Were killed or listed as missing. 140,000 people were injured. Of these, 43,000 were badly hurt. The city was unbelievably crushed. Of its 90,000 buildings, over 60,000 were demolished. But definitely remains were aptly described as vapor and ashes. Man had torn from nature, one of her innermost secrets, and with a newfound knowledge of instrument im not annihilation. Menacing implications of this extraordinary weapon were frightening to everyday people. What do you think of that bomb would drop him jazz mr. Glen . Oh isnt it terrible all those people killed. Three days later, another b 29 brought an improved bomb on the major japanese seaboard of nagasaki. A highly congested industrialized city, posting the best harbor in kenya cuckoo. An extensive naval facilities. But this bomb exploding over the north tragic district took the lives of 42,000 persons and injured 40,000 more. It destroyed 39 of all the buildings sanding and nagasaki before the calamity. The japanese described their complete mutilated city, as a graveyard with not a tombstone standing. These two terrifying blows were struck in japan, only after profound considerations of all the human military factors involved. The atomic bomb were dropped to end the war quickly and they did. And the war quickly. We. Richard frank is author of downfall japanese empire. Talk to us further about the 75th anniversary of a drop of the atomic bombs by the u. S. Allege a pant. Richard frank thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. In that last clip that we just heard, military film from 1946, its said pretty definitively that atomic bombs were dropped and the work quickly. And they did and the war quickly. This was the right decision to make bombs the reasons at the end of the war . The short answer is yes, they were dropped overwhelmingly to end the war as quickly as possible save lives of both american japanese one thing i think is really, critical to get through right at the start is to understand the context of this. From my study i have two basic principles that have to follow, once to count all of that and second is the treat all the dead and by that the japanese as well. And basically the asia pacific war, one from 30 7 45, resulted in the death of about 19 million not commence. Of that number of japanese non combatants who died was maybe 1 million 1. 2 million about 25 a print of them work is atomic bombs. More of that were due to 1945. That matt tells you immediately that every japanese noncompetitive died in the whole war between 17 and 18 not commence died. Overwhelmingly other agency are chinese. And by the summer of 1945, most of the 1718 of non combatants of japanese are already dead. They were dying at a rate of end. 200 that is the context in which this takes its important we dont overlook, or dehumanizes japanese. Whats equally is important that we understand, the total context of this, where the deaths are taken place, and that primarily not japanese. Richard frank is with us for half an hour as we look back further, at the 75th anniversary of the u. S. Atomic bomb drops a hiroshima. And nagasaki, we will take your calls. After a couple minutes a conversation, look at the phone numbers on the screen now for our guest, if you look at the Eastern Central time zone, will go to seven for eight 8000 is your number if you live out West Mountain and pacific to a 2001. We have to separate sunday lines this morning, one is for world war ii veterans and their families. 2 02 seven four eight, eight zero zero two. Japanese americans, 2 02 seven four eight eight zero zero three. Look forward to talking with you and 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 . The support and 1945 and 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 get down and start doing the costs of the alternatives, you understand why mr. Truman, in his decision, 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 important choice. Abhorrent choice. This is the anniversary of the nagasaki bombing. August 16 the first one, hiroshima. What was different between those three days and what was the Truman Administration looking at . The destruction and hiroshima, what made them decide to drop a second bomb . There was no specific decision on the second bomb. The authorization order released the people to start dropping bombs and keep dropping bombs. We talk about the two bombs, this is another aspect that people, i think, dont understand. The problem with the notion that one bomb would have done it or a demonstration would have done it is this 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 japanese leadership in the fact that producing vision fissionable material was difficult. The Imperial Army immediately responded, well, we can see they have one bomb. 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 exactly what the nagasaki bomb did. It convinced the top leadership, and in fact the u. S. Didnt have a bomb, we had an arsenal of atomic bombs. John allow me, was a war master it was a second powerful man in japan. He had been adamant for continuing the war after the hero shutdown about. After the nagasaki bomb, he went around telling members of the leadership, that the americans have 100 atomic bombs, and the next target is gonna be tokyo. How far along with the u. S. At the time of the dropping of the bombs, in its planning for an invasion of japan . 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. He was reluctant, but presented with a scenario in which we were going to have overwhelming superiority going into southern kyushu. And therefore american casualties would be acceptable. What we now know, 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 up over 10,000 airfare aircraft. 7000 troops. Instead of us going on with overwhelming superiority, our salt 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 by the ninth of august, 1945, with the intelligence he was prepared to bring on this showdown with the army over whether there should be any invasion. Only the japanese surrender at off before it reached the level of mr. Truman having another review. Lets take a call from tom. You are on with Richard Frank. We are talking about the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings in japan. 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 with 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 . No. Basically, you have to bear in mind that until the end it was assumed the bombs were going to be used against germany. It turned out from a tactical standpoint they didnt have bombs ready in time to use against germany. 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 rated and hiroshima. What i have been going over these many years now is the fact that our narratives we have been using simply talk about japanese deaths, the fact that japanese were asians. I dont mention we were in the war because not abandon china. Our American People at that time, reading the New York Times had been reading it day by day to the whole war. There 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. How have japanese textbooks for Young Students portrayed the war . Has that approach changed over the years . That is a complex question. The larger issue, i think, for japan was the. The period of world war 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 representative from the peoples republic of china. The argument was made along the lines of the critical literature. 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, they capture between 1. 6 million and 1. 7 million japanese nationals. When they the repatriation process is over, they only returned 1. 2 million. No from soviet archival documents about 61,000 are japanese soldiers. Basically between 300 40000 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. We go to rick. It is in phoenix. Good morning. 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 brotherslife 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. 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 . Thank you, rick. Richard frank . 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. 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 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 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. 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 deaths on top of the japanese done. The death tolls for these alternatives when you sit down and contemplate them are sickening, mindboggling. We have lynn on the line from west virginia. Good morning cspan and mr. Frank. I am the sun of an okinawa veteran who was trained to go to japan. Of course, he never had to go because president truman had the sense to do it he did. 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 work 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. Thank you for calling. Richard frank, has history been fair to president truman . 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 was, that i make the best decision of what was presented to me . He always believed that if you understood all of the alternatives, 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 he was shima we intercept this message from the Japanese Navy reporting that 100,000 japanese had died he was shima. 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 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 so incomparable between the japanese and these other people that they find the american struggle over this to be baffling. We have a little bit more of the history. Hiroshima happens on august 6. On august 9 the u. S. Dropped the atomic bomb on nagasaki same day, soviets declared war on japan. Six days go by, august 15, the emperor announced japans unconditional surrender. It happened . Walk us through those six days to get the emperor to the point of surrender. A little context here. What you have to understand is, to get japan to surrender was two steps. Someone with legitimate authority had to decide that pan with surrender. In 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 makes it on the afternoon of august 8 he talks to the foreign minister and says, 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 in the fall. These are played into his mind. He announces that decision before the inner circle of leadership, and the Early Morning hours of august 10. We have the diary entry of the number two man, a general named koabe. One of the other officers comes to him and says, i dont think the overseas commanders will comply. Right on cue, two of the three overseas commanders 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 that has this language in it that says, the precondition they want is that the prerogatives of the emperor, the sovereign ruler, 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 government, but over the occupation authorities. So he has a veto over the occupation. Of course, send a message back saying, clearly the emperor is going to be subordinate to the occupation commander. That causes more turmoil in japan. The emperor insisting that japans surrender, and he gets the government to agree. Then we still have a very fraud. Fraud period where Japanese Armed forces, going on 7 million to surrender. One of the admirals later tells interrogators that the most fraught days he spent with these days worrying about whether the armed forces were going to comply with the emperors order. I described this as a miraculous deliverance that we actually got the government and armed forces to surrender in august 1945. Lets hear from steve now in fredericksburg, virginia. Good morning. My father served in world war ii. I would like to ask professor frank if he reads japanese . I would like to ask him if he has read the overwhelming number of comments just after the war by japanese generals and admirals that it was not the two nuclear attacks, but the entrance of the soviet union into the war. They had invaded manchuria and they were occupying the islands, which they still occupy to this day, and they were threatening al qaeda hokkiado. Thank you. Thank you, steve. Let me unpack that at several levels. First of all, in terms of the impact of soviet intervention, when the impure the emperor is at that imperial conference, the chief of staff of the Imperial Army tells the emperor in a classic understatement that soviet intervention is unfortunate that doesnt negate the plan to counter the american invasion. If you go through all of these other statements i have been through,