Said pretty definitively the atomic bombs wordwrap to end the war quickly and they did and the war quickly. Was this the correct decision to make . Did they end the war . The short answer is yes and yes. The ware dropped to end quickly, to save lives, both american and japanese. What we have to get right at the start is to understand the context. There are two basic principles. We have to count the dead and we have to treat the dead as having a common humanity and that means the japanese as well. The asiapacific war resulted in the death of 19 million noncombatants. And all of that number, the number of japanese noncombatants died was maybe one million, 1. 2 million. More than that were due to the soviet invasion in 1945. That tells you immediately that for every japanese noncombatants who died in the whole war between 17 and 18 other noncombatants died. There were other agents and about 12 million of them are chinese. And most of those noncombatants who were not japanese were already dead and they were dying at a rate between eight and 14,000 day. Context in which all of this takes place. Important that we understand the total context. Where the deaths are taking place. They are primarily not japanese. Joiningchard frank is us looking back at the 75th anniversary of the bombing of the regime a and not a sake. We will put the phone numbers on the screen now. And central m in the eastern and central time 7488000. 2 we have separate lines for veterans and their families. 7488002. And for japaneseamericans, 202 7488003. Frank, how widespread was support for president truman . Has that changed over time . Guest we have seen numbers punching up about 80 . It has changed because the narratives have changed. One of the things that really is there is the question, should we talk about this . Place. Nversation takes what is conspicuous about the may never talk about what the cost of the alternatives are. When you start getting down to the cost of the alternatives you understand why mr. Truman did not make a good choice. He was from awful to horrific and he chose what these secretary of war stimson called choice inbhorrent terms of these events. Host this is the seventh of anniversary of the second bombing. August 6, hiroshima being the first. What was the difference between those two days and what the Truman Administration was looking at . What made them just tied to drop the second bomb three days later . Guest there is no specific decision about the second bomb. Mr. Truman there is no further check back. Another aspect about this controversy that people, i think, dont understand. The problem with the notion that one bomb would have done it is this. You have to look at the japanese side. Their reaction was aced on the fact that they had our Atomic Bomb Program which is not produced a bomb but it had educated the top levels of japanese leadership. And it was stupendously difficult. When news of hiroshima came and mr. Trumans announcement was atomic bomb, the imperial bomb not knowy we will that they have one bomb until we have an investigation. Have onesaid, they bomb, but there cant be that many, they can be that powerful. Basically what the japanese leadership was looking at was not fear of one bomb. It was that the u. S. Had an arsenal of powerful nuclear weapons. That is exactly what the nagasaki bomb did. It convinced the top leadership that the u. S. Did not have a bomb. We had an arsenal. The second most powerful man in japan had been adamant in continuing the war. Nagasaki bomb, he stopped going around to the leadership. He said the next target will be tokyo. That is an amazing argument to make. Host how far along was the u. S. In planning an invasion of japan, the main island of japan . Thats a good question. There was a plan to start invading japan on august 11. Mr. Truman had approved that. At the time he was quite reluctant. There was a scenario where we were going to have overwhelming superiority going into q shoe kyushu. American casualties were going to be unpleasant, but acceptable. And the japanese had anticipated this huge buildup of ground forces. 700,000 troops. 780,000 troops would be facing the japanese. Officer had never wanted to invade japan and he was biting his time. By the ninth of august, he was prepared to bring on this and only the japanese surrender put that off before it reached the level of mr. Truman having another review. You are on with richard frank. Were talking about the sympathetic anniversary. Good morning, tom. Morning. Ood i am age 60 and i remember the howard then lectures of my history isrs of how being rewritten so much by people with agendas. I am hearing on talk radio the y reason we bombed progressive talk radio that is, the only reason we bombed japan was because they were not europeans. In other words, they were people of color, which is nonsense because we bombed dresden. That was a purpose of demoralizing the german people, for them to surrender. It is unfortunate, what happened with the dropping of the two bombs. Open a pandoras box. But it saved millions of japanese lives who would have been caught in the crossfire, as well as american lives and casualties. Am i wrong on that, professor . Basically, you have to bear in mind, right up until the and, it was assumed the bombs would be used against germany as soon as they were available. They did not have bombs ready to use against germany. The first bomb, which was a test bomb, was detonated in 1945. Let me come back to a really basic point. Its not that the argument im advancing says we dont care about the japanese. What i have going over this for many years now, the fact is our narratives we have been using on this talk about japanese deaths, the fact that they were asians. Our American People at that time, they were reading day by day and they were well aware of how horrific it was in asia and we have completely blotted that out and that is why those narratives are so powerful because people do not realize how horrific the asiapacific war wise . How is the war and pacific portrayed in textbooks . Is that changed over time . The whole area of world war ii was not forthrightly discussed. I can understand this. There was a tendency in japan to view themselves as the greatest victims of the war and if you have been dealing with historians and people from other asia nations, you get a flavor of how infuriating infuriated that makes people in china and elsewhere. I was sitting at a conference once and a presentation was made very much along the typical lines and sitting there, i see him going from that moment to fear he as he realizes this narrative entirely omits it does not count chinese, indonesians, koreans sharing common humanity with the japanese. When the soviet union enters the 1. 6 they capture between and 1. 7 japanese nationals and when the repatriation process is , they fall at 1. 2 million, they dieds you that in soviet captivity. We know about 61,000 japanese soldier spirit that tells you between three to 40000 and 440,000 japanese noncombatants soviet captivity. Those are higher numbers than died during the atomic bomb attacks. Rick andwill go to encino. Caller good morning. I want to add my voice. My father, who barely survived the war, was prepared to be transported to japan. , it would have been criminal, when you have everything up there it would have been criminal for truman just thatp that bomb, there were hundreds of thousands of japanese massacred in a horrible way. There was the russian threat that would have taken japanese territory and greatly complicated the postwar era. There are so many reasons truman had to do that. They were going to blockade japan until they gave up . What . And you address those points if you havent yet . Host thank you, rick. Richard frank . Guest on the american side there was an unstable compromise between the army and the navy on a strategy to end the war and critical issue was time. They advocated invasion because they believe that would be the swiftest way to end the war. War withhad studied japan for decades literally and one of the premises was invading the japanese islands would produce politically unacceptable casualties. The navys alternative was blockade. What does not get mentioned in these discussions, as it should, and this was basically the policy, all of the navy lined up behind it and talked about it as bomb. Native to the it was aimed at starving to death millions of noncombatants. In view of the limited power of atomic weapons compared to what we have today, a blockade was ruthlessthe most strategy and that was the direction were going in august, ushu once the invasion of ky is off. And we do try to kill millions of japanese noncombatants. By the way those agents asians who are not japanese have their deaths on top of the death. Mindboggling. From westave lynn virginia. Hello. Caller hello. Im in okinawa veteran and was trained to go to japan in the invasion. Worse, i never had to go because there was instability. For those who criticize truman, go to the families of people, american g. I. s you were saved from invading japan and certain death and tell them that truman did the wrong thing. I know you dont have the guts to do that. Thank you, mr. Frank, for your book. Its very informative. Host mr. Frank, mr. History been fair to truman . In his decisions in this . Guest in my view, no. He famously said he did not sleep on the decision and comments like that. If you go through everything he , heally said, in his mind had the area in two compartments. One was, did i make the best decision and he always believed if you really understood all the alternatives, he made what secretary stimson called the least abhorrent choice. The alternatives were worse. But truman was never in different indifferent to the depths of the japanese his order had caused. Shortly after your shema, we shortly after hiroshima, we intercept this message. And mr. Truman was clearly talking about this and he says, the hiroshima bomb killed 100,000 people. He has all of these comments. This is horrendous. The decision may have been right , but the consequences were horrendous and he recognized it and felt it very deeply. Once again, when you deal with people from other asia and nations other asian and american say, were bonds necessary . Isommon comment from them why only two. The death rate is so incomparable between a japanese in these other peoples, they find the american struggle with this to be baffling. Richard, your shema happens hiroshima apposite august 6. On august 6. Six days go by. And for here you tell announces japanese the japanese unconditional surrender. Walk us through those days that gets the emperor to the point of surrender . A little context here. Someone with legitimate authority had to decide and then japans armed forces had to comply with the surrender. Thethe emperor makes critical decision. He makes it august 8 when he talks to the foreign minister and says the war must end now. There were other factors on his , including his loss of faith in the strategy, the concern about the japanese people reaching a revolutionary state in the fall. Inannounces that decision the Early Morning hours of august 10. And we have the diary entry of the number two man in the army. One of the other officer says i cannot think the overseas commanders will comply even with an order from the emperor. And right on cue they send a message saying, we will not comply with a surrender order even from the emperor. And theres even more. It has this language that says the prerogatives would not be compromised with a surrender. An American State Department thisials realize that demand would make the emperor supreme, so he has a veto over the occupation. Of course, we send the message back saying, clearly, the emperor will be subordinate. Whether they would have agreed without the emperor, i dont know. Aboutis the question whether they will get all of the Japanese Armed forces to surrender. Inner members say the roughest days that he spent were four or five days wondering whether the armed forces would comply with the order. In anotherribed this context as a miraculous theverance that he got government and the armed forces in japan to surrender. Good morning, steve. I would like to ask the professor if he reads japanese and i would like to ask if he has read the numerous comments after the war by japanese generals that were not between Nuclear Attacks into hiroshima and nagasaki. But there was the soviets entrance into the war and they and threatening hokkaido that decision to surrender was based on that much more than the two Nuclear Attacks. Thank you. Host thank you, steve. Guest let me unpack that at several levels. First of all, in terms of the impact of the soviet intervention, the chief of staff of the Imperial Army tells the emperor in a classic understatement, the soviet intervention is unfortunate. If you go through all of these other statements, yes, the notion that all of these officers are talking only about soviet intervention in the key reason, its simply not true. The soviet intervention does play an important part. It is very important in terms of getting compliance of all of the Japanese Armed forces, particularly those on the age consonant. So, soviet intervention is important in getting compliance of all the Japanese Armed forces, but it does not move the thedecisionmakers to move government and eventually japan to surrender. Barbara, go ahead. Caller yes, im very interested. Im australian. The japanese had been coming down through the islands and we were terrified. Ready to evacuate. But i always say, i want to thank america for saving australia. Population. A small we were fighting in other areas. That is about all i want to say, except it is being an armchair quarterback. All these years later, they do not remember how it was, how intense the fighting was. Bob, thank you. Richard frank . Overlook thed to us trillions. The other thing about the australians was, the australian of the warhe part where they are fighting against numbered about 17,000. About 8000 died as prisoners of war of the japanese. They were mostly captured in singapore. That is just one part of the. Hole thing with japan harold hicks points out that a thing to the war, they have killed at least 3 million military personnel. They turn over 56 individuals. Of thets just one part savagery of the war, driven by the terms on which the japanese insisted the war be fought upon. Frank, thank you host our guest now is the director of the Nuclear Studies institute at the