Of its 90,000 buildings, over 60,000 were demolished. The desolate remains were aptly described as vapor and ashes. Man had torn from nature one of her innermost secrets. And with his newfound knowledge he had fashioned an instrument of annihilation. Menacing implications of this extraordinary weapon were frightening to everyday people. Frightening to everyday. What did you think of what did you think of that bomb was dropped on the japs, mrs. Glenn . Terrible. All of those people killed. Lat9 dropped an improved bomb on the seaport of nagasaki. A highly congested city boasting the best natural harbor in western kyushu. [explosion] this bomb, exploding over the district, took the lives of 42,000 persons. 39 of all of the buildings in nagasaki before the calamity. The japanese described their mutilated city as a graveyard, with not a tombstone standing. These terrifying blows were struck in japan only after profound consideration of all of the human and military factors. Dropped tobombs were end the war quickly, and they did in the war quickly. Richard franks offer author of downfall. Here to talk to us further about the 75th anniversary of the drop of the atomic bombs by the u. S. On japan. Richard frank, thank you for joining us. Guest thank you for having me. Host in that last clip, the military film from 1946, it said that the atomic bombs were dropped to end the war quickly, and they did in the war quickly. Was this the right decision to make and for those farms the reason for the end of the war . Guest the short answer is that yes and yes. Overwhelmingly the primary reason was to end the war as quickly as possible. One thing i think its critical that we get to at the start is to understand context of this. I have two sick principles. One is to count and the other is to cheat all of the dead as sharing a common humanity. I mean the japanese as well. Resulted inific war the death of about 19 million noncombatants. Number, a number of japanese noncombatants was maybe 1. 2 million. About 20 about 25 of them were due to the atomic bombs. That math tells you immediately that for every japanese noncombatants who died, between 17 and 18 other noncombatants died. They are overwhelmingly other asians and about 12 million of them are chinese. By the summer of 1945 most of those noncombatants who were not japanese were already dead. They were dying at a rate of about 14,000 a day. That is the context in which all of this takes place. It is important we not overlook or diminish the japanese. Equally it is important that we understand the total context of this and where the deaths are taking place. They are primarily not japanese. Host Richard Frank is with us for half an hour. We will take your calls after a couple of minutes of conversation. We will put the numbers on the screen for our guest. If you live in the central or eastern time zones, 202 7488000. If you live out west, it is 202 7488001. We have special lines this sunday morning. One of them is for world war ii veterans and their families. 202 7488002 and for japaneseamericans. 202 7488003. We look forward to talking with you and you talking to our guest, Richard Frank. Here. Erspective how widespread in 1945 was support for president truman and his decision to use atomic weapons . Has that changed over time . And 1945 andpport afterwards was extremely high. Numbers, ive seen above 80 . Its changed over the years because the narratives have been employed over the years have changed very much. Reallythe things that concerns me about this is, i dont question that we should talk about this and it should be controversial. But i find it astonishing that this conversation takes place in which alternatives are advanced eu of the atomic bombs. What is conspicuous is, they never talk about what the cost of these alternatives are. When you get down and start doing the costs of the alternatives, you understand why mr. Truman, in his decision, not make a good choice, he basically themaking choices between astonishingly awful to the horrendously horrific, and he chose what secretary of war stimson would call the least important choice. Abhorrent choice. Host this is the anniversary of the nagasaki bombing. August 16 the first one, hiroshima. What was different between those thee days and what was Truman Administration looking at . The destruction and hiroshima, what made them decide to drop a second bomb . Was no specific decision on the second bomb. The authorization order released the people to start dropping bombs and keep dropping bombs. Bombs, about the two this is another aspect that people, i think, dont understand. The problem with the notion that one bomb would have done it or a demonstration would have done it is this have to look at the japanese side. Their reaction was based upon the fact that they had an Atomic Bomb Program which had not produced a bomb, but it had educated japanese leadership in the fact that producing vision e material was difficult. The Imperial Army immediately responded, well, we can see they have one bomb. The Imperial Navy took the track that, they may have one bomb, they cant have that many, they cant be that powerful. Basically, what the japanese leadership was looking at was not fear of one bomb, it was that the u. S. Had an arsenal of nuclear weapons. Thet happens, that is what nagasaki bombs dead. It convinced top leadership that the u. S. Did not have simply a bomb, we had an arsenal. The war minister, the second most powerful man in japan, he had been adamant for continuing the war after the hiroshima bomb. After the nagasaki bomb he went around telling leadership that the americans have 100 bombs and the next target is going to be tokyo. Host how far along with the u. S. At the time of the dropping of the bombs, in its planning for an invasion of japan . Question andood very different from what it is usually presented. There had been a plan to invade japan on november 1. Mr. Truman had approved that on the 18th of june, 1945. He was reluctant, but presented with a scenario in which we were going to have overwhelming superiority going into southern kyushu. And therefore american casualties would be acceptable. Know, radio intelligence had uncovered the fact that the japanese had exactly anticipated that the First American invasion was going to take place on southern kyushu. They built up over 10,000 airfare aircraft. 7000 troops. Instead of us going on with overwhelming superiority, our salt would be facing 700,000 japanese. We now know a senior naval toicer had never wanted invade japan. He had been biding his time and by the ninth of august, 1945, with the intelligence he was prepared to bring on this showdown with the army over whether there should be any invasion. Only the japanese surrender at off before it reached the level of mr. Truman having another review. Host lets take a call from tom. You are on with Richard Frank. We are talking about the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings in japan. Caller good morning. The age 60 and i remember howard zinn lectures of my college years, of how history is being rewritten so much right now with people with agendas. Radio that on talk the only reason we bombed progressive talk radio, that is the only reason we bombed japan, because they were not europeans. In other words, there were people of caller, which is nonsense because we bombed dresden in germany. A purpose of demoralizing the german people, for them to surrender. It is unfortunate what happened with the dropping of the two bombs. It did open up pandoras box, but on the other hand it saved millions of japanese lives who would have been caught in the crossfire, as well as american lives and casualties. Am i wrong on that . Guest no. Basically, you have to bear in mind that until the end it was assumed the bombs were going to be used against germany. It turned out from a tactical standpoint they didnt have bombs ready in time to use against germany. Bomb, wasbomb, a test detonated in july 1945. Let me come back again to a basic point. It is not that the argument time advancing says we dont care about the japanese who died. I wrote graphically about that in my book. Both the fire rated and hiroshima. What i have been going over these many years now is the fact that our narratives we have been using simply talk about japanese deaths, the fact that japanese were asians. I dont mention we were in the war because not abandon china. Our American People at that time, reading the New York Times had been reading it day by day to the whole war. There were well aware of how horrific the war was in asia. We have completely blotted that out. That is why those narratives are so powerful. People simply do not realize how horrific the asianpacific war was. Host how have japanese textbooks for Young Students portrayed the war . Has that approach changed over the years . Guest that is a complex question. Think, forissue, i japan was the. Iithe period of world war was an area not forthrightly discussed, still not forthrightly discussed. Japan toa tendency in view themselves as the greatest victims of the war. If you have been dealing with historians and people from other asian nations, you really get a full flavor of how infuriated that makes people in china and elsewhere. I was sitting in a conference fromwith a representative the peoples republic of china. The argument was made along the lines of the critical literature. Bafflementoing from to fury as he realizes that this narrative entirely omits, it does not count and doesnt treat chinese, vietnamese, indonesians, koreans as sharing a common humanity with japanese civilians in two cities. Let me add further, basically when the soviet union enters the dower,cording to john they capture between 1. 6 million and 1. 7 million japanese nationals. When they the repatriation process is over, they only returned 1. 2 million. No from soviet archival documents about 61,000 are japanese soldiers. Between 300 40000 and 440,000 japanese noncombatants died in soviet captivity after the end of hostilities. Those are higher numbers than died in the atomic bomb attacks. Host we go to rick. It is in phoenix. Good morning. Caller good morning. Just want to add my voice. Not sure what had been discussed earlier, my father, who barely europe, was war in being prepared to transfer to japan. That would have eliminated my brothers life after that date. And many other mens lives. Also it wouldve been criminal, and you add everything up here, it wouldve been criminal for truman not to drop that bomb, not just the rape of nanking, socalled. Chinese of thousands of massacred, as you say. The russian threat that would have taken japanese territory and greatly complicated the postwar era. There are so many reasons why truman had to do that. What was the alternative . I heard generals saying they were going to blockade japan until they gave up. What . Could you address those points that you havent yet . Host thank you, rick. Richard frank . Guest that is a really excellent point. On the american side there was an unstable compromise between the army and the navy over a strategy to end the war. The army thought the critical issue was time. Therefore, they advocated invasion because they believed invasion would be the swiftest way to end the war. The navy, one of the fundamental premises of that study was that invading the islands would produce politically unacceptable casualties. The navys alternative was blockade. What doesnt get mentioned in these discussions as it should and this was basically the policy the Navy Officers lined up behind this get back to the very basic point i made about counting the dead. Ending thes aimed at war by starving to death millions of japanese, mostly noncombatants. That is what blockade was about. In view of the limited power of the atomic weapons and other conventional weapons at that time compared to what we have today, a blockade was actually the most ruthless strategy the u. S. Was prepared to employ. That was the direction we were going in august 1945. If the invasion was off, then we do blockade. And we do try to kill millions of japanese noncombatants. By the way, those asians who are not japanese, who are dying every single day, at their deaths on top of the japanese done. The death tolls for these alternatives when you sit down and contemplate them are sickening, mindboggling. On the linee lynn from west virginia. Morning cspan and mr. Frank. Okinawa sun of an veteran who was trained to go to japan. Of course, he never had to go because president truman had the sense to do it he did. What he did. For those who criticize truman, im going to tell you what my dad said. Let every one of those critics go to the families of people, american gis who work saved from invading japan and tell them that truman did the wrong thing. I know you dont have the guts to do that. Thank you, mr. Frank. Host thank you for calling. Richard frank, has history been fair to president truman . No. T in my view, let me add another dimension to this. Know, hen, you famously said he didnt lose any sleep over the decision and various comments like that. If you go through everything he actually said, in his mind he in twohole area compartments. One was, that i make the best decision of what was presented to me . He always believed that if you understood all of the he made what secretary stimson called the least abhorrent choice. As bad as the bombs were, the alternatives were actually worse. On a personal level, truman was never in different to the deaths of japanese that his order had caused. In fact, shortly after he was shima we intercept this message from the Japanese Navy reporting that 100,000 japanese had died he was shima. Mr. Truman clearly was reading that. He talks at a Cabinet Meeting and says, the hiroshima bomb killed 100,000 people. And all those kids. He has various other comments he is making about the fact that this was horrendous, the consequences may have been right, but the consequences were horrendous and he felt that very deeply. You know, once again, when you deal with people from other asian nations were trapped in japans empire or americans saying were two bombs necessary . A common comment from them is, why only two . Ism their perspective, that so incomparable between the japanese and these other people that they find the american struggle over this to be baffling. Host we have a little bit more of the history. Hiroshima happens on august 6. On august 9 the u. S. Dropped the atomic bomb on nagasaki same day, soviets declared war on japan. 15, the go by, August Emperor announced japans unconditional surrender. It happened . Walk us through those six days to get the emperor to the point of surrender. Guest a little context here. What you have to understand is, to get japan to surrender was two steps. Someone with legitimate authority had to decide that pan with surrender. In japans armed forces had to comply with that surrender. Neither one of those steps was a certainty through most of 1945. The emperor makes the critical decision. He makes it on the afternoon of august 8 he talks to the foreign minister and says, the war must end now. This is after hiroshima. This is before soviet intervention. There were other factors on his mind including his loss of faith in the strategy to meet the invasion. Concern about the japanese people reaching revolutionary state in the fall. These are played into his mind. He announces that decision ofore the inner circle leadership, and the Early Morning hours of august 10. We have the diary entry of the number two man, a general named koabe. One of the other officers comes to him and says, i dont think the overseas commanders will comply. Right on cue, two of the three overseas commanders send a message saying, we are not going to comply with the surrender order, even from the emperor. There is more backandforth in the tokyo. Message, their first which is really the first serious message about ending the war that has this language in it that says, the precondition they want is that the prerogatives of the emperor, the sovereign ruler, not be compromised in surrender. The American State Department officials immediately realized that what this is, this is a demand that the u. S. Make the emperor supreme, not only over the government, but over the occupation authorities. So he has a veto over the occupation. Of course, send a message back saying, clearly the emperor is going to be subordinate to the occupation commander. That causes more turmoil in japan. Thatmperor insisting japans surrender, and he gets the government to agree. Then we still have a very fraud. Where Japanese Armed forces, going on 7 million to surrender. One of the admirals later tells interrogators that the most fraught days he spent with these days worrying about whether the armed forces were going to comply with the emperors order. I described this as a miraculous deliverance that we actually got the government and armed forces to surrender in august 1945. Host lets hear from steve now in fredericksburg, virginia. Caller good morning. My father served in world war ii. I would like to ask professor frank if he reads japanese . I would like to ask him if he has read the overwhelming number waromments just after the by japanese generals and admirals that it was not the two nuclear attacks, but the entrance of the soviet union into the war. They had invaded manchuria and they were occupying the islands, which they still occupy to this day, and they were threatening do. Qaeda hokkia thank you. Host thank you, steve. Guest let me unpack that at several levels. First of all, in terms of the impact of soviet intervention, when the impure the emperor is at that imperial conference, the chief of staff of the Imperial Army tells the emperor in a classic understatement that soviet intervention is unfortunate that doesnt negate the plan to counter the american invasion. If you go through all of these other statements i have been through, yeah. The notion all of these japanese officers are talking about soviet engine intervention being the key reason, it is simply not true. Thes certainly not true of inner cabinet. Soviet intervention does play an important part. It is important in terms of getting compliance of all of the Japanese Armed forces, particularly those on the asian continent, for whom soviet intervention is a direct menace, unlike the atomic bombs, state either understand nor did the u. S. Have a viable target. Not going to drop an atomic bomb on singapore or some chinese city to convince the japanese to surrender. Soviet intervention is important and getting compliance of all of the armed forces, but it does not move the key decisionmakers to move the government and eventua