The institute was born in the midst of the controversy around gayin only enola exhibit, which was going to be held at the air and space museum at the Smithsonian Institution but it got canceled. This was an attempt by the smithsonian to do an honest and balanced exhibit about the decision to drop the bomb and the consequences of the atomic bombing. This was in 1995, the 50th anniversary. In the midst of that, i decided with one of my students whose grandmother and mother survived the atomic bombing, her grandfather and father died in the atomic calming, they were atomic bombing, they were going to do Something Special to commemorate the 50th anniversary. We are going to teach two courses on campus and bring students to kyoto and hiroshima. While we were planning, the exhibit got canceled. So the victims of hiroshima and nagasaki asked us to bring some artifacts to American University and do in exhibit an exhibit here on the 50th anniversary. It was the first time the hiroshimanagasaki a bomb museums ever did in exhibit outside of japan. This is the 20th anniversary now of our exhibit, and the 70th anniversary of the original bombing, so we decided to do it again here at American University. We combined artifacts from hiroshima and nagasaki with 15 hiroshima panels. These are historic panels, and they can be compared to the rape of the sabine women or other classic paintings of that sort. This is the first time to have been to the United States anywhere since 1995. So now we brought them here and put them together with these artifacts. With childrens drawings from an Elementary School in hiroshima. I will explain later. That is the origin of our exhibit in 1995. Now, 20 years later, weve got a more elaborate exhibit. I am pretty sure it is the most elaborate exhibit of the atomic bombing that has ever been held in the United States. It is overwhelming. I cannot tell you how many people have written to me who say they have seen it and say that it left them in two in tears. This is one of the most famous images out of nagasaki. This is a young girl. She is holding a rice ball a rescue party has given her. There is blood on her face, she has such a look in her eyes such a forlorn distant gaze, like so many other people, she did not know what happened to her. She did not know what occurred. Some people who lived to the through the bombing said they were sure the bomb have landed on their house, and they figured that is what had happened. They went outside and they saw that all of nagasaki was ablaze and the fires were coming toward them. Youll see one of the panels called fire, what it was like for the survivors who were engulfed in flames. Next to this we have a crucifix and there are a lot of crucifixes that are considerably symbolic, especially at nagasaki. Because in nagasaki, the bomb missed the original target by almost 2 miles and landed above kami cathedral. Nagasaki had not been bombed before this. There was a small bombing in 1934, but it was preserved in pristine condition, because the americans wanted to have a pristine target to show the effects of the atomic bomb. So they had not been bob is not bombed nagasaki. People in nagasaki thought they had not been bombed because it was the christian capital of japan antichristian capital of east asia. So they were in for a big surprise. The bomb dropped right above the cathedral, the biggest cathedral in east asia. You can also see the stopwatch there, a pocket watch showing 8 15. That is a very popular image inside hiroshima. The bomb dropped at 8 15 a. M. In hiroshima. , clocksstopped there stopped, watches stopped, and it dropped at 11 02 in nagasaki. When we did our first exhibit in 1995, many of those that are now replicas were the original artifacts. But many of them were so fragile that the museum decided not to let them outside of japan anymore. For that reason, some of these we have got our the replicas are the replicas instead of the originals. Almost everything is the original artifacts. What weve got here are the famous Mushroom Clouds, photograph of the Mushroom Cloud in hiroshima on august 6, 1945, and nagasaki on august 9, 1945. The description of them, especially from people that were ne, 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 and they just keep going up. Estimates are 40,000 feet into the sky. Enormous. The crew of the enola gay said that they could see the cloud from four hours away. They could still see the cloud looking back, it was so high. There was a lot of radioactive debris that was swept up in the cloud. Some of that comes down as black rain on the victims of the bombing. Here, we have got the view of hiroshima city. So the target for the bomb was here, the tshaped bridge. They thought the pilots would be able to see that very, very clearly from the sky. The bomb drifted and it missed the target and landed over here above shima hospital. This is probably the most famous symbol. This is the Old Industrial prefecture building, now called the atomic bomb dome. And this has been preserved. There was some debate years ago whether to preserve it. If you go back now, this has all been built up. So this part here and here have been preserved as a peace park. You can see that everything is devastated. They estimated that almost two miles in each direction was totally destroyed. If you were two miles away, you would be badly burned. Your house could have been destroyed. And you have to remember that this was, by modern standards, a tiny, primitive little bomb. The bomb that dropped on hiroshima we estimate now to have been 16 kilotons of destructive capability. The bomb that dropped on nagasaki we estimate was 21 to 22 kilotons of destructive capability. Weve developed bombs that are so much bigger. By 1954, we were Holding Congressional hearings in project sundial, in which scientific leaders were laying out plans to build a bomb 700,000 times as powerful as the hiroshima bomb. It seems insane, but this is the future they were holding out, and this is what we kn ew and walked into with our eyes wide open. This is what this little bomb did at hiroshima. Lets take a look at what the bomb did at nagasaki. This bomb was a little bit bigger, but the casualties were actually smaller. Because nagasaki was surrounded by mountains on both sides. So the effect of bomb was contained, the effect of the blast was contained by the mountains. Nagasaki was in the valley in between the mountains. So the nagasaki bomb, 22 kilotons, the hiroshima bomb, estimates are 150,000 dead by the end of 1945, 200,000 dead by 1950. The estimates for nagasaki are 70,000 dead by the end of 1945. 140,000 dead by 1950. Hiroshima bomb was a uranium bomb, and the nagasaki bomb was a plutonian bomb. So they were different kinds of bombs. Now 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. Weve got the hat of a Junior High School student who was killed. Weve got the water bottle of another young boy, 13yearold who was killed when the bomb exploded. But here, weve got one of the replicas. And it is a replica of the lunchbox from that 12yearold girl who totally disappeared. No trace was ever found of her. Inside, youve got carbonized and her mother was able to identify that as her, even though they could not find a trace of her daughter. Back in 1995, a few of us suggested that if they wanted to cancel the big enola gay visit, exhibit and they wanted to limit it, they should show two artifacts. One was the enormous plane, the enola gay and this lunchbox. We thought that that would send the message about what the atomic bombs were really about. Of course that was the last thing in the world that they were ever going to display. They wanted none of the artifacts about the victims, the photographs of the victims, the statements by American Military leaders condemning the bombing. They did not want that controversy. Here was a more historical panel. As a historian, i would like a whole exhibit about the context about the decision to drop the bomb. It would have made a more boring exhibit, probably, but this has some of the Important Information about the Manhattan Project that we started to build a bomb as a deterrent against the possibility that the germans would get a bomb. The american immigrant scientists were terrified at the prospect of hitler getting a tomic bombs. So they built the bomb as a deterrent against germany. They did not anticipate the bomb might be used against japan. Because everyone knew that japan did not have the industrial or scientific capability of building a bomb during the war. This is a survey of the bombing targets. These are potential targets. But you have to remember that the United States had been firebombing japanese cities since the night of march 9 10, when we firebombed tokyo. By the end of the war, three quarters of our bombs were incendiary. Overall, we bombed over 100 japanese cities. When we ran out of important major cities, we started bombing the secondary cities that had no military significance. The distraction reached 99. 5 of the city. Some of the american leaders were appalled. Secretary of war stimpson said to president truman, i do not want the United States to get the representation for outdoing hitler in atrocities. Another top general described this as one of the most ruthless and barbaric killing of noncombatants in all history. But that was policy, to target and burn down the cities, to kill civilians. This is about the decision to drop the bomb. Weve got a section here about the reasons for using the bomb. The official narrative says the United States dropped the bomb in order to expedite the end of the war without having to invade, and truman said an American Invasion would cost a half million lives. The number keeps going up. Truman says it could have saved tens of thousands of lives and a quarter of a million lives, almost a half million lives 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. That we dropped the bomb to avoid an invasion. That the bomb ended the war in the pacific. There is no truth to that. Maybe a little truth to that in terms of trumans mind, but no basic truth to that. The reality was, the japanese from the battle of saipan in knew they44 onward could not win, but they hoped to get one more victory for better surrender terms. The big obstacle was the emperor. They wanted to make sure they could keep the emperor. Macarthurs southwest Pacific Command issued a background report, a briefing in the summer of 1945 that said the hanging of the emperor to them would be like the crucifixion of christ to us. All would fight to die like ants. So that was what macarthur understood. And almost every advisor of trumans urged him to change the surrender terms. Let the japanese know they can keep the emperor. And that was in americas interest. America planned all along to let them keep the emperor, but we didnt want we refused to signal that. We were calling for unconditional surrender. So then what else was going to possibly end the war . At yalta in february of 1945, roosevelt finally got a promise from stalin that three months after the end of the war in europe, that the big massive red army was going to come to the war against japan. Truman said he went to potsdam in july to meet with churchill and stalin to make sure the soviets were coming in. He gets the agreement from the soviets the first day of the conference and he writes in his journal that night, stalin will be in the japanese war by august 15. He writes home to his wife the next day and says the russians are coming in, the war will end a year sooner now. Think of all the boys who will not be killed. Truman also knew the japanese were trying to surrender. He described the intercepted july 18 telegram as the telegram from the japanese emperor asking for peace. We knew that. They all knew the japanese are finished. And american intelligence reported repeatedly that the entry of the soviet union into the war will convince all japanese that complete defeat is inevitable. It will lead to the end of the war. So the question is, the confusing thing is why truman, who is not bloodthirsty, he is not a hitler, he did not take pleasure in killing people, why did truman use the atomic bomb knowing that the japanese were defeated in trying to surrender, 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. That if the soviets interfered with american plans in europe or in asia, then this is the fate that they were going to get. The astounding thing is that the soviets interpreted it that way. As a physicist said, suddenly, the day of judgment was tomorrow and has been ever since. And that is the reality we have been confronted with. That is what makes the atomic bombing so important, not just that hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children were killed unnecessarily. But the fact that the human species has lived with the sword of damocles hanging over our heads ever since. And still today. We still have 16,300 Nuclear Weapons in the world. Weve had this conflict with the russians over ukraine. U. S. And russia still have thousands of Nuclear Weapons on hair trigger alert pointed at each other. So 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. But only one is known to have taken any photos. And thats a photographer with hiroshimas newspaper. And he had enough film to take 24 photos, but he said it was too horrible. So he ended up taking seven photos and developed, and five of them had been preserved. And he was very respectful. He did not want to show closeups, he did not want to show horrible burns or horrible suffering. But he showed the people at the relief stations who escaped from the fire downtown. You can see some of the fire in the background, the destruction everywhere. This was 1. 5 miles from the hypo center. The photographer says it was like walking through hell. He says we could not take photos, it was just too horrific and too intrusive on peoples privacy and their suffering. No medical supplies. Almost all of the doctors were killed. The hospitals were destroyed, the nurses were killed. And so what you see here are just people in these relief stations. There was no medicine, there was nothing to treat them. They sometimes put oil on the burns to try to help. Within days, people were reporting maggots coming out of the wounds. It was just awful there. A shot from nagasaki, people lying there dying on the clothes on the ground, on the mattresses. A woman breastfeeding her baby. There were lots of stories about women carrying around dead babies on their backs. Trying to nurse their dead babies. You have also these images of the charred corpses of some of the victims. And what they said is that people who were near the hyper center, their internal organs boiled away and they quickly turned into charcoal and became carbonized. You just see the bodies, clothes burned off the bodies. Lying there, the charred corpses. Some of the people who wore their kimonos would have the patterns burned into their skin. The shadow of somebody, completely disappeared. I am pretty sure that is the steps of a bank on hiroshima. He was sitting there. Ive got one friend in nagasaki who speaks to our group. And he survived, obviously. And he writes down the names of all of his family members and how far they were. And not a single one was affected by the bomb, was scarred by the bomb, was injured , wounded, or burned by the bomb. He has their names and how far away they were from the center. One by one, he crosses them out. This is over the next couple weeks. One by one would die of radiation poisoning. You would get these purple spots all over your body, you get terrible diarrhea, your hair would start to fall out. You would become sick. I know of cases, many cases in which family members or friends came into hiroshima after the bombing looking for relatives or friends and would come in several days after, and they would die of radiation sickness. Some experts say the effects of radiation were gone very quickly. Theres a lot of evidence to suggest that that was not the case. This is the shima hospital. It was above the shima hospital that the bomb actually detonated when it missed its original target. This is the Elementary School in nagasaki. In the Elementary School, almost all the teachers and students were killed. It is only. 3 of a mile from the center. But i take my students there now every year on the morning of august 9, prior to the official nagasaki ceremony, we go to a private ceremony at the Elementary School. All the children who now attend the Elementary School come there and have this special peace commemoration ceremony, a very moving ceremony with this school filled with Elementary School students. You realize that is who the victims of the atomic bomb were. After the war, congregants of all souls church, Unitarian Church here in washington, d. C. , sent art supplies to students at the Elementary School in hiroshima. And the students there used the art supplies at a time when there were very little supplies of any sort in hiroshima or nagasaki after the bombing. You see so many reports of students living as street urchins, basically. They were orphaned. They did not have shelter. They had put up these makeshift shelters that they lived in. The fact of just getting art supplies was a huge thing for these kids. And so in gratitude, they sent back drawings and paintings to the congregation at all souls church. I understand that these were lost for a long time and then rediscovered. Now the members of the church, some of them went back to hiroshima recently and met with some of the kids. There is a nice book and documentary made by my friend about this. [speaking japanese] mr.