Documents and the sketch of a test explosion. We will also see mr. Trumans recorded announcement of the hiroshima bomb and hear him explain years later why he used the new weapon. This is an hour. What i would like to do tonight is to show you a number of artifacts, objects, photographs, documents, related to the 75th anniversary of the atomic bomb. Each of those will be presented digitally and then we will have some questions in the chat box at the end. I hope you enjoy the presentation and i will go right in and look at our first artifact. Its actually not from july of 1945, but from april shortly after truman became president. Were going to look at some documents from july and you can see my timeline here of the first five documents we will show you. We will then have another five to finish off going into august of 1945. Even some from later on in the sixties that connect to this topic. So the first information the trump enhance about the Manhattan Project comes in april, just 12 days after he becomes president. This great famous letter, some of you are probably familiar, is when henry stints in, who is the secretary of war, rights to truman to write to tell him about this highly secret matter. Stinson had mentioned this to truman after his inauguration on april 12th after fdrs death, but just in passing, and says they might have to talk about it in the future. Just under two weeks later, he sends this letter to truman saying they have to get together quickly. So you can learn about this project. You can see some interesting handwritten notes from here. Id like to point this one out in his trumans own and writing. Tomorrow, once a 25th, hst. That is his appointment secretary. Hes obviously telling him to get Henry Stimson on his calendar for the next day. Interestingly, truman didnt come across the Manhattan Project when he was a senator in charge of the Truman Committee looking at overspending during world war ii. He did not really get into much detail as he started to see the budget numbers about the project. Stimson is actually the guy who warned him off and said you cant investigate that anymore, let it go. Now, of course, he is president and stimson tell us more about the project. Its interesting that in those 82 days as president , tremendous not know anything about the project. He must become president to learn about the project. At this point they had not run a successful test, but the work has been going on in two or three different locations as they start to develop the atomic bomb that we all hear more about during the rest of this evenings presentation. This is the first document i want to share with you out of the ten artifacts that im going to share it tonight because it really provides the context of when truman first finds out about the Manhattan Project and those interesting anecdotes that he didnt know while he was best president. He came closer to it as a senator. Its about two weeks after he is president where stimson sits down and gives him all the detail. Stimson obviously worked in the fdr administration. Hes really the person whos in charge of the whole operation. Hes the one who supervising. Hes the one whos the conduit between the white house and what is going on in new mexico. Hes an important key figure in all of this. The second document were going to look at is from lieutenant groves. You can see the date at the top of the page. This is from july the 16th, 1945. This is after the first test in new mexico of the atomic bomb. This is a sketch that was included in the 14page report that groves sense to stimson. That is of course related to truman. We are going to learn more about this in a second. But of course president truman at this time is that the potsdam conference in germany meeting with stalin and churchill before he is replaced after the british election. This 14page report is very detailed. Its not an official report and its actually quite casual in its writing. There is the excitement and the wonderment of the scientists and the military people involved in this First Successful test. It really comes through in the report. This sketch is on the last page of that 14page report. On the second page, lieutenant groves actually refers to the mushrooming cloud. Thats the first time that the word Mushroom Cloud is really used in that concept. They describe the explosion as being beautiful and all the different colors in the sky that they see. Looking at this particular document, some of the hand written cursive might be tricky for some of us to read. But if you go close in on this underneath where it says cloud drawings, and its a little faint, but it does say first atomic bomb explosion in new mexico. Sketchers from a b 29 flying at 30,000 feet about 15 miles away. In fact, the b 29 that were sent up there for observation could not get as close as they would have liked because of the weather. You can also see the time dated there. You can see 5 30, 5 38 and so on, then 5 42 at the bottom for the second part of the sketch. So you can see theyve done this first thing in the morning. It was really dependent upon the weather when they were going. To do this test. The report itself goes into more detail about the level of destruction and the impact it had. Truman uses those exact words from those reports and some other documents that we will see a bit later on, namely his diary entries. But also talks about the colors, dark brown, light gray and so on. It then says seethrough here in the hole in the middle of the cloud. Then it also gives the elevation. So, of course, later on we are able to see photographs and other footage of this atomic cloud. But this is what truman receives while hes in germany and it is relate to him by a stimson to his officials in germany at the potsdam conference. Truman himself is very excited about the successful test and they can now really start to plan if and when to use this against the japanese, just in a few short weeks when we get into two weeks later. Its of course the end of july and we are getting close to when it happens on august the 6th. I will let you study that a little bit more. Its a fascinating document. I would encourage you to read all 14 pages of the report. It sounds a little cumbersome. Its tight and easy to read and its available on the Truman Library website. Its quite a fascinating read in the payoff is that you get this sketch on the last page. The next document is one i mentioned previously. Trumans diaries. Heres a number of different diary entries. I couldve chosen one of three that he writes at this time period. This one is july the 17th, 1945. Just a day after he gets that report. Of course, this is handwritten and it can be hard to read. Those who work at the Truman Library have become familiar overtime of trumans handwriting. This is when he is first meeting Joseph Stalin in this particular diary entry. We have other diary entries from july the 18th, the next day, when he meets churchill. From july 25th when he goes into a lot more detail about the atomic bomb testing. He doesnt mention it in this one page of his diary. Hes talking to stalin about the different negotiations that are going to come up and they are setting the agenda. This is very much at the beginning of the potsdam conference. They are talking about china and they are talking about the soviets coming into the japanese war. That is one of trumans goals at potsdam, to get the soviets to join. But he has a kind of cryptic phrase in here. He asked him about the agenda and truman says, i told him, this is about halfway down, i told him to fire away. He did and it is dynamite. Then truman says, but i have some dynamite as well which i am not exploding now. So he kind of has this cryptic reference to dynamite and not exploding now. It is not too surprising that he mentions this the day after finding out about the successful test. Im just using one of the diary entries today. In the following day on the 18th, he says that he believes the japanese will surrender when the russians come in because stolen does agree to enter the war. Then he has this phrase in the 18th of july entry where he says, im sure they will win manhattan appears over their homeland. Now truman doesnt really referred to manhattan very often in his ridings home to his wife. On his diary entry of july 18th, he talks about manhattan appearing over the japanese homeland. He also goes on to say that i will inform us talent about it on an opportune time. In fact, during the potsdam conference, he does tell stolen dreary briefly, but not really in detail, about the fact that they have a new weapon that they can use against the japanese. Truman did not think that stalin knew anything about that, but of course, as we know now in 2020, stone did in fact have spies in new mexico. They were passing the information about the Manhattan Project back to him. Then a week later on july 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. Those diary entries are really very revealing as truman expounds upon the information that hes been giving given by lieutenant groves. Now, we have two contrasting documents here. Two documents, one is a little misleading, we will do it in second. Im trying to keep them in Chronological Order if i can. This one 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 that you would get to the ordering of the use of the atomic bomb this is a memo from thomas hunt, who is the acting chief of staff while marshall is at pots them with truman. Hes writing to the commander general of the United StatesArmy Strategic air force. You can see the date on this one is the 25th of july. Things are moving quickly as you can see. You can see this. Its not super sharp, but basically it has four points on this single page memo. It talks about the 509 composite group. The 20th air force will deliver its First Special bomb as soon as weather will permit. So they refer to it as the special bomb without saying were using the word atomic. It then talks about the various targets. The first one there is hiroshima and the fourth one listed is nagasaki. The second point says that the additional bombs will be delivered as soon as they are made ready by project staff. We found out later that in the early part of august, only two moms were ready and they used both of them. The third bomb was and probably going to be ready until around the 16th or 17th of august. The third point is that he dissemination of any information about this is reserved for the secretary of war and the president. So the military are not going to make any comment about this. Any new stories, any people asking for information, they need to refer back to the secretary of war for them to respond to. The last point is that this is done with the approval of the secretary of war which i mentioned before is stimson and the chief of staff. It also mentions that a copy has been sent to general mcarthur and a copy has been sent to admiral nimitz. This is the closest you are going to get for the actual orders of the dropping of the bond on hiroshima. That is updated the 25th of july. It does say after about august 3rd. It does give a date for that. At that point, they are waiting for a response from the potsdam declaration to the japanese. The other document that is often sometimes used incorrectly ought to talk about the authorization of the bomb, is this man. This is from the secretary of war to truman. Its a few days later. Its the 30th of july. This one is harder to read. Some of these historic documents can be difficult to read. But if you close in on this one, this is from stimson to the president and he is talking about the recent ultimatum. Thats the ultimatum that was made at potsdam, and the dramatic results of the test that weve heard about already. Their suggestions made by the british which secretary of state burns is well aware. Hes giving recommendations of what to do and im going to talk about the context of this in a minute. This is a two page or because you can see the truman writes on the back of this memo. He says, secretary of war, reply to this number of memo, suggestions approved. Release when ready, but not sooner than august 2nd. Then again, truman liked to use his initials. Some people overtime thought that when he says, released one ready, that hes talking about the atomic bomb. In fact, this is about a statement that is going to be released, like a press release, rather than a release a releasing of a bomb. That is why theres confusion. I did want to point out again, i wanted to do this before, the number on the memo, that is what truman uses on the back. This is an interesting document in that the preparing statements saying we better get this approved because once the bomb is dropped, we are going to need a statement immediately. That is why there is a bit of a rush here because they have been going back and forth in terms of what do you say to the world once this bomb is actually dropped. So they are trying to get the suggestions approved by both the british suggestions and the suggestions from stimson himself and from truman and from burns himself and all the others in the close circle of president truman at the time. That is a fascinating one. Its not to mislead, its more about statements rather than the bomb itself. Okay. So now we are going to get closer and closer to that august 6th. The last one we will look at from july is a letter from harry to bess. He writes a number of letters to bess. It takes about two weeks to get to potsdam the at the uss augusta. He goes across the atlantic rather than flying. Many people argue that hes done that to get ready, to read the materials. He was also under a lot of strain and used some of that time to rest as well. He played poker and other things in the evening. So he writes to bests from the uss augusta and when he finally gets to germany, to potsdam, he continues to write to her. During that time, he says very little in his letters about the atomic bomb. Obviously there is some concern about secrecy and letters being intercepted. Things of that nature. But in the july 31st leather, he does make a rather cryptic reference to that. Then we are going to look at some video footage of the news reel of his announcement. Then were going to look at the artifact of the safety plug. Then the crane and then we will finish with a video on the screen gems footage which i will explain when we get to it. There is the letter to bess. This is just two pages of this. As i mentioned, it was written july 31st. Of course, trumans writing is not the easiest to read, the corrosive. This is all digitized and on our website. We have, it goes up every time i say these numbers. We have more than 1300 letters written by harry truman to Bess Wallace Truman over their lifetime, from 1910 to 1957. In most cases, including the envelopes, which is amazing to have that in our collection. All of those letters that harry has written two bess is barr all digitized and available on our website in Chronological Order. So you can go straight into july and look at these other letters. This is the only one that really references the atomic bomb. Its rather cryptic when he does so. If you look at the bottom of the first page on the left and then the beginnings of the second page on the right, he finishes up where he says, i rather think mr. Stalin is stalling because hes not so happy about the english elections. Just to remind you, Winston Churchill had lost the elections in great britain. That was during the potsdam and he is replaced by a new labor Prime Minister. Then truman goes on to say at the bottom of the page, he doesnt know it, but i have an ace in the hole and another one showing. That ace in the whole, when you look at the transcript here, that ace in the hole is cryptic. We believe he is talking about the atomic bomb. So here we see the transcript thats a little easier to read. He talks about secretary of state burns and the soviet foreign minister and the new british Prime Minister and his foreign Prime Minister. They all worked and accomplished a great deal. He doesnt know it, but i have an ace in the hole and another one showing. You know truman loves his car games. You are first rather cryptically to the atomic bomb in his letters to his base his wife, Bess Wallace Truman. I find that somewhat fascinating. Sometimes in historical documents, you find out about things that are not written. So the seven or eight letters that he writes, he really makes no reference to the atomic bomb. The same with letters to his mother and sister at the same time. Either no references or rather cryptic. Moving on. So weve got a video clip for you now. This is truman announcing the surrender from the uss not the surrender, sorry. Announcing the dropping of the atomic bomb from the uss augusta. You can see the window in the background from the ship. A short time ago, an 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 to supplement the growing power of our armed forces. In their present form, these balms are now in production and even more powerful forms 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 loose against those who brought wore to the far east. Key we are now prepared to destroy more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the japanese have in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their 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 other destruction that the ultimatum of july the 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 finding skill of which they are already well aware. Whoops. Im going to talk about this next artifact in a moment, but i wanted to make a couple of moments comments about that newsreel. Firstly, i think the quality is remarkable. The definition of the video i think is really spectacular. I feel very fortunate. Its amazing that quality 75 years later. To the second part of that is very compelling. You have the closeup video and truman looks at you with those eyes and you know he means business. I wonder about that when hes at the negotiating table were stolen in churchill later when churchill is replaced. When you stare across the table and he seemed to have that same serious stare when he made those tough decisions as president. Its a really fascinating video. Then the fact that you can see the window on the uss augusta behind him. Giving you that sense of time and place as hes getting ready to come home just as the atomic bomb has been dropped on hiroshima. The one thing that really comes across to me is that he really needs business. The next piece is a three dimensional artifact from our museum collection. Im going to do a closeup of the tag that is attached to this. Let me talk about the object first and then the tag thats with it off to the side. First of all, this green, black and silver blob is actually the safety plug taken out of the bomb views from the plutonium bomb that was dropped on nagasaki. The tag tells us in the description as well. The green plug was removed and replaced with the red activating plug on the box car, the b 29 that carried the bomb. The planes commander, let me show you this. This was the safety plug that was removed to put in the reactivating plug that came with the bomb. If you look on the next page here, you can see this more upright and its a little easier to read. 10th of august, 1945. I certified that this is one of the two green safety plugs used and nagasaki japan on the 9th of august, 1945. This was the second atomic bomb dropped on japan. Then the writing of the two gentlemen underneath, the second one is up probably a little easier to read. I did some research on this. The commander whose name comes first is frederik ashworth. Hes one of the weapon areas and his assistant is lieutenant Philip Barnes. Those are the two people that sign up on that to provide its authenticity. A fascinating object. I will go back to you can see the plug again. I should say that this artifact and the tag will be on display in the renovated museum when we reopen the Truman Library museum later this year after our 30 Million Dollar renovation. The safety plug will be in a special gallery dealing with the atomic bomb. Another artifact i will show you a little bit later on will be in the same gallery. A fascinating artifact. We are very fortunate to have it. Then the tag that goes with it just adds to the story. That is really special. The fact that Frederick Ashworth and Philip Barnes 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. Weve had this on display before at the Truman Library. Its going to be displayed again in the same gallery space as the safety blog. We are going to juxtapose one another. This is the paper crane made by sasaki. She was a japanese girl who was a victim of the atomic bombs in hiroshima when she was two years old. She did survive and the story is that during her early part of her life in august 1955, she decided that she was going to stop to make these paper cranes as a symbol of peace. That was her wish. Theres different stories that go back and forth on whether she accomplish that. The more recent research is that she actually made more than 1000 trains before her death. Theres childrens stories about this crane. This crane is rather small. We have to blow it up on the powerpoint for you to see it, but its very small. This is going to be displayed at the museum when we reopen. Its going to be displayed along with approximately five to 600 paper cranes made by students in the kansas city area. They have made paper cranes to go in the exhibit alongside this original paper crane. So we can help tell that story of sadako. The reason its also really appropriate is this is part of the peace and reconciliation efforts made by trumans grandson, Clifton Truman daniel, in the last decade or more. He has been to japan and reached out. I think its largely through his efforts that we were able to get one of the last surviving cranes from sadako, donated to the Libraries Museum collection. So all of those things have kind of come full circle with the connection between Clifton Truman daniel and the japanese and of course the peace efforts after 1945. The fact that the sadako family would allow that to be donated to the library is very special. I think that when you see the renovated museum when we reopen this year, with both the safety plug and the sadako crane sharing the same space, its really going to be a meaningful approach and interpretation to that episode in history. Moving on we have one more video to show you. Before i press play, it and want to do it itself, im trying to not let it do that. This is when truman looks back in the 19 sixties when he is asked about the atomic bomb. He never really wavered much