Of these, 43,000 were badly hurt. The city was unbelievably crushed. Of its 90,000 buildings, over 60,000 were demolished. The desolate remains were aptly described as vapor and ashes. Man had torn from nature one of her innermost secrets. And with his newfound knowledge he had fashioned an instrument of annihilation. Menacing implications of this extraordinary weapon were frightening to everyday people. What did you think of that japs,as dropped on the mrs. Glenn . Terrible. All of those people killed. Three days later, another b29 dropped an improved bomb on the seaport of nagasaki. A highly congested industrialized city boasting the best natural harbor in western kyushu. And extensive naval facilities. [explosion] this bomb, exploding over the north factory district, took the lives of 42,000 persons. And injured 40,000 more. It destroyed 39 of all of the buildings in nagasaki before the calamity. The japanese described their mutilated city as a graveyard, with not a tombstone standing. These two terrifying blows were struck in japan only after profound consideration of all of the human and military factors. Factors involved. The atomic bombs were dropped to end the war quickly, and they did end the war quickly. Host Richard Frank is author of downfall. Al here to talk to us further about the 75th anniversary of the drop of the atomic bombs by the u. S. On japan. Richard frank, thank you for joining us. Guest thank you for having me. Host in that last clip, the military film from 1946, it said pretty definitively that the atomic bombs were dropped to end the war quickly, and they did in did end the war quickly. Was this the right decision to make and were those bombs the reason for the end of the war . Guest the short answer is that yes and yes. Overwhelmingly the primary reason was to end the war as quickly as possible. Save lives of both the americans and japanese. One thing that i think its really critical to get to his to understand the context of this. There are two basic principles we have to follow. One is to count all the dead. Second is to treat all the dead as sharing a common humanity. I mean the japanese as well. The asiapacific war resulted in the death of about 19 million noncombatants. Of that number, a number of japanese noncombatants was maybe 1. 2 million. About 25 of them were due to the atomic bombs. More than that was due to soviet intervention in 1945. That math tells you immediately that for every japanese noncombatants who died, between 17 and 18 other noncombatants died. They are overwhelmingly other asians and about 12 million of them are chinese. By the summer of 1945 most of those noncombatants who were not japanese were already dead. They were dying at a rate of about 14,000 a day. That is the context in which all of this takes place. It is important we not overlook or diminish the japanese. Equally it is important that we understand the total context of this and where the deaths are taking place. They are primarily not japanese. Host Richard Frank is with us for half an hour. As we look back further on the 75th anniversary of the u. S. Atomic tom drops over hiroshima atomic bomb drops over hiroshima and nagasaki. We will take your calls after a couple of minutes of conversation. We will put the numbers on the screen for our guest. If you live in the central or eastern time zones, 202 7488000. If you live out west, mountain and pacific, it is 202 7488001. We have two separate special lines this sunday morning. One of them is for world war ii veterans and their families. 202 7488002. And for japaneseamericans. 202 7488003. We look forward to talking with you and you talking to our guest, Richard Frank. More perspective here. How widespread in 1945 was support for president truman and his decision to use atomic weapons . Has that changed over time . Guest the support for truman in 1945 and sometime there afterwards was extremely high. Numbers, ive seen above 80 . Its changed over the years because the narratives have been employed over the years have changed very much. One of the things that really concerns me about this is, i dont question that we should talk about this and it should be controversial. But i find it astonishing that this conversation takes place in which alternatives are advanced in lieu of the atomic bombs. What is conspicuous is, they never talk about what the cost of these alternatives are. When you actually get down and start doing the costs of the alternatives, you understand why mr. Truman, in his decision, not did not make a good choice, he basically was making choices between the astonishingly awful to the horrendously horrific, and he chose what secretary of war stimson would call the least abhorrent choice. In terms of the total effect of these events. Host this is the 75th anniversary of the nagasaki bombing. The second bombing. August 5 being the first one. What was different between those three days and what was the Truman Administration looking at . The destruction in hiroshima, what made them decide to drop a second bomb three days later . Guest there was no specific decision on the second bomb. The authorization order released the people to start dropping bombs and keep dropping bombs. There was no further check back. When we talk about the two bombs, this is another aspect about the controversy, i think, people dont understand. The problem with the notion that one bomb would have done it or a demonstration would have done it is, you have to look at the japanese side. Their reaction was based upon the fact that they had an Atomic Bomb Program which had not produced a bomb, but it had educated the top levels of japanese leadership in the fact that producing fissionable material was difficult. The Imperial Army immediately responded, well, we can see they have one bomb. We need an investigation. The Imperial Navy took the track that, they may have one bomb, they cant have that many, they cant be that powerful. Basically, what the japanese leadership was looking at was not fear of one bomb, it was that the u. S. Had an arsenal of nuclear weapons. As it happens, that is what the nagasaki bombs dead. Did. It convinced top leadership that the u. S. Did not have simply a bomb, we had an arsenal of atomic bombs. The war minister, the second most powerful man in japan, he had been adamant for continuing the war after the hiroshima bomb. After the nagasaki bomb he went around telling leadership that the americans have 100 bombs and the next target is going to be tokyo. Thats an amazing argument to make if you are continuing the war. Host how far along with the u. S. At the time of the dropping of the bombs, in its planning for an invasion of japan . The main island of japan . Guest very good question and very different from what it is usually presented. There had been a plan to invade japan on november 1. Mr. Truman had approved that on the 18th of june, 1945. At that time he was quite reluctant, but he was presented with a scenario in which we were going to have overwhelming superiority going into southern kyushu. And therefore american casualties would be acceptable. And what we now know, which was released decades after the war, radio intelligence had uncovered the fact that the japanese had exactly anticipated that the First American invasion was going to take place on southern kyushu. They built this huge buildup of ground and air force over 10,000 aircraft. Kamakf them, cozzis azis. 7000 troops. Instead of us going on with overwhelming superiority, our assault would be facing 700,000 japanese. We now know a senior naval officer had never wanted to invade japan. He had been biding his time and time to bring on a showdown over whether an invasion should take place. By the ninth of august, 1945, with the intelligence he was prepared to bring on this huge showdown with the army over whether there should be any invasion of japan. Surrender cutese that off before it reached the level of mr. Truman having another review. Host lets take a call from tom, from west virginia. You are on with Richard Frank. We are talking about the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings in japan. Go ahead, tom. Caller good morning. I am age 60 and i remember the howard zinn lectures of my college years, of how history is being rewritten so much right now by people with agendas. Im hearing on talk radio that the only reason we bombed progressive talk radio, that is the only reason we bombed japan, because they were not europeans. In other words, there were people of caller, which is nonsense because we bombed dresden in germany. That was a purpose of demoralizing the german people, for them to surrender. It is unfortunate what happened with the dropping of the two bombs. It did open up pandoras box, but on the other hand it saved millions of japanese lives who would have been caught in the crossfire, as well as american lives and casualties. Am i wrong on that . Guest no. Basically, you have to bear in mind that until the end it was assumed the bombs were going to be used against germany. As soon as they were available. It turned out from a tactical standpoint they didnt have bombs ready in time to use against germany. Germany surrendered in may. The first bomb, a test bomb, was detonated in july 1945. Let me come back again to a basic point. It is not that the argument time advancing says we dont care about the japanese who died. I wrote graphically about that in my book. Both the fire raid in tokyo in 1945 and hiroshima. What i have been going over these many years now is the fact that our narratives we have been using on this simply talk about japanese deaths, the fact that japanese were asians. They dont mention we were in the war because we wouldnt abandon china. Our American People at that time, reading the New York Times had been reading it day by day through the whole war. They were well aware of how horrific the war was in asia. We have completely blotted that out. That is why those narratives are so powerful. People simply do not realize how horrific the asianpacific war was. Host Richard Frank, how have japanese textbooks for Young Students portrayed the war . Has that approach changed over the years . Guest that is a complex question. Issue for japan, i think, was the whole period of ii was an area not forthrightly discussed, still not forthrightly discussed. There is a tendency in japan to view themselves as the greatest victims of the war. If you have been dealing with historians and people from other asian nations, you really get a full flavor of how infuriated that makes people in china and elsewhere. I was sitting in a conference once with a historian from the peoples republic of china. The argument was made along the lines of the critical literature. As he is sitting there i see him going from bafflement to fury as he realizes that this narrative entirely omits, it does not count and doesnt treat chinese, vietnamese, indonesians, koreans as sharing a common humanity with japanese civilians in two cities. Let me add further, basically when the soviet union enters the war, according to john dower, and his embracing defeat, which is a powerful book about the occupation of japan, they capture between 1. 6 million and 1. 7 million japanese nationals in manchuria. When the repatriation process is over, they only returned 1. 2 million. Between 400000 and 500,000 japanese disappeared and died. We know from soviet archival documents about 61,000 are japanese soldiers. Basically between 340000 and 440,000 japanese noncombatants died in soviet captivity after the end of hostilities. Those are higher numbers than died in the atomic bomb attacks. Including the latent deaths. Host we go to rick. In phoenix. Good morning. Caller good morning. Just want to add my voice. Not sure what had been discussed earlier, my father, who barely survived the war in europe, was being prepared to transfer to japan. That would have eliminated my brothers life after that date. And many other mens lives. Also it wouldve been criminal, and you add everything up here, it wouldve been criminal for truman not to drop that bomb, not just the rape of nanking, socalled. Hundreds of thousands of chinese massacred, as you say. Massacred in a horrible way. As you just mentioned, the russian threat that would have taken japanese territory and greatly complicated the postwar era. There are so many reasons why truman had to do that. What was the alternative . I heard generals saying they were going to blockade japan until they gave up. What . Could you address those points that you havent yet . Host thank you, rick. Richard frank . Guest that is a really excellent point. On the american side there was an unstable compromise between the army and the navy over a strategy to end the war. War in unconditional surrender. The army thought the critical issue was time. Therefore, they advocated invasion because they believed invasion would be the swiftest way to end the war. The navy, one of the fundamental premises of that study was that invading the japanese home islands would produce politically unacceptable casualties. The navys alternative was blockade. What doesnt get mentioned in these discussions as it should and this was basically the policy the Navy Officers lined up behind this get back to the very basic point i made about counting the dead. Blockade was bluntly aimed at ending the war by starving to death millions of japanese, mostly noncombatants. That is what blockade was about. In view of the limited power of the atomic weapons and other conventional weapons at that time compared to what we have today, a blockade was actually the most ruthless strategy the u. S. Was prepared to employ. Employ against japan. That was the direction we were going in august 1945. If the invasion was off, then we do blockade. And we do try to kill millions of japanese noncombatants. By the way, those asians who are not japanese, who are dying every single day, at their their deaths on top of the japanese done. The death tolls for these alternatives when you sit down and contemplate them are sickening, mindboggling. Host we have lynn on the line from west virginia. Hello. Caller good morning cspan and mr. Frank. I am the son of an okinawa veteran who was trained to go to japan. Of course, he never had to go because president truman had the common sense to do what he did. For those who criticize truman, im going to tell you what my dad said. Let every one of those critics go to the families of people, american gis who were saved from invading japan and tell them that truman did the wrong thing. I know you dont have the guts to do that. Thank you, mr. Frank. Your book is very informative. Host thank you for calling. Richard frank, has history been fair to president truman . Regarding his decision . Guest in my view, no. Let me add another dimension to this. Mr. Truman, you know, he famously said he didnt lose any sleep over the decision and various comments like that. If you go through everything he actually said, in his mind he had a whole area in two compartments. One compartment was, did i make the best decision of what was presented to me . He always believed that if you really understood all the alternatives, he made what was called the least of horror and choice. He made what secretary stimson called the least abhorrent choice. As bad as the bombs were, the alternatives were actually worse. On a personal level, truman was never in different to the deaths of japanese that his order had caused. In fact, shortly after hiroshima we intercept this message from the Japanese Navy reporting that 100,000 japanese had died hiroshima. Mr. Truman clearly was reading that. He talks at a Cabinet Meeting and says, the hiroshima bomb killed 100,000 people. And all those kids. He has various other comments he is making about the fact that this was horrendous, the consequences may have been right, but the consequences were horrendous and he felt that very deeply. You know, once again, when you deal with people from other asian nations who were trapped in japans empire or americans saying were two bombs necessary . A common comment from them is, why only two . From their perspective, that is the death rate is so incomparable between the japanese and these other people that they find the american struggle over this to be baffling. Host Richard Frank we have a , little bit more of the history of the end of the war in 1945. Hiroshima happens on august 6. On august 9 the u. S. Dropped the atomic bomb on nagasaki same day, soviets declared war on japan. They invade manchuria. Six days go by, august 15, the emperor announced japans unconditional surrender. What happened . Walk us through those six days to get the emperor to the point of surrender. Guest a little context here. Basically, what you have to understand is, to get japan to surrender was really two steps. Someone with legitimate authority had to decide that pan that japans nationstate would surrender. Then japans armed forces had to comply with that surrender. Neither one of those steps was a certainty through most of 1945. The emperor makes the critical decision. He actually makes it in the afternoon of august eighth, 1945, when he talks to the foreign minister. The war must end now. This is after hiroshima. This is before soviet intervention. There were other factors on his mind including his loss of faith in the strategy to meet the invasion. Concern about the japanese people reaching revolutionary state sometime probably in the fall. These are played into his mind. He announces that decision before the inner circle of leadership, and the early in the Early Morning hours of august 10. We have the diary entry of the number two man in the Imperial Army, a general named koabe. One of the other officers comes to him and says, i dont think the overseas commanders will comply. Even with an order from the emperor. Right on cue, two of the three overseas commanders of the Imperial Army send a message saying, we are not going to comply with the surrender order, even from the emperor. There is more backandforth in the tokyo. They send their first message, which is really the first serious message about ending the war, but it has this language in it that says, the precondition they want is that the prerogatives of the emperor, the sovereign ruler will not be compromised in surrender. The American State Department officials immediately realized that what this is, this is a demand that the u. S. Make the emperor supreme, not only over the japanese government, but over the occupation authorities. So he has a veto over the occupation. The occupation reforms. Of course, send a message back saying