Harry truman, and the Manhattan Project. Joining him are fdr president ial library and Museum Director paul sparrow and historian edward lengel. Edward i am edward lengel. I am senior director of programs in new orleans. Im joined today by two gentlemen. The first is paul sparrow, who is director of the Franklin D Roosevelt president ial museum and library in hyde park, new york, following a career as a documentary filmmaker and a Senior Executive at the museum. Paul has been directing the roosevelt Library Museum since 2015. He will be talking obviously about fdr and the Manhattan Project. Our second guest is Clifton Truman daniel who is the eldest grandson of president harry truman. He is also a truman scholar. He has spent quite a bit of time studying the life and career of his grandfather. And he currently serves as honorary chairman of the board of trustees at the harry truman president ial library and museum in independence, missouri. Today, we will give a great opportunity for questionandanswer. Please weigh in with lots of questions. We have already been talking quite a bit offcamera about our topic today. And i guarantee there will be a lot of interesting ideas and discussion. So i will begin and introduce paul to the program. Thank you. Paul thank you, ed. Thank you, clifton, for being part of this today. Im very excited. This is one of those topics that has generated an enormous amount of debate throughout the years. The background for franklin roosevelt, of course, is that he was struggling in the late 1930s to convince americans who were very isolationist, that they had to take an interest in the problems going on in europe. Some of the things that he understood about the spread of fascist nazi germany and the threat from japan, Many Americans disagreed with and did not want to see the American Public get involved. One of fdrs big issues was refilling the military, hundreds of ships were constructed, there was a peacetime draft instituted. He was very focused on how america would respond to the threat from nazi germany. Im just going to share a powerpoint here that has a few images in it. That is the king and the queen and the president. And then this is Albert Einstein on the right. They started drafting this letter to the president to try to convince him that the United States needed to get involved. He was a world famous physicist, obviously he did not have the same status that Albert Einstein did. The letter was drafted under einsteins name. Here is a copy of the letter. You can see it was sent in august of 1939. The war in europe still has not started yet. Germany does not invade poland until september. But this is the lead up to it. There is tremendous concern on the part of the scientists, as excerpt,ee here in the that it may become possible to set up a Nuclear Chain reaction by which vast amount of power and large quantities of new radium like illness would be generated. This new phenomenon would lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable though much less certain that extremely powerful bonds of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. And then of course, a few weeks later, germany invades poland. And we are in the start of world war ii. On october 19, fdr responded back to professor einstein. Obviously, a lot had been going on. He said i found this data such import, but ive convened a bureau consisting of the head of the Bureau Standards and the chosen representative of the army and navy to investigate the possibility of your suggestion regarding the element of uranium. Over a period of the next several years, there are different committees that are formed. On june 28, 1941, the office of Scientific Research and development is created which oversees the whole project. This is at the point in which the whole project against gains tremendous momentum. There is a sense now that there is a cohesive and coherent objective. They need to develop a bomb. They need to beat the germans to it. And then of course, a few months later, the japanese attacked pearl harbor which gives even greater impetus to the development of this bomb. The two men who were responsible for the development on the left, you see Leslie Groves who is a military representative and in charge of the entire operation on the right, you see the famous scientist, robert alton heimer. The los alamos facility is the one known, but there were 20 different facilities across the country. More than 100,000 people involved in this. From extracting uranium core and building ammunition, all done under top secrecy. Meanwhile, at the same time, the british had been developing a similar nuclear bomb development, which they called alloy. Be early on in the war when the germans were bombing the british, they decided the british and americans should work together. Britain shared a lot of their data and their science with the americans. Several british scientists came over. By 1943, this photograph was taken in what is now shangrila. In 1943, the americans had cut the british out of the development of the bomb in the Manhattan Project. This was done for a variety of reasons. Churchill was very upset about this and wanted the british to get back involved in this partnership. A few months after this photo was taken in august of 1943, right before the quebec conference there had been tremendous tensions regarding the plans for dday. The americans wanted to go ahead and get a date and make dday happen. Churchill and the British Military were reluctant. They had been dragging their feet, coming up with alternative strategies. At this meeting in august of 1943, in hyde park, roosevelt and churchill are essentially compiling a quid pro quo. Roosevelt saying to churchill, if you will commit to the dday invasion of normandy, we will bring you back into the nuclear project. Thats what happened. Both agreements were signed on the same day before the quebec conference started. In 1944, this was taken at the right after the democratic convention. It is one of the few times that roosevelt got together with his Vice President candidate. There was very little communication going on at this point. It is really one of fdrs i think, failings as a leader that he did not fully brief truman on the development of the nuclear bomb, his plan for the United Nations, a whole range of topics. This was a critical part of that. This photograph was taken on april 11, the night before fdr died. You can see he is a very sick man here. When he died, there was a tremendous sense of loss, not just for americans, but for people all over the world who had seen him as this great champion of freedom and a fighter for their independence and against fascist nazi germany. A few months later, they had completed the development of the first this is the scaffolding for the tests, the trinity tests, the first time that they were going to test this bomb. Then you see here, this is the explosion in trinity. By this point, truman is president. Im going to close this off now. At this point, truman is president. He has been briefed. I will turn it over to clifton to talk about the processes happening internal to the truman administration. But i will say this, there was never any question within the Roosevelt Administration or his top military advisers if they would use the bomb. They were going to drop that bomb as soon as it was ready. Clifton thank you, paul. I appreciate that. I will just say, im going to piggyback on the comment you made about president roosevelt not telling my grandfather anything. Thats certainly true. Years ago when i met david roosevelt, we were talking about our grandfathers relationship. Before we went upstairs to our rooms in the hotel, i said did notour grandfather tell my grandfather a damn thing. The next morning, we came down to breakfast, i said good morning, david, how are you . And he said, im not going to tell you. I will start off by saying that my grandfather never spoke to me about the atomic bombs. It was a tough subject. He died when i was 15 years old. We saw them on family vacations. It was always thanksgiving, christmas, or going down to key west during the spring. That is my fault, i could have asked him. But i didnt. Had i asked him, he would not have told me anything that he has not had not written or said publicly. He made the decision to use the atomic bomb to shorten the war and save lives, both american and japanese. He did not find out about the atomic bombs until secretary of war stinson told him right after his swearing in on april 12, 1945. But stinson only told him the rudiments, just the bare minimum. We have a new, very powerful new weapon that i need to brief you on. It was not until almost two weeks later that stinson and general groves gave my grandfather a full briefing on the Manhattan Project. Not long after grandpa went into the interim committee, scientists and leaders in the field, including some of the scientists who had worked on the bomb, including mr. Oppenheimer, to decide if the weapons should be used, and if so, how. And i never learned about any of this from grandpa, as i said. I found out about this in school. I learned in school like everybody else. I learned from my textbooks. For me, the dropping of the bomb has always been much more it is what you do afterward. It is how grandpa felt about it. It is how we deal with the legacy. As to be debated. People still write books about this. People still talk about it. And it goes back and forth. In 20 it was my son, this must have been in 2003 or 2004 when my son wesley was 10 years old, he brought home a book from school. For those of you who dont know the story, she was a real little girl who survived the bombing in nagasaki. She and her family did. But she was diagnosed with radiationinduced leukemia about nine years later. To help in her treatment, she followed a japanese tradition that says if you fold 1000 origami cranes, you are granted a wish. Good health, a long life. A crane is a symbol of long life and longevity in japan. She folded 1300 cranes, but sadly, she died of leukemia in 1955. There is a monument to her and all the children who were killed or sickened or wounded by the bomb. That was the first human story i had ever seen of hiroshima or nagasaki. Everything up to that point had been in my textbooks or from my mother talking about my grandfathers decision. So this was the first human story. And the teacher didnt just give the kids the book, she taught them japanese history and ealture, they had a t ceremony in class and they folded cranes. I came home one afternoon and found wesley in the living room wearing a kimono with green tea and sushi behind him. I mention this, about every five years, japanese journalists on anniversaries of the bombing, they call the Truman Library and ask if they can speak to a family member. It is usually me. And i mention to a japanese journalist that i had read her story with my son. And that story got back to japan. And i had a call from Masahiro Sasaki who was her older brother. He just said, can we meet someday and maybe do something together . I said yes. We met five years later in 2010 in new york at the 9 11 tribute center. He and his son were donating one of her last cranes to the center as a gesture of healing in the wake of the 9 11 terrorist attacks. During that meeting, he took out he had a little plastic box, he removed a tiny paper crane, and he put it in my palm and said, that is the last one that she folded before she died. At that point, he asked if i would go to the Memorial Ceremony in hiroshima and nagasaki. I took my grandfather. In 1947, he made a state visit to mexico. During his visit, he placed a wreath at the tomb of six mexican army cadets who had fought to the death against u. S. Forces in 1847. Of course, a reporter asked my grandfather why would you place a wreath to a monument to our enemies . My grandfather said, because they had courage. Courage does not belong to any one country. You recognize and honor courage wherever you find it. Likewise, i thought suffering in war, universally, does not belong to any one country. If you recognize it, you acknowledge it. So we went to japan in 2012. My wife, polly, and my sons wesley and grayson. We attended both ceremonies in hiroshima and nagasaki. We spoke to more than two dozen survivors just to let them tell us their stories. Christy, if we have the powerpoint . Im not as quite as adept as paul is in doing this from home. Im doing this on my phone. That is me at the peace park in hiroshima at the start, getting ready to go in for the memorial event on august 6, 2012. The next one, please. And this is you can see behind us, that as our interpreter sitting next to us. You can see behind her, the atomic bomb dome, which was the Industrial Production hall in hiroshima. That was nearly directly below the blast and was spared because of its steel and stone construction. It withstood the bomb. I included that picture because the first question i was asked in japan is, are you here to apologize . My answer to that was no. I am here to honor the dead and listen to the living. In the hopes that we dont ever, anybody on the planet ever does this again. The question that came up several times, and during this interview it came up again, and he answered it for me, he jumped ahead of the question and said look, if we asked clifton for an apology for hiroshima and nagasaki, he can ask us for an apology for pearl harbor. Then where do we go from there . It becomes a blame game. Next slide. Im placing a wreath at the back of an office building. It used to be the site of the military Police Headquarters where 12 american prisoners of war were being held when the bomb went off. All 12 of them died. They are buried with the japanese victims of hiroshima. Spent 25, gentleman 30 years and a lot of his own money finding out, doing the research to find out what happened to those 12 servicemen. Because their families back here in the states did not know. The secrecy around the bombing and the war and the fact that there was destruction, records were destroyed, people did not know what had happened to their loved ones. He found out for them and reported on the state of every one of those men. Next, please. That is ug sasaki, that is one of the original cranes. Right after we went to japan in august, he flew to hawaii and donated that crane to the uss arizona memorial where it sits today at the end of the exhibit. Next, please. Those are seedlings. That is at the gardens in kansas city. Those are seedlings from trees that survived the bombing in hiroshima and nagasaki. Some of them will be planted at the tomb and library when we reopen hopefully this year. That is me on the left with the microphone, and this woman who survived hiroshima. She was one of the maidens. She came to this country for reconstructive surgery. Next to her is Cynthia Miller whose father worked on the Manhattan Project and bombings afterward. She has been dealing with radiation sickness since she was a child. She is in some respects, a survivor. Next to her with his head bowed is also a survivor of hiroshima. This is speaking to high school students. I did this onandoff for four years, speaking in the company of survivors, telling the story and letting students hear firsthand what it was like to survive a nuclear explosion. Again, in the interest of peace and disarmament. Next, please. Is orval, he brought the sword home from japan. He was a marine artillery captain. He brought the sword home, put it in his closet. He didnt want to take it but the quartermaster was telling him to take the sword. He brought it home, kept it oiled, and finally after 67 years, through the nagasaki st. Paul minnesota sister city commission, he found the son of the officer who had to surrender the sword. Next slide, please. And he gave it back to him in a ceremony in st. Paul in 2013. That is him over there on the left sitting down with his entire family. And on the lefthand side of the photo is the sword and a shrine to his family. It was a wonderful gesture, on both parts. One for orville for giving it back, and two, for the family to come to the country to receive it. Those are the kinds of things ive been interested in since the bombings. The acknowledging the harm that was done on both sides. I have shaken hands with american serviceman who have told me that had it not been for my grandfathers decision, they would not have survived the war. They would not have families, they would not be here. Ive had their children and grandchildren tell me the same things. Ive also held a little girls crane. The object for me is to honor both. Edward thank you, clifton. Very moving and powerful presentation. There is so much to discuss with respect to two of the most important and towering personalities of the 20th century, in relation to the Manhattan Project and to the dropping of the bombs and the consequences in japan and the United States and the world. We have a number of questions. Im going to start off with a couple of my own. Paul, fdr stood in charge through the first several years of the Manhattan Project. It was really his administration that brought it to fruition. And one of the most important things he accomplished was the funding of the Manhattan Project. Correct me if im wrong, i recall that it cost 2 billion to bring the Manhattan Project to completion. That is 2 billion in 1945 money. You can imagine, it would be astronomically more now. Can you Say Something about how fdr made that happen . And this is something that was concealed from congress. Paul well, fdr was a master of the mechanics of government. He understood how to get things done. He was, as he famously said, try