This was an attempt by the smithsonian and to do an honest and balanced exhibit about the decision to drop the bomb and the consequences of the bombing. This was the 50th anniversary in 1995. Decided with one of my students, whose mother and grandmother survived the atomic bombing, and whose grandfather died in , we decidedombing to do Something Special to commemorate the 50th anniversary. We would teach two classes on campus and bring students to kyoto. The museums in hiroshima and would bring if we some of the artifacts to American University and do an exhibit on the 50th anniversary. That was the first time the hiroshimanagasaki a ball museum did an exhibit outside of japan. It was the 20th anniversary of our exhibit and the 70th anniversary of the original bombing, so we decided to do it again. We combined artifacts from nagasaki with six of these fabulous panels. These are historic panels. They can be compared to the picasso or other classic paintings of that sort. This is the first time they have been to the United States anywhere since 1995. We brought them here and put them with these artifacts. We also put them a childrens drawings on the Elementary School in hiroshima. That was the origin of the exhibit in 1995. 20 years later we have a more elaborate exhibit that is the most elaborate exhibit on the atomic bombings in the United States. It is overwhelming. This is one of the most famous images out of nagasaki. This is a young girl holding a rice ball at a rescue party has given her. There is blood on her face. She has a look in her eyes, a forlorn distant gaze. , she did not know what happened to her. The people who have lived through the bombing, they were sure the bomb had landed on their house. They figured thats what happened. They went outside and saw all of nagasaki was ablaze, and fires were coming towards them. You will see what it was like. Next to this, we have a crucifix. There were a lot of crucifixes that are considered symbolic, especially in nagasaki. In nagasaki the bomb missed the , original target by almost two miles and landed above the cathedral. Nagasaki had not been bombed before this. There was a small bombing in 1944, but it had been preserved in pristine condition because the americans wanted it to be a pristine target to show the effects of the atomic bomb. So they had not bombed nagasaki. People in nagasaki thought they had not been bombed because it was the christian capital of japan and east asia. They were in for a big surprise. The bomb dropped right above the cathedral. You see the stopwatch there showing 8 15. At 8 15. D at 11 02 in hiroshima. Many of those replicas were the original artifacts. Some of them were so fragile that the museum decided not to let them out of japan anymore. We have got the replicas instead of the originals. Almost everything is the original artifacts. What weve got here are the famous mushroom clouds, photographs of the mushroom clouds in hiroshima and nagasaki. The descriptions of them from people on the plane, like a pillar of flame shot up into the air and kept expanding. From the top of the column, the pillar, you see these additional bursts, estimates of 40,000 feet into the sky. The crew of the unit said they could see the cloud from four hours away. You could still see the cloud looking back, it was so high. There was a lot of radioactive debris swept up in the cloud. Some came down as black rain. Here, we have got the view of hiroshima city. They thought the pilots would be able to see the bridge clearly from the sky. The bomb drifted and missed the target and landed over here shima hospital. This is the most famous symbol, the Old Industrial prefecture building, now called the atomic bomb dome. There was debate about whether to preserve it. This has all been built up. This part here and here have been preserved. You can see everything is devastated. They estimated that almost two miles in each direction was totally destroyed. Two miles away, you would be badly burned. Your house could have been destroyed. This was by modern standards a tiny, primitive little bomb. Hiroshimae dropped on estimate 16 kilotons. The bomb that dropped on nagasaki was 20 times. Weve developed bombs that are so much bigger. By 1954, we were Holding Congressional hearings on projects on dial with plans for bombs 700,000 times as powerful as the nagasaki bomb. This is what we knew. Bombis what this little did at hiroshima. Take a look at what the bomb did on nagasaki. This bomb was a little bit bigger, but the casualties were actually smaller. Nagasaki was surrounded by this mound on both sides. The effect of bomb was contained by the mountains. Nagasaki was in the valley. The hiroshima bomb, 200,000 dead by 1950. The estimates for nagasaki are 70,000 dead by the end of 1945. Dead by they were 1950. Different kinds of bombs. Here, weve got some of the more human artifacts, in a way. Youve got the shoe of a young student, 13yearold boy who was killed in the bombing. Youve got the hat of a Junior High School student who was killed. You have the water bottle of a young boy, 13yearold who was killed when the bomb exploded. Here, weve got one of the replicas. A replica of the lunchbox from a 12yearold girl who totally disappeared. No trace ever found of her. Carbonized rice and tea. Back in 1995, if they wanted to likeenola gay visit, we suggested two artifacts. The enola gay and this lunchbox. We thought that this would send a message. That was the last thing they wanted to display. They wanted artifacts about the victims, photographs of the victims, statements by American Military leaders. They did not want that controversy. Here was a more historical panel. Like a whole exhibit about the context about the decision to drop the bomb. This has the Important Information about the manhattan project. They started to build the bomb in case the germans built the bomb. They were terrified at the prospect of fiddler getting a bomb. We built the bomb as a deterrent against germany. They did not anticipate it might be used against japan. They did not have the capability of building a bomb. This is a survey of the bombing targets. These are potential targets. The United States had been firebombing japanese cities since march 9 through 10th. When we firebombed tokyo. Three quarters of our bombs were incendiary. Overall we bombed over 100 , japanese cities. When we ran out of important started bombing secondary cities. The destruction reached 99. 5 of the city. Some of the american leaders were appalled. Another top general described this as one of the most ruthless and barbaric killing of noncombatants in history. This is about the decision to drop the bomb. We have got a section about the reasons for using the bomb. The official narratives has stated the decision to drop the bomb was to expedite the end of the war. An American Invasion would cost a half billion lives. The number keeps going up. There is no record of that anywhere. There would have been a lot of americans lost in an invasion. A lot of japanese killed. That is the official narrative. We dropped the bomb to avoid an invasion. The bomb ended the war in the pacific. There is no truth to that. Bury little truth to that in very little truth to that of trumans mind. The japanese from the battle of saipan onward new they cannot win. They hoped to get one more victory for better surrender terms. The big obstacle was the emperor. They wanted to make sure they can keep the emperor. Across the southwest, Pacific Command issued a report in 1945. That says the hanging of the emperor to them would be like the crucifixion of christ to us. All would fight to die like ants. Almost every advisor of truman urged him to change the surrender terms. That was in americas interest. America planned all along to keep the emperor, but we refused to signal that. We were calling for unconditional surrender. What else would end the war . Roosevelt finally got a promise from stalin that three months after the end of the war in europe, a big massive red army was going to come to the work against japan. Truman met with churchill and stalin to make sure the soviets were coming in. He got agreement from the soviets the first day of the conference. Stalin will be in the japanese war by august 15. He writes home to his wife the next and says the russians are coming in, the war will end a year sooner. He described the intercepted telegram as the telegram from the japanese emperor asking for peace. American intelligence reported repeatedly that the entry of the soviet union into the war will convince all japanese that complete defeat is inevitable. The question is, why truman who is not lesters bloodthirsty he did not take pleasure in killing people. Why would he used the atomic bomb knowing they were not militarily necessary . What we assume as historians is that a big part of his motivation was that he was sending a message to the soviets. If the soviets interfered with american plans in europe or in asia, this is the fate they would get. The soviets interpreted it that way. The physicist said suddenly, the day of judgment was tomorrow. It has been ever since. That is what makes the atomic important, not just hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children were killed. The fact that the human species damoclessort of hanging over our has ever since. We still have 16,000 Nuclear Weapons in the world. Weve had this conflict with the russians over ukraine. U. S. And russia still have thousands of Nuclear Weapons pointed at each other. We are not playing games here. The threat is still real, which is why we wanted to do this exhibit. There were apparently several people carrying cameras in hiroshima on august 6. Only one is known to have taken photos. He was a photographer with hiroshimas newspaper. He had enough film to take my photos, she said it was too horrible. He ended up taking seven photos and five of them had been preserved. He was very respectful. He did not want to show horrible burns or horrible suffering. He shows people at the relief stations. You can see the fire in the background, destruction of work. Destruction everywhere. This was 1. 5 miles from the hypo center. He says it was like walking through hell. She says we could not take says we could not take photos. It was too horrific and too intrusive on peoples privacy and suffering. There were no medical supplies. All of the doctors were killed. The hospitals were destroyed, the nurses were killed. What you see here are people in these relief stations there was no medicine, nothing to treat them. They put oil on the burns. People were reporting maggots on the wounds. A shot from nagasaki, people lying there dying on the mattresses. A woman breastfeeding her baby. Ofre were lots of stories women carrying had babies on their backs. You have images of charred corpses. People who were near the hypo center, their internal organs boiled away and they quickly turned into charcoal and became carbonized. You see the bodies, clothes burned off the bodies. People who war kimonos had patterns burned into their skin. The shadow of somebody who disappeared. He was sitting there. Nagasakie friend in who speaks to our group. He survived, obviously. He writes down the names of all of his family members and how far they were. Not a single one was affected by the bomb, injured or burned by the bomb. One by one, he crosses them out. This is over the next couple weeks. One by one would die from radiation poisoning. You would get these purple spots all over your body, terrible diarrhea, your hair would start to fall out. I know of cases in which family members or friends came into hiroshima looking for relatives or friends and within several days after, they would die of radiation sickness. Some experts say the effects of radiation were going quickly. Theres a lot of evidence to suggest that was not the case. Hima hospital. The hospital where the bomb detonated. This is the Elementary School in nagasaki. Almost all the teachers and students were killed. 3 10 of a i take my students now mile from the hypo center. Every year on the morning of august 9, go to a private ceremony at the Elementary School. All the children who now attend the Elementary School come there and have this special piece, commemoration ceremony with this school filled with Elementary School students. You realize that is who the victims of the atomic bomb were. Congregants of all souls church, unitarian senth in washington d. C. Art supplies to students at the Elementary School in hiroshima. The students used the art supplies at a time when there were very little supplies of any sort after the bombing. You see reports of students living as street urchins. They were orphaned. They did not have shelter. They had makeshift shelters. Was aetting art supplies huge thing. Backatitude, they sent drawings and paintings to the congregation. I understand these were lost for a long time and then rediscovered. Wentembers of the church back to hiroshima recently and met with some of the kids. There is a nice documentary about this. [speaking japanese] i thought it would add a nice touch to the exhibit. A human side in a different way of americans who reached out to the people of hiroshima and the gratitude on the part of the children who received those gifts. Arukis were famous japanese artists who came into the city of hiroshima three days after the atomic bombing and decided to do a series of panels to depict the horrors of hiroshima. The first one was called ghosts. What it shows is the image of hiroshima afterwards. People who experienced it said they felt as though they were walking through hell. Fires everywhere, people naked, walking with their arms held in front of them. Off. Es close were burned people are walking in this procession of naked people. You see this image here, the suffering horror, the in hiroshima after the bombings. Have here isnel we their fire. Reality for so many survivors. It meant they would have to leave others behind. They would have to ignore their s of peopleelp, plea trapped in their houses, under beams. People who were injured in order to escape. There are so many tragic stories of children leaving their parents behind or parents leaving their children behind in order to escape because the flames were encroaching. There are stories of people staying with relatives or friends rather than leave. The folks at the gallery told me i can choose any six of the 15 panels i want. To complicatented the narrative. Not to portray the japanese as victims of the atomic bomb, but put it in a different context. That there is a possibility for them to be victims and victimizers at the same time. The first one here is called crows. Citizens, 43,000 japanese soldiers and 45,000 korean slave laborers. The koreans were badly treated by the japanese and had been decades. They were discriminated against and japan and also discriminated against after the atomic bombing. They got almost no medical treatment, no aid at all and many of them died in the streets. This one shows the crows coming down and plucking out the eyeballs of the dead korean victims here. It is very controversial inside japan still. Shinzo abe the Prime Minister and his administration is doing everything they can to cover up the history of japanese atrocities for the koreans. Victims across asia of japanese colonialism and oppression. I want to show that part of it too. Too complicated further, this was about the american pows. There were pows in a camp in hiroshima, 23 of them in the bombing. The of them survived bombing only to be beaten to death by iteration japanese citizens. There is something, and i am not the depicted several women among the american pows. This to me is somewhat baffling why they chose to do so. What we are seeing here is a progression in thinking. In the beginning, they focused just on japanese victims in hiroshima. Japaneset to show the is also victimizers. They have one pimple one panel on the rape of nanjing, one on auschwitz. They are trying to make this a broader human story. In 1958. Was done the title is floating participate on the evening of august 6 and the floating lantern ceremony. So many of the people jumped in the river to try to escape the flames or cool their bodies if they had been badly burned. Many of them died. There are all of these descriptions of the river that night. It was a sea of floating corpses. What the people did in hiroshima to commemorate, they hold the lenten ceremony every year. We are now able to participate. It is no longer restricted to the families of the victims. You make a paper lantern, put a candle inside and on the lantern, you write a message of peace or whatever you like and you go down and take your turn and put your floating lantern into the water. It is a very beautiful at night. Ma year i went there, yoyo was playing. This is a depiction of the lanterns floating in the river. [bell sounds] deckhands total surrender in 1945 after the august 6 and ninth bombings appear shema and nagasaki, respectively. Placermal ceremony took september 2 in tokyo bay, ending world war ii. American history tv and cspans washington journal will be live to look at the strategic situation leading up to the bombings. President Harry Trumans andsion to use the weapon the impact of the atom bomb. Guests include the author of and president trumans grandson. On august 9, we will be live on cspan and cspan3 from 9 00 to 10 00 eastern. American history tvs reel america brings the archival films. We are going to tell you about our veins and arteries, how they are like the roads and highways of the body because it is through then that the little the differentound organs and factories. Everything runs smoothly and will continue to do so as long as it is left undisturbed by the invader, disease. You see the wall around this city has a gate through which supplies and Raw Materials should be taken. Jam, icetter, lots of cream and cake. This busy, peaceful city never heard of the invader, but enemy is a deadly disease. Againstm could he do the millions of little workers . Just watch him. Two, four and are more to come. Now we understand why diseases are so deadly. They have the power to transform missing forms. He does not look so harmless now, does he. They multiply themselves into millions. The alignment is sounded. There are not enough weapons to go around. It is only with guns. There is nothing to stop them. They are not prepared. The factories are converted to the manufacturer of the weapons. They are far too slo