Wall street contributor a. J. Baime. Brian you have a book called, the accidental president. When did you first get interested in doing a book like this . A. J. i was raised in a household where truman was a hero. I grew up thinking that truman was a man of integrity. I never understood the trajectory. In that book, there is a chapter where senator truman goes to detroit to investigate the Car Companies and their failure to produce airplanes and other military pieces during world war ii as fast as i said they could. It struck me that this obscured senator truman should be the one to become the most powerful man in the history of the world in 1945. Brian in your notes, you talk about a new session. What does that mean . A. J. when you are researching a book like this, you end up traveling around the country and eating a lot of Peanut Butter and jellys images and spending time alone sifting through documents. Are essentially looking for treasure and those eureka moments. Means, you are trying to find documents that have not been listed. The great truman documentaries came out in the 1990s. So, i knew that if i found these thenents, if they had not available to biographers in the 90s, i cannot look you in the eye in the same time and say i found documents that changed history. There were more elements of color that i could drop in that that i as a narrative writer meant a lot to me. He had the whole package. Was theis for months most challenging that any president has faced to this day. Man becomes accident president by accident in 1945 and we solve the third reich fall. Japanwere firebombings in that killed thousands of civilians. The fall of berlin, the beginning of the cold war, First Nuclear explosion, first atomic bombs dropped, the beginning of the nuclear arms race, all of that began in a performance. Months. In a four months period. Onan i have put some dates the screen so everyone could put it into context. Thee the conference three conferences. How do they fit together . First twofrom were secret. The most important thing is that we brought together the three leaders. Winston churchill and frank roosevelt. Of their most breast trusted leaders as well. There were many secret agreements. When roosevelt died, the new president coming in had no idea of these secret agreements. Truman has to figure out how to handle churchill and sullen and all ofs that there are the secret agreements and has to secret decide whether they should be upheld. With withs is mostly andn and altered tehrain alta. Yalta. Immediately after his ,naugural, a light arriving president roosevelt met again with churchill. Brian how cordial were those three men . A. J. they all got along fairly well. Roosevelt is very good at getting along with people. Get probably killed more people than hiller did but he was good at it. No you to pot stand, truman is now president and he has no international experience. Three month into this presidency, he does not know whether the bomb will work and he has to sail across the atlantic. By this time, the war in europe is over and the whole world knows. The whole world knows this is going on now. The American People are really expecting their new president to bring something home to them. There is an enormous amount of pressure. Truman goes to sit up these sit at the table with these two themen to essentially map out te future of the world. Brian how much did he know about what was going on in the war . A. J. let me frame it for you this way. She was an expert on the home front. He knew as much as everybody what was going on. In terms of the international emergency, he probably did not know much more than the average person. He did not even know of the existence. He knew of some existence of some strange Government Program going on. Brian right now, the Vice President lives in a big mansion off massa set massachusetts avenue. A. J. where was trip brian worlds truman living . A. J. roosevelts life is often thought of as an aristocrats. Truman lived in a small apartment on connecticut avenue. There were two bedrooms and he shared one with his wife. The other bedroom was shared by margaret, their only child, and mrs. Wallace, trumans what mother in law. You can see the pictures online. It was very modest. Telephone which was exciting. That is who he was. Brian how much money did he have a . In those days . A. J. not a lot. In my quest to be able to find the details that would really illuminate who this person was, i managed to sift through his bank records of the time. In the book, i could quote exactly what his bank balance was. Something like 3000 and something dollars. Brian how much was he paying for his apartment . A. J. i dont know but he had a loan out at the time from the bank. Brian what was his relationship with mrs. Wallace, his motherinlaw . A. J. interesting. Wonderful question. Wallace, this fall is family comes from independence, missouri. The family is considered aristocrats. The trumans were farm people. Mrs. Wallace, throughout harrys , wasship of that, beth never in favor of this farm boy because he was never going to go anywhere. White house, the she still looked down at harry. Brian how much education did harry truman have . A. J. again, a great contrast to roosevelt who had gone to columbia and harvard law. Truman never finished college. The family was broke when he finished high school. He went and worked in kansas city for a little bit and at some point he took some more classes at night. He never finished. No college degree, no law degree and this is the man who took over for fdr. Brian what did he ever run in his life . A. J. it is interesting to think, when he became president he had never been mayor or governor of the state. Innk about that, following roosevelts footsteps. He was the chief executive of a county. Much of which was rural. It had kansas city and it. In it. Besides that, he had never been chief executive of anything. Brian how did he ever get elected to the United States senate . , is amr. Pendergast fascinating figure. He was a largerthanlife man and had a ball from head. Bull frong head. We do not have city buses like like we bosses now had then. He picked this seemingly random man named truman with no political experience and gave him a political career. The thing about it essentially is harry truman at 38 years old had been a head of a hadrdashery which just failed. And askd them up created a career for him. The reason why it worked is because mr. Pendergast was involved in many you legalities. Activites. Truman was thrust into these offices. How rigged these elections were and Jackson County we do not know . We do know that eventually, these people were convicted of voter fraud, health harrylly when the election. Harry goes to washington and when truman gets a washington, he has a pretty that reputation because of mr. Pendergast. Before the 1940 election, sir pendergast is an prison mr. Pendergast is in prison. This is one of the most fascinating senatorial elections ive ever come across. Brian why . A. J. because no one expected him to win. He had no allies. Pendergast was everything in his career and now he was gone. sarts term in the stark term in the Governors Office was of up. He won miraculously and ran this campaign with no money. The only thing he could say is, hey, i am harry and i am an honest guy. Brian how did he become Vice President . A. J. lets tackle the first part. They did not know each other very well. Roosevelt was even quoted as when they would talk about who would be the next vice saying, i barely know him. Officially, they met twice. There is a wonderful picture i have in the book of the two men sitting under a tree. They are having tea. They are talking but the election. It is a great photograph because there are so few of them that exist that show the two of them in the same room. They barely knew each other. Year this is the first that the inauguration was on anywhere 20. It was january 20th. Fdr died on april 12. How much does harry truman know about the fall bomb,. A. J. the Truman Committee came across the secret site. Truman, wasked for going to go up there and investigate. The secretary of war called mr. Truman on the phone and said, please do not investigate this. I found an actual transcript of that conversation. I know exactly what was said. Mr. Ecretary of war said, truman please pull the investigation away from this. It is a secret project. War says, byof president there is a secret project on on and it is so secret that that is all i can tell you as of now. The transcript says he was left puzzled. It was not until his 13th day in office that he was fully briefed on the Manhattan Project. He went into the white house for a secret meeting. It was announced that within the next four months, the United States will have a bomb Strong Enough to destroy an entire city. A. J. stinson is a fascinating character. He was the only republican in roosevelts cabinet. He had been an government work since early in the century. He was 77 years old. He was in different positions in the administration. He was secretary of war when truman took over. He became this amazing character because he is the point person in government that is supervising the Manhattan Project, which is a military project. He is the one that does more than everybody. He is directly advising the president. He comes to see the president and stinson kept a marvelous diary about his meetings with the president. Brian here is some video of stinson. See what he looked like an sound like in 1943. And mobilizing hitlers troops. For us, this would be a military victory of tremendous magnitude. It would be a military catastrophe of staggering proportions for hiller. Hitler. Brian how important was he for the rest of trumans time as president . A. J. the way i put it in the book, he was a character. He was a relic. He was of another generation. He was the man who interestingly , when not entertain people in his home who had not been who had been divorced. That is how much he was a man of the previous generation. He was an incredible present to be able to put in perspective what the science was. He stuck with truman until the end of the world war. He resigned in september 1945. Him as the point by guy. You see the narrative unfolding and the sort of mystery behind it. They really do not know until they knew for sure that the thing was going to work. Brian where do you live . A. J. i live in northern california. I do not live there when i started the book. Brian what were you doing in chicago and new york . A. J. a journalist. For . Our . A. J. many publications. A. J. i was an editor for Playboy Magazines. Articles editor for Playboy Magazine for 10 years. It was a wonderful job. I will tell you a funny story about it. Did not care. I made a good seller. Salary. At the same time, i could keep the job while watching launching a career with books. I left there five years ago and finished the last book and started this one. For some one who is writing books like this, i think it may be surprising to people. Tome, i just felt blessed have a job that maybe well enough and to give me enough time to be do what i wanted to do. Brian what else besides labor . Playboy . A. J. i have been writing for the washington journal since 2009. Brian where did you get your degrees . A. J. university of New Hampshire and a masters in journalism rum and what you. In nyu. Brian i have a book about a racehorse. When i was in the first grade i wrote this book. We had this wonderful teacher who allowed us to make these books out of cardboard and staging. Stitching. I remember telling her that i love this project. She told me that i would grow to be an author. I said, i do not want to be another i want to write books. , i want to write books. Im one of those lucky people who knew what they wanted to do and is able to do it. Everybody growing up in my family calls me something different. By father calls me jim. My mother calls me heard bert. My sister used a commie jamie. I do not know where aj comes from. We really do not know. We are from eastern european, jewish immigrants. A talk at i was given the library and a woman showed up saying i live here and i have the same name as you. There are very few of us. We cannot quite figure it out but there is not a lot of baime s of their. A. J. two books that you have written. Those were wonderful projects. A. J. it was my first book but it is a book about a rivalry in the 1960s. It captured the imagination of the world. Two extremely powerful men, probably the most powerful executive chief. Probably the most fascinating character i have ever been in which to write about. He spoke poetry. Everything he said was controversial and strange and wonderful. The rivalry between these two men were played out. Brian the other book i want to ask you about is, big shots. A. J. that is my first book. Wrote when ik i was pretty young. The history of liquor. Each chapter is the reallife story of someone whos name is on a bottle. Being . E real jim beam . Through that, i tell the story of what real bourbon is. The whole idea is, you really get a history of liquor and where it comes from. Brian going back to the book about german, truman, when fdr died, harry truman admitted he was scared to death. Most yes, i think the important thing in this book is that it is a human portrait of a man who becomes the most powerful man in the history of the world by accident. I really tried to paint a portrait of him so the reader butd feel what was going on i wanted to have the reader understand what he was feeling and thinking. Yes, he was terrified. Even his wife. Even in conversations with his wife, she was doubtful of his chops. Brian here is video of four days after fdr dies. He has become president and is in front of the congress. Tell me what you see about a man who says he was scared about this job. Both germany and japan can be certain beyond any shadow of a doubt that america will continue to fight for freedom into no no vestige of resistance remains. Brian how did he look . A. J. pretty good. Let me put this in context. This is an extraordinary moment in our history. Truman was terrified to give a speech. He talked about it. The night before he laid in his bed and he prayed to god that he would not mess up. He climbed the stairs and he sees his wife in the crowd. She is crying because roosevelt instead and the nation is in shock and she never wanted to be the first lady and she never wanted her husband to be the president. Meanwhile, he has to get up there and inspired confidence in his administration and the whole world. The whole world has to understand that america will continue. That the war will continue. Everything seems in question because america does not know who this man is. Roosevelt had been president honor than any president ever. A lot of people serving in the military were not old enough to remember any other president in their lifetime. Truman is a stranger and he has to get up there and inspire the world. One fact that i love is that after this speech that he gives, the stock market source. He does soars. He does a great job by sending the right message. Thise do not realize that is someone that americans can relate to. Americans felt like he was one of Vice President about what was going on, the secret agreements whatlta, preparing him for was going on a culture. Brian its difficult to blurt whatout without context were the most important secret agreements . Them it stifel to blurt out without context. We had convinced the chinese of the things about the soviets. The biggest thing about the secret agreement was be chinese concessions. The biggest thing is they had to form the chinese. The chinese were going to give up all of these things to the soviets so the soviets would. Oin the war against japan so, truman finds out about this. And he now says, i have to tell the chinese how they are going to give up all of this stuff to russia. Seriest occurs through a of diplomatic relations with ambassador and china and it does not go well. So, the chinese refuse. Our state department realizes something was going on. The soviets wanted to spread their influence east. Brian hooded president truman washingtonhim to from kansas city, and who was around him from kansas city in the white house . Of. there was a whole bunch guys who, at the time, people were concerned because they did not note truman. He had all of these missourians around him. He had john schneider, who he made federal loan administrator. There was a guy i am spacing he is name inconsequential his buddy ed. Brian ed cancel . A. J. no, brian eddie mccann . They were mortified by the fact that roosevelt was no longer president. One of the narratives in the book is how staffers come to realize who truman is. You see their opinions started form. Of course at first, they are concerned because they see these weird missourians walk around. Man ofalize that he is a terrific integrity. Though he had no college degree, he was very welleducated. Brian who was harry von and where was he from . The whitey vaughn, house just are. He was in the reserves. He was not an important general, and suddenly you have harry vaughn wondering around, keeping truman entertained. Brian a couple people that you write about and theres a whole bunch, as you know, james burns where was he from . A. J. south carolina. Brian what was his job . A. J. he was one of very few all three served in branches of government. He was essentially in charge of the home front. A controversial figure, as it turns out. We have the enemy on the ropes. His knees are buckling. This is the time to face the job. Nine thatas 19 was 1944. Was he right . A. J. essentially yes. The japanese less than germany, obviously. Truman is a fascinating figure. One point to make about him burns was absolutely convinced he should have been the Vice President ial candidate and he was absolutely convinced he should have become president and not truman. Of the very first day of trumans presidency he meets and he says privately, i cant announce this yet but i want to make you secretary of state. And very quickly, burns becomes trumans most important advisor. Its complicated. He becomes very important in the decision to drop the bomb. Brian how . Spell this how to out . Burns and simpson were the key advisors in terms of who had trumans year. It really came down to pot stem truman had to make the potsdam, pot stem truman had to make the decision. There was an ultimatum to japan ,aying, you need to surrender or we are going to do something really, really dark. And the language is clear as you read it in retrospect. They are talking about the bomb, but