Documents from july. You can see my timeline here, the first five documents were going to show you, and then well have another five to finish off as we get into august of 1945 and even some from later that connect to this topic, the 60s. So the first information that truman has about the Manhattan Project comes in april just 12 days after he becomes president on april 12th. This very famous letter some of you are probably familiar with, when Henry Stimson, the secretary of war, writes to truman to tell him about this highly secret matter, as it mentions in that first paragraph. Now stimson had mentioned this to truman after his inauguration april 12th after fdrs death, just in passing, tells him they need to talk about it in the future. Just two weeks later, he sends this letter to truman, telling him they need to get together quickly so he can tell him in the project. You can see some interesting handwritten notes here. At the bottom what i like to point out in Harry Trumans own handwriting, matt, put on list tomorrow wednesday the take 25th, hst. Thats matthew, the appointment secretary, hes telling mr. Connolly to get Henry Stimson on his calendar for the next day. Interestingly truman did come across the Manhattan Project when he was a senator in charge of the Truman Committee looking at overspending during world war ii. He didnt really get into much detail as he started to see the budget numbers built project. But stimson actually is the person that warned him off and said you cant investigate that anymore. Let it go. Now, of course, hes president , and stimson tells him more about the project. Its interesting, too, in those 80 days as Vice President , truman did not know about the Manhattan Project. It takes him becoming president before he is told about the project. Of course, at this point they have not done a successful test, but the work has been going on in two or three different locations actually, as they start to develop the atomic bomb that we all hear more about during the rest of this evenings presentation. This is the first document i wanted to share with you out of the ten artifacts im going to share tonight, because it provides the context of when truman first finds out about the Manhattan Project. Those interesting anecdotes that he didnt know. While he was Vice President , he had come closer to it. As a senator, about two weeks after hes president where stimson sits down and gives him the details. Stims stimson, who worked in the fdr add manage, is really in charge of the whole organizations. He supervises. Hes the conduit between the white house and whats going on in new mexico, so hes a key figure in all of this. The second document were going to look at is from lieutenant groves. This is you can see the date at the top of the page. This is from july the 16th, 1945. This is after the first test in new mexico of the atomic bomb. This is a sketch included in a 14payable report that groves sends to stimson, and, of course, that is relayed to truman. Now, were going to learn more about this in a second. But of course president truman at this time is at the potsdam conference in germany meeting with stalin and initially winston churchill, but church hill is replaced after the british election. Now, this 14page report is very detailed. Its not an official report, and its actually quite casual in its writing as the excitement and the wonderment of the scientists and military involved in this First Successful test really comes through in the report. This sketch is on the last page of that 14page report. On the second page lieutenant groves actually refers to the mushrooming cloud, and thats the first time that the word Mushroom Cloud is really used in that context. They describe the explosion as being beautiful and all the different colors in the sky they see. Looking at this particular document, some of the handwritten cursive might be tricky for some of us to read. If you go close in, underneath where it says cloud drawings, and its a little faint, but it says first atomic bomb explosion, alamagordo, new mexico, sketches from b29 flying at 30,000 feet about 15 miles away. In fact, the b29s sent up there for observation couldnt get as close as they would like because of the weather. You can also see the time there. You can see 5 30, 5 38, 5 42 at the bottom of the second part of the sketch. You can see they have done this first thing in the morning. Was the weather when they were going to do this test. The report itself goes into detail about level of destruction and the impact it had. Truman uses those exact words from those reports in some other documents were going to see a bit later on, namely his diary entries. It also talks about the colors, dark brown, light gray, so on. It says see through here in the hole in the middle of the cloud and also gives the elevation. So of course later on were able to see photographs and other footage of this atomic cloud. This is what truman receives while hes in germany. Its relayed to him by stimson to the officials in germany at the potsdam conference. So truman himself is very excited about the successful test, and they could really start now to plan if and when to use this against the japanese, just in a few short weeks when we get into two weeks later, of course, its the end of july and getting close to when it happens august 6th. Ill let you study that a little bit more. Its a fascinating document. I would encourage you to read all 14 pages of the report. It sounds a little cumbersome. Its tight, easy to read, and available on the Truman Library website. Its quite fascinating read. The payoff as you get this sketch on the last page. The next document i mentioned previously are trumans diaries. These are different dirie entries. I could have chosen three he writes in this time period. This is july 17th, 1945, so just a day after he gets that report. Of course, this is handwritten, and it can be hard to read. Those who work at the Truman Library have become familiar over time with trumans handwriting. This is when hes first meeting with joseph stalin, the particular diary entry. We have some july 18th, the next day, when he meets church hill. From july 25th when he goes into a lot more detail about the atomic bomb testing. He does mention it in this one page of his diary, and hes t k talking to stalin about different negotiations coming up in the agenda. This is very much at the beginning of the potsdam conference. They are talking about china, and they are talking about the soviets coming bought japanese war august 15th, which is one of trumans goals of potsdam to get the soviets to join. He has kind of a cryptic phrase in here. He asked him about the agenda and he told truman said, i told him this is about halfway down. I told him to fire away. He did, and it is dynamite. But then truman says, but i have some dynamite, too, which im not exploding now. So he kind of has a cryptic reference to dynamite and not exploding now. Its not too surprising he mentions this the day after finding out about the successful test. Im just using one of the diary entries today. But in the following day on the 18th, he says that he believes the japanese will surrender when the russians come in because stalin does agree to enter the war. Then he has this phrase in the 18th of july entry where he says, im sure they will when manhattan appears over their homeland. Now, truman doesnt really refer to manhattan very often in his writings home to bess and other correspondents. But on his diary entry of july 18th, he talks about manhattan appearing over the japanese homeland. He also goes on to say i will inform stalin about it at an opportune time and, in fact, join the potsdam conference. In fact, he does tell stalin briefly, but not in detail, about the fact they have a new weapon they can use against the japanese. Truman didnt think that stalin knew anything about that. But of course, as we know now in 2020, stalin did, in fact, have spies in new mexico that were passing the inform is a about the Manhattan Project back to him. A week later on october 25th, he goes into a lot more detail and talks about how the weapon is to be used against the japanese between now and august 10th so these diary entries are revealing as truman expounds on the information that hes been givenly lieutenant groves. Now, weve got two contrasting documents here, two documents that one is a little misleading. Well do that one second. Im trying to keep them in chronological order. This is actually from the national archives, which the Truman Library is part of, rather than the collections of the Truman Library. This is the closest you would get to the ordering of the use of the atomic bomb. This is a memo from thomas handy, the acting chief of staff while marshall is at potsdam with truman. Hes writing to general carl st. Pats, commander general of united Strategic Air force. You can see the debts on this one is the 25th of july. So things are moving quickly, as you can see. Spaatz, and you can see the date on this one is the 25th of july so things are moving quickly, as you can see. You know, you can see this. Its not super sharp, but basically it has four points on the singlebeige memo it talks about the composite group. It will deliver the First Special bomb as soon as weather will permit. And so they refer to it as the special bomb without saying using the word atomic. It talks about the various targets. The first one is hiroshima and the fourth one there listed is nagasaki. The second point says that the additional bombs would be delivered on the above targets as soon as they are made ready by project staff. We found out later in early part of august, only two bombs were ready, and they use both of them. The third bomb wasnt probably going to be ready until around the 16th or 17th of august. The third point there is that the dissemination of any information about this is reserved for the secretary of war and the president. So the military not going to make any comment about this and any news stories, any people asking for information, they need to refer back to the secretary of war and the president for them to respond to. Then the last point is any this is done with the approval of the secretary of war, which i mentioned before, is stimson and the chief of staff. It also mentions a copy has been sent to general mcarthur and a copy has been sent to admiral nimitz. This is as close as you get to the actual orders for the dropping of the bomb on hiroshima. Thats dated the 25th of july. It does say after about august 3rd on there. So it does give a date for that. At that point they are waiting for a response for potsdam declaration to the japanese. The other document thats often sometimes used incorrectly ought to talk about the authorization of the bomb is this memo and its response. This is from the secretary of war to truman, and its a few days later. Its the 30th of july. This one is harder to read. Some of these historic documents can be difficult to read. But if you close in on this one, this is from stimson to the president and hes talking about the ultimatum. Thats the ultimatum made at on potsdam, and the dramatic results of the test, and the suggestions made by the british of which secretary of state burns is well aware. So hes giving recommendations of what to do, and im going to talk about the context of this in a minute. This is a twopager. You can see in dark type there. Truman writes on the back of this memo, secretary of war, reply this is the number of the memo 41011, suggestions approve, release when ready, but not sooner than august 2nd. Truman liked to use his initials hst. Some people over time thought when he says release when ready, hes talking about the atomic bomb. In fact, this is about the statement thats going to be released, like a press release, rather than a releasing of the bomb. Thats why theres confusion. I did want to point out again. I meant to do that before. The number of the memo is 41 011 and thats what truman uses on the back. So this is an interesting document, in that the preparing of the statement, you better get this statement approved, because once the bomb is dropped, were going to need a statement immediately. Thats why theres a bit of a rush there. Theyve been going back and forth in terms of what to say to the world once this bomb is dropped. So theyre trying to get the suggestions approved by both the british suggestions, and the suggestion from stimson himself, from truman, burns, and all of the others in the close circles of president truman at that time. So thats a fascinating one, but it shouldnt be used to mislead. Its more about statements rather than the bomb itself. Now were going to get closer and closer to that, august 6th. The last one were going to look at from july is a letter home to bess. He actually writes a number of letters to bess. Of course, he takes about two weeks to get to potsdam but uss augusta and goes across the atlantic rather than flying. Many people argued hes done that to get ready, to prepare, read the materials. Theres also a lot of strain and used some of that time to rest as well and play poker and other things in the evening. So he writes to bess from the uss augusta. When he gets finally to germany, po potsdam, he continues to write to her. During that time he says very little in his letters about the atomic bomb. Obvious obviously theres concern about secrecy, letters being intercepted, things of that nature. On july 31st letter, he does make a cryptic reference to that. Then we look at video footage of the news reel of the announcement and artifact of the safety plug and then finish with the video on screen gems, which ill explain when we get to that footage. Here is the letter to bess. This is just two pages of this. As i mentioned, it was written july 31st. Of course, trumans writing is not the easiest to read, the cursive. This is all digitized and on our website. We have it goes up every time i say these numbers. We have more than 1,300 letters from harry truman to bess truman during their lifetime, 1910 to 1957, in most cases including the envelopes, which is amazing to have that in our collection. All of those letters harry has written to bess are digitized and available in the website in chronological order. Can you go straight into july and look at those letters. This is the only one that really references the atomic bomb, and either rather cryptic when he does so. You look at the bottom of the first page on the left and the beginnings of the second page on the right, he finishes up this bottom of this first page where he says i rather thing that mr. Stalin is stalling. Hes not so happy about the english elections. Just to remind you, churchill had lost the election in great britain, and hes replaced by atly. He goes on to say at the bottom of the page. He doesnt know it but i have an ace in the hole and another one showing. Now, that ace in the hole, were going to look at the transcript he here, the ace in the hole is cryptic. We believe hes talking about the atomic bomb. Here we see a transcript. Its a little easier to read. He talks about secretary of state burns and the soviet foreign minister molotov and attlee. He doesnt know it but i have an ace in the hole and another one showing. Truman loves his card games. Unless he has threes, hes sitting all right. Thats the one time he refers rather cryptically to the atomic bomb in his letters to his wife bess wallace truman. So i find that rather fascinating. Sometimes in Historical Documents you learn from things not written there. The other seven or eight letters he writes, he makes no reference to the atomic bomb. The same with letters to his mother and sister at the time. Either no references or rather cryptic. Moving on, so we have a video clip for you now. This is truman announcing the surrender from the not the surrender, announcing the dropping of the atomic bomb from the uss augusta. You can see the window in the background from the ship. A short time ago, an american airplane dropped one bomb on hiroshima and its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of tnt. The japanese began the war from the air at pearl harbor. They have been repaid many fold, and the end is not yet. With this bomb, we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction to supplement the growing power of our armed forces. In the present form, these bombs are now in production and even more powerful forms are in development. Its an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the far east. We are now prepared to destroy more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the japanese have in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories and their communications. Let there be no mistake, we shall completely destroy japans power to make war. It was to spare the japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of july 26th was issued at potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen, and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware. Im going to talk about this next artifact in a moment but i wanted to make a couple of comments about that news reel. Firstly, i think the quality is remarkable. The definition of the video i think is spectacular. We feel fortunate it remains in that quality 75 years later. To the second part of that is very, very compelling. We are close you get the closeup video and truman looks at you with those eyes, and you know he means business. They wonder about that when hes at the negotiating table with stalin and church hill later, Clement Attlee when churchill is replaced. When he looks across the table, it seems like he would have that same serious stare when he made those tough decisions as president. Its a fascinating video. The fact you can see on the window on the uss augusta behind him, giving you a sense of time and place as hes getting ready to come home just as the bomb has been dropped on hiroshima. The fact that the one thing that comes across to me there is he really means business. This next piece is an artifact, a threedimensional artifact from our museum collection. Im going to do a closeup of the tag thats attached to this. Let me talk about the object first and then the tag thats with it