I have received this afternoon a message from the japanese government, and reply to the message forwarded to that government by the secretary of state on august 11. I deem this reply a full acceptance of the potsdam declaration. It specifies the Unconditional Surrender of japan, in their 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 to beat 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 windover, 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 perry truman becomes president , until that promise dropped. 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. So i did know not 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. Ut 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 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 940s and 1950s and 1960s, his 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 ourbon 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 and that he is 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 resident 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 hem. In fact, 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 that roosevelt might not live, might not survive a fourth term, that he was quite ill, and they did not want Henry Wallace to be president. He had some socialist endencies. 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 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. O 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 reak up the Democratic Party and sink my presidency in 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 ice 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 ossible. He was the head of something called 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 couldnt 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 erman refugees who leave germany as hitler 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 an atom bomb. And the last thing any of these scientists want is to have hitler to have access to the nly 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. Oosevelt sits on until 1942, some Winston Churchill and 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 in tennessee, which ends up becoming an enrichment, uranium enrichment site. And hanford, washington. And the real brain power, about 8,000 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 right man for 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 entagon. 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. Absolutely n knew 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. Nd 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 yet. Ey 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. In fact, admiral William Lakey as one of the top people chief of y and a staff to 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 nvade 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 o tend 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 nvading japan. And one who is leading the discussion is general 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. I have no idea why it was that specific number. 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. T the end of the discussion, they have been talking about the invasion in