a bunch of knobs they had to keep the meter in the right place, not go into the red. He had no idea, they were just told him to keep the meter in the red annual help win the war. He had no idea what they were doing enriching uranium you 235 and plutonium to fuel the atom bomb. What made her story especially interesting was not just that she was in the homefront but she had a boyfriend, later her husband, lawrence huddleston, who was in europe, had been an army medic and survived all the fighting. May 8 the war in europe ends, the nazi surrender and like a lot of other people shes delighted because her boyfriend has gotten through this but shes terrified because hes not, come home, the expectation is hes now would be shipped to an even bloodier conflict in japan. So what she didnt realize and what was this dramatic irony of this is she is creating, helping create the weapon that could save her boyfriends life. Thats exactly what happened. Thats one of the great things as a student of history, often times history, there are plot lines he would never dream of inventing yourself if you are going to write a novel or do a movie. I deco tomorrowablike a lot of families throughout the country did not have expectation of an atom bomb but they certainly expected they hadnt been bombed at all. They sent her to what they thought was a school. She hated it. She couldnt send a letter home because the school censored it because i think a lot of the students were telling me get me out of here. She snuck into the town and mailed a letter in the local post office saying get me out of here. Her mother shows up on august 4 to rescue her. She was thrilled she runs thank you mom. The mother says, hideko, there is a lot of fear in the cities, lets stay out here in the countryside for a few days, hideko said absolutely not i want to go home. They go home august 5 and of course that means they are in hiroshima when the bomb is dropped on august 6. Amazing. I had the chance to see a clip of you and hideko going into the smithsonian to see the presence of that massive enola gay. What a moment that must have been. This is the kind of thing you would never imagine. We did a documentary for fox news if anybody out there i assume a lot of you do subscribe to fox nation you can find there called countdown 1945 like the book. I said to her, we had just talked on the phone up to that point. I said, would you consider coming to washington for an interview . She said i will under one condition, i want to go see the enola gay, she wanted to do it. We drove out one day we got permission to go there before the Museum Opened and we went to see it and i didnt know what her reaction would be. They are enormous, big planes. Big bright silver, all shiny. We walked up to it and she was just taking it in. I said, do you feel anger . She said