American airplane dropped one bomb on hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb has more power than 20,000 tons of tnt. The japanese began the war from the air at pearl harbor. They have been repaid many fold. And the end is not yet. With this bomb, we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction so supplement the growing power of our armed forces in their presence forum these bombs are now in production and even more powerful arms are in development. It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the far east. We are now prepared to destroy more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the japanese have in any city. We shall destroy their docks, theyre factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake, we shall completely destroy japans power to make war. It was to spare the japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of july 26th was issued at potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack, will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware. Ian toll is an author and independent scholar, a pacific war historian and set to release his latest book twilight of the gods, war in the western pacific 1944 to 1944. Welcome to washington journal on this 75th anniversary. Thank you very much. Im glad to be here. We have heard from the former president harry truman after the hiroshima bombing. From your research and study of the war and the bombings in particular, why did harry truman do it . Well, you know, i think the decision to use the bomb was really implicit in the manhattan project. So it was really assuming from the time before the time that truman came to office in april, after the death of fdr, that this weapon, if it worked, that it would be used. And so it may be more accurate to say that there was a nondecision essentially. Truman did not decide to intervene, to stop a project that was very much in train when he came into office. The assumption had been made that if that if we built the bomb and if we had the bomb we would use the bomb to bring the war to an end and i think the perspective that we have now that the atomic bomb, you know, is different, essentially different from convention weapons, that is something that we have with hindsight. For truman and his advisers, in 1945, i dont think that was clear. That the atomic bomb was fundamentally different from conventional bombings and we had already wiped out an enormous percentage of japans urban areas with conventional bombing and incendiary raids so using the atomic bomb did not seem like a sort of a break or a departure from what they had been doing already. It is really with hindsight that we understand that weapon to be something basically different, in a different category. Is it true that harry truman, when he assumed the presidency, after fdrs death, april 12th of 1945, in a harry truman did not know anything about the manhattan project, and, two, how did he learn about it in the space of less than four short months . How did he become confident in his decision to use those weapons . Yes, it is true that he was not briefed on the manhattan project. He been vaguely aware that there was a very large, very secret, very expensive project underway. In the senate, before he was put on the ticket as fdrs Vice President ial candidate in 1944, the most important thing that he had done in the senate, the thing that made his name was that he chaired a committee which investigated corruption and waste in the munition industry. This is called the truman committee. And in his capacity as chairman of that Senate Committee he learned about these enormous plants that were being built in tennessee and in Washington State and he hadd inquired to determine what exactly was happening there. And secretary stimson, Henry Stimson was the secretary of war, essentially went to truman and said were doing something really important and it is very secret and were going to ask you not to inquire any further and truman agreed. So when he very suddenly with fdrs death was elevated to the presidency, he was briefedond stimson and by james burns who was the war mobilization czar who truman appointed as secretary of state. And he was fully briefed within about 24 hours of assuming the presidency on the state of the manhattan prect. It is the 75th anniversary of the bombing of hiroshima. Were talking about it with eye an toll whos brandnew book is coming out in september, twilight of the gods, war in the western pacific, 1944 to 1945. The lines as they were last hour for the eastern and central time zones, and mountain and pacific, 2027488001. For those of you that are world ii vets or family, 2027488002 and ian toll, one of the questions that came up last hour, why didnt the u. S. Do some demonstration of the bomb to show the japanese power instead of actually using it on a city . Yeah, i mean, i think that that is a hard question. In my view, the really hard questions when it comes to the atomic bomb is not so much should we have used the bomb or not. Given the circumstances in the summer of 1945, the urgent need to end the war and quickly without an invasion, i think in those circumstances using the bomb, i think, was defensible. Dropping it on a city is a different question. And i think im in a minority among military historians in feeling and this is a preference that i had, that i would have liked to see it used against a military target. The question of a demonstration has been raised. There are arguments against a demonstration are that number one, it might have backfired. If you would have announced you were going to demonstrate the bomb and it hadnt worked which was a real possibility, that would have doubled japanese determination to resist. I do think there would be a way to demonstrate the bomb. Without running into that problem. Dropping it very high in the atmosphere, off the coast, say of tokyo, off of tokyo bay. It would have made an enormous flash. It would have sent a message to the japanese. I dont think that would have prompted a rapid surrender. So, you know, the reason that you might have done that really is abstract. It is an abstract reason. You do it because in the long run it may be it may enhance the countrys moral standing. I do think that is important. But youve had some callers who have fathers or grandfathers who were in the war, for American Veterans particularly those who would have participated in the invasion of japan, the atomic bomb has never been an abstraction to them. It is something real. It is something that they believed saved their lives and that is belief is something i think we need to acknowledge and respect. And so that is essentially where i come out. Looking back, i would liked to see the bomb used differently, not dropped on a city. The first one dropped on a military target. I think that would have been more defensible in the long run. Was there any military or miltrelated targets in either of those cities . Well, yes. Hiroshima had a really important Regional Military headquarters. The second army was headquartered in hiroshima. Hiroshima had been an army town, really going back to the premagi days, the days of samurai. So there was an important military target in hiroshima. The city was not chosen for that reason, however. None of the four cities on the target list for the atomic bomb, hiroshima, nagasaki, nagata, on the sea of japan and kokur on the island of kyushu and they had not been chosen because of military character and the military installations in those cities were not specified as the aiming points for the bombs. The cities were chosen because they had been relatively unscathed in conventional bombing raids. And the idea was that you wanted to drop the bomb on a city that would have the topography and the conditions that would provide the greatest demonstration to the bombs power. And so yes. No, finish your thought. Yeah, so, it is true that there was, you know, an important army base in hiroshima. Now in the clip that you played from by president truman, upon announcing the first atomic bomb he said we hit an important Japanese Army base. Well hiroshima was a large city, it was the seventh largest city in japan with a base in it. So, i think just from the point of view of looking back with 75 years of perspective, in that situation, you would prefer that the president of the United States look into the eye of the camera and tell the world exactly what we had done without mincing words, without using that circum lokusion. And was that a third bomb ready to be dropped in case the japanese did not surrender . The third bomb would have become available by the end of august. So, on august 6th we hit hiroshima. August 9th we hit nagasaki. We did not have a third bomb at that point. It would have been another two to three weeks. Ian toll is our guest. And your calls are next. And first up is charles in richmond, virginia. Good morning. Caller good morning. It is very interesting when you hear those one thing about why they dropped the bomb because america was so passive against japan. Japan had pulled a sneak attack on pearl harbor. And we didnt even know that the war was it should have been a war declared. But japan didnt do that. And what happened, when the bomb became available, truman didnt know a thing about it. All he knew was you just become president , they didnt really like him. And they put it to him and said, look, this is it. You have this bomb. To me, it was you cant drop an atomic bomb and say, well lets drop it tomorrow, lets drop it next week. They had already planned and everything was planned for the bomb. And it didnt make too much difference what truman had to say because it was in the works and the United States was going to drop that bomb. All right, charles, eian tol, do you think the president had a say in that . Absolutely. The constitution confers powers, virtually Unlimited Power as commanderinchief in wartime. So truman had the power to simply tell his cabinet and his military leaders, you know, we will use the bomb. We wont use the bomb. Were going to use the bomb in the following way. So i dont think there is any question that he had the power to make the decision. I do think it is true, as charles said, that motive of revenge was in the mix there. I think that was i wont say that was the reason that we used the weapon the way that we did, but it certainly did set the context. The sneak attack on pearl harbor and the treatment of prisoners of war, these were all factors that played into the decision to use the atomic bomb and also to burn down japanese cities with incendiary bombing raids. But truman certainly could have simply decided, he wouldnt have had to ask for permission or have his military chiefs or his cabinet take a vote on the question. He could have simply said, were not going to sit a city or we are going to explicitly warn the japanese that we have this weapon. In fact, in his private diary, on july 25th, there is a very strange entry where he said, i have instructed secretary stimson, the secretary of war, to use this weapon against military targets. And not against women and children. And i have already instructed them that well make an explicit warning to the japanese telling them to surrender. That is odd because he didnt give that order. But in his diary he seems to have believed it or perhaps he wanted to, you know, have future historians believe that the whole decision had been made differently. But certainly he had the power. And one of the fascinating counter factual questions is if fdr had lived, how would fdr decided to use the bomb . He certainly wouldnt have been at all he wouldnt have hesitated at all to make his own decision. He was accustomed to doing that. Lets hear from anthony in north creek, new york, on our line for world war ii veterans and families. Caller hi. Good morning. Im calling for my father and his two brothers. My father went into the army in february of 41. He fought in the philippines. He fought in iwo jima and also in okinawa, and then also in the occupation in japan. He came home sometime late in 1946. But we never really found out why he he never really talked about the war until he got older and he was against them dropping the bomb. But then he says if we would have had to fight, fight them and when we had to invade japan, i probably would have never came home. So it was a flip of a coin. If i had to make that decision, i would say, yeah. Brothers were one was in normandy, he was a paratrooper in the 101 and my other uncle was a medic. So those people, from that generation, they fought hard and fought for our country. And when i talk about my father and his brothers, im very proud of them. Because that is something today maybe we wouldnt be able to do. And ion toll, a map from your book on operation olympic, one of the planned invasions of japan, is that figure of a predicted anticipated 1 million u. S. Military casualties fairly accurate in terms of across the board . Is that from your research as well . Well, no. I mean if the question is at the time that were planning operation downfall, operation olympic was the first stage of downfall. That was the invasion of kyushu, at the time that our military leaders were planning that operation, there was never a point at which they were projecting casualties on the order of a million. There has been quite a lot of work done on this by historians and researchers because of how often you hear that kind of figure we might have lost a million or half a million. The answer seems to be that the casualty projections were significantly lower than that. And, you know, it is a disputed point and there were different casualty figures, different ways of thinking about it. But at no point did our military leaders, while planning that operation, at no point did they expect something on the order of a million casualties. The projections were much lower. Maybe as many as 200 total casualties. Now, you know, that doesnt really tell us much about the atomic bomb decision. There is not a you cant say well the casualties would have been lower so we should have invaded. I think invading would have been a disaster. Regardless of what kind of casualties we would have taken. And so avoiding a bloody invasion of japan was absolutely essential. And that is why i think using the atomic bomb was inevitable. As i say using it against a city is a different question. I dont think we should have dropped it on a city. We should have avoided that. I believe. That is just my preference. My belief. But, you know, as the caller mentioned, there are so many people in this country who have fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers, uncles who were veterans of that war and who really believed that their lives were on the line. And that is something that i respect very deeply. It is interesting that the caller said that his i think it was his father, who he said had been in japan with the occupation after the war. Yeah. And that his personal belief would been that we should not have dropped the atomic bomb. One of the interesting phenomenon, when you look at veterans of the pacific war, those in japan after the war, with the occupying forces, they tended to have a much more kind of nuanced view of the japanese. In fact, many of them came to like the japanese generally as a people. And they were more ready to kind of make the distinction between the way Japanese Fighting forces have behaved during the war and the way that the japanese people are in general. There were more willing to make that distinction. Because of the personal exposure they had had to japan and to the japanese in the nation of after the war. Our line for japanese americans is 207488003. On that line in los angeles is scott. Good morning. Caller good morning. Im half japanese and my father was drafted in world war ii. My grandfather was drafted by the Japanese Army and fought in manchuria. I keep seeing every year when they talk about pearl harbor, that america was attacked unprovoked. Which is not true. Truman said on that clip that youve shown and like charles said on the call, that japan bombed pearl harbor unprovoked. That is not true because the flying tigers were flying under secret order of the president and until 1996 when either, i think it was either reagan or clinton acknowledged that the flying tigers were part of the military so they could get the v. A. Benefits and then under military payment through the United States government through the company of shinoat so i keep hearing this japanese unprovoked attack but thats not true. Im not saying that the war wasnt a bad tling because it was a terrible thing of what japan did to china, and parts of russia, to the philippines, to the americans and people who actually ended up fighting with them. It was terrible things that happened. Scott, well get a response from our guest ian toll. Yeah, well, i mean, i think that the account against the japanese for the way they began the war was not so much that it was an unprovoked attack. Yes, fdr did say it was unprovoked in the speech to congress the day following at tack, but there was no formal declaration of war prior to the attack. So the idea of a sneak attack. A surprise attack that reallyin fury ated americans. The attack had been planned undercover of diplomatic we were engaged in negotiations with the japanese government to try to adjust the differences that we had in the pacific and that attack descended on pearl harbor without a declaration of war and so, yeah, i think that played into the particular brutality of the pacific war. Scott didnt say what his father did when he was drafted. But one of the, i think, most interesting stories about the pacific war and little heard is the role of japanese americans who worked as interpretered and language officers and developed propaganda to aim at the japanese and it was an essential role in places like okinawa, the heroism of the japaneseamerican soldiers who went down into the caves and negotiated directly with japanese forces, trying to encourage them to surrender at enormous personal risk. That is one of the Great Stories about the pacific war, that is not as familiar to people. To jean in bowie, maryland, on the line for vets and families. Caller good morning. I was 12 years old when we declared war on the japanese. I was the youngest of five children. My three brothers and a sister were all on active duty in the military. For two reasons, one personal and one family. We loved trumans decision. My two brothers at the time, just before the invasion, my two brothers were in combat, two of them were combat in the navy, one in pd bose and the other on a navy fuel tanker and both had