Like the office they commemorate president ial libraries are living institutions. Certainly it is my hope that the Reagan Library will become a dynamic intellectual forum that scholars interpret the past and policymakers debate the future. Welcome to the Ronald Reagan president ial foundation institutes Virtual Event series. To fulfill the mission of making the Reagan Library dynamic intellectual forum are sent for Public AffairsProgram Offers lectures presenting perspectives on important Public Policy issues of the day. Each you would bring to 2030p from politicians, office, embers of the needy, this is a military meters and more. Since the march 2020 closure of many businesses across our great country the Reagan Foundation is bringing events online to ensure were still delivering worldclass content even if you cant get to our hilltop to watch it in person. In this weeks Virtual Event we bring you Chris Wallace, anchor of fox news sunday. 2014 mark his 50th year in the broadcasting industry. He has participate coverage of nearly every Major Political event and is also secured highprofile interviews with dignitaries and u. S. Leaders. For the past three years Chris Wallace have broadcast the sunday morning shows life of the reagan libraries air force one pavilion folding a Reagan National defense form in december future. Chris wallace is with us today to speak about his new book countdown 1945 the extraordinary story of the atomic bomb and the 116 days that changed the world. Which is an unforgettable account of the life of the ordinary american and japanese civilians in wartime. As was the american soldiers fighting in the pacific. Its the story of how in 116 days harry truman concern being a Vice President who has been completely cut out at the after white house to suddenly become the president. Its the only his story its the start of the scientist, the flight crew and others. Chris wallace, congratulations. What a terrific book. As you may know we have a lot of guests, to the Reagan Library and some with some good books. Im not able to read them all. I could not put this one down. This is a terrific book, chris, a thriller really come a historical thriller. I i just loved it and so congratulations on not just the first step at a great first step. Thank you. Thats awfully nice. I will say this idea of the historical thriller, it seems to be out there because my favorite review was one of the Washington Post the said i know what in 1945 but this book is a thriller are a lot of people have said that its a page turner, they could put it down. Im thrilled because frankly thats exactly what i wanted to do. I think so much history is written, you know, this is in the distant past. We know what happened. Why did it happen. Thus not all what it wanted to do. I wanted to take into the moment and in this case its countdown 1945, the key moments in this 116 days from april 12, 45, when truman is summoned to the white house picky thinks come he thinks to talk to president roosevelt and then he finds out that roosevelt is dead and he has sworn in and Henry Stenson a sector for takes inside afterwards and says, i need to tell you about an immense project to create the most devastating weapon in history which is the first inkling Vice President , now president truman has a the existence of the Manhattan Project. And to take you not just truman as you struggling and making the decision of the scientist at los alamos who dont know whether the gadget as as a call the atm bomb would even work until 21 days before the bombing and the flight crew of the enola gay who on the mission during their mission to hiroshima, 1500 miles to hiroshima from tinian island, dont know if the bomb when the topic is us as have been droppd out of the plane, but the aftershocks will knock them right out of the sky. Thats what i was trying to do and the fact the use of the people john, have said it was a page turner and a thriller. Im thrilled. Chris, my father was a pilot in the Army Air Force so i was riveted as you can imagine, but your father doesnt need to have been in the Army Air Corps to like this book. So really well done. You put us in the room where it happens on many occasions and thats just a masterful job come so well done. Thank you. Thats exactly what i was trying to do. There are so many dramatic moments. Truman, he has meeting with his war cabinet on june 18, and Henry Stenson the secretary of war is there, george marshall, the jewel of the army, all of the top brass and are discussing now the nazis have surrendered on may 8, how theyre going to finish and when the war against the japanese. For about 45 minutes theres a long discussion of the invasion of japan, how many troops that will take, how long it will prolong the war, how many hundreds of thousands of casualties there will be on both sides. And at the end theres quite a junior megan romcom the assistant secretary for name john mccoy who ended up becoming a major figure in midcentury america. He was the high commissioner to me, a member of the one commission, the head of the world bank. But he was a junior guide there, truman says nobody gets out of the room, mark y, without telling what they think. Mccoy asked henry stimson, his boss, of the War Department and he says go ahead picky says i think we ought to have our heads examined if you dont at least discuss the bomb. That was literally in this war cabinet the first time in this meeting it been talking about the casualties and link the invasion and a bloody would be a nobody had ever said might have the bomb, until he said it, and basically it was dismissed at that point largely because david never been tested. It wasnt tested until july 18, just 21 days before the bomb was used against hiroshima. Back in june truman viewed as a science project. If it worked, right, if it didnt we had to go ahead. So many historical moment you wrote about. I wonder, i know you were a student of history. What is it that made you choose this particular moment . Well, its a funny story. I had the idea of doing exactly what i talked about, to take a key moment in history and try to put you in it. At the time they did know all these when they are faced with these momentum challenges antidotes could happen. It would be like talking about reagan and what ended up happening in terms of gorbachev. I was fortunate enough to cover six years of reagan including the summits that having covered it in real life, the drama of reykjavik and these enormous discussions and the possibility they might ban all Nuclear Weapons and then it all falls apart. To just say reykjavik failed is one thing. To say they had this meeting and develops, it creates a tremendous sense of suspense. I wanted to do that but but i t have the subject. In february of 2019 it was the day President Trump was going to 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, this is the hideaway for a lot of speakers have an theres a tradition in washington that if the speaker and the president who are of opposing parties, this is true for for a republin president , democratic speaker and vice versa, that the speaker will deliver a prebath which is basically before the president delivered his speech to tell you all the reasons that its bad. We are sitting in this room and nancy pelosi says this is the board of education to idle think of the folks in the room knew but i knew that the board of education had been sam ray burns hideaway and this is where he was at people, after hours to gossip or to plot charge or to have bourbon and water. Vice president rivlin was a regular there. So want a 12 after he finished right of the sentiment over the pelosis selling us a story and said it is in this room that truman called the white house come he was told they want to speak to him and he calls and speaks to white house official who says you need to get to the white house as quickly and quietly as possible, and truman stemmed the phone and says to the room, jesus christ and general jackson. Which id never heard before. But i thought to myself, thats it, thats my story and thats the one im going to delve into and try to create a historical thriller. As a turnout, i did know then, 116 days from when he is alerted that roosevelt has died and he is president until the bomb is dropped on hiroshima. Your first book, chris, some writers report after the first book they just had a fibrous time and love the experience, and found it miserable. How did you find writing your first book . Yes. [laughing] you know, it is a very odd experience. Its a roller coaster. There are times when you get a delicious fact. Thats really what is so exciting is, you know, i didnt know that when truman, i knew this story about jesus christ and general jackson saw thought that would be a good start but i did know when i started the project that when treatment gets to the white house and his sworn and he is alerted for the first time about the existence of the Manhattan Project, and theres so many juicy Little Details like that. One of the details is the fact that the only at have tested the bomb once on july 21. Im sorry, july 16. 21 days before the ended up using it, so now the rat tinian island which was the launchpad for the flight to hiroshima about 1500 miles, and somebody says, look, if we put this 10,000pound bomb, which was very inappropriate called little boy, in the front of the plane and then we have to put a bunch of extra gas in the back back e plane so that wont fall down, it will be more weight than weve ever carried and the plane might crash on takeoff. If theres an atom bomb, we could have an atomic explosion at the u. S. Base on tinian island which will destroy all of us and wont do anything to the japanese. So they suddenly say, this is only about two days before the nation, we cant take off with a live bomb. Well have to arm the bomb on the plane during the mission, editor of the chief ordnance officer, and they say can you do that . He says, i never have but i guess i will learn. So he sits in the plane on the ground in tinian island in sweltering heat working on it trying to do it and when you finally do take off with an unarmed bomb, get off safely, and they are on the way to hiroshima, he gets down, cradles in the bomb bay next to look at what you take off some of the casing, do some of the rewiring and then have to take off the safety plugs and put in the army plugs. It is only then midway through the flight that they say the bomb is actually armed and ready to go. Thats a detail that is just a joy. Now to go back to question. So moments like that its a joy. And then there are times when youre just trying to, how do i tell the story and how to put all of these disparate elements together . You think, man, this is hard work. My daughter is in publishing and a one point, shes been a publishing for dinges, not as my publisher. Theres no reverse nepotism here but i said to her, boy, writing the book is hard work. She rolled her eyes and said gee, dad, im glad you discovered that. [laughing] its tough to make a living. Chris, did it surprise you it did me that truman didnt know the first thing about the building of this bomb. Then i read you had written he and roosevelt had only spoken a couple of times during this fourth term of the presidency. It just seems almost inconceivable as a Vice President he had never been madd into something so important is this what i guess that was the case . A lot of people have asked me about that and it does seem incredible. He had been Vice President for 82 days and he had met privately, hed been big meetings, but he met privately with roosevelt twice in those 82 days. The fact was that just remember this with roosevelts fourth term. This was in his first or even his second Vice President , so hed gotten pretty good at ignoring Vice President. I think he thought, you know, Vice President s, go. Ive got my war cabinet and those are the people i i countn to make these decisions, and it just sort of shunted off to the side. I mention the fact that stinson takes him aside on the day he swore in excess im going to tell you about this project, but he knows that treatment is overwhelmed. He has just become the president places ill give you some time to settle and and i will come. On april 25, 13 days later, he comes in the oval office to brief president truman, now that he has settled in not even quite two weeks, and meanwhile general Leslie Groves was a real military command of the Manhattan Project is snuck in through underground tunnels and one of the reasons was given this a lot of thought and cant they thought the two of them coming to the front door together, people wonder grossly built the pentagon who was the big mission man what groves and stinson were doing together and so he snuck in and they gave truman a detailed document to read, which would explain the Manhattan Project in historical detail and technical detail. And treatment complete he said, i dont like reading long documents like this. Groves said, mr. President , we cant say any more briefly or succinctly. Its a complicated project. You know, thats how out of touch he was with it but, of course, by the end of the time accounted when he made the decision, he knew he had mastered all of it. Another remarkable fact i found from reading your book, chris is 125,000 people, americans, working on this Manhattan Project, and not a word gets out. That is just amazing. You are exactly right. Its one of the things that astonished me, too. Its not a knock on the buzzer, it just took me away from all the stuff within and it goes precisely what you said, they had been working on it three years, two plus years. One hundred 25 people was almost in washington, life crews in utah and not one word leaks about the project. I thought to myself, if you had 125,000 people today working on a secret project to make apple pie, my day to people who would say its outrageous, im going to blow the whistle. It was a simpler time, a time in the country was more unified, everybody pulled together to win the war against the nazis and the japanese and boy, we could use that now. Another fascinating thing about the way you wrote the book, of course you covered major figures involved in the project but then you also chose to focus in on a loose system and tell the listeners about those because i thought it was a great position throughout the book. One of the things we wanted to do with the book is i wanted not just to be on the top level because the war wasnt just on the top level, one of the stories i wanted to tell was the home front. There are websites, commentary about various people and amazingly, we found two people still alive. A 19yearold girl, she had volunteered to work at oak ridge, she didnt know what it was, a big factory there was a giant machine that the women, theres a different time when there was a college girl and they basically just had a bunch of knobs they had to keep the meter in the right place, they had no idea, they were just told keep the meter in the red and they will help when the war. They had no idea what they were doing to fuel the atom bomb. The home front but shes had a boyfriend, later her husband who was in europe, an army medic. May 8, the war in europe, the nazis surrender and, like a lot of other people, shes delighted because her boyfriend has gone through this but shes terrified because is not going to come home. The expectation is hes shipped to an even bloodier complex in japan. What she didnt realize and it was the dramatic irony of this, shes creating weapons, if its used, could save her boyfriends life. An even more dramatic story. Its one of the great things in history, oftentimes history of what you would never dream of inventing yourself if you were going to write a novel. A 10yearold girl, came from a wealthy family and like a lot of the families throughout the country, didnt have any expectation of an atom bomb but they expected to be bombed, they havent been bombed at all. Out in the countryside so if there were a bombing, they would be saved. Her parents saved what they thought was a school but it ended up being a work camp. The 10yearold hated it but she couldnt send a letter home because the schooled sense of it. Theyre telling their parents, get me out of here so she snuck into the pound and mailed a letter in the local post office saying get me out of here. The mother shall also august 4 to read and heres thrilled and said thank you, mom and the mother says, theres a lot of fear in the cities, lets stay, i want to go home. They spent the night home and august 5, that means when the bomb is dropped. Amazing. I had a chance to see a clip of you him going into the smithsonian to see that right there. Its the kind of thing you would never have imagined so we did a documentary for fox news, anybody out there and i assume a lot of you do, you can find it there 1945 like the book and i said to her, we had just talked on the phone. Would you consider coming to washington for an interview . She said well, under one condition. I want to see it. I would never have dreamed of asking her to do Something Like that but she wanted to so we drove out one day and we got permission to go there before the Museum Opened and we went to see it, i didnt know what her reaction would be and she was kind of stunned and as you all know, from your dad, they are enormous. All shiny and we walked up to it and she was just taking it and i said, you feel anger . She said no, i feel grief. Deeply griffiths stricken. She thought and i want to say a prayer. So she did and she said i think