Weapon bordering on the absolute. Thousands died instantly. 70,000 persons were killed or listed as missing. 140,000 persons were injured. 43,000 were badly hurt. The city was unbelievably crushed. Of 90,000 buildings, over 60,000 were demolished. The remains were described as vapor and ashes. Man had torn from nature one of her innermost secrets. With his knowledge he had fashioned an instrument of annihilation. Menacing implications were frightening to everyday people. What did you think of that bomb we dropped on the japs . It is terrible. All of those people killed. Three days later, another b29 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 factory district, took the lives of 42,000 persons. It destroyed 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 at the heart of japan only after profound consideration of all of the human and military factors. The atomic bombs were dropped to end the war quickly, and they did in the war quickly. Richard frank is 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. Thank you for having me. 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 end the war quickly. Was this the right decision to make and were those bombs the reason for the end of the war . 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 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. The asiapacific war resulted in the death of about 19 million noncombatants. Of that number, a number of japanese noncombatants was maybe 1. 2 million. 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 that 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. That are primarily not japanese. 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 guests. 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. More perspective here. How widespread in 1945 was support for president truman and his decision to use atomic weapons . Has that changed over time . The support for truman in 1945 and 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. One of the things that really 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 in lieu 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, did not make a good choice, he basically was making choices between the astonishingly awful to the horrendously horrific, and he chose what secretary of war stimson would call the least abhorrent choice. This is the anniversary of the nagasaki bombing. August 16 the first one, hiroshima. What was different between those three days and what was the Truman Administration looking at . The destruction and hiroshima, what made them decide to drop a second bomb . There was no specific decision on the second bomb. The authorization order released the people to start dropping bombs and keep dropping bombs. We talk about the two bombs, 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 we 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 fissionable 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. As it happens, that is what the nagasaki bombs dead. Did. 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. How far along with the u. S. At the time of the dropping of the bombs, in its planning for an invasion of japan . Very good question and very different from how 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. What we now 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 aircraft. 7000 troops. Instead of us going in with overwhelming superiority, our salt would be facing 700,000 japanese. We now know a senior naval officer had never wanted to 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. 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. Good morning. I am age 60 and i remember the howard zinn lectures of my college years, of how history is being rewritten so much right now with people with agendas. Im hearing on talk radio that the only reason we bombed progressive talk radio, that is the only reason we bombed japan, because they were not europeans. In other words, they were people of color, which is nonsense because we bombed dresden in germany. That was 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 . 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. The first bomb, a test bomb, was 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 we would not abandon china. Our American People at that time, reading the New York Times had been reading it day by day to the whole world 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. How have japanese textbooks for Young Students portrayed the war . Has that approach changed over the years . That is a complex question. The larger issue, i think, for japan was the. The period of world war ii was an area not forthrightly discussed, still not forthrightly discussed. There is a tendency in japan to 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 once with a representative from the peoples republic of china. The argument was made along the lines of the critical literature. I see him going from bafflement 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 war, according to john dower, they capture between 1. 6 million and 1. 7 million japanese nationals. When the repatriation process is over, they only returned 1. 2 million. So from soviet archival documents about 61,000 are japanese soldiers. Basically 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. We go to rick. He is in phoenix. Good morning. Good morning. Just want to add my voice. Not sure what had been discussed earlier, my father, who barely survived the war in europe, was being prepared to transfer to japan. That would have eliminated my brotherslife after that date. And many other mens lives. It would also have been criminal, when you add everything up here, it would have been criminal for truman not drop that bomb. Not just the rape of nine king, hundreds of thousands of chinese massacred in a horrible way. The russian threat that would have taken japanese territory and greatly complicated the post war era. Theres 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 four. What . Could you address those points that you havent yet. Thank you. Richard frank. Thats an excellent point. On the american side, there was basically an unstable compromise between the army and the navy over a strategy to end the war in unconditional surrender. The army thought the critical issue was time. Therefore, they advocated an invasion because they believed invasion would be the swiftest way to end the war. The navy but studied war with japan for decades and 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, or and this is basically the policy. All the Navy Officers lined up behind it and talked about it as an alternative to the bomb. The blockade was bluntly aimed at aimed at ending the war by starving to death millions of japanese non combatants. And view of the limited powers 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 against japan. That was the direction we were going in august of 1945. By the way, those agents who are not japanese and who are dying every single day, add their deaths on top of the japanese dying. The death tolls for these alternatives, when you actually sit down and contemplate them, are just sickening and mindboggling. We have lynn on the line from west virginia. Hello lynn. Good morning cspan and mr. Frank. On the son of an okinawa veteran who is trained to go to japan in the invasion. Of course, they never had to go because president truman had the common sense to do what he did. For those who criticize truman and the army, im going to tell you what my dad said. But every one of those critics go to the families of american gis who were safe from invading japan from certain death. Tell them the truman did the wrong thing. I know you dont have the guts to do that. Thank you, mister frank for your books. Its very informative. Lynn, glen thank you for calling. Richard frank, has history been fair to president truman regarding his decisions . In my view, no. Let me add another dimension to this. Mr. Truman he famously said he did not lose any sleep over the decision and brace comments like that. If you really go through everything he actually said, in his mind he had a whole area and sort of two compartments. One compartment was, did i make the best decision of what was presented to me . He always believed that if you really understood all the alternatives, he made what secretary stinson called the less aboard choice. As bad as the bombs were and those choices, the alternatives were actually worse. On a personal level, truman was never indifferent to the deaths of japanese that his order had caused. In fact, very shortly after hiroshima, we intercept this message from the Japanese Navy reporting that 100,000 japanese had died and hiroshima. Mr. Truman was clearly reading that because he talks in a Cabinet Meeting or just before it to other government officials. He says, the hiroshima bomb died 100,000 people. All those kids. He has various comments that hes making that it was horrendous. The decision may have been right, but the consequences were horrendous. He recognized it and felt very deeply. Once again, when you deal with people from other asian nations who were trapped in japans empire. Americans are saying, were two bumps necessary . Another common comment is, why only two . From their perspective, the death rate is so in comparable between the japanese and these other people that they find the american struggle over this to be baffling. Mr. Frank, a little more of the history at the end of the war in the pacific in 1945. Hiroshima happens on august 6th. On august 9th, the u. S. Drops the atomic bomb on nagasaki. On the same day, soviets declare war on japan and invade manchuria. Six days later on august 15th, the amber japanese member announces japans unconditional surrender. Walk us through those six days and what happened to get the emperor to the point of surrender. A little context here. Would you basically have to understand is to get japan to surrender theres two steps. Someone with legitimate authority had to decide the japan as a nation state with surrender. Then japans armed forces had to comply with that surrender. Neither one of those steps was certainty through most of 1945. The emperor makes the critical decision. He actually makes it in the afternoon of august 8th 1945 when he talks to the foreign minister and says the warmest and now. This is after hiroshima. This is before soviet intervention. There were other factors that were on his mind including his loss of faith in the strategy to meet the invasion. There was a concern about the japanese people reaching revolutionary state sometime around the fall. These all played into his mind. He announces that decision before the inner circle of leadership in the Early Morning hours of august 10th. We have the diary entry of the number two man in the Imperial Army. He learned from the inferiors emperors decision. I dont think the overseas commander will comply even with an order for the upper. Immediately, two military officers communicate they will not comply with the order for surrender. The first message which is the first serious message about ending the war has this language in it that says that the preconditions that they want is that the prerogatives of the emperor will not be compromised in the surrender. American state Department Officials immediately realize that this is a demand that the u. S. In order to get the japanese to render, make the emperor supreme over the occupation reforms. He has a veto. We send a message back saying the emperor will clearly be subordinate to the occupation commander. That causes more turmoil in japan where that is satisfactory. The emperor persists that the japan should surrender and gets the government to agree. They never would have agreed with the emperor earlier im not sure. And we see a very front period about whether there is a question to get the Japanese Forces to surrender. They are five to 6 million strong. One of the cabinet members later tells american into rare gaiters that the most fraught days that he spent where these four or five days warning about whether the armed forces were going to comply with the embers ordered. Ive described this in another context as a miraculous deliverance. That we actually got the government and the armed forces of japan to surrender in august of 1945. We hear from steve now in fredericksburg, virginia. Good morning steve. Good morning. My father served in world war ii. I would like to ask professor frank if he reached japanese. Second of all, i would like to ask him if he has read the numerous overwhelming number of comments just after the war by japanese generals and admirals. There was not the two Nuclear Attacks on hiroshima and nagasaki, but the entrance of the soviet union into the war. They had invaded manchuria and they were occupying the korean islands which they still occupy to this day. They were threatening hokkaido. The decision to surrender was based on that much more than it was based on the two nuclear tax. Thank you. Thank you steve. Okay. Let me unpack that at several levels. First of all, in terms of the impact of soviet intervention. When the in the early hours of august 10th of 1945, the chief of staff of the Imperial Army tells the emperor and a classic understatement that soviet and intervention is unfortunate, but it does not negate their plan to counter the american invasion. If you go through all of these other statements