Set this up . Let them decide or let you decide. Well let the audience decide. Listen closely now. The decision is which man was the indispensable man of the Manhattan Project . Take it away. I guess ill start. Thats part of the title of my book actually. Ill just speak about two aspects of general groves. As you may or may not know, he grew up in the army. His father was an army chaplain. He was determined to go to west point and he graduated fourth in his class. At the time the automatic choice of anyone who was at the head of their classes at west point joined the corps of engineers. He graduated on november 1st 1918. War was over but 11 days later november 11th 1918, and hes now an engineer in a Peacetime Army and very slow to move through the ranks. And in the run up to world war ii after he served in various places around the United States, been getting bigger and bigger projects and getting good efficiency reports he is part of the Construction Division of the army corps of engineers, which is building all of the camps, the ordinance plans and erg for the run up to world war ii. So by the time theres pearl harbor. This infrastructure is much in place. He had a Million People working for him as head of army mobilization. Before he got. The job of building the bomb. And you may not know it but he wasnt the first choice. The first choice was a guy named james marshal, also west point and corps of engineers. He was chosen in the summer of 1942. And who was in this building, was unhappy with that choice. He wasnt moving very fast and he went to the army and he said to general marshal and another guy named brian summerville, we have to move faster on that bomb. So they said, okay, well give you or our best man and that turned out to be groves, who from day one put his foot on the accelerator and never let up. There are four other people here, so just a couple more minutes. If theres any secret to who he was and why i think the Manhattan Project was such a success, i think it has to be the corps of engineers. This is an amazing institution that i knew nothing about, es especially working at the Natural Resources defense council. But i tried to immerse myself as much as i could in sort of who these people were. This tiny, tiny, tiny group in at the time, a small army and even when it was a large army they still remained a small group, in the United States its almost unique. The french do a little bit, but we have combat engineers, which is all armies have engineers but we also have a civilian function for them and they build big, big things. You want the panama canal, heres the panama canal. Groves is a perfect specimen out of the culture of this place. And he in september 17th, 1942 testifying not far from here up on capitol hill and wants to go. Overseas and be a combat engineer. They are staging for operation torch, the invasion of north africa and basically his boss comes up to him and says aoife job for you. He says not that thing. Not that thing. I dont want that. Because he had been in the Engineers Office overseeing marshal at get. Ing things done on the bomb project, which is already underway. So from day one, groves puts his foot on the accelerator and never lets up and in a thousand days, as alex told us, speed was everything. The name of my book is racing for the bomb. The element of speed was always there from the outset. One other quick thing about groves and his indispense blt. Not only was he a pure product of the core of engineers which is part of the secret of the whole thing was his measure of people. He could spot somebody and know almost automatically whether or not this person was qualified to do a job or not. The best example of that is Robert Oppenheimer. They first met on october 8th 1942, less than a month after groves got the job and hes visiting all the laboratories and he meets Robert Oppenheimer in california on the berkley campus at a luncheon given by the president and oppenheimer had already been really part of the bomb program after Gregory Bright resigned oppenheimer was given the responsibility of research on neutrons. So he has a conference in california with his, what do you call shs the galaxy of luminaries and they discuss where are we in the bomb project. So im sure that the conversation that he had with groves was music to groves ears. He wanted to move fast, he wanted an isolated place where work could be done. These are just things that groves wanted to hear and he chose him, this is my man. His background was a little shady. Hes left us leanings, communists, none of that phased groves and he stuck with oppenheimer through thick and thin and put his foot down and said this is the person who is going to lead when others said he couldnt run a hamburger stand. That was how they viewed oppenheimer. So groves part of his indispense blt, and ill end here was his ability to size somebody up again and again he did it. Oppenheimer is just the best example of this, but he did it a dozen times with qualified people that e e he sent out, gave them responsibilities and they did the job and got the bomb built. So ill pass on the baton to ky bird. Well, obviously, stan has proven that groves was the indispensable man. Because he could because he was oppenheimer. Because he picked oppenheimer for the Manhattan Project and it was a most unlikely choice because oppenheimer had a vast experience in management meaning he had managed about 12 graduate students previously and thats about it. But he was charismatic. And very briefly i want to steal an anecdote from bob carter, who is sitting here in the front row whom i interviewed this morning. Hes a veteran of los alamos and he told e me the following anecdote which illustrates freshly our view of oppenheimer. And bob tells the following story. Soon after he arrived, he went to the post office and received a letter in the mailbox from his mother. And hes standing there in the post office. He opens the letter and whole words and phrases and sentences are cut out of the letter. Physically cut out. He holds up this letter full of holes and show it is to his friend standing there and his friend grab it is and says this is an outrage. We have to report this to him right away. They run over to oppenheimers office barged past his secretary and confront oppenheimer, who looks at this letter and grabs his hat, i assume the pork pie hat, and grabs these two young men who are all of 23, 24 and he takes them over to see some major or lieutenant kernel, head of security and oppenheimer is apparently visibly angry and he shows him this holey letter and says this is an outrage. This is a violation of our agreement on security. You cannot sensor incoming letters. Presumably outgoing letters. And he not only shouts at him about this, he says i want you to retrieve the missing pieces. I mean i was delighted to hear this story from bob carter this morning. It illustrates oppenheimers charismatic leadership qualities. It illustrates why oppenheimer could motivate people to work r for him long hours and it also illustrates his relationship with the other indispensable man, general groves because they were constantly battling over security and oppenheimer would often stand his ground. I think he thereby became the ultimately the indispensable man. And got. The bomb built in two and a half years, which was by all accounts a miracle. I now turn it over to marti sherwin, my more experienced and much more deeply knowledgeable scholar about oppenheimer. Yeah sure. The first thing i want to say is that stan is right. Oppenheimer could not have run a hamburger stand. It wouldnt have interested him. And i think thats one of the keys to understanding why oppenheimer who had no serious administrative experience before coming to los alamos was able to be such a successful leader. It interested him. If you look back at oppenheimers life which obviously we didnt do enough of because we didnt know this great story. But we got an x for research here. If you look back at oppenheimers life youll notice from the point of grade school he always had to be the best at things that interested him. And he was. And i think thats keet toy to understanding why he was such an infective leader. Infect effective leader. He was incredibly smart. He had all the information about what was going on in the Theoretical Division in his head. He knew what was going on in the machine shop. He knew peoples names. He devoted himself completely to the project. I think he lost 50 pounds from maximum weight of about 150 down to almost 110 pounds or whatever it was. He was just consumed by making sure this thing got done as quickly as possible. And the other thing about him is that he was a perfect partner for general groves. They both had the same goal and they worked extremely, extremely well together. Every physicist i interviewed who was at los alamos has said to me that if it was not for oppenheimer being the director, the bomb never would have been completed in august of 1945. Well, that was a source of great pride for him on the one hand. And it became a source of great sorrow for him on the other hand. Because he learned after the war, contrary to the thing thez said here that the bomb was not necessary to end the war. That the war would have been over at the same time because thats when the soviets entered the war. It was the entry of the soviet union into the war that brought the japanese to surrender not the atomic bombs. But thats a long and long argument that will go on forever, i think. I just want to quote something that oppenheimer said that i think is the great legacy of los alamos. You know when he came back on november 16th 1945 so receive certificate and award he said in his very brief remarks this is part of them, if atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of the warring world, or to the arsenals of the nations preparing for war, then the time will come when man kind will curse the man names of los alamos and hiroshima. But people of this world must unite or they will perish. This war that has ravaged so much of the earth has written these words. And i submit to you in terms of the argument that Nuclear Weapons have been good because they have been a deterent that it is not Nuclear Weapons that prevented world war iii. It is world war ii. 20 million dead russians was enough for russia. The destruction of germany was enough for the germans. There would not have been a third world war in Nuclear Weapons were never invent order had never been used. And now charlie. Wow. How do i follow that . Marty, great quote. At the time before i knew that this was a debate between the independencible man oppenheimer which i never would have agreed to, i thought i was going to have to write a speech. I have that wrote in there about los alamos and then i crossed it out. Im glad you brought it up. So i guess two quick thoughts after hearing the talk. One is i want to throwin a word for general groves. One of the things i did is read a book by general groves. I think its groves himself not norris it was really good. And it was hundreds and hundreds of pages detailing the effort to you know the whole Manhattan Project. And as usual when i get a book, i scan through and look for oppenheimer and say where is my grandfather . And i think it was mentioned once or twice. And you really got you got a scope of how big a project it was. It was enormous. Are you saying that groves didnt think that oppenheimer was the indispensable man . I submit that you to yes. So i want to put and also my dad, he is not liberal with things to say. He has really nice things to say about groves. His eyes and his smile and he has really warm words about general groves which i was impressed with. Thats one of the things. But keeping this debate going, how about science as the independencible man . There is another oppenheimer quote about the great things in science where theyre not made because a man chose to. I dont have the exact words, but because theyre inevitable. That is certainly the situation there. So, yeah there was a thing with open oppenheimer that people like to still talk about. You can imagine the project going that way. Im not prepared to do this. I meant to sit up in the last row and just be a stranger to all of this. But i was born in 1946. And came to live with my grandparents here in washington when i was about 3 months old, waiting with my mother until we could go to germany to join my father who was in the corps of engineers. And so my grand i was the first grandchild. And i think i have a very high status. And i was very, very close to him. I was 24 when he died. I saw a great deal of him as a grandfather. And so addressing the issue the title of this debate, i would say that i would call it a tie. I always whenever you see the photos of famous photos, ive been out to los alamos the statues are there together. And i would call it a tie. Obviously i dont think it could have happened with the speed and the organization without both men. So my grandfather was a wonderful grandfather. He was very strict. He had an opinion on everything. And he thought he was an expert on fashion, romance. He was terribly worried i wasnt marry by the age of 22 and was always trying to think of somebody that he could fix me up with of course in the army who would be the perfect husband. He was we were very very close. And i actually saw i had lunch with him the day before he passed away. And so i miss him terribly. And i just dont know what else to say. Im not an expert on what he did during the war. But as a grandfather he was tops. If i could jump in, how could groves and oppenheim ver gotten along at all . They were complete opposites as far as i can see. They were different personalities. Well, i think it had to do with ambition and a common goal. And that each saw in the other the realization of what they were trying to do. I use the phrase each saw in the other their route to immortality. Anything oppenheimer wanted he would ask groves and groves would get it for him. Any person in the world any amount of money, any instrument, anything. And groves had put great stock in oppenheimers ability. And so i think his qualities in him and charismatic leadership came out and was a brilliant director at los alamos. So, you know, they were joined at the hip even though they were quite different backgrounds and they had this common purpose and i think thats part of groves secret here. He was able to entwine himself with other people and choose people who could get things done and saw in him they could get something from them. Oh, you mean the scientific director of los alamos. The question was, who else were on the short list or long list for being scientific director of los alamos . Well practically every physicist who ran a lab. You know lawrence compton. And so on. And the story as we came to understand it was that every time groves would talk to these other people who are very experienced administrators, he had the sense that there was kind of a organization in their minds and they didnt know how to go right to the heart of the problem. And oppenheimer wanted the job. And again when oppenheimer wanted something he was generally able to figure out how to get it. And when he talked to groves he impressed groves with the idea that this guy knows how to get this job done. And eventually that was true. But you know, at the beginning we tell the story when los alamos was first organized, oppenheimer said well you know we got 20 really smart physicists. Its like the psychics department and get this thing done. He had no conception of how to do it. And Robert Wilson who was an experimental physicist and much younger but did have a very good organizational sense, you know, would go to him and say we need a flow chart or Organization Chart who reports to oppenheimer. What you are talking about . We know each other. We report to each other everybody. But finally things got so out of control in these early months that oppenheimer realized he had better reset his orientation. And he did. And from that point on thinged got organized in a way that they had to be organized because he picked people to do it and he understood what had to be done. Marty said that opp itch chose groves. Its not the other way. Okay. I want to Say Something about groves also. I have to say, i was incredibly impressed reading about the oppenheimer hearings and how loyal groves was to supporting oppenheimer during those very dark very dark days. In the end, he was forced to Say Something that lewis straws and the fbi were pressuring him to say that in effect he wouldnt be able to choose oppenheimer under the current security regulations as opposed to what was going on before. But he was trying to stick with oppenheimer all the way. And that really showed character. In addition to being a fashion person, he was a good friend. He was loyal. Questioner. Why did you select the question of who was more important, oppenheimer or groves . Good question. Cindy did that. I think just to provoke controversy among i dont think it was more important. The question was independencible. I think there are people that are. [ inaudible ] as not independenceable butispensable put achieving the goal of it. And those four people are Groves Groves secretary of war Bernie Nichols and oppenheimer. And if you look at the way money was spent as indicative of the problems problems 85 went to the engineering district. That was nichols. Personally i think groves was head and shoulders above anyone else as far as achieving the goal. He was in charge of everybody else. And everybody else knew that. And im not saying this because he was no great joy for the sed. But nichols seems to be a forgotten man. I havent heard his name mentioned at this event. And he was responsible for the fuel in [ inaudible ] much more of a job, actual lyly the born bob [ inaudible ] it was a very difficult thing. And that was oppenheimers achievement. But they took quite a while until they got the whole mess to solve that problem. Groves ran the operation. And he was number one. And i think he was recognized. They should also recognize that the secretaries of war was the very important part of this. Thank you. Im really glad you brought up general nichols for a couple reasons. One, he was important in ways you said it. But did he not make any of the decisions on you know, the sort of primary level decisions. Those are made by groves. He carried them out. He carried them out very well. Secondly, nichols came to hate general groves because of the way he felt groves treated him, you know, an errand boy. Go get me two bars of chocolate, have this shirt pressed thinged like. That and he also nichols came to really despise oppenheimer. And he got back at him when he was the general manager of the Atomic Energy commission during mccarthy period and it was nichols who distorted the whole confirmation of the oppenheimer proceedings. We can have another conference about. That he rewrote the letter of charges against oppenheimer for the Atomic Energy commissioners. And its one of the reasons that i think the oppenheimer hearing will be vacated before the Obama Administration is over. Okay. We have several hands up here. Maybe ill start with the easiest one. Closest here. Thank you very much. Im going to try five indispensable people. They mentioned simpson. Four bush, five roosevelt. Without any of them, it wouldnt have worked. This leads to what is often said nowadays, we need a new marshal plan. We need a new Manhattan Project. With things like Climate Change and other matters which are both politics and science to do things which are recognized by smart people that have been done is what was done in that period rep lickable to today or have we lost it and if we would have replicated it because we believe we needed to because something as critical as fighting a war against germany and japan, the moral equivalent of war, could we even do it or are we so atomized in our politics science and culture that we just could never do it again . Well i think we did it once again in the race to the moon. I guess in is nothing like the Manhattan Project or the space race since then. I any well be able to do it again. I dont mind weighing in there a tiny bit. So in the Manhattan Project there was the science part and the military part. I know that military part was very important. Boy, thats driving me crazy. So, you know the setup of having the best scientists in the world work on common goal was necessitated by world war ii. Everybody was in it to win it as the previous speaker said. It was like 99 . And these guys were incredible. You had to have the military and governmental support in a way that is very unfashionable now right . Who says go we need more government projects to do things. Its not a common refrain. And there was a little violation of the trust of the scientists after that. If i may with the oppenheimer case, it was not looked at the same. If you give your service to the country and, you know, be prosecuted, yeah thats a whole different environment. Its hard to imagine the absolute best scientific worldcoming together under government auspices now. But i guess it could happen. Thats a very important point, i think. Oppenheimer in the 54 trial, when he was put on trial in this secret kangaroo court, at that moment in history he was americas most famous scientists aside from his employees at the institute for advanced studies albert einstein. By the end of the trial, when they published the transports of what transcripts, he was publicly humiliated. So this was a warning at the height of the mccarthy period. Oppenheimer was the chief victim of that witchunt. This was a warning to all scientists that you cannot get off the reservation. You can welcome your opinion on scientific issues. But can you not compress your opinions on politics. You cannot be a Public Policy ibt lekt youll. And if you dare to do so, you may be publicly humiliated. And i think this really wounded a whole generation of american intellectuals and scientists and even today, were living with the residue of this mccarthy era. You can see it in the debate over Climate Change. Can you see it in the debate over any sort of fact driven argument. And our politics are being driven by people who are uninformed about the facts. We live in a scientific age and our picks are driven by clowns. We can all do that. I have another question here. Hold it closer to your mouth, please. We have the department of energy for 30 years. And the physicist by background and familiar with big projects. I want to say that i dont i think everybody in this group is going to be united in saying theyre both indispensable. En that is too often a major accomplishment that is not that singular. I want to vote for oppenheimer anyway. The reason i want to vote for oppenheimer is as a physicist, he was able to express essentially everything i felt and needed both in the psychics and in the social conscience. And the tragedy that happened i think has society for some time that the tragedy of oppenheimer but his ability to articulate the moment both in the science and in this meaning for the world was a leadership quality that had to be there. And so i vote for oppenheimer because im a physicist. And my question really is he was obviously torn immensely by this accomplishment. And i it seems almost that he may have regretted his role. Is that true . I dont think anyone, you know, can answer that. At least, you know, i cant with any confidence. What i would say is that he regretted that the bombs were used the way they were used. I feel confident about that. I remember Frank Oppenheimer saying when asked the question would you do it again, you know long hesitation and saying yes, in those circumstances, i would do it again. So the distinction problem by has to be made between the project and then the political decision to use the two bombs that existed on heroiroshima and nagasaki. You know, i dont know if well, thats it go. Ahead. Thats a good sums it up. I want to give a little bit of that family narrative. I grew up with it. Regret versus not regret. When i first heard about the atomic bomb as a child i didnt know my grandfather. He was dead before i was born. I heard about it from my father. He told me in these terms, basically that you know, my grandfather was working during a time of war and he worked on a project like everybody else did. And he actually happened to work on a big project. It turned out to be really important. But if he hadnt done that, he would have done any other action in the war. So the family feeling wasnt some sense of regret or a portrayed, you know, hand ringing. It was nothing like that. It was the people that served in war. Did you feel bad for serving in war . He didnt. He didnt regret that. About the dropping of the bomb you know whos going to let that who is going to agree with that . I didnt hear much in family term. And his post war activities were entirely devoted to the volume of Atomic Energy which he saw extremely clearly what was going to happen that we would go into an arm race and have some ridiculous piling up of weapons and wanted to prevent that. And all his work was related to that. But i dont believe he ever regretted his work during the war partially as a necessary part of science and the fact that they were in the war. Another question . Yes, what happened to general groves with his career after the war . Well, basically, he was really kind of pushed out. His job, of course, there was a battle in late 1945 or early 1946 about, you know, what are we going to do with this Atomic Energy business here . Are we going to leave it in the hands of the military or are we going to have civilian control . And there was a tussle over that. I think groves is falsely charged with believing that it should be left in the hands of military. He wanted free and clear. And eventually, of course, it ended up as the Atomic Energy act. Truman went along it with. Thats the way its been ever since. As far as groves was concerned, he went on to another job, another important aspect of his career. He became head of the arms forces special weapons project. Had an office in the pentagon. Basically, it was taking care of the bomb assembling it, moving it, storing it all of these things. And the things he did there go down to today. This is a second aspect that i have a chapter of in my book as unrecognized feature of groves legacy. But after that, ike became chief of staff. They didnt get along at all. It was pay back time for groves. He stepped on a lot of toes. He used this priority business to say, you know we get first dibs on whatever. Dont bother me. All these other people came after him. And he really wanted to be chief of engineers. He was too young for that. He went to connecticut with Remington Rand and james rand liked to collect generals and he had mcarthur has an employee and ed groves. So groves was sort of head of research but didnt do very much. And spoke and eventually he retired from that. After a few years. He moved back to washington. He got a nice apartment on connecticut avenue. And as caroline said, unfortunately died country club in july 1970. So there were no second acts. He didnt have a vacation in five or seven years. He enjoyed his grandchildren. He would eventually get quoted in the newspaper. And other things. But that part of his life is calm and he played more tennis and took up golf and traveled to europe and there were no second acts. That satisfied him. What they said about building it. And, you know, if there was any criticism, he has a huge stack of annotations and certain books and, you know, got this wrong and then he was very much against academic historians. You have to talk to the real people that make things happen like me. Do you have a question in there . I think you have to hold it very close to your mouth. Almost. Thank you. I had essentially zero contact with general groves except on 1 1 2 occasions. After the news was out and everybody knew about the atomic bomb and where it came from and so forth, general groves decided that he was going to address the sed and the womens army core. And i cant remember the month that this was happening. I do remember it was cold. And again, i guess it was for christmas. We were standing out in the snow at the Department Theater in line and the womens army core went in first. And we were standing and shivering in the cold and they came out and we said what happened . And they said well, general groves was introduced to us by the commandant of the post. And he stood there looking at it and said girls take a good look because this is probably as close to a general as youll ever get. And then it became our turn to go in and filed in and sat down and he was introduced to us by the commandant of the post again. And he said right here, quickly. Even if just put your name on a piece of paper on an envelope write him for christmas. Thank you. Yes. Same thing. I think we talked about this when you came to our book club meeting. But im not sure. Anybody have questions . I got to vote for general groves. Because he provided the material. He supervised the engineering and the chemistry that gave the physicist the material that they had to have to build the bomb. So my votes were as a chemist, my votes for general groves i have one question and that is weve been mentioning people that had a lot to do with the success of the Manhattan Project. Where do you put general marshal in this . Was he just you know one of the lesser players . Actually, he was groves boss as chief of staff of the army. And he was pretty close to general groves secretary of war simpson and was privy to a lot of the decisions that were made. So what role do you assign to general marshal in this . Im waiting for your book to come out to find out what marshals role was. Let me back up a minute. The way the Manhattan Project was organized is that the secretary of defense was in charge of it in general. Marshal had an office right next to simpson. And marshal knew most of the stuff that systemimpson knew about. He followed it fairly closely but never intervened in anything. Simpson comes into it when the decision about using the bomb is made and what the arrange. Should be for the post war, you know world. And marshals in on that a little bit. But all of the Manhattan Project decisions are made on the one hand by general groves and on the other hand by bush and jam conan, the two scientific heads of National Research and defense council. And conan, the president of harvard who is a chemist is the bushs man on the Manhattan Project. So i think marshal and even simpson accept for the Decision Making projess of how the bomb is used are not involved in any of the grovesoppenheimer issues. One thing im just constantly amazed at is the degree to which these personalities that have been identified here and there are others they defer to one another to take dosh carry out the decision whatever responsibility they have. Theres into micromanagement. Tldz no looking over the shoulder. Marshal is chief of staff of the army and simpson is secretary of war. They have the whole war to run. And this is just one little part of it here. Well give it to groves. Groves ran with the ball. He never wanted to bother secretary marshal secretary simpson or general marshal. The only went to them only had he had to get something he had to get something to break the logjam or to get this and to get that. So he visited their office very infrequently. And they just let him run with it. And the whole country was run the whole war was run this way. The degree to which we live in such a changed situation where, you know, everybodys looking over everybodys shoulder here. The press knew nothing about. This the congress knew nothing about this. To go back to the question about whether we could replicate it, i get asked this question all the time. I dont think it can be done again. It was highly secret. There was unlimited money. And, you know, theres a sentence that one of groves classmates made that overwhelms me. He says no person ever had as much power as groves. You know, he is talking about eisenhower marshal, anybody else . I mean the core of that question is something that you know just wouldnt give that amount of responsibility and power to any single man. And thats what they did with groves. So i think marshals role, i await your book also. And i think thats an important part of the story. That there were other people involved in all of this. And it wasnt just groves and oppenheimer. But there were many members of the team. Well let me comment. I think were finally wading into some really controversial historical footnotes. I think you in the past have said that harry truman did not make a decision to drop the bomb. It was general groves. And i kind of agree with that. And coming back to your question with regard to general marshal youre quite right. He was looking at the big picture. He had a lot of things on his plate. The bomb he knew was comeing along and he had to make the decision on how to prepare for a land invasion of the japanese homeland. En that in your book i assume that is going to be a key question that youre going to have to address thats been a controversy issue for decades. And it comes down to was general marshal given casualty estimates that if such an invasion were to occur a million american soldiers would die. So far a memo like that has never been found. The figdz that heures that he was given were much, much smaller, on the order of 67,000 casualties and maybe a little more later depending if there is a second invasion. So this comes back to the question that marty eluded to earlier. In fact, the bomb probably did not end the war. It was the soviet invasion. The American Invasion of the home islands was not scheduled by general marshal for at the earliest november and problem bhi later in the spring of 46. And by that time, everyone knew the war was going to be over. And so general groves made the decision to use the bomb because he had built it. And he wanted to use it. Thats right. We go back to the question of abuse. And kai said that about truman not making a decision. Yes, i have written a pape better that. And there is no piece of paper which says i harry truman authorize the use of the atomic bomb on japan. There just is not. And can you look far and wide and youll never find one. The momentum of the program at the time was so extreme and we have to remember that fdr dies on april 12th. Harry truman, he doesnt know anything about the bomb. He knows very little about it. Hes briefed by secretary simpson. And hes told about this massive thing. And now its on his shoulders. About, you know what to do with all of this. And fdr was irresponsible and not telling truman more about it so that he was better prepared. But i obviously think and groves has said it the only decision that truman could have ever made was not to use the bomb. And it was full speed ahead. Groves even wrote the orders for use and the orders for use were use as ready. Use as ready. Today we call that predelegation. Truman finally after the second bomb puts himself into the chain of command and says enough. We killed enough kids. Enough. The order goes out and they stop atomic bombing. So he finally but he didnt authorize the original use of it. Sandy sent the order to the pacific to use the bomb as made ready. And that phrase in there is a kind of give away that youre authorized to keep using them as many until youre told not to. And eventually he was. I just want to add something since i brought up the issue about the bomb not being necessary. This is ab an argument that will go on forever. Marty, youre going keep it short though. Yeah im going to keep it very short. I just want to say one thing. There is no one, certainly not me, but no one i know of who argues that an invasion was preferable to using the bomb. The argument among historians is there were alternatives to an invasion and using the bomb. And very briefly those two alternatives, main alternatives was one making it clear to the japanese that the emperor was not going to be considered a war criminal. The people toreship would kin in japan although it wouldnt have the power it had before. And, two waiting for the soviets to come into the war which we knew they would do by no later than the 15th of august and probably by the tenth of august. They came in on the eighth probably because hiroshima occurred on the sixth. Well thank you very much. This is a fabulous panel. Dont you agree . [ applause ] i think it was a plus. Youre watching American History tv which airs each weekend on cspan3. You can also follow us on twitter at cspan history for information on our schedule of upcoming programs and to keep up on the latest history news. And there is more on American History tvs Facebook Page including video of recent programs and viewer comments much thats at facebook. Com cspanhistory. The cspan cities tour is partnering with our cable affiliates as we travel across the United States. Join us in Cox Communication this is weekend as we learn about the history and literary life of omaha nebraska, where the de porres groups fighted for racial equality. Omaha had a reputation in omaha and in the United States as a city that when you came in if you were black you needed to keep your head down and you needed to be aware that you werent going to be served in restaurants and you werent going to be able to stay in hotels. When the club began the operation the idea of the fact that terms civil rights they used the term social justice. Civil rights wasnt part of the national lexicon at that time. The idea of civil rights was so far removed from the idea of the Greater Community of omaha or the United States that they were operating in a vacuum. I always like to say that they were operating without a net. There were not the support groups. There were not the prior experiences of other groups to challenge Racial Discrimination and segregation. We look back to the Union Pacific and how the construction of Union Station helped omahas economy. The Railroad Companies of america. It was founded in 1862 with the Pacific Railway act. So it combined several Railroad Companies to make Union Pacific and then they were charged with building the trancescontinental railroad. So they started here and moving west at Central Pacific started in on the west coast and was moving east. And they met up in utah. And thats really what propels us even farther. We become that point of moving west. The gateway to the west. See all of our program from omaha saturday at noon eastern on cspan2s book tv and sunday afternoon at 2 00 on American History tv on cspan3. It was in december of 1938 that two german scientists split the uranium atom. No one had done it until late 1938 and then the germans did it. And that just fueled the fire of the fear. Oakridge National Laboratory is a Major Research institution and Oakridge National lab has been around since right after the Second World War. And is a major and perhaps in some senses the premier Research Institute in the entire United States. And some people would contend the world. It was started as part of the Manhattan Project in 1942. The Manhattan Project was the u. S. Governments attempt to build anatomic weapon to drop on germany to end the Second World War. And resulted in the atomic weapons that were ultimately dropped on japan in august of 1945 which did in the Second World War i and out of that grew oakridge nat
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