Reply, there is no qualification. That is president harry truman on august, 1940 five, announcing japans Unconditional Surrender following the u. S. Department of to atomic weapons, ending world war ii. Your new book culminates with this event 75 years ago. In the midst of what is going on in the country, why is it significant to pause and never this event so long ago . Guest i do not know if it is significant, but it is interesting and that was enough for me. [laughter] you have to say was significant for me personally, because i, as the host of the sunday talk show, i live and breathe washingtons world today. And one of the joys about researching and writing and now talking about this book, has nothing to do with donald trump. I do not mean that either as praise or denigration. But, we live in this world that is highly polarized. A zerosum game, all of that. And it was kind of refreshing to go back to 1945, even though we were in the midst of world war ii. Because, susan, we were all on the same side. Everybody was pulling together. The country came together in common cause of to be the enemy. First the nazis in europe. And the japanese in the pacific. One of the extraordinary examples of that is the Manhattan Project, it went on for two years, the program to build the atomic bomb. It started in 1942. And finally, all of these things happens in 1945. 125,000 people working across the country, in oak ridge , tennessee and the los alamos and new mexico and in whenever utah and hanford washington and not a single word of it ever leaked. I assume we will get into at some point that harry truman as Vice President did not even know about the Manhattan Project. I cannot help but think, today, if you had a secret project, to bake apple pie, with a 24 hours, somebody would go on twitter or instagram and say, this is outrageous and immoral and im going to blow the whistle on it. It was refreshing to go back to 1945. Host you tell readers the idea started in Nancy Pelosis office. Tell me the story . Guest i have the concept for a while, to write a history thriller. To take a specific key moment in history, and try to take the reader along for a ride. You know, so much of history is written, obviously it is all after the fact. But it is written as if the reader knows it is after the fact. And why did it happen . And how did it happen . But not take me along on a ride as it is happening. The fact is, there are so many momentous events during these 116 days from when harry truman becomes president until the bomb is dropped. So we do not know when truman is trying to decide other to drop the bomb or invade japan what hes going to do. We do not know at los alamos that people are going to try to make what they call the gadget, but they call the atom bomb, whether it will work as they tested. We do not know at the flight crew of the in the legate off to drop the bomb on hiroshima whether the aftershocks of the explosion are going to knock the plane out of the sky. I did not know that is what i was going to write about write about but i thought if you can take people for a ride and count down the key moments from the beginning of the story to the climax, it could be a page turner. But i did not know what the specific event was going to be. In february, of 2019, on the day that President Trump was going to deliver his state of the union address, nancy pelosi invited four or five of the Network Anchors over for a a prebuttal, a uniquely washington event. I have seen it with democratic president s and republican speakers and in this case a republican speaker and democratic speakers, with a brief you on everything wrong with the speech before the they actually deliver the speech. And i had covered the house for a year and a half and i not been in this room. She said this with the board of education. I was excited because i remembered from my history, that was the hideaway sam rayburn, when he was speaker in the 1940s and 1950s and 1960s, has special hideaway. Was called the board of education, where he would have people come after hours, his cronies, to gossip about politics, and plot strategy sometimes, to deliver to recalcitrant numbers of congress what their marching orders were, and also to strike one for liberty, which meant to have a bourbon and branch water. She said was in this room, and the other end of the desk from where she was sitting, that on april 12, 1945, that truman who was then Vice President , had come in. He was a regular at the board of education. And rayburn said, the white house is looking for you. So truman poured himself a drink. Then he dialed national 1414. He did not know what it was but knew the white house was looking for him and was put on the phone with steve early, president roosevelts longtime secretary, who said get to the white house as quickly and quietly as you can. And nancy pelosi said truman hung up the phone and said, jesus christ and general jackson. And then scurried out of the board of education. I suddenly thought that is it. That is my key moment. I did not then know it was 116 days from when truman gets the call that will eventually laid him finding out in an hour, that roosevelt has died in his now president , to 116 days later, when they drop the bomb on hiroshima. Host on the secrecy, lets start with harry truman. What does it say about fdrs leadership he kept a secret of such magnitude from Vice President truman . Guest i would say roosevelt had gotten remember he had just been elected to his fourth term, so he is 13 years into the presidency. He basically ignored his Vice President s. He did not Pay Attention to them. We tell the story in the book that, his current Vice President , and 19, was Henry Wallace, who is very far to the left, and there was great concern in the party among party regulars, in 1944, that roosevelt might not survive a fourth term and they did not want Henry Wallace to be president. A lot of people around him were further and they wanted to replace him. Roosevelt does not seem to have been concerned because i think he thought he was going to live forever, at least through the end of the fourth term. So they were going to have the Democratic Party convention in chicago. The Democratic Party chair was Robert Hannigan and he and the party brokers decided we have to get wallace out of there and put 70 else in to the job put somebody else into the job. Roosevelt seems to have been largely uninvolved at this. They looked around at various names of people. Wallace wanted to stay in the job. Jimmy burns had been a former senator and Supreme Court justice and was now heading the office of war mobilization for roosevelt, he was a possibility. And truman was going to go to chicago and nominate jimmy burns, berkeley was another possibility. The Democratic Party leaders made the calculation not that truman was so wellqualified for the job, but that he would work hurt the ticket the least. Only 2 of gallup polls supported truman, but they thought he would not do any damage. So that was that. He came to chicago and did not want to be the Vice President. They finally hooked up a call in a Chicago Hotel room, so truman, they called him in, and he could overhear the Democratic Party chair, hannigan, talking to roosevelt, who was in san diego at the time. It was all set up and roosevelt said, have you got that missouri senator to sign on . And hannigan said no, he is that contrary us missouri mule have ever met. And roosevelt set if he wants to break up the Democratic Party and sync my presidency and the middle of world war ii, anyway, they put roosevelt on the phone and he protested and resisted a little bit, and finally said if the commanderinchief wants me to do it i will do it. So he was on the ticket. They get elected. They are inaugurated in january 20th, 1945. And roosevelt completely forgets about him. Truman was Vice President for 82 days. He had met with roosevelt twice in private in those 82 days. As you point out, he has sworn in as president 6 30 on april 12 tells the cabinet to stay on. They all leave and the secretary of war, henry simpson, says, mr. President , i need to talk to you. He takes him into a private room and says i need to tell you about an immense project to develop a weapon of indescribable power. That was literally, he had been Vice President for three months and that was literally the first inkling truman had about the existence of the Manhattan Project, to develop the atom bomb. Roosevelt had never shared it with him. Host so do we know of any senior members of congress, if they had been briefed on the project . Guest no. No members of congress have been briefed on the project. And an interesting thing, truman was as keyed into all of that is possible. He was the head of the crew Truman Committee the Truman Committee, which was specifically involved and authorized to look into defense spending. And at one point, he had been poking around about an installation in washington state, which in fact was part of the Manhattan Project. And when stimson, the fact secretary of war got word of this in 1943 or 1944, he calls truman attest, listen, senator, i know all about that project. I want you to know it is ok. Truman completely backed off. And said, if you think, if that is what you say, mr. Secretary, i take your word for it. That was one of the things truman was astonished by. Because congress had appropriated 2 billion in the previous two years, but it had been all secret. And truman cannot understand how that kind of money could have been turned over from congress to the administration and they did not know what they were spending it on. Host where did the Manhattan Project get its name . Guest well, a lot of scientists were in manhattan at the time. The basic history is, that in 1939, let me back up. You have a number of jewish german refugees who leave germany as hilla rises to power. They understood that as jews they were not long for this world. They go to england where they go to the United States. That includes Albert Einstein. Theres an increasing fear as we get to the late 1930s that germany, which still has a lot of brilliant scientists, may develop a Nuclear Weapon, and at atom bomb. An in the last thing any of the scientists want is to have hitlers have access to the only atom bomb in the world. So in 1939, Albert Einstein writes a letter to fdr, and basically says, we think this technology is out there. And the United States, the free world needs to develop it before hitler and the nazis do. Roosevelt sits on until 1942, when church a, and there were some of the signs when church when Winston Churchill, and some of the scientists in great britain, in 1942, and the scientists in manhattan. And they started dusty assigned a Major General named lesly gross to put this together. And he realizes you cannot have scientists all of the country, you have to put them together and that is the beginning of the Manhattan Project. We see three major installations, oak ridge and tennessee, which ends up becoming an enrichment, uranium enrichment site. And hanford, washington. And the real brainpower, a thousand scientists and technicians and engineers, at los alamos in a deserted area of new mexico, where Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of the project had spent time growing up as a kid. He convinced grove, lets put the Real Laboratory there. Host what did Robert Oppenheimer, 40 years old, bring to the table . Guest absolute brilliance. He was a brilliant theoretical physicist. Astonishingly intelligent brainpower. He knew six languages. He learned sanskrit so he could read a hindu devotional poem, the bhagavadgita, which later comes into the story. An interesting thing, he was seen as somewhat of a prima donna, as a lot of these scientists were. But gross decides he is the project. It was this fascinating combination of groves, this six foot 250 pound bulldozer of a guy, who in 1941 and 1942, and a year and a half built the pentagon. Which is the Biggest Office building in the world. And just a massive project. And built right on time. The government decides, roosevelt decides, he is the right guy to do this massive project. He then recruits oppenheimer to do it. So you have the military push and drive and discipline of groves, and this year scientific brilliance of oppenheimer, the scientific director of the program. I think oppenheimer really is the key figure here. Because on the one hand you have groves demanding military discipline and security and deadlines, and a lot of the scientists were bucking out at this and somehow, oppenheimer kind of had to keep the scientists on board while on the other hand trying to meet the deadlines that groves was setting. And groves was not very patient. He called the 8000 scientists in los alamos a bunch of prima donnas, and said he was conducting a giant opera. So it was a kind of clash of temperaments and wills, but somehow it worked. Host i was struck by the quote you had of oppenheimers reaction on the news of fdrs death. The quote was, roosevelt was a great architect, perhaps truman will be a very good carpenter. Guest treatment new absolutely nothing about the Manhattan Project and scientists knew nothing about truman. They had been working, not handing glove because obviously there was separation, and roosevelt have other things on his plate. But they knew they were working very much at the direction of the president , and that he had taken a keen personal interest in starting and funding and keeping the Manhattan Project going. Now suddenly he has gone. And this stranger is there. One thing you cannot overstate, is when roosevelt, im sorry, when truman takes over in april, 1945, the bomb does not work it. There are four months away from the first test. And there was a tremendous debate going on, throughout the government at that time, about whether it would even work. Yes they had split and out of in a laboratory. But whether you could take this atomic Chain Reaction and harness it and create a super weapon, that was very much in doubt. Admiral William Lakey was one of the top people in the nate in the navy and a chief of staff roosevelt and truman, throughout the entire 116 days and countdown 1945, leahy keeps saying this is the biggest bit of bunk i have ever heard. This thing will never work. So there was a lot of doubt as to whether it would at work. Therefore, truman had a lot of doubts about it. Host i know you spent a lot of time in the truman president ial library. What did you learn about how harry truman went about making the decision to deploy . Guest well this was one of the most interesting parts to me of the whole story, susan. I have interviewed seven president s, and spent six years covering Ronald Reagans white house in the 1980s. I like to think im a student of president ial decisionmaking. Sometimes you see it being done very well and carefully, and sometimes not so much. There were three things that impressed me about truman. First, how meticulous he was. He goes over this again and again and again. And, the choice i think a lot of people did not understand, and i did not fully understand this going into this, the choice was not dropped the bomb on hiroshima or whatever city it was going to be or do nothing. It was dropped the bomb, or invade japan. So there was a lot of discussion. On june 18, truman has all of the war cabinet, and this includes secretary of war stimson, some top admirals, the general of the army, george marshall. He has them all come to the oval office and have a discussion about, what are we going to do to enter the war in the pacific . By june, the nazis had surrendered on may 8. So that is the war that is left. How are we going to end that war . The japanese, far from giving up, are fighting more fiercely than ever. It is only a fairly short discussion. I think about an hour. For about the first 50 minutes, it is simply a discussion of invading japan. And one who is leading the discussion is under marshall. He says, he compares the casualty rates of what had happened in the invasion of normandy and some of the islands in the pacific. And he comes up and i was astonished at this and i have read the minutes of the meeting, with a specific number of how many troops he is going to need, 766,700. That was the number he said, and the production from all of the people, that this is going to take at least a year and maybe a year and a half. Remember they are meeting in june of 1945, and they were are saying this work will go on until the end of 1946. They say we believe they are going to be a million japanese casualties, and up to a half million american casualties. Theres a long description about, first they are going to hit kyushu, and then honshu, and on and on. At the end of the discussion, they have been talking about the invasion in great detail. At the end of the discussion, and this is the second thing that impressed me about truman. He wanted to hear from everybody. He wanted to hear from people whether they agreed with the direction he was going or not. He was not scared at all of dissent. One person has been silent in this whole meeting, a fellow named john mccloy, an assistant secretary of war, maybe the most junior person in the room. But he was a very distinguished wire from the ark, from the dutch a very distinguished lawyer from new york. And he was stimsons troubleshooter. Truman says to him, nobody leaves this room without saying what is on their mind. Mccloy turns to stimson and says can i . And stimson says, go ahead. He says i think we ought to have our heads examined if we do not discuss other options. Then he does something in the previous 4550 minutes had not been done. He mentions the bomb for the first time. He says, theres this bomb, and i think we ought to consider that, which might, you know, might obviate the need for an invasion. There is a discussion of it, but not a terribly serious or detailed discussion. Because again, they had never tested it and they do not know if it is going to work. As i said the end of that chapter, at that point truman basically regarded it as a science project. He goes on to potsdam, where he has the summit meeting with Winston Churchill and stalin. He has these meetings all over again. With the u. S. War cabinet. With the british war cabinet along with Winston Churchill. At this point in july, they have tested the bomb and they know that it works. There is again a discussion, and he basically decides im going to drop the bomb. Then a few days later, he has a meeting on july 20, with dwight eisenhower, the supreme allied commander in europe and that hero of dday, and the conquest of the germans. And he asks, eisenhower, what he thinks. And he says i do not think you should use the bomb. I think one, the japanese will surrender anyway. And two, i do not think the u. S. To be the country to introduce this Terrible Technology to the world. Those are two of the three things. I promise i will end quickly. First, the meticulousness of his decisionmaking. Seconds that he thought out and was not afraid and was not put off by dissent. He did not was follow it but he listened to it. The third as, i think a lot of people have this perception, of truman as being famously decisive, the buck stops here, he made a decision and never looked back. In fact, he agonized over this decision. He complained of sleepless nights when he was in potsdam. He had terrible, searing headaches, which he had throughout his career whenever he was under what he considered heavy stress. And his diary, and that is one of the joys of doing a book about people who are all gone, when i was in the president ial library, i got a hold of his diaries during this period, this 116 days that i talk about in countdown 1945. And he talked about the choice of using the bomb, in apocalyptic terms. He kept saying this is the most terrible weapon ever discovered, and he compared it to the fire instruction prophecy in the bible. He certainly did not make this decision lightly. Host you write about the fact that, the scientists involved in the development and the military leaders had differing opinions on the morality of using this weapon. What were the arguments they were really hashing out on both sides of this question . Guest i would even say there are three sides of this triangle. Two of the three did not have a lot of second thoughts. The politicians, after the bomb was dropped, like truman, like his top officials and his war cabinet, never had any doubts about it. The military never had any doubts. Paul tibbets, the commander of the enola gay, the plane that dropped the bomb, he said this was war and in a war, you want to kill the enemy before the enemy kills you. And there is not a lot of morality attached to our. The scientists were a different story. It was not just second thoughts, a lot have first thought. There were several led by leo szilard, one of the scientists involved early on, who had serious doubts about the morality of the bomb, and in fact, tried to petition roosevelt when he was still alive, to either not use it or do a demonstration, to try to avoid the bloodletting. There is fascinating scene. You know, you talk to a lot of authors, susan. And im sure lots share this enthusiasm, any sort of know the story but when you begin you do not know all of the details. And as you begin to research it, you find out about scenes, characters, moments, events, details, that you did not know about, that make the story so much richer, and that if you have been a hollywood screenwriter, you are not ever have dared to write. In october, 1945, two months after the dropping of the bomb, Robert Oppenheimer who i talked about earlier, the scientific director, and i think if you had to say the signal person most responsible for the creation of the bomb, it would be him. He goes to the oval office to meet with truman. And he, at this point is riven with regrets. He says to truman, i think i have blood on my hands. Truman says, i am the one who blood on my hands. Let me worry about it. And he cannot get oppenheimer out quickly enough. Then he turns to a staff and says, i never want to see that son of a bench in this office ever again. Host interesting. We have oppenheimer in 1945 kelly nbc and a documentary about what he was thinking after witnessing that first test at los alamos. [video] we knew the world would not be the same. People laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remember the line from the hindu scripture, the the bhagavadgita, vishnu is trying to persuade the prince duty, andould do his to impress him. Death, now i am become the destroyer of worlds. Host what is your reaction . Guest again, that is one of those moments, you sit there and say, as a screenwriter i could not have put this together. And he did say that, at alamogordo, in this vast, deserted, desert, on july 16, 1945. I think it is one of the most dramatic parts of countdown 1945 is the drama of that test. Let me quickly set the scene. Truman wakes up on july 16, that morning in potsdam. He is there to begin a summit meeting with woodson turtle, the product dust the Prime Minister of great britain, Winston Churchill, and stalin of russia. He openly admits he is nervous about this, because the big three had been churchill, and stalin and roosevelt. And they had quite a working relationship. Churchill and roosevelt have spent 100 nights together. And nights with stalin as well. Truman knows he is a junior partner and that day they will test the out of bomb for the first time in alamogordo. Potsdam, germany, was eight hours ahead so he knew it would be late in the day before he found out the results of the test. In alamogordo they have 81 they have a 100 ft. Tower and on the top is of little bomb as opposed to fat boy theu235 bombs. Theres a terrible Lightning Strike and concern about whether the lightning would detonate the bomb before they were prepared for it and a lot of people would get killed, but no. There was also concern about the rain, and whether they might have to delay the test. Groves, the general, did not want to delay the test because they he had told truman it would happen that day. And some of the scientists were concerned about the rain and lightning. The meter all just says the weather clears at exactly 530 exactly 5 30 p. M. Local time in alamogordo. They detonate the bomb, it goes through wires and the bomb blows up. There were literally, a pool, like march madness of the ncaa basket alternate, among world josh basketball tournament, among these worldfamous scientists, as to what was going to happen when they hit the button. Some saying it was going to be a dead, some like it would be equivalent to 20,000 tons of tnt, some that it would ignite the atmosphere may be take out new mexico or the whole world. They detonated it, and it was exactly what they had expected. Which was this gigantic explosion. First this flash of light. It was still pretty dark at 5 30 a. M. In alamogordo, and they said was like a noonday bright sun. All of the scientists had welders glasses on their eyes, and they were all lying face down in these cement bunkers. So, not to look at a flash, even with welders glasses on, but they could still see this brilliant flash of light and then a fireball. And then this mushroom cloud, that billowed 40,000 feet into the air. Everything banished. Everything vanished. The steel tower was vaporized. So was everything from antelope to blades of grass, a thousand foot long crater gashed into the desert. And maybe will get to a but there was a newspaperman embedded in the project, a fellow named william lawrence, on york times reporter on a secret mission for performance with the project, and he wrote a story which of course was not published until after the bomb was dropped on hiroshima. And at that moment, he coined the phrase, the atomic age. The atomic age began at 5 30 a. M. The alamogordo desert. Host you also, when harry truman shared the news of that successful test with the other leaders at potsdam, you write that it began the 20th century arms race. Guest not that, it was when he told stalin. What happens is, they now know that the bump works. Bomb works. Truman knows that instead of being the junior partner in all of this he is the senior partner, because he has the weapon. First roosevelt and Winston Churchill had been an out truman and Winston Churchill were now very much in collaboration so Winston Churchill knew about the development and theyre talking about this. One question they have is when are we going to tell stalin . They think stalin knows nothing about the development of the bomb for the last three years because roosevelt and churchill have never shared it with him. The decision is made, we want to tell him about it because if we leave potsdam and then drop it on hiroshima, he is going to be furious that we are supposedly allies and have left them in the cold. But we want to tell him as little as possible, and as late as possible. So finally, on july 24, eight days after the successful test, truman and churchill decide theyre going to tell him, but theyre going to do it as casually as possible. Theyre having the potsdam conference in a suburb of berlin. Truman they decide is going to go up and kind of casually mention it to stalin. So he goes up, after the session has ended, they each had five people at the roundtable. Truman goes over by himself and leave the u. S. Delegation, and stalin is standing there, with his translator. The russian who is translating english to russian and russian to english. And says to him, i need to tell you that we have developed a weapon of immense power. And stalin says, well, i hope you will put it to good use against the japanese. Then he walks away. And truman is dumbfounded. They have been worrying for a week now, about how they are going to tell stalin, and what his reaction is going to be. And they tell him, and he does not care. So Winston Churchill walks up to truman as stalin walks away and says, what happened . He was not there but he sees from across the table, it was a very brief conversation. An truman recounts that, i told him this and he said that. And they are not sure whether or not the message really got through the translator, what he was saying. Well, the fact is, that stalin was interested, he just was not surprised. Because come in fact, there was a german physicist named clouse fuchs, part of the Manhattan Project, a german refugee, and he had been very loyal to the communist party in germany as seller was rising. He thought that as hitlers was rising. He thought the communist party was one of the only organization that can stop it but of course they were not. He emigrated to britain and to the United States and becomes part of the Manhattan Project, but he still, his prime loyalty is to communism. So he, during this time, have been smuggling information out to a courier named raymond, who got the information back to moscow to the kremlin. So later that night, on july 24, stalin and molotov, the Russian Foreign minister, our meeting in their quarters in potsdam. And somebody not knowing what it is overhears them saying, we need to get going on this now, talking about their nuclear project. Historian later said, the Nuclear Arms Race began at 7 30 p. M. On july 24, 1945, at the sicilianov palace, at the moment that truman told stalin that it works. Host the next couple have is from paul tibbets, the pilot charged with assembling the team of airmen who would take the planes over to drop the bomb. Lets listen to him and learn more. [video] at the bomb left the airplane we took over manual control, made a steep term, to transfer as much distance between ourselves and the explosion as possible. After we felt the explosion hit the airplane, the concussion waves, we knew that the bomb had exploded. Everything was a success. So we turned around to take a look at it. The sight that greeted our eyes was quite beyond what we had expected. Because we saw this cloud of boiling dust and debris below us, with entremed is mushroom on top. A tremendous mushroom on top. Beneath that was hidden the ruins of the city of hiroshima. Host how may planes were involved altogether . To the people involved in this mission know that there was a good possibility they would not survive it . Guest yes, there was a lot of doubt about that. There were seven planes involved in the mission. There were plain scouting first whether there was, what the weather was. So there were whether planes to make sure that hiroshima was clear. Also to make sure were not a lot of japanese fighters there. As they came in closer, there was a backup plane on iwo jima. There were three planes. The enola gay. And one plane to photograph the explosion. And another plane to take instrumentation of the data of the size and force of the explosion. So there were seven planes involved in each had 12 crewmembers. The enola gay had 12, a bombardier, pilots, the gunner and on and on. There were at least three huge questions, that the crew had, when they took off. The first, was whether or not they would get off the ground. It was a b29, and it had never cared that much weight. The bomb weighed almost 10,000 pounds. Because it was near the front of the plane and you cannot, you had to have the plane balanced, you cannot have all of the weight in the nose or it was not going to be able to take off. They had to put an extra load of fuel, not for fuel as weight, in the back of the plane. Theres a big question as to whether the plane was going to get off the runway at tinian island. And it almost did not. The day before when i consider the possibility that the plane might crash, they realized, we cannot have the bomb armed when we take off. Because that crashes we will have a Nuclear Explosion and the only thing we will take out is the u. S. Airbase at tinian island and it will not do anything to the japanese. So literally, 24 hours before this whole thing begins, the chief ordinance officer, a fellow named dick parsons, says we cannot take off with this bomb armed, we will have to arm it on the plane. They said have you ever done that . He said no. They said how are you going to learn . He said i have 24 hours. So they get into the enola gay and worked in sweltering heat, 100 degrees in this plane, this metal plane, taking apart the back of the little boy, they arraign him u235 bomb, fiddling with the circuitry, to see how they can keep it disarmed until they take off. So that was concern number one, that the bond might explode when the if the plane crashed on takeoff. Then there was concern as to whether on the way there, they might get captured or shot down by the japanese. Each member of the crew had a sinai capsule, because they all a cyanide capsule because they thought better to kill yourself then be subject to the not so tender mercies of that japanese if they capture you. The other great concern, again because the bomb was tested once, july 16, at alamogordo, and nobody has any idea what is going to happen when they drop the bomb from a plane, which had never happened. And you have the concussion, the shockwaves, coming from the explosion. That is why heard on the clip, tibbets talking about, as soon as he dropped the bomb, all before, they were at 30,000 feet on the bomb dropped at 1500 feet, elevated above hiroshima. He puts the plane into a steep right hand turn, about 155 degrees, because they want to get out of the bomb blast as quickly and dramatically as possible. And he says it is only after the bomb has exploded, and they felt the only person who saw it the tailgunner in the back of the plane, bob karen, who are a brooklyn dodgers cap the whole time, he is the only one who sees the explosion and sees these rings of the shockwaves coming out the plane. They described it like a giant, with a huge pole, beating on the plane. They do not know what it was going to be. Obviously, they survived it. But it was only then that turned the plane around, caps on the utter destruction turn to the plane around and saw the utter discretion of what they had wrought on the city of 50,000. And robert lewis, the copilot wrote in the log he was keeping for that New York Times reporter, my god, what have we done . A lot of people had grave doubts and second thoughts and he never admitted to that and said that when he wrote that he was shocked at the immensity of that instruction. And what the explosion had done immensity of the destruction, and what the explosion had done not that we should not have done it. Host i want to get one more voice and hear, hideko timura. You can tell us more about why you chose her story. [video] under the cloud, a few days, 70,000 people died. Under that cloud, my house came down. I had huge glass shards, i had some buddy help me. I was one of those weaklings who could not even touch anything, i ran to my mother and said, ma. And there was this bigs things there was this big thing stock in my front and no one would pay any attention. Aftershock, everybody was hurt. So i sat down. I realized that the end of my childhood has come. Host 10 years old at the time, why did you choose to include her story and that . Guest look, if youre going to tell the story of hiroshima, and you talked about the moral considerations, and the fact that it was a coldblooded calculation by truman. A lot of people are going to die, including a lot of women and children. This had a military component, there are 50,000 soldiers garrisoned, but it was a city of 250,000. You have to tell that part of the story. Hideko timura was extraordinary, a 10yearold girl. Hiroshima had not been bombed at all. Her parents sent her. 100,000 people were killed in the firebombing of tokyo. She was sent out to the countryside, to what was supposed to be a school but she found was a work camp and she hated it. She smuggles a letter back to her mother and says, please, rescue us. Her mother comes, to rescue her, and also the mother of her best friend comes. They say, lets stay here for a few days, and the countryside, so we can rest. Hideko says, i want to go back tomorrow. She makes her mother go back on august 5. She was on the ground, ground zero, in hiroshima, on the morning of august 6. Then the bomb dropped on hiroshima. Her mother had gone out on a Civil Defense mission. She was killed. A number of members of her family were killed. She was 10 years old. Her mother, not anticipating and anna bomb but an explosion, had drilled into her, what do you do if there is any kind of explosion . You get other some strong and sturdy, like a table or in a doorway, because the building is going to collapse on you. Which it did, but she was able to take her way out. Her mother told her, get out and go to the river because there will be fires and explosions, and that is the one place you will be safe from that. So hideko is by herself, sees the flash, blacks out and wakes up under huge rubble. Her aunt is alive helps her take out. She has bruises and a gash in her right ankle. She binds that and this little, because the family is paralyzed in shock, goes off by herself, walks through the streets, sees dantes inferno. People whose eyes had been sucked out of their eyesockets. People were the only thing that exists is the shadow of where they were standing because it has been vaporized and there is a shadow on the wall but they were standing. Is looking for her mother and cannot find her. And saves her self at age 10. The capper of the story is that she is still alive. She was 10 and is now in her mid80s. She lives in the United States and came here when she was 18 years old and went to west or worcester college, married an american and had a child and lives in oregon and is a force of nature, a remarkable woman. Host how popular was the decision to drop the bomb, here in the United States . Guest very. There was not a lot of sympathy. We talk now about the carnage, the innocent women and children. There was not a lot of sympathy for the japanese. Pearl harbor, an atrocity involving u. S. Soldiers. There had been pictures of american prisoners of war being beheaded by japanese prison camps in asia. So right after the war, i think 87 in a gallup poll, supported dropping the bomb, universal. And one other concern, we tell the story of someone else, work a woman working, unbeknownst to herself, enriching uranium. She was terribly concerned because her boyfriend, later her husband, has survived europe, and was now going to be shipped to the pacific. They did not know all the details we have discussed today, about the loss of life from invading japan. But they knew if the war continued in the pacific, it was going to be a bloodbath, at a and a lot of americans were going to die. The war ends, a few days after hiroshima, and there is a second bombing in nagasaki because the japanese do not surrender immediately. Eventually, they do. The overwhelming feeling of americans is thank god the war is over and we have one and no won and no more. Harry truman said and writes, i think the flower of American Youth is worth a couple of japanese cities. That was a calculation he made. I think the calculation of vast majority of americans made. Host lets listen to harry truman as we get to our close here. Critics of his decision. This is 1964 from the truman library. There are crybabies around talking about what ought to have done, and the demonstration in japan before you killed all those people. I had the authority of the best men in the business and that is henry l stimson, the operation that the japanese would understand would be one that would show them what it was and that is what happened. That stopped the war. I do not care what the crybabies say now because they did not have to make the decision. Host in effect, people who read your book at this point, will also see a study of president ial leadership and decisionmaking. Here we are in a president ial. Election year is it fair to compare her truman and his style of leadership with what president s have to face today . Guest sure, and im going to leave it to you to do it. One of the joys to me of this book is it has nothing to do with donald trump, so i leave it to everyone to compare truman with trump and treatment with truman with biden. I will say this, as toughest of the decisions this president has had to face and whoever is going to be president in 2021 is going to have to face, i do not know that any president has ever had to face a decision tougher than to drop the bomb on hiroshima. And what that meant for the world. Truman was keenly aware of this, the lossoflife and dropping bombs on japan, and secondly, taking the Nuclear Genie out of the bottle. They knew. If the u. S. Has developed a bomb now, eventually, and they suspected, the russians will develop a bomb. And, in fact, they did in 1949. And we now have 50,000 Nuclear Weapons, all over the world, and have any countries, from the u. S. And russia, and britain and china, and india and pakistan, and north korea. It is worth noting there is only one country that has ever used a Nuclear Weapon in war, and that is the United States. Host we have five minutes left. Maybe just pivot to today. You have been covering this country for four and a half decades. What do you think about the state of this country now . With the multiple challenges we face, compared to past times you have covered . Guest as i said earlier, the thing that struck me and which was most refreshing, if you will, about 1945, is how unified we were. There were differences of opinion about how to proceed. But in the middle of the war, everybody was on the same side and there was to read is unity and tremendous security when it came to the Manhattan Project, because nobody wanted to do anything to impede our ability to win the war. And now you see how tribal this country is, how utterly divided we are, where, in the midst of a pandemic, the question as to something as elemental as whether or not you wear a mask, which all of the Scientists Say you need to to protect yourself from the coronavirus and to protect other people from the coronavirus, becomes a political issue . It is terribly sad. Or you look at the death of george floyd, and hundreds of thousands of people going out in the street to argue for police reform. There are differences as to the level of police reform. And it looks like the sum total of it as we talk today, is that nothing is going to get done because that republicans and the democrats cannot get together, and resolve their differences, to come up with a package. So as a result, nothing is going to get done, as we have seen with school shootings, an gun control, or immigration reform. So that is a country that was able to muster the will and unity to accomplish great things. This seems to be a country now which is unable to muster the will and unity to accomplish what would seem to. Be very basic things i think that is terribly sad. Im not saying a book about the outer bomb is a feelgood book, but reading about the unity of the country, i think we could use some of that today. Host the book, countdown 194 , is available where people buy books. Chris wallace to tell us the story of Harry Trumans momentous decision making. Guest thank you, susan, i appreciate it. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] all q a programs are available on our website or as a podcast, at cspan. Org. This week marks the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki. Watch cspans washington journal live at 8 00 eastern for discussion about the bombings with ian toal, author of twilight of the gods and clifton junior daniel. Watch American History tv and washington journal, live at 9 00 a. M. Eastern, as we look back at how the bombings ended world war ii, and their legacy in the decades ahead. Join the discussion with your calls, text messages, facebook questions and tweets. Watch the 75th anniversary of the bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki, this week, on washington journal on cspan and American History tv on cspan3. The spacex crew dragon returned to earth after astronauts spent two months on the International Space station. We will show you some of the highlights, including the splashdown in the gulf of mexico, vessel retrieval, and nasas postrecovery news conference. Heres the capsules returned to earth, with video provided by nasa tv. The vehicle is now over the gulf of mexico. It is approaching the landing zone. Th