it also if we understand what the japanese military was talking about, it shows that basically no demonstration would ever have worked because the japanese comeback would have been this is very interesting, let's see you do three in a row. >> just one point on the timing of it. general groves told general marshall about that third bomb. and he said the timetable is that we've speeded things up. we've got august 9th. the next bomb, it was going to take that span of time from the 9th to the 17th for it to get -- and ready to use. so the third bomb was scheduled for august 17th, they might have gained a day or two. but that was the timetable. and many more after that. i mean, groves had them lined up, you know, september, october, november.

he would have upwards of 20 by the end of december. already the assembly line was open. and plutonium was coming from the reactors in huge amounts at that point. and you could calculate all of these things. we needed this much, and it's going to take this long to fabricate it. so he was ready for many more than just two. but he thought two would initially probably enough. but he wasn't going to stop there. and he continued to make them. >> thank you. my name is kathleen sullivan, i'm here with the stories project. and i just would like to invite us to broaden our perspective. you know, when i look at this trueman's nuclear legacy, we can

also say humans' nuclear legacy. i think that if one concedes that nuclear weapons are a weapon of war, then one does not understand what a nuclear weapon is. and i think while we can speak specifically about hiroshima and nagasaki, those of us at the symposium last night heard yamashita. sedseko saying specifically that the atomic weapons used in hiroshima and nagasaki are still killing survivors to this day. and i think what's particularly interesting for an american audience is to consider how the production of nuclear weapons have threatened united states citizens' lives on our own soil through the atmosphere of testing in nevada, the production of the various

assembly lines put in place by general groves. if we look at the one example of hanford in washington state right now, we have vats that are filled with solid liquid chemical and radio active waste that are too hot to physically be around. we have literal ticking time bombs as a result of the manhattan project, which we have no idea what to do with. i think the issue is germane to the nuclear weapons and the nuclear power arguments. and, for example, the one solution, quote, unquote, that has been manufactured and engineered in this country, the waste isolation pilot plant, which has taken waste from rocky flats, the plutonium trigger manufacturing plant and formally in colorado said that waste would be safe for 10,000 years

25 years later. . i think if we broaden the perspective beyond the decision, we think about the testimony and how radiation is still killing survivors today, and we bring that forward to our own citizenry. and these weapons on our own land and what that's done to u.s. citizens. the human nuclear legacy. i'd like to hear your comments. >> i think the question is a good one. and for about 30 years, i worked at the place called the natural resources defense council, which looked into the environmental legacy of making the hydrogen bomb from 1945 on. and we looked and sued the government many, many times over how quickly adequately they were cleaning up the mess that had

been made. environmental and health considerations were always secondary, primary was, you know, the russians are coming, i'm sorry. we've got to build more bombs, and we built bombs like crazy. i think about 66,000 of them over the course of from '45 to about '92. constantly recycle, then, you know, they were the things to have for the military. the military wanted them in every variety. we have two competing laboratories who supplied whatever they wanted. and sometimes gave them things they didn't know about. so, you know, this was the dynamic of part of the arms race. the russians were coming

interservice rivalry. laboratories, good jobs, congress' interest to have good budgets to support it. you know, this was the engine of the arms race. to spend countless of billions of dollars cleaning up the mess hanford, oakridge, smaller places.bciw]7yo:nñ'/ it'll be long before all of us are gone before they begin to make a dent in this. it's fueled theç department of energy budget a great deal on cleanup. as far as testing, you know, people were exposed, the famous desert rock exercises in nevada

where, you know they had soldiers in trenches charging mushroom clouds, you know, what were they thinking? so, there are many, many legacies to say nothing of what the russians did. if we did it this way, you can imagine what the russians did. they did it in a horrible way. dumping all sorts of nasty things all over the place. so their legacy is even worse than ours. there are smaller legacies, some of them the british, the french, the chinese and anybody else that decides to go for the bomb. but the person who asked the question, i think raised a very good poi$t#dásqt((vxoswdkiñi en and we have to think beyond what happened. in august, 1945.ç

>> i -- agree, it's a very important and valid point. and as i alluded to, you have to bear in mind that the weapons that were in existence in 1945 were tiny, tiny compared to what has come after. and i also most emphatically agree with the notion of expanding our horizons and putting all of these events in context. and what i would like to emphasize to you is think, think of about the quote good war, the way it actually was. when hitler rolled into the soviet union, a book called "love lands" about the areas between poland and the ukraine. he writes that at that point in time, killed approximately 10,000 human beings on the basis of race or political reasons.

and at that point in time, stalin had killed human beings implementing his policies. by my count, at that point, the japanese war in china probably killed at least 4 million chinese. when hitler rolled through the soviet union, stalin has added additional victims in poland, finland, baltic states, hitler has killed 7,000 human beings for political, war, and racial reasons. and by this time, somewhere in the vicinity of 7 1/2 million chinese have died. we cross in my view an important rubicon. we decide we're going to ally with the soviet union. from a strategic standpoint, seems to me this is undoubtedly the only correct decision and only reasonable decision at that point. we did have a choice, however,

about how we would characterize that relationship. we could've depicted it as an arm's length, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. we chose to depict as sort of protodemocrats. and then when the accounting came over the desks over 20,000 pols, we chose to cover it up. at the very outset of our participation in world war ii, we have made this fundamental moral choice about how we're going to depict our actions and allies. then you see the long slide from there through a whole series of events in the war that leads to the bombings of cities and the use of atomic weapons. and a series of other fraught moral choices. this is all part of the larger context of the issue of the

possession and production and residuals of making atomic weapons. it's even bigger in the question of atomic weapons. it's a whole moral universe we have to recognize people were living in in the 19th, mid-20th century. and we should give consideration to what they thought they were dealing with at the time if we're making judgments. >> i would just add a couple of poin points. >> when we sit in our location today, we often wish that things had sort of worked out differently and occurred differently, et cetera. of course, what drove the manhattan project initially was a fear that hitler and the nazis were going to develop an atomic bomb. you would wish in retrospect everyone was just a good person and we decided not to pursue such technology.

but i believe it was a responsible decision on the part of the americans and british already engaged. because they feared what the world would be if adolf hitler was the first person to speposs atomic weapons. you understand what sort of drives the decision making. and then sort of an organizational genius like groves pushes at the industrial capability of the united states, pursues it. i don't dispute for a moment some of the unfortunate consequences of the american possessions of the atomic, et cetera. and yet, i think we should mention that hiroshima and nagasaki were the only times that weapons were used in warfare. and perhaps in a terrible way in

a terrible way they gave us an example of the awful consequences of these weapons such that statesman in the cold war have held back because they know of the awfulness of these weapons, and they play at least some awful part in that regard. and so i can see there are all kinds of issues that bubble forth from nuclear weapons. from myself, however, i would have to say during the cold war, i'm glad the united states didn't engage in any sort of unilateral disarmament. by and large, i think, deterrents worked and the soviet union was a threat to the united states. and they were held at baby the nuclear balance. >> let me make one brief

comment, as well. what's different ability atomic bombs as opposed to dropping one atomic bomb as opposed to 500 conventional bombs is, one, the enormity of the power of the atomic bomb and, two, the radiation effects. and i was going to ask just of the second panel this afternoon but i'll throw out what the radiation effects research foundation, what their latest findings are of radiation effects in hiroshima and nagasaki. and the answer they've come up with, yes, there are still people dying from diseases from radiation from the bombs. but the numbers are not huge. i think we should keep that in mind. between 1950 and 1997 from a cohort of 86,572 survivors of the bombs in hiroshima, nagasaki, there have been above

what the incidents would be expected to be. what normal incidents of cancer and other diseases would be in those two cities. there have been an access above of what you would expect normally in those cities, deaths from cancer and other diseases, possibly caused by radiation. there have been between 1950 and 1997, the latest figures, 440 total deaths from solid tumors and 250 from noncancerous diseases. also, 1950 and 2000. the excess numbers of deaths from leukemia. this is what showed up first. beyond what you would expect in a population that size.

a normal, pardon me the access number of deaths in hiroshima nagasaki was, i think they take issue with the perception, which is widespread in this country and possibly in japan that there's still an epidemic of deaths from radiation from the bomb these are serious numbers and have to take them seriously. we have to be clear on what the numbers are. yes? >> my name is jerry skidmore. and as aforementioned, it wasn't just a race to end the war. when president trueman told joseph stalin that we had a weapon, i guess, of mass destruction. there was almost no reaction from stalin at all.

no doubt that they were also developing trying to develop their own bomb, which they did a few years later. but do we know to what extent japan and germany, how far along they were in their program? was there any cooperation to develop the bomb? and do we know how and where and when they would have used this weapon? >> well, there's been an extensive investigation of this question of the german bomb and how far along they were. this was an obsession of general groves. this was an early recruiting method, many of the scientists had worked for key german scientists of the united states.

and were concerned about was going on in germany. it appears after looking at just about everything. the german program was halted just as the american program got underway in a major way in probably the spring of '42. one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century was involved in all of this as were some other notable germans. in the spring of '42, it looked good for the germans, maybe the war will be going okay and we don't need to divert resources into this thing when we need more tanks, and this and that. but the german program was deescalated.

was put at a very low level. there was no general groves, everything put it in place. groves was obsessed. he created a team, which is a group of soldiers and scientists at the leading edge of the invasion of europe. first in italy and then later in d-day to find out what was going on. by about october, 1944. october/november. this alsos team found out that the german program was not going anywhere. there's no fear of the bomb. but nevertheless, that didn't cause the american effort to go any as longer, in fact, it was

racing along at extraordinary pitch. in late '44, early '45, they rounded up these scientists, the american soldiers and sent them to england in a place called farm hole, which was a nice little chateau near cambridge. and, of course, general groves had the police station bugged and listened to the german conversations that were going on to really find out what was going on. on august 6th, 1945, the german scientists who were incarcerated learned of hiroshima. he says, they did it, oh, my god. he thought that you needed a lot of highly enriched uranium. tons and tons and tons. and of course, you don't need very much at all.

so this began an explanation that the german scientists used after the war. and it was almost immediately decided by the others that they would take the position that they knew how to make a bomb, but they didn't want hitler because he's a nutcase and a madman. the german scientists argued this for many years, and i think it's totally fallacious. i don't know -- they never investigated enough to know how to make a bomb.m and organize themselves into making one. they could have done it. anybody can do it. and as we know in the history of bhaz happened over the past 70 years, many other countries have successfully done it.

every country that set out to make one, and they're still doing it. only one of the countries, south africa, has willingly given it up. but anyway, the german scientists rested on this argument that we know how to do it, but we didn't want hitler to know that. so we were the dissidents -- anyway, there were a lot of books written about this. and general grove said -- listening in on these transcripts, which finally became declassified, they're in our archives. he got the first copy multiple copies and fascinating reading about the state of the german bomb program, which was going nowhere. anyway, that's how it ended up. >> what you have to bear in mind, there's really two parts

of an atomic bomb program. this is the science part. and so the basic idea was well known to any competent physicist in the world by 1999. the tough part was the engineering. and that's where japan did not have the resources to advance an atomic bomb program beyond a low level experimental stage. now, that said in addition to all of the trees that died needlessly on this theory that the german scientist for moral reasons didn't make a bomb. there's been books published that claimed the program had advanced to far claiming there was a test of a japanese atomic bomb in august of '45 in korea or some such -- >> nonsense. >> nonsense. yeah, thank you for that. very helpful. and that accurate scientific term. but this is -- once again, i come back to point. remember, though, from at least

third quarter of '44 the idea about an atomic bomb and atomic bomb program, the potential importance of an atomic bomb was well known in the top levels, the japanese leadership including admiral on record at that point they understand the idea of an atomic bomb, they just question like the germans whether anybody else could do it. >> hello, my name is trevor. this question may be for you. looking back throughout history, we appropriately decry such events as the warfare as atrocities, but popular culture seems intent on venerating individuals and their efforts. while this is most often seen in light of imperialism and not

defense, it might appear that same cultural mindset is at work here. looking forward in light of that, should we view mr. truman's decision as more akin to the philosophy of dietrich bonhoffer where you must do what your conscience demands in faith even if the act seems or is evil. or does this signal a profound disconnect in our thinking that procludes us from finding the peace we seek? or do we have more of a decision in whether or not we're a nuclear world than mr. trueman did? thank you. >> i tried to present the issue as trueman choosing among a series of deeply awful options and choosing the one that was

the least -- this is looking at it in retrospect. retrospect. not suggesting he engaged in some deep moral evaluation. he was guided by groves, the momentum was all there. they considered it a military weapon. they thought it would shorten the war, save american lives. that was his thinking at the time. but in retrospect, i think there's a case that they pursued an option that can certainly be seen as the least awful of the awful options they had. there was no easy option. that's what i ask folks who so quickly rush to judgment on truman to consider. what was the alternate course? and what would have been the civilian casualties in that course of action. so i never want to see nuclear

weapons utilized. i don't think they can in any way be justified because of the indiscriminate nature of them, particularly the nuclear weapons as rich has pointed out today so vastly more damaging in the consequences than the weapons used in hiroshima or nagasaki. so ethically going forward,ic statesman have to work hard to make sure there can be a reduction in these weapons. and that they never be utilized in warfare again. and the same manner that hopefully things like poison gas and so far never be used again. so i don't know if that fully addresses your question but i hope it helps, trevor. >> let me adhere, i think bill really captures really

accurately, which is often glibly written off as an -- i guess he's on record as saying this never lost sleep over the decision. his conscience operates on two levels. i think he always felt he had done the best choice that was presented to him at the time. was he absolutely pained, strickened about the consequences of that for the rest of his life? he was tortured in many ways. when you read all the comments, it really leaps out. and i would add one thing and that -- those interesting moments in august of 'are 45, he talks directly about killing

100,000 people well, we know now that number, 100,000 was precisely a number that appeared in his hands that day or the day before in a decode from the japanese that was a report by the japanese navy. he didn't pull that number out of the air, he was reading with great interest and intensity what the reports that had happened. >> and interjected himself into stopping any further droppings of the bomb that had been predelegated. to keep using them until told to stop and they were told to stop and then they did. >> and, gotten me most of the way there on there was no decision you could still at a

certain level, truman as president knew he bore ultimate responsibility. and a decision to intervene is in a sense a decision. and when you put it in the context of, truman takes over. and we all know now, with no proper preparation for that role of briefing. and he announced as we talked about before, he wants to execute the legacy of franklin roosevelt. . if you go through these moments in these early weeks, he's 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 fdr's legacy, what did the president really want to do? and he's searching earnestly to find this. and one of the areas he deals with has been emphasized. he had enormous confidence in marshall and knew this was a policy that roosevelt had

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. he's concerned about casualties. he has no separate meeting, although later he sort of recalls something like this that doesn't really take place specifically about dropping the bombs. and in a way, in some sort of perverse way, my way of looking at it, when truman later says i made this decision over here. you can look at it as another way, this is his conscience that, you know, i'm going to

you said the view was discredited because the u.s. had other ways to end the war but then

japanese thinking at that time, at least among the leadership was not that the emperor was going to become a constitutional monarch, but the emperor was going to remain divine ruler. and that was totally unacceptable to the united states. so, so, i think it's my conclusion and that of some other scholars that the war would've ended without the atomic bomb and short of an invasion. but it would have lasted longer than it did. we don't know how much longer.

but the fact is american soldiers were dying and sailors were dying. and hundreds of thousands of innocents were dying throughout asia at the same time. the longer the war went on, the more deaths there were going to be. so the war would've ended eventually, we don't know exactly when. but there were other ways that were under consideration. and we discussed that june 24th meeting at which the bomb was not even mentioned until the very end. so the war would've ended, we don't know when or how long it would have gone on. >> would have been for the united states to completely change the terms of surrender for japan.

i think that would have been politically impossible for anyone to undertake in a disastrous course of action for japan itself. >> just follow up. >> the follow-up question would be -- >> yes. if there was at least the possibility that was maybe not decided but considering surrender and an option of waiting for the soviets to enter the war. how does that inform our judgment of the moral calculus of if not deciding to drop the bombs, then at least from the decision not to intervene before the first bomb was dropped? >> not to intervene? >> well, so. >> to wait for the soviets and see how that went? >> right. to see the japanese reaction, does that change how we view his decision not to? >> i don't think so. because truman saw japan's

leadership as needing such a shock to force their surrender that he didn't see the use of the bombs as an either/or, it's a both and. he's clean for the soviets to enter the war. i think both did play their part. so his calculation was correct. >> again, follow general groves and follow how the bomb physically was made and dropped. there was no time. there's no deliberation. and the other point is, who knew about the bomb? i mean -- even very, very high members of joint chiefs of staff didn't know about the bomb. and only learned of it, you know, very late thus, there's not this kind of open discussion decision to really have the word decision everybody's got to be

informed and deliberate back and forth and weigh this and weigh that. none of this happened. the train has left the station, it is going down the tracks so fast that nobody's going to interfere with this thing. and keep it limited to as few people as possible who know about it. and that's what happened. and it was used because the momentum was such that it was inevitable that once you started down that track, it was going to happen and groves made it happen. >> i think what impressed me was the idea that will miss campbell said there was no moral option that truman did not take. and seems to me a moral option would have been incredibly hard for him to stop the program

entirely. >> right. what if truman had said let's wait one week, would that be a moral option? >> let me address that specifically. >> there's a fundamental fallacy. the way this is normally presented, we know the atomic bombs are used, and we know the horrific effects of those bombs the only consequence of this is the death of combatants on the asian continent in battle with soviet forces. the reality is that hundreds of thousands of japanese were captured by the soviets, combatants and noncombatants. the numbers i use now is about 1.7 million total. there has been for years debate about what the total number of japanese in soviet captivity

die. there was a book a couple years ago who said the number of japanese that perished in soviet captivity was between 300,000 and 500,000. "embracing defeat," if you read that, he's estimating the numbers about 400,000. just recently, the book by andrew borchet of berkeley, got access to soviet archival documents. it shows that roughly about 73,000 japanese combatants were killed in fighting with the soviets august into september '45. shows japanese soldiers, combatants captured by the soviets died in soviet captivity from disease, abuse, starvation. also shows about 180,000 japanese noncombatants died in soviet captivity.

now, that's just the japanese who die as a result of combat on the asian continent on the islands. if you presume we're going to let the soviets secure the end of the war, that means a soviet occupation zone in japan. now, the math is that about 1 out of 7 japanese who fell into soviet captivity are going to die. do the math if they get hokkaido, another 3 million, pahow many more japanese? when we talk about moral consequences, it seems to me we have to recognize all of them. if we don't create a hierarchy of victims in which some noncombatants are entitled to complete immunity, and others are not even worth discussing. >> thank you. we have two people who have been waiting very patiently. so, yes, sir, i'll take you. and, yes? >> thank you, my name is ron cole, and i'd like to thank the

distinguished panel for some really excellent discussion here. and, i'd just like to follow-up on something that, i think she may be the next speaker and i hope i'm not stealing any of her thunder. hiroshima survivors. she mentioned last night that after the bomb none of the doctors there had any clue about what was going on, but the hospitals set up, they seemed to be they were more aligned on just researching the medical effects of the bomb. almost like this was sort of premeditated. they knew there were going to be some effects and they wanted to follow up on those. and regarding the issue of, you know, there's a lot of science involved in it but engineering aspects, regarding the scientific discussions ahead of time and the ionizing radiation and those kind of things. and we could probably follow up on some of this in the next session.

what -- i'm pretty sure president truman didn't have access to these discussions. as far as the military, who might have had access to the potential fallout. what's it going to do to the atmosphere? these kinds of things. can you give us insight into those scientific discussions? that were ultimately president truman made aware of those things going down the road with the testing and things. >> stan, i think he dialed your number. >> i guess he did. early on robert oppenheimer when he joined the p program, there was consideration among the scientists maybe this would ignite the atmosphere and end all life on earth oppenheimer went from california to the summer cabin of the guy who

headed the chicago laboratory to tell him about this. and the response was to better to live under the nazi heel than end human civilization. but then they decided, no, it wasn't going to happen. but there was still kind of in the background this fear that something bad would happen. in fact, when james conan who on july 16th is lying down facing away from the test bomb and the flash goes off, he thinks -- and the very first instinct, oh, my god, i think they lighted the atmosphere, but of course, they didn't. they knew something was special about this weapon. and, you know, there were scientists and medical people looking into it. and the first reports that came back from hiroshima about this radiation sickness were very alarming.

the exposure of this new fact going on, limiting journalists who would nose around and talk about it and everything. so it was something new. and disturbing. and, you know, it later became much more disturbing, and in terms of atmospheric testing, we knew that was bad. the world said enough, there was a treaty and they stopped testing in the atmosphere and to all of our benefit, thankfully, they stopped it. so, you know, from ignorance to revelation about this and, you know, it's still going on. we're still investigating and health physics, this whole area of research and this, i'm not

competent enough to follow. >> yeah, if i could just add. scientists knew about the effects of radiation and there was some discussion of that before the bombs were dropped. but they didn't think the effects of radiation would be all that much in hiroshima/nagasaki because the scientific calculation was not a lot of air busts, so there was not a lot of fallout from the bombs in both cities. 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. turned out they were wrong about that. but they were clearly aware, the scientists were. i doubt if truman was, i doubt groves was, but clearly there was a lot of scientific, still basic, but a lot of knowledge about radiation effects in 1945.

understand it, what's striking to me, at one level the scientists knew that radiation was a hazard, could be a lethal hazard, could do terrible things. in their calculations, they convinced themselves that basically as sam was saying, that basically anyone who was in danger of having a lethal dose of radiation would have already been killed by blast or heat. and they truly were shocked when the first reports roll in about radiation sickness. so, and i think it's entirely clear that no one up the chains 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 thing is if they'd 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 taboo about the use, it probably would've changed the entire dynamic of decision making. the only nation that extensively used poisonous gas in the battle of world war ii was japan primarily against the chinese from '35 to '45. the germans used gas, but we know the context that was. there was clearly something about gas and the idea of poison that at a visceral level would've had a profound effect on marshall, stemson and truman than the notion they had that it was just a bigger bang. >> and we have one final and it will be a final question from the special question. >> thank you. i have a specific question, but 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. and i was thinking that in this country, there are a lot, many other historians and other experts who do have very different viewpoint on the issue we're talking about. and i think it would be a great service to american citizens to have this kind of symposium staff by the people with a different perspective and not only american people, but i think there are a lot of japanese historians, japanese experts who have very different viewpoints. and other parts of the world, as well. wouldn't it be wonderful if we could organize symposium of this

nature? >> i can address that if you would like me to. of why i asked the people i did to speak today. and what i did was to base my invitations on people who have done outstanding work. it was not based on their ideology, and it was not based on their position on the bomb, it was not a panel of one revisionist and one poor guy in the middle. i've been on panels like that, and they're extremely unproductive, and extremely unpleasant or can be because all we do is trade quotations. and i specifically wanted to avoid that, and i got the best people i could, and i think i succeeded. and they're all people from that broad sprawling middle i 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 the fundamental question that the bomb was primarily used to end the war as quickly as possible. and within that, there's a lot of room for disagreement. so that was my approach to the invitations. >> my specific question is this. i'm sure you all know that after the bombing, the united states send the b-29 with military personnel, scientists, medical scientists, they -- the government wanted those experts to go to hiroshima and nagasaki, make the assessment of the quality of distraction, and to write a report back to the government. and you all know -- perhaps many of the people in the audience don't know, what i understand

is, the report from that team was, yes, indeed japan was already beaten. therefore, the use of atomic bomb was not needed. this is public knowledge. anyway, today i thought it was interesting, you didn't mention anything about the government's effort to make the assessment. and what they -- what did the report said, and how you react to that, and i thought it would have been useful for us to hear your comments on the government reports. thank you. >> thank you. >> what you're referring to is called the united states strategic bombing survey, and the specific report you're talking about is a summary of the pacific war, that report does in fact have a conclusion

in it that says japan would have surrendered by november or december or such date. since the time that that report has been published, has been used frequently, it has been subjected to scholarly study, as to what was the basis for that report. it is based on interviews with japanese officials, it supports that conclusion, what the scholars found is when they went back to the actual documents relating to those interviews, the interviews do not support the conclusion, the fellow who was the principle drafts man of that is paul nitsy, we've had two major scholarly works that have gone through and shredded had his work on that point, indicating he had another agenda in mind which involved the further future of the u.s. air force. so once again, i can't say

strongly enough how much empathy i have for you, and everyone else who was involved in that, it is an enormous tragedy, as i've said, we should never forget about it, and keep it in mind that your testimony is important in that respect. but we've now plowed through this a very great deal. we've been through a lot of the debates back and forth, and as sam said, things may be heading more toward a middle ground, but the notion that japan's leadership was on the cusp of surrender or could have been brought to surrender in 1945, even the more recent works i put in the revisionist camp have backed away from making those kind of assertions, because the evidence is not there, and the strategic bombing survey report in particular has been in my view pretty thoroughly trashed. >> yeah, just as the germans after the use of the bomb made up a new story about their

supposed role, many americans did as well in terms of taking positions and saying things that were later used by the revisionist to say why the bomb should have been used, but they never did it, eisenhower is the best case. he puts himself before stinson saying, don't use the bomb. this never happened. this never happened. he just lied through his teeth. but you know, you want to look good for posterity, so you do things like that. now we could go on. no military figure said no before the bomb was dropped, period. it's now shown up and down that that's the case. so, you know -- you can't stop

people from using these quotes and the revisionist did. and they tried to make an argument which eventually as rich said fell apart on closer examination and anyway, that's something to bear in mind in this whole discussion. >> curiously enough -- >> the one thing we have documented was he said 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? >> thank you all for your attention and great questions. tonight on american history tv, a focus on the cold war,

beginning with a discussion about the lessons learned 25 years since the fall of the berlin wall. then a look at some of the human radiation experiments conducted by the defense department during the cold war, scholars debate the foreign policies of then president george h.w. bush, and the decisions that led to the end of the cold war, it's all tonight beginning at 8:00 eastern here on c-span 3. this weekend on the c-span networks, friday night on c-span, native american history, on saturday live all day coverage from the science pavilion. scotland's decision on whether to end its political union with england. he shares his approach to interpreting laws by congress.

on friday indepth with former congressman ron paul. then on saturday, all day live coverage at the national book festival. speakers interviews and viewer call-ins, and sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern with william boroughs, talking about his book the asteroid threat. a massive documentary about the 1969 apollo 11 moon landing. saturday on the civil war, general william tecumsah sherman's campaign. find our television schedule at c-span.org and let us know about the programs you're watching on twitter use #c123 or e-mail us @comments@cspan.org.

like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> next, atomic bomb survivors talk about the lasting emotional and physical effects that ended world war ii in the pacific. president truman's grandson also participated in the discussion. this event was hosted by the japan society. it's about an hour and 10 minuta s. >> it's a very exciting time to be involved in nuclear abolition, that is getting rid of all nuclear weapons because there have been some significang changes. the marshall islands last week followed a suit in the international court of justice to -- against the nine country that is have nuclear weapons for their failure to negotiate to abolish nuclear weapons in the o world there's been two conferences recently one in norway and one in mexico, where

147 united nations and citizens groups hav ne called for a complete ban of nuclear weapons for humanitarian and a environmental reasons. they call for a ban because nuclear weapons breed fear amo g nations, they don't bring security. they have the ability to destroy all life forms on earth.ed our before i introduce our guest, o i'd like you to close your eyes for one moment and think of all the people, places and things ps you love most in our world, close your eyes for a minute what is it that you most love in this world. and imagine that all that could be destroyed by nuclear weapons, that's why we are here to make sure that that never happens. it's my honor -- it's my

privilege to introduce our honored guests. our first is clifton truman daniel, would you like to come up [ applause ] >> clifton is the grandson of harry truman, the only person in history to order the deployment of nuclear weapons on a civilian population in times of war. he's dedicated to seeing they're never used again.that you clifton, i believe your of th grandfather is very proud of what you're doing. you'll also hear from yurai yuraiko omyamata from hiroshima. a shining example of dedicationi since the atomic bombing she's s devoted her life to working in i japan to assist atomic bomb ife survivors with the lifelong health consequences of radioactive fallout. consequenc radioactive fall out and worked and will be speaking at the

it's also my honor to introduce michio hokoria. he has come to us via the peace boat, a japanese organization s that travels the worlds workinge 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 disaster disasters. [ applause ] >> we believe you have the right to know about the world you livs in, and all people should commie themselves to abolishing nuclear weapons that could destroy life on earth as we know it.nal ca gomp to the website icanw.org.

our first step is to hear what our honored guests have to say. >> thank you, robert, good morning it's nice to see you again. despite my background, despite my lineage, i learned about thee atomic bombings of hiroshima anu nagasaki the same way that all of you have, through history hv teachers, through historey book. my grandfather did not speak to me about the decision.e de i think at the time it was the because i was very young.beca he died when i was 15 years oldr it's a hard subject to discuss. also, i don't think that he would have told me anything di differently than he would have told you or that he would have said publicly, that he did say y publicly about his reasons.ned a but i learned about it the same way you did.you and in my history books, the bombings of hiroshima and

nagasaki were about a page, paga and a half. there were photos of empty landscape at hiroshima, nagasaki, photos of ruined buildings, there was not much ir about the human cost, it was na numbers, how many had been killed, how many had been wounded how many had been e was sickened. there was no -- 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 wesley brought home a book from schoolh he was in fifth grade at the ugt time, he brought home a book sudoku and the thousand cranes. she was a real little girl who lived in hiroshima, she was two years old when the bomb exploded. she and her family survived

almost unscathed but she developed radiation induced leukemia nine years later, in a effort to help cure herself she followed a japanese tradition that says if you fold a thousand oth origami paper cranes, you are granted a wish.in she folded more than 1,000 paper cranes, about 1,300. unfortunately, that did not at d help. she died of leukemia on octobe 25th, 1955, she was 12 years old. within three years, her friends and family and citizens of hiroshima had raised the money to buildfr a statue to her and all the children killed, wounde and sickened by the atomic bombd it stands today in the peace p

park,ea she's holding up a gian paper crane.cran each year, people from around aa the world leave paper cranes at that memorial. they leave them all over hiroshima and nagasaki. but at her memorial alone they 0 leave 10,000 pounds, 10 tons of paper cranes every year just at her statue alone. well, i thought it was important at the time, when wesley brought this home to read this story, to read it with him it was the first time i had seen a personal story of hiroshima or nagasaki, the first time i had ever seen the effect on families, children, people. wesley and i read the story together, a few years later i mentioned that fact to a japanese journalist writing a story on the anniversary of the bombings, this was in 2004 and that story was read in japan, and my phone rang not long after that, and it turned out to be

masahiro suzaki. i heard you read my sister's story, can we meet together some day, can we work together, can we do something? i said yes. it took us six years, we didn't meet until 2010 here in manhattan. he and his son were donating one of sudaku's last cranes to the world trade center memorial. during that memorial, he had a small plastic box and he opened it up and took out a tiny paper crane. in the hospital, she had to use any kind of paper she could find. candy wrappers, gift wrappers, scraps of paper, anything she could scrounge from other

patients. he took one out and dropped it into my palm. he said that's the last crane she 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. we did go two years later. we attended the ceremonies in hiroshima and nagasaki, and we sat down and heard testimony from more than two dozen survivors, we were there to listen to them, i took my two sons and wife and we all went to japan to listen to survivors, they each asked only one thing of me when they were done, is that i keep telling their stories so we never do this again, it's a gift, and it's not

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

misses and nuclear accidentses make your hair stand on end. it's a serious issue, it's something that can even setting off a few of them, could poison the atmosphere, give us nuclear winter, it's not something we can sit down and ignore, and that job is going to fall for y you. you have a special opportunity here today with raiko and miche, it's a gift they give to you and all of us, to take and do something with, i encourage you to listen to their stories and take the lessons and the next steps. because this is not only my future, but it's very definitely your future and the future of all of your friends and colleagues and families. thank you all very much for being here this morning . [ applause ]

>> hello, everybody, 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 chi

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 li 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 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 because of this, resulted 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 that morning, there was not a single cloud in the sky, it was a beautiful blue sky. and all of the children that were still in the town went to the school yards. 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 shining bright. as it made a u-turn, it created a white tail wind that you could see, it was quite beautiful.

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 began to -- we immediately ran to the air raid shelters and what happened to myself is that a blast of heat, immense heat hit my back and i was blown to the ground. in just the moments after that, there was rain and we began to shiv shiver. we later learned that that was r rain.

moments later we noticed that many of the people that were closest to the hypocenter of where the bomb was dropped, continued to run toward our area, they were injured or coated in blood. it was an over flow 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

16-year-old sister and 13-year-old sister were at home. my father was located about one kilometer from the hypocenter, 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, my eldest sister finally made it home, she was about two kilometers away from the hypocenter. her back and her neck were severely burned.

we had no medication or no way to treat them. there were no doctors to help treat either. what they had to do was sit there or lie down in pain. 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 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 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 a 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 forgeforget. 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, 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 had been affected by

the results. we living call this weapon a weapon of the devil. there's still to this day, so many people that are experiencing the aftereffects, 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's so many that are experiencing health issues and pain, agonizing pain. this is because there has not been any clear result as to the research of what the effects of radiation are. and this is the reason why we talk to all of the people of the world, the people in this room inclusive, because this weapon is an inhumane weapon, and what we want to do, we want to rid the entire world of these

nuclear weapons. >> translator: and it is my desire on behalf of all of us, 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. [ applause ]

>> i'd like to welcome our -- the students from the eagle academy? yes, welcome. we know it was a long ways to come into -- to get here today. so we're glad that you made it.

>> translator: hello, everyone. my name is michio hakariya. i would like to talk to you about my story, what i experienced when i was eight years old, i was in 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 we well. 69 years ago, at the -- right at that point it says hypocenter, that's the place where the 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 hypocent hypocenter. the city of nagasaki didn't have a flat area, it was a mountainous city, as you see even on top of the mountains there were houses. well, around -- as they surrounded the port area, there were residential areas and the factory factories. let me explain to you about nagasaki city and this map.

a green dot is a hypocenter.uf3÷ well, when the bomb was dropped, the actual heat of the bomb was 3,000 to 4,000 centigrade. each circle that you see here is marked every 300 meters. within one kilometer area, all animals and plants were completely destroyed. at that time there were

radiation[:k]k]k- radiation, heat rain blast, an explosive blast. when it comes to the blast, for example, if at the one kilometer away from the hypocenter the speed of the blast was four times faster than the baseball that was thrown by the professional baseball pitcher. so please imagine that the stones and pieces of wood and things like that were just flying against you.

there were many people who died because of these flying objects. so it was 1945, august 9th, the atomic bomb was dropped. this picture was taken about two to three days prior to the atomic bomb being drop ped by te american forces. can you seed river running through the city?

my best friend and i were supposed to go swimming to the river the day before the atomic bomb was drop ped. >> translator: actually the day when the bomb was dropped -- before that, although i wanted to swim in that river with my friend, my mother stopped me, because i hadn't finished my homework, so my mother told me, you have to finish before you go swimming.

>> translator: so i stayed home without going swimming, and this is a picture that was taken three days after the atomic bomb was drop ped. as you can see, there's nothing remained after this. this is something very similar to my situation at that time, i was studying at home, and there's a strong flash of light.

at that time i thought there was a huge bomb was dropped so i covered my eyes and ears and made my whole body under -- put myself under something. then i experienced a huge blast. we were inside a house, and still the furniture pieces and the piece of glass, pieces of glass were just flying against us as if they were like knives.

previously ms. yamada explained about her brother who got injured with the flying glasses, this is what happen ed. these pictures were taken within one kilometer diameter from the hypocenter, as you can see the animals and human people were dying like this. please take a look at this picture.

>> translator: as i explained to you before, that day i was supposed to go swimming, i know my friend went there to swim, and i remain home because my mother stopped me from going. i'm not sure if this boy was my friend or not, however, every single time when i see this picture, that could be myself, so when i think of it, i get very sad. this is a picture of mother and her child dying right by the -- on the platform.

they were -- this place was actually within the one kilometer diameter, so there's no way they could survive. at that time, the nagasaki population is like 210,000 peop people. and one third of them died. there were so many people injured and medical facilities were not enough so as an emergency places, school facilities were used for -- in

order to treat injured people so this is a picture of injured people being brought to the school buildings. therefore, the regular classrooms became hospital room s. >> translator: each room was filled with people who were dying or seriously injured or severely burned. well, in about a month, everyone in this classroom disappeared.

which means all of them died. it was in the middle of summer, it was very, very hot. it was urgent matter to treat the dead bodies, otherwise it would be completely rotten. so school grounds were utilized as cremating spots.

so they made a -- they dug a big :% s and they poured gasoline and alo this stuff and it burned, without knowing who they were. this is a picture of actual cremation in the school ground. so this cremation lasted regardless, daytime or nighttime. it continued days after days.

this is a kind of playground where i used to play as a kid with my friends. at the beginning, we were so fearful, because we knew that they were burning human bodies, right? but gradually, as you observe this kind of activities day by day, you kind of get used to, so our physical distance gets closer and close r.

so as we get closer to cremating scene, we saw like a head dropping down or an arm dropping down, we were able to see that. as a little child, i just said as i grasped, the head dropped do down. as i said so, my family members came to me and yelled at me, don't say such a thing. even as eight years old, i grew

up as i witnessed what the war is like. i came here to tell you how important it is, and you have to make sure that war will never happ happen. after our testimonies, please go back home and tell what you witnessed, what you heard to your family, to your parents.

>> translator: please ask your parents, when they go to work places, please extend what you heard to your parents, to their co-workers and friends. and tell them please stop war and please abolish nuclear weapons, and please think about the world of peace. i used to have seven family members. them got4c$rá0cancer.

he get cancer of that area, and it was very delicate area, the doctor was not sure whether he

>> my third brother got cancer, stomach cancer and prostate canc cancer. >> well, so far i haven't got any cancer, yet. so what i want to say here, the war and nuclear weapons is not to question that particular

moment ramifications last long, long afterwards. as you know, in nagasaki, there's this beautiful statue for peace and hiroshima, there's also a peace people omemorial. >> translator: so praying for the warless world, in japan, we have these three important principles. japan shall neither possess nor manufacture nuclear weapons, nor

shall it permit their introduction into japanese territory. well, in japan, our constitution clearly states in its article nine that japan will never engage in wars. this is internationally clear -- clearly declared. >> translator: well, right now, in between japan and the u.s., there's a kind of peace treaty which states that they're supposed to protect each other.

maybe you can say that japan is however, japan's constitution clearly says that we will never >> translator: this april 9th, noeshl peace academy dom nated as a candidate of noble peace award.

let's protect a peaceful world. thank you so very much. [ applause ] >> ladies and gentlemen, i understand we have some time for questions now. schools was asked to pick a designated question-asker. so i'm just going to go down the list and see if you guys, you

know, who's representing each school. eagle academy, do you have a dez ig nated question-asker? and questions can be, you know, share questions, shared thoughts. it can be forany one of us.>hñió

who don't really -- they'll hear about world war ii, but they won't really know what it is like us. but 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 bad, what would you say to them? future generations. their grandchildren. nuclear weapons, what would you tell them about what happened? what would you say speaking ahead two generations?

>> 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. there's so many nuclear weapons out there right now in this world. ourselves, already, there's 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 to 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, else special ly on an educational realm.

>> 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. >> translator: you said that you did not receive any education during that time. so how did you receive education there after?

>> although i said there was hardly any education, it did you want mean that we didn't all have any education. what happened is that half were

able to continue with the education and half of the children were dutied to be in the work corps. this is one reason the school buildings were being utilized by the building. however, we were back into education mode fairly quickly after the bomb was brought by the end of september, many of the schools had already started over again. of course, we didn't have any good textbooks but we were already taking our tests in order to get to the next level of education.

were you able to forget about the images of the bomb? >> it is impossible to forget about the atomic bombing. what remains in my mind is that flash of light.