Transcripts For CSPAN3 Decision To Bomb Hiroshima Nagasaki

Bomb hiroshima and nagasaki is that title of a series of American University institute of Nuclear Studies Institute Press briefings. Up next, for historians who have spent decades studying the topic summarize the findings about then take questions from journalists. The Nuclear Studies institute recorded this zoom event and provided the video. Barbara cochran, Professor Emeritus of the university of Missouri School of journalism, the world first journalism school. Andally i was a journalist news executive at the washington star, npr, bc, and cbs. I wont moderate the discussion today. And ninth, 1945, the United States dropped the only Nuclear Weapons ever used in a war on the japanese cities of hiroshima and nagasaki. 75 years later the debate continues over the decision of president Harry S Truman to use these weapons. The world still echoes with the repercussions of that act. For journalists, the anniversary of major events offer what editors love, a news peg. Anniversaries present the opportunity to commemorate the event for a new generation, to report on new and relevant material from the historic record, to take stock of the impacts of the events, at to look for parallels between those earlier events and issues that we face now. Will75th anniversary surely generate many stories for todays journalists. That is why we are fortunate to have with us today, for historians who have spent decades researching, writing and lecturing about the decision to use the atomic bomb in 1945 and the aftermath. You received their biographies with the program announcement. So i focus on the highlights as i introduce them. Sherwin,ers are martin a professor of history at George Mason University and the author of a world destroyed, hiroshima and its legacies. He is also the coauthor with another of our speakers, kai bird, of american medias, the triumph of J Robert Oppenheimer oppenheimer which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for biography in september, marty will publish gaveling with armageddon, nuclear relet from hiroshima to the cuban missile crisis. Messes kai bird who i just mentioned, the executive director of Cuny Graduate Center levy center for biography. He is coeditor of hiroshimas shadow, and the author of the chairman, John J Mccloy and the making of the american establishment, in addition to coopting the Pulitzer Prizewinning book. Next is garr alper bench was atd academic positions kings college, cambridge, the institute of politics at harvard and the university of maryland. He is the author of two books on todays subject, atomic diplomacy, hiroshima and potsdam, and the decision to use the atomic bomb. He is currently a principal of the democracy collaborative in an independent Research Organization and finally we will hear from peter chris that, professor of history and director of the Nuclear Studies institute at American University. He is coauthor of rethinking the atomic bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki, japanese and american perspectives, and also coauthor with oliver stone, of than york times bestseller, the untold history of the United States. And he is author of the decision to risk the future, harry truman, the atomic bomb, and the apocalyptic narrative. So let me explain the format for our program. Our historians are going to speak first. When they have finished the presentations, we have seasoned journalists who oppose the first round of questions. Then we will who will oppose the first round of questions, then we will open it up to the audience. I will turn it over to our first speaker, martin sherwin. Martin thank you, barbara, for doing this and welcome, everyone. Certainly appreciate your interest. I was asked to provide a framework for our discussion. I will begin with what i think is a question everybody who does research should always ask. How do we know what we know . How do we know what we know . Well, if we are talking about government decisions, we know what the government tells us. Us the bombold prevented an invasion. Later, heand a half asked henry stimson, the secretary of defense who was in charge of the atomic bomb project, to write an article, and reinforce the idea that it was important to drop the bomb in order to save lives. Simpson said that in harpers magazine in february, 1947. Was, there was a choice between using the atomic bomb and invading. That, however, was not true. There were at least two other choices. The Unconditional Surrender doctrine to make it s lifehat the emperor was not in danger. And it stimson admitted that several years later when he wrote in his memoir, on page 629, of on active service in peace and war, it is possible, he wrote, in the light of the final surrender, that a clearer and earlier exposition of american willingness to retain the emperor, could have produced an earlier ending of the war. The other option was the entry of the soviet union and. Why was the entry of the soviet union going to bring the war to an end, as american intelligence confirmed . Because the japanese could not fight a two front war. The japanese were more anticommunist than the americans. The idea of a soviet occupation of japan was their worst nightmare, in addition, it was clear to the japanese, and it was true, that stalin intended to take al qaeda. So the secretary of state james byrnes made clear in an interview in 1965 intended to take hokkaido. James byrne the secretary of state may declare in an interview in 19 625 that that confirms the drop before the soviets came and he said quote. It was ever present in my mind that it was important to have an end to the war before the russians came in. All of this information has been available for 50 years. It is important to think about evidence, and why the bomb was dropped. Thank you. Marty, you have a document you wanted to show. Do you want to . Martin i think we will do that later. Barbara ok, thank you. Now we will turn to kai byrd. Kai thank you. I want to begin by asking the question about why we cannot have a National Conversation about the atomic bomb, when the country is at a point where we are having very controversial conversations about race and the and of women in our society all sorts of really tough issues but we cannot seem to confront this issue, it is verboten. We are still in love with the bomb. Me as austrating to historian that we are now having this kind of a conversation 25 years after the smithsonian controversy where the smithsonian museum, our National Museum, was compelled to censor itself under pressure, political pressure, from the American Legion, from the air force association, from congress. And they canceled a 10,000 squarefoot exhibit. That had all sorts of complicated history from both sides and grappled with some of the evidence that, for instance marty was referring to. But we are still there. We are still hearing in the a new books being published, people endorsing what is in effect the official narrative that was put out there 75 years ago. Ive never 25 years ago during the smithsonian, when the exhibit was canceled, the day the final exhibit opened, the enola gay plane. I published an oped in the Washington Post. Critiquing the exhibit and what had happened to it. Entire letterse page of the Washington Post was devoted to letters attacking it. On what . The issue was, i had sent we dropped the bomb without a warning to the japanese. All these veterans of world war ii piled on and said there were leaflets dropped and they were right, there were leaflets dropped, the day after the bombing of hiroshima. The day after nagasaki. And yet, you know, the mythology seems to be so immovable, you cannot debunk it enough. For example we recently heard in books,ss and in various the notion that a million american lives were saved. That is not true. This figure was never given to truman. About byver bandied the war secretary stimson. , when i did my biography of bundy, i asked about this because he was the ghost writer for stimson of the harpers article that first used that term, that figure and i said where did you get it . And he sheepishly said, well the warner there were no documents. I looked to see if there were any estimates giving us an estimate of how Many American lives would have been lost if we had gone forward with an upasion and so i just picked the million casualty figure because it was a nice round figure. He pulled it out of thin air. Another story. I wrote a biography of john mccoy which came out in 1992. Theres a chapter about hiroshima and at one point mccloy, i described critical meeting on june 18, in which truman, stimson, i believe general marshall was there. All the major decisionmakers, trying to discuss whether they should give the green light to the planned invasion, which was not going to take place for months and months if not maybe a year it was going to take that long to marshal the forces for a major invasion. Atally at the end i describe the end of this meeting, truman turns to mccloy and says jack, you have not spoken up. What are your thoughts about all this . And mccloy bluntly, he was a blunt speaking commonsensical fellow at times and he says, i think we ought to have our heads examined, if we do not realize there are alternatives to what youre describing. Contemplating a full invasion. Changing,ferred to modifying the terms of some surrender but to make it clear we were not intending to hang the emperor, that we were going to have a Constitutional Monarchy put in place. , it is clear from intelligence that the japanese are on the verge of surrendering. How did he know this . Well, he was reading the magic cables, our intercepts of japanese diplomatic cable traffic. And so was truman. Truman we now know, in his own diary, refers to one of these magic cables, as the cable from emporor, asking for peace, two weeks or more before the bomb was used. They all knew that there were options. They all knew that the japanese were on the verge of surrender. Facts,istorical these pieces of evidence, have an out there for decades now. Gar wrote about them in 19 625 in his first book, and at Great Lengths in his 1995 book, the decision. And yet, here we are, we historians know this and yet most American People, if you ask them on the sidewalk about this issue, they regurgitate the official wisdom. It is very frustrating. Gar let me begin to take up kai stopped. One way to begin the context of the story is to notice that virtually every top military leader of the time, some of the joint chiefs of staff, all of the joint chiefs of staff, the heads of the air force, army, etc. , etc. , and i can give you the full listing and we will have that posted, went public after the war. Almost immediately after the war, saying that the bomb was totally unnecessary. This is truman that had just made the decision. The bomb was totally unnecessary, and the war what is been over in a couple of weeks. Or they said it later. The documentation is available in many places but it is available in my book, the decision to use the atomic bomb. Heres admiral lakey, the president s chief of staff, he presided over the joint chiefs of staff meeting and over the combined chiefs of staff meeting, quote, the use of this barbarous weapon, and he is a good friend of trumans. Barbarous use of this weapon at hiroshima and nagasaki, was of no material assistance in our war against japan. The japanese were already defeated and ready to do surrender. It,being the first to use we adopted an ethical standard, to the barbarians of the dark age. I was not taught to make war in that fashion. Words cannot be won by destroying women at children. That last line is important. Most of the young men and service were away from hiroshima, so that meant you had old folks, young people, and not many young men, women and children. He said i was not taught to make war, this is the chairman of the u. S. Joint chiefs of staff and the combined british u. K. Chief of staff. Heres another one and i will not go on, there are 40 i published in, the decision to use the atomic bomb. The famous hawk who commanded the 21st bomber command, curtis lemay, declared flatly at a press conference, the atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all. The war would have been over in two weeks without the russians entering, without the atomic bomb. Speaking publicly, critiquing president truman. And here is general to dwight d. Eisenhower. It was not necessary to hit them with that awful thing. So, on and on and on, barbara i think can post 40 b statements by virtually every Major Military leader at the time. That is not definitive proof. But it opens the door to series questions of all the military leaders in the u. S. Government, or most of them, they the thing was unnecessary and we should not have used it. The problem is you have a situation for historians, that the decisionmaking was highly concentrated, in 1945. The president of the United States was basically being advised by his very, very close friend, and a very complex washington figure named james f burns, became secretary of state at that time. Do nots view and we have records of this, they were private discussions, we have indication, bits and pieces. About how the targeting was done. But the actual decisionmaking was with burns and truman. What we know about burns attitude is he saw the atomic on dutch bomb as what he saw as major leverage against the russians and diplomatic matters and he thought maybe we could end the war early so the russians cannot get far into manchuria. Another comment we have from scientists who met with him was it was to make the russians more manageable. This would be, truman called a hammer he had over these guys. The secretary for, stimson, said this is the mastercard of diplomacy against the russians, not of the war. So we have a lot of indirect evidence, and to be clear that is indirect evidence. We do not have minutes, there are no minutes of key meetings between truman and burns. We have the simpson diary from burns. But there is mounting evidence, one, they knew the war could be ended without an invasion. I think that is very welldocumented and we can go into that evidence. That it is simply not true. We also have strong evidence, all the intelligence evidence on when thets, the russians entered and they had been asked to enter bias, it was likely to end shortly as long as they can keep the emperor. Then why did they do it . The indications were strongly it was to try to end the war before the russians got too far into manchuria, a diplomatic consideration. For the secretary of state and truman, i will have a hammer on those boys, speaking about the russians, diplomatic considerations about what to do about europe in the post yalta discussions at pottstown in 1945 in 1945 just before the bomb was used. One thing that is not complex is what the military said about it, they knew the bomb was unnecessary. The japanese were already defeated. And if they were told they could keep their emperor, the war would be over. That was the u. S. Intelligence position from april, 1945. When the russians come in, tell them they can keep the emperor. The war will stop. Not even the first landing could begin until november. The invasion itself was set for spring, 1946. We know that was what they understood at the time. Yet they want to head with the bombing, without assurances for the emperor. One last point. The proclamation issued at the joint conference, at potsdam, potsdamk. , ussr, the proclamation, warning japan to surrender, including very important paragraph, saying, you can keep your emperor. And the osama he wants the emperor because and the u. S. Army wants the emperor because it allows them to control japan using his power his power. Essential to the japanese, the emperor was guarded as a god, that paragraph got removed, making all but impossible for the japanese to surrender, so the japanese the bombing went forward on august 6, august 9, without this explicit insurance assurance, which intelligence had made clear, along with all the intelligence intercepted messages. So that is one of the devil and painful things about this decision one of the difficult and painful things about this decision. That had a lot to do is to clemency, with diplomacy and probably less to do with the war. Barbara now for air cleanup hitter, peter cosmic. Kusnik. Reinforce points my colleagues have been making. First peter first, the joint intelligence staff reported april 11, if in any time the ussr should enter the war, all japanese will realize that absolute defeat is inevitable. They had repeated that on subsequent occasions, including on july 6. Gar made the point about all of the military leaders. In 1945, United States had a five star admirals and generals. On recordhe eight are saying that the atomic bombs were either militarily unnecessary, morally reprehensible, or both. The eighth, general marshall, said the soviet invasion would likely leverage the japanese into surrendering. So, as far as saying the military opinion was clear. Was income as gar of the military opinion was clear. In order was issued to military commanders in the field not to make public, its about the atomic bomb. He said id about it do not want macarthur and others to say the war could be one without the use of atomic bombs. What about harry truman what did harry truman know . President , became Vice President for 82 days before roosevelt died. During those 82 days he spoke to roosevelt twice, got nothing of substance. People had very low regard for harry truman. In fact he did not even know we were building an atomic bomb, until after he got sworn in, on the evening of april 12. But truman did understand a lot about what was happening. Pottstownd he want to potsdam to make sure the soviets were coming in and had lunch with stalin july 17. Afterwards he wrote in his diary, stalin will be in the pity japsy august 17, when that occurs. He wrote home to his wife best, areess, the russians coming at and we will end t