when you read all the comments, it really leaks out. i would add one thing, in those interesting moments right after in august of '45, he talks directly,b!,÷z about killing 10 people. we know now that number, 100,000 was precisely a number that and in his hands that day or the day before and decode from the japanese, a report from japanese navy about karncasualties at hiroshima. he didn't pull that out of the air. he was reading with great interest and intensity the reports about what happened. >> as i mentioned in my comments, interjected himself into stopping any further droppings of the bomb which predelegated by general groves to keep using them until they

were told to stop and they did. >> stan got me most of the way there on there was no decision. you can still at a certain level, truman as a president knew he bore ultimate responsibility. a decision not to intervene is, in a sense, a decision. when you put it in the context of truman takes over, as we know now with no preparation for that role or briefing. he announces he wants to execute the legacy of franklin roosevelt. if you do to these moments that he's in these early weeks, he's not the later, a man very much alone, finding his way. these very moving scenes you read about, he goes home with these great reading lists trying to figure out what was the legacy, what did the president really want to do.

he's searching ernlestly to find it. one of the areas he deals with, atomic policy, has been emphasized, he had enormous confidence in marshall, knew this was a policy roosevelt endorsed. compared to other things he was facing, this seemed like a simple matter. this was the president's policy, i've announced i'm following the president's policy. why should i spend any time on this. he has a meeting about the invasion of jap. he has no characters, he recalled something like this that doesn't take place specifically about dropping the bombs. when truman said i made have decision right here, you can look at it, this was his conscious, i'm doing to wear the sackcloth. it was ultimately my responsibility that this happened. >> sounds like we should retitle this decision, truman's decision

to not use the atomic bomb. yes, sir, you've been waiting. >> thank you all very much for this interesting session. my question is actually for mr. walker. at the beginning of the session, you talked about the division between the traditionalist view and the very visionist view. you said that at this point you thought both extreme views had been discredited. specifically on the traditionalist side, you said the view was discredited because the u.s. had other ways to end the war. throughout the rest of the panel, i feel that we've actually we've heard a strong defense for traditionalist view. particularly described the alternative to using the bomb as being either a blockade and mass starvation of the japanese

populace or the invasion, which is the traditionalist view. what other alternatives, if any, were you thinking of? >> the other alternatives, in 1965 they weren't viewed as alternative to ending the war. there were other ways including waiting for soviets onto enter the war invading man which you aria, conventional bombing. conventional bombing of japan was horrific. we should never lose sight of that. the blockade richard mentioned chfgs goi which was going to have excruciating effects on japanese population. the other possible way to end the war was demonstration shot of the bomb, which was ruled not an effective way to show the power of the bomb.

the value was not the killing power but the shock value. to shock the japanese leadership into surrender. that was the purpose of the bomb. there were other ways the war might have ended, might well have ended. american leaders knew jab niece considering surrender. peace advocates not in control. american leaders knew that as well. the condition of the emperor being allowed to remain on his throne. i mentioned this in passing. rich mentioned it. japanese thinking at the time, at least among the leadership, not that the emperor was going to become a constitutional monarch but the emperor was going to remain a japanese ruler. that was totally acceptable to

the united states. i think it's my conclusion and it would have lasted long are than it did. we don't know how much longer. the fact is american soldiers were dying. that was the main concern. we heard this morning hundreds of thousands of innocents dying through asia through the same time. the long are the war went on, the more deaths there were going to be. the war would have ended. we don't know exactly when. there were other ways under consideration and that were discussed that june 24th meeting at which the bomb was not even mentioned until the very end. so the war would have ended. we don't know when or how long

it would have gone on. >> how for the united states to completely change, surrender japan? i think that would have been politically impossible for anyone to undertake in the disastrous course of action for japan itself. >> yeah. >> let me follow up. >> yes. >> the follow-up question would be if there was possibility of japanese not decided but considering surrender, option of soviets ending the war. how does that inform judgment of moral calculus of if not does he go to drop the bomb, at least a decision not to intervene before the first bomb was dropped. >> not to intervene -- >> well -- >> to wait for soviets and see how that went.

>> could have waited another week for soviet invasion and see the japanese reaction, did that change how we view his decision? >> i don't think so. truman saw japan's leadership as needing such a shock to force their surrender that he didn't see the use of the bombs and the soviet invasion as an either-or. it's a both and for soviets to enter the war. i think both did play their part. so his calculation was correct. >> again, timetable followed general groves and how the bomb physically was made and dropped. there's no deliberation. the other point is, who knew about the bomb? even very, very high members of the joint chiefs of staff didn't

know about the bomb and only learned of it very late. thus, there's not this kind of open discussion. the decision to really have the word decision. everybody has got to be informed about something and deliberate back and forth and weigh this, weigh that. none of this happened. it went so fast nobody is going to. keep it limited to as few people as possible. that's what happened. it was used. because the momentum was there. once you started down that track, it was going to happen. groves made it happen. >> impressed me with the idea that mr. campbell said earlier no moral option truman did not

take. it seems to me moral option would have been, as you pointed out, incredibly hard for him to stop the program entirely. but what if truman had said let's wait one week. would that be a moral option? >> let me address that specifically. there's in my view fundamental fallacy about soviet intervention as an alternative. the way this is normally presented, we know the atomic bombs are used. we know horrific effects of bombs. soviet intervention presented only thing is combatants of asian continent battle with soviet forces man suria, the island and cor yachlt the reality is hundreds of thousands of japanese were captured by soviets, both combatants and noncombatants. you can get various numbers. the number i use is 1.7 million

total. there has been for years a debate about what the total number of japanese in soviet captivity died. there was a book published couple decades ago inside "gq," a japanese father who said the number was between 300 and 500,000. john dower in his book estimating 400,000. just recently, a book by a man with soviet archival document. that settled some of the issues about this. it showed roughly 73,000 japanese combatants were killed fighting with soviets in august and on into september '45. it shows about 62,000 japanese soldiers were captured by combatants, died in soviet

captivity from disease, abuse, starvation. it shows 180,000 japanese noncombatants died in soviet captivity. that's just those who died as a result of combat on the asian continent in the islands. if you assume we're going to let soviets secure the end of the war, that means the soviet occupation zone in japan. now, the math is one out of seven japanese who fell into soviet captivity are going to die. do the math, hokkaido another 3 million, how many more -- talk about moral consequences, seems we have to recognize all of them, don't create a hierarchy of victims some noncombatants are entitled to immunity and

other are not even worth discussion. >> thank you. we have two people who have been very patient. yes, sir. i'll take you. yes. >> my name is ron cole, i'd like to thank the distinguished panel for really excellent discussion here. i'd like to follow up on something you i think she may be the next speaker and i hope i'm not stealing her thunder. hiroshima survivors. she mentioned last night that after the bomb, none of the doctors had any include what was going on. the hospital seemed to be more aligned on just researching the medical effects of the bomb. it's almost like this was sort of premedicated. they knew there was going to be effects and they wanted to follow up on those. regarding the issue of a lot of science involved, but also engineering aspects. regarding the scientific

discussions ahead of time, and the ionizing radiation and those kinds of things, we could probably follow up in the next session but what -- i'm pretty sure president truman didn't have access to these discussions but as far as the military, who might have had access to potential fallout of these kinds of weapons? what's it going to do to the atmosphere, ozone layer, those kinds of things. can you give us insight into those discussions and where ultimately was president truman made aware of those things going down the road with atmospheric testing. can you comment on that? >> stan, i think he dialed your number. >> i guess he did. early on robert oppenheimer when he joined the program, there was a consideration among the scientists when it went off it

would ignite the atmosphere and end all life on earth. oppenheimer even went all the way from california to the headed the chicago laboratory to tell them about this. the response was better to live under nazi heel, but then they realized it wasn't going to happen. we're not going to ignite the atmosphere. there was in the background the fear something bad would happen. when james conen july 16th laying down and facing away from the test bomb and the flash goes off, he thinks -- in the very first instance, oh, my god, i think they ignited the atmosphere. but of course they didn't. they knew something was special

about this weapon. there were scientists and medical people looking into it. the first reports about hiroshima radiation sickness were very alarming. again, general groves did his best to tamp down the exposure of this new fact going on limiting journalists who nose around and talk about it and everything. so it was something new and disturb. you know, it later became much more disturbing to the japanese in terms of atmospheric testing, we knew that was bad. that went on. finally the world said, enough. there was a treaty and stopped testing in the atmosphere, to all of our benefit, thankfully, they stopped it. so from ignorance to revelation

about this. it's still going on. we're still investigating. health physics is a whole area of research i'm not competent to follow. >> scientists knew about the effects of radiation, there was some discussion before the bombs were dropped. they didn't think the effects of radiation would be all that much in hiroshima, nagasaki because the scientific assumption, based on your calculations, was that these were air bursts, there was not a lot of radioactive fallout. the assumption was the deaths occurred. there was no question there would be a large number of deaths. the deaths that occurred would be from heat and blast and not so much from radiation. it turned out they were wrong about that. but they were clearly aware, the scientists were. i doubt if truman was. i doubt if groves was. clearly there was a lot of

scientific still basic but a lot of knowledge about radiation effects in 1945. >> i think as i understand it from reading and other things, what's strikeing to me, at one level the scientists knew radiation was a hazard, could be a lethal hazard, could do terrible things. but in their calculations, they convince themselves that basically, as sam was saying, basically anyone who was in danger of having a lethal dose of radiation would already have been killed by blast or heat. they truly were shocked when those first reports roll in about radiation sickness. i think it's entirely clear no one up the chain had any inkling of this because the scientists didn't think it was a hazard and didn't communicate that. one of the really great what ifs

in my view about this whole i think is, if they had a grip on what radiation actually did that made it more of a poison, more akin to poison gas over which there was a tabu about the use, it probably would be changed the entire dynamic of decision making. the only nation that extensively used poison gas in the battlefield of world war ii was japan primarily against the chinese from 37 to 45. the germans used gas. we know what context that was. there was clearly something about gas and the idea of poison that evisceral level i'm sure would have had a much more profound on marshall and systten and truman than the notion they had it was a bigger bang. >> we have one final and it will be a final special question.

>> thank you. i have a specific question. before i talk about it, can i just express my general comment. i listen to you people. i realize you seem to share the similar view and perspective. i was thinking that in this country there are a lot of historians and experts who do have different viewpoints on the issue we're talking about. i think it would be a great service to american citizens to have this kind of symposium staffed by people with a different perspective. not only american people but i think there are a lot of japanese historians, experts,

who have very different viewpoints, in other parts of the world as well. wouldn't that be wonderful if we can organize symposium of this natu nature. >> i can address that, if you would like me to, why i asked the people i did to speak today. what i did was base my invitations on people who had done outstanding work. it was not based on their ideology and not based on their position on the bomb. it was intentionally not revisionist, one traditionalist, revisionist and one in the middle. i've been on pam's like that. they are extremely unproductive and unpleasant or can be, because all we do is trade quotations. i specifically wanted to avoid that. i guess the best people i could. i succeeded.

all people from the brought sprawling middle we talked about. i think i disagree with these guys quite a bit. i don't want to be nasty about it but i think we agree on fundamental question the bomb was used to end the war as quickly as possible. within that, there's a lot of room for disagreement. that was my approach to invitations. >> my specific question, i'm sure you all know after the bombing, united states send a b-29 with military personnel, scientists, medical scientists. the government wanted those experts to go to hiroshima, nagasaki, what the assessments

of the quality and write report back to the government. you all know about what the report said. perhaps many people in the audience don't know. my understanding the report from that team was, yes, indeed japan was already beaten, therefore the use of atomic bombs was not need needed. this is public knowledge. anyway, today i thought it was interesting you didn't mention anything about the government's effort to make that assessment. and what the report said and how you react to that. i thought it would have been useful for us to hear your comments on the government's report. thank you. >> what you're referring to

united states strategic bombing survey. the specific report you're talking about is summary report of pacific war. that report does, in fact, have a conclusion in it that says that japan would have surrendered without atomic bombings by november or december or some such date. since the time that report has been published and used frequently in the debates about this, it has been subjected to scholarly study as to what was the basis for that report. it reportedly is based on interviews with japanese officials that support that conclusion. what the scholars found is when they went back to actual documents relating to those interviews the interviews do not support the conclusion. the fellow that drafted that, we've had two major scholarly works gone through and basically shredded his work on that point

indicating he had another agenda in mind which involved future of the u.s. air force. once again, i can't say strongly enough how much empathy i have for you and your fellow survivors an everyone else involved in that. it was an enormous tragedy. as i said, we should never forget about it. keep it in mind. your testimony is important to that. we've plowed through this, been through a lot of debates back and forth or whatever here. and as sam said, things may be heading towards a middle ground. but the notion japan's leadership was on the cusp of surrender or could have easily been brought to surrender in 1945, even the more recent works in the revisionist camps have backed away of making those kinds of assertions because the evidence is just not there.

the bombing survey, in my view, has been pretty thoroughly trashed. >> just as germans after use of the bomb made up a new story about the brawl, many americans did as well in terms of taking positions and saying things later used by revisionists to say why the bomb should have used but they never did it. eisenhower is the best case. he puts himself before him saying don't use the bomb. this never happened, never happened. he lied through his teeth. you want to look good for posterity so you do things like that. we could go on. there were many things said after the war about the bomb, but no military figure said, no to anyone in authority before

the bomb was dropped. period. it's now shown up and down that's the case. so, you know, you can't stop people from using quotes. the revisionists did. they tried to make an argument which eventually fell apart on closer examination. anyway, that's something to bear in mind in this whole discussion. >> curiously enough with respect to admiral leahy. >> one final point. >> one thing we do have documented before the he said of the war, the bomb would not work. that's the one piece of advice he gave president truman before the bombs were used. they will not work. i'm an expert on explosives. >> that's what admiral leahy said to truman, i'm an expert on explosives and it won't work. >> thank you all. thank you to our panelists, for

your attention. [ applause ] . >> tonight, american history tv, focus on cold war beginning discussion on lessons learned 25 years since the fall of the berlin wall. radiation experiments conducted by the defense department during cold war. scholars debate policies of then george h.w. bush and decisions that led to the end of the cold war. that's all tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span3. >> this weekend on c-span network, friday night, native american history. then on saturday live all day coverage from the national book festival science pavilion. saturday evening from bbc scotland, a debate on scotland's upcoming decision on whether to end its political union with

england. sunday q&a judge robert, chief justice court of appeals. on c-span 2 friday at 8:00 p.m., in-depth with former congressman ron paul. then on saturday, all day live coverage of the national book festival from the history and biography pavilions. speakers, interviews and viewer call ins with authors. ach a documentary about the 1969 "apollo 11" moon landing. saturday on the civil war, general sherman's atlanta campaign. sunday night, a look at election laws and supreme court case of bush versus gore. find our television schedule at c-span.org and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us 202-626-3400.

on twert use #c-1 23. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. next, atomic bomb survivors from hiroshima and nagasaki talk about the lasting emotional and physical effects of the nuclear attacks that ended world war ii in the pacific. the grandson participated in the discussion. this event hosted by japan society. it's about an hour and ten minutes. >> it's a very exciting time to be involved in nuclear abolition, that is getting rid of nuclear weapons because there have been significant changes. the marshall islands last week filed a suit in the international court of justice to -- against the nine countries that have nuclear weapons for their failure to negotiate in

gooth faith to bol issue nuclear weapons in the world. there have also been two international conferences recently, one in oslo and one in mexico, 147 members of united nations and 120 citizens groups called for a complete ban of nuclear weapons for humanitarian and environmental reasons. they called because they don't build security, they have the capacity to destroy all life forms on earth, all life forms on earth, they divert from health, education services. finally, before i introduce our guests, i would like you to close your eyes for a moment, close your eyes and think of all the people, places and things you love more in our world. close your eyes for a minute.

what is it you most love in the world. imagine that all that can be destroyed by nuclear weapons. that's why we're here to make sure that never happens. it's my privilege to introduce our honored guest, our first is clifton daniels. would you like to come up? clifton is the grandson of harry truman as was told, the only perp in history to deploy nuclear weapons on a civilian population in times of war. clifton is here because he's dedicated to seeing they are never used again. clifton, i believe your grandfather is very proud of the work you're doing. you'll her from reiko, yamada.

lifelong health consequences of radioactive fallout. she works on the global stage for nuclear abolition and will be speaking at the united nations later today. it's also my honor to introduce michio hakariya. he has come to us via peace boat, a japanese organization that travels the world working for peace and environmental justice, sharing stories with others ravaged by war. in addition peace boat raises money and gives material aid to people affected by natural disasters. we believe you have the right to know about the world that you live in and all people should commit themselves to abolishing nuclear weapons that could destroy life on earth as we know it. this is why we do the work that we do. go to the website of the

international campaign to learn what you can do to take action now. let's get to work. say. [ applause ] thank you, robert. good morning. nice to see you both again. despite my background. despite my lineage, i learned about the atomic bombings the same way you all have through history teaching and history books. my grandfather did not speak to me at the decision. i think at the time it was because i was very young. he died when i was 15 years old. it's a hard subject to discuss. also, i don't think that he would have told me it's a hard subject to discuss.e also, i don't think he would have told me anything

differently than he did say publicly about his reasons but i learned about it the same way you did. in my history books the bombings were about a page, page and a half. there were photos of empty landscapes at hiroshima or nagasaki, photos of ruined buildings. there was not much about the human cost. it was numbers. how many had been killed, how many had been wounded, how manyo had been sickened. was there wasn't any humanity in that history book. in 1998 when i was working as aa journalist in north carolina, we moved from north carolina to chicago and the following year in the spring of 1999 my son 9, wesley brought home a book from school. he was in the fifth grade at the time.da p

he brought home a book. 1,000 paper cranes. anybody know that story? a little girl who live in hiroshima, she was 2 years old when the bomb exploded. she and her family survived almost unscathed she developed radiation induced leukemia nine years later. in an effort to help cure herself she followed a japanese tradition that says if you fold 1,000 oragami paper cranes, you are granted a wish. some versions of the legend say that you are granted a long life. in either case, sadako wanted both, she wanted to live. she folded more than 1,000 paper cranes. she folded about 1300. unfortunately, that did not veea help. she died of leukemia on october 25th, 1955. she was 12 years old.5, within three years, her friends and family and citizens of hiroshima had raised the money to build a statue to her and alr

the children killed, wounded and sickened by the atomic bomb. it stands in the peace park in hiroshima. sadako holding up a giant paper crane.ldinane. each year people from around the world people leave paper cranes at that memorial. they leave them all over hiroshima and nagasaki. at the memorial they leave live 10,000 pounds, 10 tons of paper cranes every year just at her statue alone. i thought it was important at the time to read the story. it was the first time i had seen a personal story of hiroshima or nagasaki. so wesley and i read the story together. a few years later i mentioned that fact to a japanese journalist on the anniversary of

the bombing in 2004. that story was read in japan. my phone rang not long after that. it turned out to be sadako's older brother. he said through an interpreter, i heard that you read my sister's story. can we meet together some day? can we work together? can we do something? then i said, yes. it took us six years. we didn't meet until 2010 here in manhattan. matsuhiro and his son yugi were donating one of her last paper cranes to the world trade center memorial as a gesture of healing. during that meeting he had a small plastic box and he opened it and he took out a tiny paper crane. in the hospital sadako had to use any kind of paper that she could find. candy wrappers, gift wrap,

scraps of paper. anything that she could scrounge from other patients, so some of these cranes are absolutely tiny and delicate. he took one out and he dropped it into my palm and he said, that's the last crane that sadako folded before she died. and at that point he and his father asked me if i would come to the memorial ceremonies in hiroshima and nagasaki. my family and i did go two years later. we went on august 6th and august 9th in 2012. we attended the ceremonies in hiroshima and nagasaki, and we sat down and heard testimony from more than two dozen survivors. we were simply there to listen to them, to let them tell us their story. i took my two sons and my wife and we all went to japan and listened to survivors. they each asked only one thing of me after we were done, and that was that i keep telling

their stories so that we never do this again. it's a gift and it's not easy for them. it's not easy for reiko and michio and the other survivors to relive this, but they take it very seriously. they do it out of respect and do it out of love for the rest of us so that we understand what it's like to live through a nuclear explosion in the hope we never do it again and take a step further and get rid of all of those nuclear weapons. it is -- i was i think a typical and atypical american. atypical in that my grandfather was harry truman and ordered the only war time use of nuclear weapons in history but typical in the fact that i grew up not thinking about nuclear weapons. i thought that everything was fine. they had fail safes. they had locks. they had -- that our governments knew what they were doing.

it's not -- it's not that safe. it's not that easy. some of the stories about near misses and nuclear accidents would make your hair stand on end, how close we've come to setting one of those things off accidentally. so it's a serious issue. it's something that can -- even setting off a few of them can poison the atmosphere, give us nuclear winter. so it's not something that we can sit down and ignore. that job is going to fall for you. you have a very special opportunity here today with reiko and michio. again, it's a gift they give to you, to all of us to take and to do something with. so i encourage you to listen to their stories and take the lessons and take the next steps because this is -- this is not only my future but it's very definitely your future and the future of all of your friends and colleagues and family. so thank you all very much for being here this morning.

thank you, mayor. nice to see you both again as i said and thank you all. [ applause ] >> translator: hello, everybody. my name is reiko yamada. i'm from hiroshima. it's been 69 years since this happened, the first new atomic bomb was dropped. i was a child at that time, and i'm here to tell you what i experienced on that day as a child.

on august 6th, 1945, the atomic bomb was dropped on hiroshima. by the year before that, in 1944, the citizens had been living a very hard life, severe life. there was hardly any food and even our clothing were rationed to us with tickets.

and because of all of the air raids in tokyo and hearing about this and also knowing that all the u.s. bombers flying above our skies, we were -- we were ordered to flatten the land, flatten all the buildings, and it was us, the citizens that had to do this. and by citizens, i mean children just like you around 13, 14, 15 years old and our mothers.

we children in elementary school were ordered to evacuate to the countryside for safety and all the areas that we evacuated from were then utilized by the military. and that -- and because of this resulted that there was a lack of education for all of us young children. by that time, about half of the young children had been evacuated to the countryside. i was scheduled to evacuate on august 9th.

on august 6th, early in that morning, there was not a single cloud in that sky. it was a beautiful blue sky. and all of the children that were still in the town went to the school yard. and so we were in the school yard, and there came a moment where we took a rest. when we looked up into the sky, there was a b-29 bomber making a u-turn and it was shiny, bright.

as it made a u-turn, it created a white tail wind that you could see. it was quite beautiful. and as we were looking up to the sky thinking how beautiful it was, in an instant there was an immense flash and we were blinded. and so we immediately ran to the air raid shelters. what happened to myself is that a blast of heat, immense heat hit my black and i was blown to the ground. in just a moment after that there was rain and we began to shiver.

we later learned that that's what's called the black rain. moments later we noticed that many of the people that were closer to the hypo center of where the bomb was dropped continued to run towards our area. they were injured or coated in blood. it was an overflow of people. they all cried out for help, asked for water, but we had no water to provide and we were not even able to help them.

my family was composed of six family members, and on that day my mother and my 16-year-old sister and my 13-year-old sister were at home. my father was located about 1 after a while, he was brought home, completely coated in blood, by two soldiers. on the eve of the second day after the bomb was dropped, her -- my eldest sister finally made

it home.ac she was about two kilometers away from the hypocenter. her back and her neck were severely burned. we had no way to -- no medication or no way to treat them and there were no doctors to help treat either so what iç and so my mother decided to go to a neighbor's house and ask for cucumbers. she brought the cucumbers home, sliced them very thinly, and placed them on my sister's neck and back, but the pain was excruciating and it didn't help enough.

and my sister, half naked from her waist up, would be crying in pain. by the second day the overflow of people, almost everybody had died. and on the third day all of these bodies were carried as if they were trash or garbage on to all of our school yards. they were then cremated and the stench and the black smoke in the sky was unbearable.

even in my neighborhood there was a home where there were five children. they had been waiting for days for their mother to return. on the second day their mother finally made it home, all black and on four legs, and at the moment that she arrived home, she fell over and died and left the five children on their own. in another neighboring home there was a mother that had been waiting for her daughter. her daughter never returned so she made lunch box, every day, and for a month and for two months she continued to search for her daughter but never found

her. there was no help for these people. never were they able to meet their families again. there's so many people that died with no names. it is those deaths that we will never be able to forget. after cremating all of these bodies they were buried into the ground so as a result of the war we had very little to eat.

we decided to plant sweet potatoes into the ground. when it was finally harvest time the following year and we dug up, more than the sweet potatoes, there were so many bones. within that year in hiroshima and nagasaki 210,000 lost their lives. and in the early years and for years after that there was no

way to treat what had happened to these people because the nuclear weapon was something new. nobody knew how to treat the people that were being affected by the results. we living hibaksha call this weapon a weapon of the devil. there are still to this day so many people that are experiencing the after effects, including radiation. there are so many people that

experienced during that time severe burns or being blast into the air. this type of weapon is completely indiscriminate of who it attacks. there are still so many hibaksha that are experiencing health issues and pain, agonizing pain. this is because there has not been any clear results as to the research of what the effects of radiation are. and this is the reason why we hibaksha to all the people of the world, the people in this room inclusive, because this

weapon is actually an inhumane weapon. and what we want do is we want to rid the entire world of these nuclear weapons. and it is my desire on behalf of all of the hibaksha, that if you will listen to our plea and our story and carry it within your young power and your energy and do something, relay it, our message so that we can actually have -- so that you can actually have a world of peace free of nuclear weapons and a safe one

for your ownselves in the future. thank you very much. >> i'd like to welcome the students from the eagle academy. yes. welcome. we know it was a long ways to come in to get to here today so we're glad that you made it.

>> translator: hello, everyone. my name is michio hakaria.

i would like to talk to you my story, what i experienced when i was 8 years old. i was the second grade of the grammar school. this is a picture of the current nagasaki city. it is a beautiful city, and it's well known internationally as well. well, 69 years ago at the red dot point it says hypo center. that's the place where atomic bomb was dropped. it actually exploded 500 meters above the ground.

at that time my house was located about three to four kilometers away from the hypo center. the city of nagasaki didn't have a flat area. it was a rather mountainous city. as you see, even on top of the mountains there were houses. well, around the port area there were residential areas and the factories.

let me explain to you about nagasaki city and this map. you see the blue dot or the green dot is the hypo center. well, when the bomb was dropped, the actual heat of the bomb was 3,000 to 4,000 centigrade. well, each circle that you see here is marked every 300 meters. within 1 kilometer area all by animals and the plants were completely destroyed.

at that time there were radiation. heat ray in a blast. an explosive blast. when it comes to the blast, for example, at 1 kilometer away from the hypo center the speed of the blast was about four times faster than the baseball that was thrown by the professional baseball pitcher.

so please imagine the stones and pieces of wood and things like that were just flying against you. there were many people who died because of these, you know, flying objects.

well, right now in between japan

and the u.s. there's a kind of peace treaty which states that they are supposed to protect each other. well, maybe you can say that japan is protected by the u.s. however, japan's constitution clearly said that we will never engage in war. this april 9th nobel peace

academy nominated article 9 of japan's constitution as a candidate of nobel peace award. let's protect the peaceful world. thank you so very much. [ applause ] >> we're going to do questions. okay. ladies and gentlemen, i understand we have some time for questions now, and i'm told that

each of the schools was asked to pick a designated question asker. i'm going to go down the list and see if you guys -- who's representing each school. eagle academy, do you have a designated question asker? and questions can be, you know, share questions, share thoughts, it could be for any one of us. stand up. yeah, there we go. >> microphone is coming. >> to your left. to your left. >> okay. one question i do have to ask

you guys, you guys are giving us your stories and telling us about how nuclear weapons are bad and obviously war is bad. i have one question. what would you tell, not us, but like our children's children who don't -- who never -- who don't really -- well, they'll hear about world war ii but they won't know what it is like us. they're so further down the line that they won't even realize it. what would you say to them, like further down the line where technology is better. what would you say to them? no. because we're young. >> saying to future generations, you know, their grandchildren. nuclear weapons, what would you tell them about the dangers? what would you tell them about what happened?

what would you say speaking ahead to generations. >> [ speaking foreign language ]

>> i completely understand your sentiment on wanting to hear what we would say to the future generations. however i believe it is extremely important that we put our efforts towards right now, right now today, because there are so many nuclear weapons out there right now in this world. ourselves already there cease so many people that have no experience or know anything directly about the wars. even in japan, two thirds of the population know nothing about war. so in a sense, we, our generations, we're in a sense panicking as to how we can do as much as we can do abolish all nuclear weapons from this world. and in order to do so it is very important that we keep a record, continue to relay the facts of history, especially on an educational room.

[ applause smchlt ] >> just to add to that something that was said quickly when we were doing this. if your grandchild comes to you years from now and wants to know, you can tell him or her that you've heard firsthand what it was like. so it becomes your responsibility to carry that as well. kay o academy, designated question asker. [ speaking foreign language ] >> the question is, you said that you did not receive any education during that time. so how did you receive education

thereafter? [ speaking foreign language ]

>> although i said that there was hardly any education, it doesn't mean that we didn't all have any education. what happened is, is that half were able to continue with their education and half of the children were dutied to be in the work corps. and this is one reason is because the school yards or the school buildings were being utilized by the military. however, in hiroshima, education is a vital factor of the society. so we were back into education mode fairly quickly. after the bomb was dropped, by the end of september, many of the schools had already started over again. of course we didn't have any good textbooks or anything of that sort. but by the end of the year we were already taking our tests in order to get to the next level of education.

[ applause ] >> marble hill. >> were you able to forget about the images of the bomb? how did you overcome the tragedy mentally, emotionally speaking? [ speaking foreign language ] >> it is impossible to forget about the atomic bombing. >> translator: what remains in my mind is that flash of light.

when i witnessed many people severely, severely burned people were saying, please give me some water, please give me some water. and that scene will never go away -- goes away. it's been about almost 70 years since then and all i really want to do is i want you to know what i experienced. that's it. [ applause ]

>> high school -- have i got that right. ? >> what do you guys think about nuclear power plants and uranium and stuff? [ speaking foreign language ]

>> translator: especially with what happened at the fukushima daiichi power plant, we were very, very sensitive as to what was happening. we strongly believe that nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons are but both sides of one coin. so we would really like for the world to change to natural energy. also, we have been pleading to tepco, the energy company that owned the fukushima daiichi power plant, to find a way to support healthwise and also financially the people that were victims of the accident.

[ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: currently in japan there are 54 nuclear reactors. [ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: currently, none of them are operating. but as you can imagine, nuclear power plant companies and other industries are pushing for industries are pushing for re-opening nuclear reactors right now. there's a very difficult

situation between local municipalities who are against re-opening nuclear power plants, and the policy of the nation who are willing -- who is willing to re-open the mu clenuclear react. thank you. [ applause ] >> we have about three minutes left. we still have new york harbor school and young girl leadership school. do you have designated hl0kççñ h ljr the questions are close enough that we can field both. if not, we're sunk. >> i was wondering what some other methods you guys suggest for solving conflict besides nuclear weapons and war.'ih.

[ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: of course, for me personally the ideal would be to

communicate and have discussions and talk. i believe that we should never utilize power or force to get our points across. but more so, even though my ideal is communication, i would like to ask all of you, what do you think? what do you think you can do or what other countries can do to solve all of the conflicts in the world? [ applause ] >> apparently we've been granted five more minutes, so i lied about time. we have young women's leadership school can indeed ask a question. [ applause ] >> we wanted to ask if there was any resentment from the whole event. and if not, then how did you move on or how did you forgive?

[ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: there's no hatred, per se. i've gone to many different

countries and often been asked do you hate america. i don't hate america. how can i hate america. it was war. even japan was horrible. we all did different -- it's war. people do things that can cause hatred. but we should not have hatred. we should -- for the future we should consider the other parties and to learn how to forgive and how to work together for the future without any hatred. [ applause ] >> sorry i forgot the last phrase. "thank you." the only thing i do hate are nuclear weapons. [ speaking foreign language ]

>> i do not have any hatred against the u.s. but it is a clear fact that this country has been relying on its nuclear military power and it's up to this country's policy, how they're going to deal with nuclear power.

i think they should either reduce or abolish. and as a global leader, this country have to make sure that -- i'm sorry, has to make sure its direction, and that's what i've been -- that's my concern. so until the u.s. shows this new direction, i cannot say that i don't hate -- once again, i'm sorry. [ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: so until this policy becomes clear, i cannot say that i can forgive what they've done to japan. thank you. [ applause ] >> i believe that concludes the program. dr. sullivan has some final

words. finally for me, just speaking as an american and harry truman's grandson, they bring these stories to me without resentment and without anger out in the name of understanding. and i think i would have been a fool not to listen and to try to do something. next, h friday night on c-s, native american history. saturday, live all-day coverage from the national book festival science pavilion. saturday from bbc scotland, a debate on scotland's upcoming decision on whether to end its political union with grande. sunday, q an a, chief justice 2nd circuit court of appeals shares his approach to interpreting laws passed by congress. friday at 8:00 p.m. on c-span,

former congressman ron paul. saturday, all day live coverage from the book festival. sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern, afterwords with william burrows talking about his book. on american history tv on c-span3 friday, a nasa documentary about the 1969 apollo 11 moon landing. saturday on the civil war, general sherman's atlanta campaign. sunday night a look at election laws and supreme court case of bush versus gore. find our television schedule at c-span.org and let us mow what you think about the programs you are watching. call us 202-626-3400. on twitter, use the #c123. or e-mail us at comment comments @c-span.org. join the c-span conversation. like us on facebook. follow us on twitter.

next, history professor grant weller talks about america's use of atomic bombs against japan at end of world war ii. professor weller and students at the u.s. air force academy discuss american motivations for dropping the bombs. japanese social and political attitudes and the considerations for choosing the target cities. >> outstanding. take your seats please. okay. so what we'll be doing today is finishing our chronological survey of the second world war with the end of the asia pacific war, before next week launching into our more detailed discussion of race into the pacific war. what we're starting off with here is the actual surrender

ceremony in september of 1945 with the demonstration of air and naval strength that mack ar macarthur and nimitz and others arranged to just drive home to the japanese exactly what happened here. and also to emphasize to them that the very correct observance of the surrender terms would be in the japanese best interests. on the side is the missouri itself which was the sight of the signing ceremony. before we get into the lesson, per se, which will include the battle of okinawa where we have some marines passing one of the fallen japanese soldiers does anybody have any questions for the material you read today? >> yes, sir. >> my question is more the political -- how did roosevelt and all the upper leadership in the military justify okinawa when they knew they would drop the nuclear bomb in two months? >> let's get our chronology straight. when is the first successful test of an atomic bomb?

>> july? >> july of 1945. when is okinawa? >> april. >> so, remember, history has lived forward even though it's written backward. in april of 1945 nobody knows for sure if this thing is going to work. and also as we'll discuss in a little more detail further on, it's not really certain what the japanese response to the atomic bomb or atomic bombs is going to be. is this going to be a war winner by itself? most of the american leadership doesn't think so. it's a useful tool in that direction, but it's not necessarily going to win the war by itself. so the american planners, the american military, political leadership are proceeding under the assumption that japan has to be defeated through conventional means, and that includes

capturing okinawa as an advanced air base and anchorage air base for the bombing of japan and for the support of the invasion fleet that most americans believe is inevitable. does that answer your question? >> yes, sir. >> very good. anybody else? >> you mentioned there were 180,000 civilian army members perished between the two atomic bombs almost immediately. do you have numbers of, you know, post-war, how many people actually perished from those bombs, and what was the actual total casualty count from those experiences? >> i'm shooting off the top of my head here. my best guess or my best recollection is that it more or less doubles when you take into account the people who die of their wounds or that suffer long-term disability or injury. part of the problem in figuring

it out exactly is the risk of cancer. the risk of cancer definitely goes up in hiroshima and nagasaki, for that matter in new mexico in nevada where nuclear test sites take place in the united states. but it's not a one-to-one relationship, i.e., you go this place, get cancer and die somewhere down the road. what it does is increase. it's hard to nail those down exactly but roughly double. yes. >> i have a question. >> uh-huh. >> the fire in tokyo produced massive destruction, 100,000 deaths, more than, in the city of tokyo. when truman issued the declaration or the warning on july 26th to the japanese that, you know, massive destruction is forthcoming, why don't they take heed of this? >> well, great lead into the rest of the class. but the japanese are kind of in an endurance mode, i.e. we can keep taking this until we have

the opportunity for the final decisive battle that will inflict enough casualties on the americans that the americans will give up and, if not go home, they will at least give up acceptable. part of it is the warning is just vague enough that they're not sure what truman means by this. they suffered enormous casualties from a western point of view they clearly passed the point of no return where they should have long ago surrendered and accepted whatever the americans had to deal out as a better alternative to continuing to suffer the war but the japanese leadership doesn't see it that way yet. >> what's the government's approach to arming civilians for the last home defense of japan? i know you say historical but how serious, how convincing was it done by the government?

we're all going to go in and we're all going to die together? >> the government was very involved. they deeply believed in this. this program, this idea of civilians fighting to the last, sacrificing their lives. as a way of inflicting enough damage on the americans that the americans would somehow negotiate. how seriously did the japanese civilian population take it? that's a much more difficult question to answer because, indeed, the war does end before the invasion.l0 so at the time nearly every japanese civilian took it s- seriously and publicly at least said absolutely we're all in for this, this is a great idea. because to say otherwise would have been disadvantageous if not suicidal. after the war ends many japanese civilians say, you know what, that was a really bad idea. i don't imagine i ever would

have charged an american with a bamboo spear, thrown myself under a tank. i don't think we would have done that, but it's very difficult for us. at that point the war is over. it's very difficult for us to go back and try to understand what might have really happened if the united states is invaded. would civilians have fought or not? i think the best answer is some would, some wouldn't but as to whether the some would would have been bigger or smaller thaó the some wouldn't, it's hard to say. both the japanese high command and the united states did eu believe, though, that the civilian population would resist and resist violently. >> was that a key factor in deciding to drop the nuclear bomb? >> it's a key factor in all american and ally planning for the invasion and for the defeat of japan. >> i have a question about if anybody talked about how the, after the surrender of the japanese and it was accepted with no terms at all or

unconditional curender. it mentioned the part about the civilians and how there were gun shots heard all across the country, kind of colorful language. was that actually really the case like there were mass suicides not mass suicides but several instance of suicides across the country in japan. >> many instances of suicide, mostly on the part of the japanese military who felt that the emperor coming forward saying we lost the war and we failed as a nation reflected on them personally, and that the only way they could assuage their personal sense of honor was to kill themselves, including the chief of staff of the army. the reason why it ripples out there, one of the things the bombings have done, severely damaged the japanese communication network. plus, as we're talking about the high level japanese discussions, up until the point where the emperor intervenes the official line is japan is fighting this out to the end.

so, the emperor's announcement comes as a shock to many people. to had kind of planned out their lives, literally. this is what i'm going do with the rest of my life. i'm going to fight the americans until i die and to have that taken away at that moment was a deep shock, and so a lot of military people respond through suicide. in effort to assuage that shame and guilt at failing. >> they were accepting unconditional surrender why did they decide to leave hereirohitn power? >> they have tricky ideas in a way. the idea of unconditional surrender is not that the japanese -- not that the americans are going to destroy japan or any more than they destroyed germany, but that japan is not going to get to negotiate terms. because the united states, the top leadership had already to some degree decided that keeping

hirohito around might be a good idea the occupation planners are saying okay how do we control this country, how do we occupy this country, how do we pacify this country of complete fanatics? many american planners said we need to keep hirohito around because if he tells the japanese not to resist, to cooperate with the occupation, they will. one condition japanese are putting forward the united states is more than willing to accept, and you will recall looking at the language they are using they are talk past each other in some ways. the japanese don't get an absolute guarantee that hirohito will remain on the throne. and this person is going to be inviolate. the united states isn't willing to say that in so many word but willing to hint at it if that's what it takes to get the japanese to agree to surrender and then hirohito's cooperation is an important part of the occupation.

anybody else? >> i was reading about the planned invasion, they also mention that some people thought it would be better to use economic strangulation and fire bombing. was that still under consideration when they were discussing the use of the bomb? >> yes. that's one of the options on table. i'll put a pin in that one because we're going to discuss that in some detail, but yes, it's still on the table. good. anybody else? okay. let's go ahead then and press ahead. we've talked about this all semester what has the japanese strategy been all along for this war? break the will of the americans. how? inflicting casualties. the idea is japan is not -- japan would certainly accept but japan does not realistically

expect to win a straight up military victory. instead by resisting american pressure, by causing american casualties, they will get the united states to the point where the u.s. will agree to negotiate on terms favorable to the japanese. specifically the japanese would love to keep some of the conquered territory to keep the resources that they went to war to get in the first place. that strategy is unchanged. but, again, as we saw before and we're still seeing, the execution of that strategy is changing. so how did the japanese attempt to execute that strategy at iwo jima? okay. they dig in how? >> massive tunnel system. >> yeah. this is a switch from previous island campaigns. the japanese essentially become subterranean on iwo jima. with the idea that by digging

in, they can avoid the bombardment by air and sea and be alive that much longer to cause casualties. >> also they get away with the bomb attacks and gave instructions to resist like down the last man fight until they die type doctrine. but they got rid of the bombs for a while so they could last longer. >> exactly. the idea is to endure, to hold out as long as possible to cause casualties, the specific order is every soldier needs to kill ten americans before he dies. and note that before he dies that's a built in assumption. the defenders of the iwo jima assume they will die. their job is just to cause as many casualties as possible on the way. good. how about okinawa? what's different at okinawa in the execution of this strategy? >> okinawa they have a counter

attack almost, in a sense, pick off the americans. >> yeah. absolutely. they allow the landing to proceed pretty much unopposed which is completely different than the doctrine that the japanese have been following in the rest of the pacific war. they allow the americans to land, to get well ensconced on okinawa but then they have multiple lines of resistance and use the terrain to great advantage because there's an additional element to the strategy. not only are the japanese trying to hold out on okinawa and cause as many casualties as to the allied soldiers and marines -- >> they incorporated -- >> how so? >> using the kamikazi aircraft. >> they will attack the fleet. the longer the japanese soldiers on okinawa hold out, the longer the american fleet has to remain in the waters around okinawa

where it's an identifying target for kamikazes and air and surface attacks and submarine attacks from japan. how effective -- go ahead. >> why didn't they have a naval component? >> distance. iwo jima is further away. ever since the battle, the japanese don't have much of an effective surface force. they are also suffering from the submarine blockade which has reduced their access to fuel oil. in fact, what is the rest of the japanese navy, the remnants of the japanese navy do at okinawa? more or less, how? the japanese have one asset left. anybody remember it? the battleship imato. one of two largest battleships ever constructed. they send it off with only enough fuel to make to it okinawa. it doesn't make it that far.