Roosevelt library and 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. Hes 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. So, today, well give a great opportunity for question and answer. And please weigh in with lots of questions. Weve already been talking quite a bit offcamera about our topic today, and i guarantee you theres going to be a lot of interesting ideas and discussions. So i will begin and introduce paul to begin us in our program. Thank you. Thank you, ed. And thank you, clifton, for being part of this today. Im very excited. This is one of the those topics that has generated enormous amount of debate throughout the years. Background for franklin roosevelt, of course, was he was struggling in the late 1930s to convince americans, who were very isolationist, that they had to take an interest in the problems that were going on in europe. And some of the things that he understood about the spread of fascist nazi germany and the threat from japan, Many Americans disagreed with and didnt want to see the American Public get involved. So one of fdrs big issues was rebuilding the military. Hundreds of new ships were constructed. There was a peacetime draft instituted and so he was very focused on how america would respond to the threat from nazi germany. So im just going to share a powerpoint here that has a few images in it. Thats the king and the queen and the president. And this is Albert Einstein on the right. They started drafting this letter to the president to try to convince him in the United States needed to get involved. Now, although leo was a worldfamous physicist, obviously, he didnt have the same status that Albert Einstein did. So the letter was drafted under einsteins name. Heres a copy of the letter which you can see was sent in august of 1939. So the war in europe still has not started yet. Right . Germany doesnt invade poland until september, but this is the leadup to it and theres tremendous concern on the part of these scientists. You can see heres an excerpt that it may become possible to set up a Nuclear Chain reaction and a large mass of uranium, a vast amount of power and uraniumlike elements would be generated. New phenomenon would lead to the construction of bombs and it is conceivable that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type carried by a boat and exploded in a port might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. And then, of course, just a few weeks later germany invades poland and we are in the start of world war ii. On october 19th fdr responds back to professor einstein and, obviously, a lot had been going on there, but he said i found this data of such import that i have convened a bureau consisting of the head of the Bureau Standards and chose a representative of the army and navy to thoroughly investigate the possibilities of your suggestion regarding the element of uranium. Now, over the period of the next several years, theres different committees that are formed but on june 28th, 1941, the office of Scientific Research and development is created which oversees the whole project and a man named vanover bush was put in charge and this is the point where the whole project 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 then, of course, just a few months later the japanese attack pearl harbor which gives even greater impetus to the development of this bomb. So the two men who were sort of responsible for the development, on the left there, you see Leslie Groves who was the military representative essentially in charge of the entire operation. And on the right you see the famous scientist, robert oppenheimer. Now their los alamos facility is the most famous, but of course, there are 20 different facilities all across the country. 100,000 more, 100,000 people involved in this from extracting uranium core, building muniti munitions, recruiting scientists, all done under top secrecy. Meanwhile, at the same time, the british had been developing a similar nuclear bomb element which they called the tube alloys. Early on in the war, they decided the germans and americans should Work Together and britain shared a lot of their data and their science with the americans and several british scientists came over, but by 1943 this photograph was taken at what is now camp david with fdr. What fdr called shangrila. And cut the british out of the development of the bomb and the Manhattan Project. And this was done for a variety of reasons. But churchill was very upset about this and wanted the british to get back involved in this partnership. And then a few months after this photo was taken in august of 1943, right before the quebec conference, thered been tremendous tensions between the americans and the british regarding the plans for dday. The americans wanted to go ahead and get a date and make British Military were reluctant, dragging their feet coming up with alternative strategies. So at this meeting in august of 1943 enhyde park before the quebec conference, roosevelt and churchill applying appear quid pro quo here. Roosevelt saying to churchill, well bring you back into the Nuclear Project and that is what happened. Both agreements were signed on the same day before the quebec conference started. In 1944 this was taken at the this was taken right after the democratic convention. Its one of the few times the rows felt got together with Vice President ial candidate, soon to be Vice President. There was very little communication going on at this point. Its really one of fdrs, i think, failings as a leader that he did not fully brief truman on the nuclear bomb, a whole range of topics. This was a critical part of t t that. This photograph was taken april 11th, 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 development of the first atomic bomb. This is the scaffolding for the test, the trinity test, which was the first time they were actually going to test this bomb, and then you see here this is the explosion at trinity. So by this point, of course, truman is president. Im going to close this off now. At this point truman is president. Hes been briefed, and ill turn it over to clifton to talk about the processes that were 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 were going to use the bomb. They were going to drop that bomb as soon as it was ready. Thank you, paul, i appreciate that. And id just say im going to piggyback on the comment that you made about president roosevelt not telling my grandfather anything. Thats certainly true. Years ago when i met david roosevelt, fdrs grandson for the first time, we were talking about our grandfathers relationship and before we went upstairs to our room in the hotel, i said david, you know, your grandfather didnt tell my grandfather a damn thing. We all went to bed. The next morning i said good morning, david, how are you . And david said, im not going to tell you. I did not ill start by saying that my grandfather never spoke to me about the atomic bomb. 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 to key west during the spring. Thats 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 stimson told him right after his swearing in on april 12th, 1945, but stimson only told him just the rudiments, just the bare minimum. We have a new, very powerful new weapon i need to brief you on it. It wasnt until almost two weeks later that stimson and general groves gave my grandfather a full briefing on the Manhattan Project. Not long after grandfather formed the interim committee, scientists and leaders in the field and including some of the including some of the scientists who had worked on the bomb including mr. Oppenheimer, dr. Oppenheimer, to decide if the weapons should be used; and if so, how. So it 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 of its what you do afterward. Its how grandpa felt about it. Its how we deal with the as paul said, this continues to be debated. People still write books about this. People still talk about it, and it goes back and forth. In 20 i guess my son wesley, this must have been in 2003 or 4 when my son wesley was 10 years old, he brought home a book from school, sadako and the thousand paper cranes. For those of you who dont know the story. Sada kch sadako is a real little girl, who survived the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki. Sadako was diagnosed with radiation induced leukemia about nine years later. To help in her treatment she followed a japanese tradition that says if you fold a thousand origami paper cranes you are granted a wish of good health, a long life, the crane is a symbol of life and longevity. She folded 1,300 cranes but sadly she died of the leukemia at the age of 12 in 1955. There a monument to her and to all of the children who were killed or sickened or wounded by the bomb. That was the first human story id 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. She taught them japanese culture. They had a tea ceremony in class. They folded cranes. I came home one afternoon, and i found wesley in the living room wearing a kimono with green tea and sushi laid out on the coffee table behind it. I mention this. About every five years on the anniversaries of the bombing, japanese journalists call the library and ask if they can speak to a family member, and its usually me. I mentioned that i had read sadakos story with my son and that story got back to japan and i had a call from Masahiro Sasaki and he just said can we meet someday and maybe do something together, and i said yes. We met five years later in 2010 in new york at the 9 11 tribute center, and masahiro and his son were donating one of sadakos last cranes to the center in the wake of the 9 11 terrorist attacks. During that meeting, he had a tiny paper crane, and he put it in my palm and said thats the last one that sadako folded before she died, and at that point he and his father asked if i would go to the memorial ceremonies in hiroshima and nagasaki. I took as my lead for that, i took my grandfather. In 1947 he made a state visit to mexico, and during that visit he praised a wreath at the tomb of six mexican army cadets who had fought to the death against u. S. Forces in 1847. And of course a reporter asked my grandfather afterwards why would you place a wreath to a monument to our enemies, and 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 that suffering in war, universally does not belong to any one country. If you recognize it and you acknowledge it. And so we went to japan in 2012, my wife polly and my sons wesley and gates and i went. We attended both ceremonies in hiroshima and nagasaki, and in between we spoke to more than two dozen survivors just to let them tell us their stories. And if we have the powerpoint, im not quite as adept as paul is at doing this from home because im doing this on my phone. That is me and masahiro in the peace park in hiroshima at the start getting ready to go in for the memorial thats on august 6th, 2012. The next one, please. And this is you can see behind, thats our interpreter sitting next to us, thats masahiro and me and our interpreter. You can see behind her and me is the atomic dome, which was the industrial hall in hiroshima, which was nearly directly below the blast and was spared because of its steel and stone construction. It withstood the bomb. It stands as a memorial to the bombing. I included that picture because the first question i was asked in japan is are you here to apologize, and my answer to that was no. I am here to 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 came up several times and during this interview, it came up again and masahiro answered it for me. He jumped ahead of the question and said, look, if we ask clifton for an apology for hiroshima and nagasaki, he can ask us for an apology for pearl harbor and where do we go from there . Then it just becomes a blame game. Next slide, please. Im placing the 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, and they are they are interned. Theyre buried with the japanese victims of hiroshima. A japanese gentleman shegake mori spent 25, 30 years, and a lot of his own money finding out, doing the research to find out exactly what 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 fate of every one of those men. Next, please. That is yuji, masahiros son. That is one of sadakos original cranes. Right after we went to japan in august, yuji flew to hawaii and donated that crane to the u. S. S. Arizona memorial where it sits today at the end of the exhibit. Next, please. Those are seedlings. Thats at the powell gardens in kansas city. Those are seedlings from trees that survived the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki, and some of them will be planted at the Truman Library when we reopen, hopefully later this year. Next. Thats the japan society. Of course thats me on the left with me on the microphone. Thats a woman who survived, one of the maidens, came to this country for reconstructive surgery. Next to her is Cynthia Miller whose father worked on the Manhattan Project and bombings afterwards. She has been dealing with radiation sickness since she was a child, so she is in some respects a survivor. And next to her with his head bow is also a survivor of hiroshima. This is speaking to high school students. I did this on and off for four years speaking in the company of survivors just telling this story and letting students hear firsthand what it was like to survive a nuclear explosion, again, in the interests of peace and disarmament. Next, please. Thats orval amdahl. He brought that sword home from japan. He was a marine artillery captain. He brought that sword home at the end of the war, put it in his closet. He didnt really want to take it but the quartermaster was telling him to take the swords. Orval brought it home, put it in the closet, kept it oiled and nice. Finally after 67 years through the nagasaki st. Paul, minnesota, center committee, he found the son of the officer who had to surrender that sword, and he gave it back to him at a ceremony in st. Paul in 2013, and thats him over on the left sitting down, his entire family. And over on the lefthand side of the photo is the sword and a shrine to it. It was a wonderful gesture on both parts. One for orval for giving it back. And two, for coming to this 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 servicemen, pacific war veterans who told me had it not been for my grandfathers decision, they would not have survived the war, they would not have families, and they would not be here. Ive had their children and grandchildren tell me the same things. But ive also held in the palm of my hand that little girls crane. The object for me is to honor both. Thank you, clifton, very moving and powerful presentation. Theres 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 bomb or the bombs and the consequences in japan and the United States and the world. We have a number of questions, but im going to start off with a couple of my own. Paul, fdr stood in charge of 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 that 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, and thats 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 was something that was concealed from congress. Well, fdr was a master of the mechanics of government. He understood how to get things done. He would, as he famously said, try something. If it doesnt work, try something else.