Related to the 75th anniversary of the atomic bomb. Each ill present additionally and then will have questions in the chat box. I hope you enjoy the presentation, and look at our first artifact, but from april shortly after truman became president. Then were going to look at some documents from july. You can see my timeline here, the first five documents were going to show you, and then well have another five to finish off as we get into august. Even some from later that context to this topic. So the first information that truman has about the Manhattan Projects comes in april just 12 days after he becomes president on april 12th. This very famous letter some of you are probably familiar with, when the secretary of war writes to truman to tell him about this highly secret matter, as it mentions in that first paragraph. Now stinson it mentioned this after hug inauguration, just in passing, and tell him they need to talk about it in the future. Two weeks later, he sends this letter to truman, telling him they need to get together quickly. You can see some interesting handwritten floats on here. Matt is matthew colony, his appointment on secretary, and tonal reply connelly to get Henry Stinson on his calendar for the next day. Interestingly he did come across when he was as he didnt really get into much detail as he started to see the budget numbers about the project, but stimp son is the person that warned him off. Now, of course, hes president , and hes told more about the project. Of course, at this point they have not done a successful test, but the work has been going on for two or three different locations. This is the first document i wanted to share with you out of the ten artifacts im going to share because it provides the contest and those interesting anecdotes that he didnt know while he was Vice President , he had come closer to it as a senator, and its about two weeks after hes president where stimpson sits down and gives him the details. He is really the person in charge of the whole operation. So stimpson is hes an important key figure in all of this. The second document were going to look at is from lieutenant groves. This is you can see the date at the top of the page. This is from july 16th, 1945 this is after the first test in new mexico of the atomic bomb. Before churchill is replaced. This its not an official report, as the excitement to the wonder me wonderment really comes through in the report. This is the sketch on the last page of that 14page record. On the second page, lt. Grove refers to the mushrooming cloud. And it described the explosion as beautiful and all the different colors in the sky that they see. This might be tricky for some of us to read, but if you go close in, underneath where it says cloud drawings, and its a little paint, it says first atomic explosion, a alamo gourd. They couldnt get as close as they would liyou can see it 5 3 5 38, 5 42 at the bottom of the second sketch. And mow about the level of destruction, and petroleuming uses those exact words from those records that were going to see later on. It talks about the colors, and then see through here in the hole in the middle of the cloud of course, later on were able to see photographs and other footage of this atomic cloud. This is what petroleuming receives while hes in germany. So petroleuming is very excited about the successful test. And were getting closed when it happens on august 6th. Its tight,y to read and its available on the Truman Library web side. Heres a number of different diary entries. This one is july 17th, 1945. So just a day after he gets that record. Of course, this is handwritten, and it can be hard to read those who work at the library have become familiar over time of trumans handwriting this is when hes first meeting with jo jeff stalin. From july 25th, when he goes into a lot more detail he does meant it. And setting the agenda, so this is very much at the beginning of the potsdam conference. Theyre talking about china, and theyre talking about the soviets coming into the japanese war august 15th, which is one of trumans goals of potsdam, to get the soviets to join. He has a cryptic phrase in here. Treatmenting says i told him to fire away. He did, and it is dynamite, but then truman says, but i have some dynamite, too, which im not exploding now. So he kin of hd of has a crypti reference. Its not too surprising he mentioned this the day after finding out about the successful test. Im just using one of the diary entries today, but in the following day, on the 18th, he says that he believes the japanese will surrender when the russians come in, and then he has this phrase in the 18th of july entry, when he says im sure they will when manhattan appears over their homeland. Truman doesnt really refer to manhattan very often in his writings home to bess and other correspondents, but on his diary entry of july 19th, he refers to manhattan. He also goes on to say i will inform fallon about it at an appear tune time. The trust that stalin did have spies in new mexico, that they were passing information about the Manhattan Project back to them. A week later on october 25th, he goes into a lot more detail and talks about how the weapon is to be used against the japanese between now and august 10th so theres diary entries are really very revealing as petroleuming expounds upon the information that hes been given by lieutenant groves. Now, weve got two contrasting documents here, two documents that one is a little misleading. Well do that one second. Im trying to keep them in chronological order. This is actually from the national archives, which the Truman Library is part of, rather than the collections of the Truman Library. This is the closest you would get to the ordering of the use of the atomic bomb. This is a meism mo memo from thomas handy, the acting chief of staff why marshall is at potsdam. Hes writing to general carl spatz, and you can see the date on this one is the 25th of july so things are moving quickly, as you can see. You know, you can see this. Its not super sharp, but basically it has four points on the singlebeige memo it talks about the composite group. It will deliver the First Special bomb as soon as weather will permit. And so they refer to it as the special bomb without saying using the word atomic. It talks about the various targets the second point says the additional bombs would be delivered on the above targets is not they are made ready by project staff. We found out later in early part of august only two bombs were ready, and they use both of them. The third bomb wasnt probably going to be ready until around the 16th or 17th of august. So the military is not going to make any comment about this in any news stories, people asking for information, they need to remember back to the secretary of war for them to responds to. Then the last point is any this is done with the approval of the secretary of war, which i mentioned before, is stimpson and the chief of staff. It also mentioned a copy has been sent to general mcarthur and a copy to admiral nimitz. This is as close as you get to the actual orders for the dropping of the bombs on hi rom ma, dated the 25th of july. It does say after about august 3rd the other document thats often sometimes used incorrectly ought to talk about the authorization of the bomb. Its a few days later, its the 30th on july. If you close in on this one, this is from stimpson to the president , and hes talking about the recent ultimatum. Thats the ultimatum made at on potsdam, and the dramatic results of the test, and the suggestions made by the british of which secretary of state burns is well aware. So hes giving recommendations of what to do, and im going to talk about the context of this in a minute. Petroleuming writes on the back of this memo, secretary of war, reply this is the number of the memo, 41011, suggestions approve, release when ready, but not sooner than august 2nd. Truman liked to use his initials hst. Some people over time thought when he says release when ready, hes talking about the atomic bomb. In fact, this is about the statement thats going to be release released rather than a releasing of a bomb. Thats why theres confusion. I did want to point out again. I mentioned this before, the number of is the 41011, and thats what truman uses on the back. So this is an interesting document, in that the preparing the statements, and you better get this statement approved, because once the bomb is dropped, were going to need a statement immediately. Thats why theres a bit of a rush there. Theyve been going back and forth in terms of what to say to the world once this bomb is dropped. So theyre trying to get the suggestions approved by both the british suggestions, and the suggests from stimpson himself, from truman, burns, all of the others in the close circles at that time. So thats a fascinating one, but it shouldnt be used to mislead. Its more about statements rather than the bomb itself. Now were going to get closer and closer to that. The last is a letter, and he writes a number of letters to bass. And play poker, and the other things so he writing on augusta, obviously theres some concern about secrecy, letters be accepted, but on the july 31st her, he make a rather cryptic message to that. Then were going to look at a newsreel, and then finish with a video. So heres the letter to bess. This is just two pages and of course, trumans writing is not the easiest to read, the cursive. This is all digitized and on our websi website. We have more than 1,300 letters written over their lifetime. In most cases including the envelopes, which is amazing to have that in our collection. All of those letters that harry has written to bess are all digitized and available on our website in chronological order. Its rather cryptic in its reference, he finishes up this bottom of this first page where he says i rather thing that mr. Sta stalin is is stalling. To remind you on Richard Churchill had lost the election in great britain, and hes replaced by by atly. I have an ace in the hole and another one showing. That ace in the hole. He talks about the secretary of state burns and the associate minister, all worked and accomplished a great. I rather think stalin is happy. You know truman loves his card games. So the other seven or eight letters he writing, he makes no reference to the atomic bottom. If either no references are rather cryptic. Moving on, so we have a video clip for you now. This is truman announcing the surrender from the not the surrender, announcing the dropping of the atomic bomb from the uss augustus. You can see the window in the background from the ship. A short time ago, an american airplane got one bomb on hi rosh imagine that bomb as more power than 20,000 tons of tnt. The japanese began the war from the air at pearl harbor. And the end is not yet. With this bomb we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction to supplement the growing bower of our armed forces. In the present form, they bombs are now in production and even more powerful forms are in development. Its an atomic bomb. It is a heaarnessing of the bas power of the universe. The has loosed on those who brought war to the far east. We shou we are now prepared to destroy more rapidly and completely every enterprise the japanese have in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories and their communications. Let there be no mistake, we should 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. I wanted to make a couple comments about that newsreel. Firstly, i think the quality is remarkable. The definition of the video i think is spectacular. We feel fortunate it remains in that quality 75 years later. To the second part of that is very, very compelling. We are close you get the closeup video, and petroleum g i truman looks at you with those eyes. When he looked across the table it seems like he would have the same serious stare when he made those tough decisions as president. Its a fascinating video. The fact you can see on the window on the uss augustus behind him, giving you a sense of time and frame as hes getting ready to come home just as the bomb has dropped. The one things that comes across to me is that he means business. This is a 3d artifact. Let me talk about the tag first. First of all, this green, black and silver plug, is actually the safety plug taken out of the bomb fuse from the plutonium bomb that was dropped on nagasaki. The description on the tag tells us that, too. The green plug was removed and replaced with a red activating plug on the boxcar, the name of the b29 that carried the bomb on its mission. The planes commander let me show you this. This is the safety plug. It was removed and the red activating plug which of course went with the bomb. On the next page its more upright and easier to read. This is one of the two green safety plenties use this was the second atomic bomb dropped on the entire. The second writing is probably isaiasier to read. Did i some research on this. The commander whose name comes first is frederick ashworth, and then his assistant is lieutenant philip barnes. Those are the two people to sign off on that. So a fascinating object. I should say, this would be on display in the renovated Truman Library museum later this year after our 30 million renovation. This safety plug will be in a special gallery dealing with the atomic bomb, and another artifact im going to show you later on will be in the same gallery. It is really special. The fact that they signed that, giving it that authenticity is very much appreciated. So a really fascinating object. The next is its counterpart. This is from a little bit later, and weve had this on display before tess Truman Library. Its going to be displayed again in the same gallery space, to juxtapose one another. This is the paper crane made by sedaku, a jaap need girl who was a victim of the bombs when she was 2 years old. She did survive. The story is that during her early part of their life, in august 1955, she decided that she was going to start to make these paper cranes as a symbol of peace. That was her wish. As different stories go back and forth whether she accomplished that. The more recent research is she actually made more than 1,000 cranes before her death. There are childrens stories about this crane, and this crane is rather small. We have it blown up on the powerpoint for you to see today, but its very small. This will debt displayed in a museum, along with approximately 500 to 600 paper cranes made by students in the kansas city area that have made paper cranes to go in the exhibit alongside this original paper crane, so we can help tell that story. The reason its alsou appropriate is this is part of the peace and reconciliation efforts made by trumans grandson Clifton Truman daniel in the last decade or more, where he has been to japan and reached out and it was largely thus hi efforts that we were able to get one of the last surviving cranes donated to the museums collection. All of those things have kind of come full cybille with the connection between cliftening Truman Daniel and the japanese, and of course the peace efforts after 1945, and the that could that the sedaku family would allow that to be donated to the library is very special. When you see the render investigated museum when we reopen later this year, with both the safety plug and the crane sharing the same space, its really going to be a very meaningful approach and interpretation to that episode in history. Moving on, we have one more video to show you. Before i press play, it might want to do it itself. Im trying to not let it do that. This is from when truman looks back in the 1960s when hes asked about the atomic ball, he never really wavered from his belief that it was the right thing to do. In 1964 and 1965, there was a Television Series looking at trumans decisions, and the Truman Library is very fortunate to have many of these outtakes now on the Truman LibraryYoutube Channel. This is one of those. Its quite short, where he talks about the decision to drop the atomic bomb. So when we issued the ultimatum to japan to surrender, the only answer we got was to go to the devil, yet all this time some of their people seem to be acting behind their backs, backs of the cabinet, trying to pursue speech in one underhand way or another. Well, when applied that way, we knew there was only one of two things to do. We could advance on japan and fight every inch of the way, losing a million of our men, or drop the atomic bomb. We dropped the bomb. Still, there was no reaction. We learned later that the japanese cabinet met and finally there were enough who agreed to surrender to split the cabinet in half. One half in favor of surrender, the other determined to fight on. In this spirit, the emperor was finally called on to give an opinion, an unprecedented move. He didnt want his people to die more than he didnt want to surrender. Yet the military was so strong, they still were notified of the capitulation, so we had to drop a second bomb on nagasaki. That did it. The cabinet met again, really decided, but that wasnt the end. They notified us they would accept an unconditional surrender, but implied the conditions that the emperor might be retained in some way. The emperor plead a recording of the pronouncement to the japanese people for the radio, the first time the japanese populace ever heard his voice. Yet dont you think that one military group didnt break into the offices and try to record not or try to head off that record so it couldnt be broadcast. They did broadcast it and they surrendered. I tell you, without those two abombs dropped on them to so we meant business, they might never have surrendered, even though they knew they would be licked, but they would have killed 3 million more people on both sides. Thats why theres no question that out of whole Japanese Military they had on their people the drops of the atom bombs was the only sensible thing to do. It was the only thing to do. Okay. I think were ready for questions. Thank you. Theres a q a feature at the bottom of your screen. Please go ahead and do so now. Also like a question that has already been submitted that you are would like to see answered. Were the if so, what moved up nagasaki to be the second location . I dont believe they were in priority order, no. A lot of the decision was going to be based on the weather. So i know that no nagasaki, the on weather was much more cooperative than some other locations. As far as i understand it, i dont believe that those were priority thats a great question. I think it was more weather dependent. Our next question comes from zachary. It says how did the museum get the plug . Is there a story about the provenance . I believe it was donated by commander ashworth and lieutenant barnes. I can doublecheck that, but thats what i understand. Just to clarify, it may have been passed from ashworth on to others. I dont think he directly met president truman, but it was passed through the chain to be given to president truman eventually. All right. Our next question comes from ed. Were the materials couriered potsdam . Im trying to understand the manner of Document Exchange . They were couriered, though they did have a telegraph system. Were the videos available . I love that question. The Truman Library has its own Youtube Channel scroll dot very bottom of is the page and youll see the little icon for youtube, a little play button. You go what i really like about the way that page is organized, there are playlists. You can look and find an area of history youre particularly interested in. Theyre organized in that way, so you can see different eras of his life. Excellent. Our next question comes from michael. The it says what is your response stott claim that we dropped the bomb to show the russians that we meant business and not the japanese . You know, we preserve and document all of the materials related to president truman and his life and times. Really our goals is for you to decide as the researcher. And decide for yourself based on the received. Of course, we might have individual opinions about things, but as a federal employee and federal institution, we encourages you to research and decide for yourself. We dont tick at a time what the opinion should be. Honestly, we hope our new mea assume exhibits that are open later this year are of same tenet, you decide for yourself on the accomplishments of president truman, good or bad. The next question comes from kim will there be any documents about in the old one, the rumor about the bombing did not happen. Few know about the training of civilians to attack our soldier. To author did not necessary jan greco. I believe that particular episode is not necessarily covered in the exhibit itself, though it sounds like a great public program. We do have a number of audio pieces that look at the japanese perspective alongside the American Perspective on the reactions to the dropping of the bomb in a very balanced way. So both american and scratch knee perspectives on the use of the bomb are used in an audio parameter we plan to have in that same gallery where we have the crane and the safety plug. We obviously realize what an incredibly controversial decision it was by president truman. We are very well aware of the smithsonian and the enola gay controversy in the 1990s. Our goal is to present the information and allow the visitor to decide. We have a comment book that weve had in the past when weve dealt with the atomic bomb and were going to have again, so that people can reflect their own opinion. We are going to try to provide all the information we can from both sides, multiple opinions, more than two size in that gallery space. Our next question comes from bart there any evidence that president truman deliberated, any history of any moral debate . Theres some, but not a whole lot. I think Petroleum Edge had the main goal of ending the war as quickly as possible. Now, theres a couple things that are factors in at the same time as the testing is taking place in new mexico. S in that same time s. The United States had a broken the japanese code, and they were receiving about a million messages a month from the japanese. Wonderful crucial threa one o threads they were following is where the buildup of troops were with a planned land invasion of the United States and there were intercepts that the troops were building in far greater numbers in exactly the locations where the American Forces were going to land. So there was certainly some hesitation about a land invasion once they started to read the intercepts. The other part of that, of course, is they really decided that the japanese, though some of thoser a surrender through the russians, they really were not ready for unconditional surrender. So i this is the intelligence code breaking really just reinforced to truman and secretary stimpsons opinion to use the weapon as quickly as possibility and end the war as quickly as possible. Truman, when questioned later, he obvious reminded people about pearl harbor and the fact that the attack had happened when th arguments of that nature. He was also a close confident dance. Hes the one that tells truman abot for advice and leans for for suggestion of what to do. Stimson is involved in discussions later about sharing information with the soviets and the setup of the Atomic Energy commission, all these other things that stimson was already seeing what the world would look like when the world was over, what would we do with this power and how would it be shared with the world. Stimson was rather far reaching in that regard. All right. We have time for a few more questions. Our next one says, how did trumans family react to the dropping of the atomic bomb. Not a great deal of evidence that we have. We like as historians and archivers to rely on evidence for a response. Everything ive read about best truman and Margaret Truman is they were entirely supportive of truman. Not too many decisions i found that they may have disagreed with truman on. If they did, they didnt express it publicly. Unfortunately i mentioned all those letters truman wrote we have in the museum and library collection. We really dont have the letters after the time he was senator. When hes Vice President , when hes president , we dont have any of bess letters, they were burned. We dont have evidence to say what she thought about it but i can only imagine she was supportive of him and the war was over quickly after that. I cant imagine there would be any criticism of what he did as president in this particular ca case. Our last question comes from pat, were there ever any thoughts of using the bomb on tokyo . There was some early discussions on that. One of the reasons hiroshima and nagasaki along with the weather, they wanted to use the bomb on cities that had not received any kind of destruction, so easy is the wrong word but the only word i could think of right now. It was easy to see the level of destruction. Tokyo, as you know, had received a lot of firebombings and a lot napalm and other attacks so it would have been difficult to show the destruction the atomic bomb was capable of doing. Thats one of the reasons tokyo was not chosen because of already received damage in the past. These are great questions, by the way. Keep them going. Lets do a few more then. All right. Our next question says, ive always heard truman felt remorse after the dropping of the bomb. Did he revisit that decision later in life . Yeah. That was one of the reasons i showed that video clip at the end from 1964, 65, he didnt show much remorse there and lives for another seven years. Clifton told a story in april about how he questioned that right towards the end of his life in 1972. There is some conversations he has, actually, at Research Hospital in kansas city where he passes away december 26th, 1972, where he kind of has some discussions then about that im obviously not party to those conversations. From what i can tell, i dont want to say secondguessing but clarification, did i do the right thing, was it the right thing to do towards the end. Clifton Truman Daniel relayed a story about that in the past about maybe comments in the last year or two of his life where he wonders about that at the end, which seems quite natural to me. Most of the time he 345es the decision as president. He was responsible for so many in the 7. 5 years as president. He may have questioned this one. When he was questioned publicly, on the Television Series or in writing, as i mentioned before, he often referred back to pearl harbor and the attack by the japanese as a large part of his justification and the second part was he was saving lives. The other part about saving lives richard frank, the historian brings up, even though it wasnt trumans intent he saved a number of asian lives because of Japanese Occupation of asian countries. Richard frank estimates 400,000 japanese were saved by the fact that the japanese surrender and no longer causing those atrocities in arab according to richard frank, rather than me. Thats another set of lives that were saved by the speedier surrender than would have happened. Our next question from james. Did truman ever visit japan . No, he did not. I mentioned his grandson, Clifton Truman daniel has visited several times but truman did not visit japan. I like the short answers. Short answers are great. This is definitely the most questions weve answered during a program. This is a great. A big topic and the anniversary. What was the time line of Decision Making by president truman between the first and second use of the atomic bomb . So. There really wasnt a second decisi decision. The way its been explained to me, he authorized the use of the bomb, so they had this new weapon and they were able to use it. Once the reports came in of the amount of devastation and things like that, then after the bomb, then he said no, goes back to the president , commander in chief. When he gave the first authorization for hiroshima, there was no second order needed. It was use as necessary. You have this new weapon. Now there were only two that even existed at that time. The third wasnt going to be ready until august 16th or 17th. So there wasnt a third decision he made. By then if there had of been one, ready to use one and japan had not already surrendered, then it would have been trumans decision again. The first two, it was only one decision. Thats often misunderstood. There was only one decision for the first two bombs. All right. Edward asked, what would be your recommendation for the best book dealing with the decision to drop the bombs . Richard frank downfall of the Imperial Japanese empire or something slik that. Downfall is the main name and subheading. Richard franks book. Even though its a little old now, it does include information about ultraand magic intercepts, which some of the earlier studies done did not include. A lot of those came out later on. He also did a lot of his research with japanese and soviet archives as well. All right. Next question comes from deborah. It says was anyone in congress was there anyone in congress that knew about the Manhattan Project . You got me. Probably. Probably. Very few, though. It was a very tight circle. Id hate to say no. A very tight circle. Hard to say. Youd have to look at interim Committee Notes and see who served on that committee. I dont think he got much further than that. Those minutes and notes are on the website. Id have to go back and look. I would imagine theres a few lead senators that were involved in those discussions but very, very few. Im not going to say a blanket no. I think it was a few. Sorry to not be precise on that one. Our last question comes from robin, who says, did truman and oppenheimer ever meet . Gosh, actually, you know, you got me. I dont know that, actually. We will get back to you on that. One of our archivists might have to look that up. We have appointment calendars online. If i was quick on my fingers, i would do a search for oppenheimer on our appointment calendar and see if his name pops up. Its in a database. That may be president ial appointments. So i actually dont know off the top of my head whether he did meet oppenheimer or not. I would guess that he did, but im just guessing. But our appointment calendar could probably come up, although he may have been in secret meetings and not recorded. So not an all exclusive answer for that. I would say right off the top of my head im very sorry, i cant answer that question accurately. Im going to look it up as soon as we get done. A third question from dave who says, do you have any more information on the soviet spies that infiltrated a bomb Development Program in new mexico . We do, actually. Thats a whole other topic for discussion but its pretty obvious we know spies were in new mexico. Truman did not know at the time. A lot of it came later on about those spies. Thats a whole other presentation. But later on it was found that the worst spies in new mexico, and i believe its in 1949 that the soviets but that time they have their atomic bomb. So its another four years later but its shortly after. So yeah, there was a lot of information at the Truman Library about that and other sources as well about those soviet spies. Theres been books written about it as well. Every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3, go inside a Different College classroom and hear about topics ranging from the american revolution, civil rights, and u. S. President s to 9 11. Thanks for your patience and for logging into class. With most College Campuses closed due to the impact of coronavirus, watch professors transfer teaching to a virtual setting to engage with their students. Gorbachev did most of the work to change the soviet union. But reagan met him halfway, reagan encouraged him, reagan supported him. Free will to of the press, i should mention, mad sentence called it freedom of the use of the press. It is, indeed, freedom to print things and publish things, not a freedom for what we refer to institutily