that is just one part of the .hole thing with japan harold hicks points out that a thing to the war, they have killed at least 3 million military personnel. they turn over 56 individuals. of thet's just one part savagery of the war, driven by the terms on which the japanese insisted the war be fought upon. frank, thank you host: our guest now is the director of the nuclear studies institute at the american

university. thank you for joining us. as we look back at the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing, did harry truman make the right decision? no.t: he made the absolute wrong decision. he defended it through the rest of his life. and hehe had no more's made the absolute wrong decision. the united states in the official mythology, the official narrative is the united states dropped the bombs because that was the only way to force japan austria surrender without an american invasion and if the u.s. invaded, truman said in his boysr, a half-million would have been killed in the invasion. years later, they add to that the fact that many japanese, millions of japanese would also

have been killed. the reality is there are two the main obstacle to japanese surrender was the u.s. demand for unconditional theender, which means execution of the emperor to them would be like the crucifixion of rist to us. that understanding was pervasive about the advisors around truman. secretary of war stimson. almost all of truman' is close advisers urged him. the main impediment was jimmy burns. truman relied on burns more than anyone else.

from the day he becomes president to his first day in the time that burns is secretary of state he is relying on burns for device and burns told him you will be politically crucified if you let the japanese keep the emperor. stimson and the others were doing everything they could to convince him. and admiral leahy said, maybe no one will get the japanese to surrender if we demand unconditional surrender. how did we know that? we've broken their code. we intercepted their telegrams. tokyo torams were from moscow. thehe middle of may, japanese decided the best way to get better surrender terms was to get the soviets interested in their behalf.

amp work,jesty, the the present war brings greater evil and sacrifice on the people . mayesires from his art it be quickly terminated. unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace. truman refers to the intercepted telegram as the telegram from ap emperor asking for peace. those are truman's words. that thetant rights president, admiral leahy, and earns -- burns agreed that the japs were looking for peace. we got those cables, not only truman, but also far install, mccoy, others agreed with that

assessment. the japanese know they are defeated. they knew that they were defeated since the battle of 1944. in and the three-time former prime thester sent a memo to emperor -- i regret to inform you, but defeat is inevitable. the japanese knew that and the americans knew that. the second way to enforce the surrender was to wait for the soviet invasion. harbor, day after pearl they had been urging the russians to commit to the pacific war. but the russians were fighting the nazis. facing 10 german divisions. they have a handful. but atta, stalin --

celtic, stalin agrees to enter the pacific war. what did american intelligence say. the joint intelligence committee reported on april 11, if at any time the ussr should enter the war, all japanese will realize .hat absolute the is inevitable i could give you more cases, july 6, a lot of these reports from the pot stem meeting make the same point over and over that once the soviets enter, the japanese are finished. what did truman understand? truman said he went to pot stem in mid-july. he had lunch with stalin. afterward, he wrote in his diary, stalin will be in the war by august 15. he writes home to his wife the next day, the russians are coming in. we will end the war a year

sooner now. think about all the kids who will not be killed. when is it necessary? you have the hundreds of thousands who will suffer for the rest of their lives, but truman do he was beginning a process that ultimately could end life on the planet. he gets his first real briefing on april 13 from burns and truman writes his memoir -- burns said this was a weapon great enough to destroy the whole world. briefing aboutr then thatnd rights within four months we will have a weapon that could destroy the

entire city. he says it could determine the future of human civilization. , let me jumpuznick in and take a phone call. we have plenty of callers waiting to talk to you. jeff for peter kuznick. though ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. agreeznick, i totally with every thing he said. i anticipated answering the last presenter austria's question, but there's also a moral depravity that should be spoken about with the use of an atomic weapon. it's not just a new weapon. goodness toertain the way the decision was made. it's not only that this is a problem with nuclear war, but it

was thought at the time it could cause a chain reaction in the atmosphere of the world and destroy the world with just the one weapon that was a little more powerful than the one they had tested in the desert in new york state. to take that type of chance without knowing, it really how can people rationally make a decision about using a weapon like this if you are taking the chance to destroy the earth? not to mention that going , they give the license to everyone to develop such a weapon. it is just astounding they could do such a thing. host: jeff, thank you. wast: that is the point i starting to make. when he goes to pot stem, and

-- pot stem, he knows this is not just another weapon. he said this might be the final no.ruction prophesied by he says this on a number of occasions. he was not the only one. oppenheimer briefly entered the committee on may 31 of military, political leaders and warned them within three years they will likely have weapons between 700 and 7000 times as powerful as the hiroshima bomb. wondering about this. you have to remember that seven of america's 85 star admirals eight five-star admirals and generals said that morally reprehensible.

the most outspoken was admiral william leahy. he was truman' is personal chief of staff. he wrote, the japanese are ready to surrender. the use of this barbarous weapon will have no material assistance in our war against japan and being the first to use it, we the standard of the barbarians of the dark ages. we have similar comments from eisenhower, macarthur, hayden. they all knew it was not necessary and some of them recognized the significance of using it because you are saying they knew that there is no secret to the bomb and other countries would be developing them. thescientists would -- but soviets would take three to five years to catch up. we are studying this example and the other thing about that, the

soviets knew the bomb was unnecessary. they were trying to get them to intercede to get better surrender terms. metarly may, the ambassador malik, and hewith writes back to the kremlin that the japanese are desperate to surrender. the soviets knew better than anybody there was no military reason to do it and they interpreted it exactly the way that some of the scientists warned they would. they were the real target, not the japanese and that was the reaction of stalin and shook off --zhukov and others in the kremlin. host: you are on with richard kuznick. this is all finding

good. i was about eight years old when they dropped the bomb. i remember the attitude in the united dates in school and everywhere. we had a gentleman who was in that the tan death march, you know? to death they dropped that bomb and stop the war. they told us they stop the war and we were happy that they did. the attitude of the american people is, the pilots and all of this, we have seen all of that and nothing was too bad to do to the japanese at the time. , but you know, i think , he was in aually war himself. i think macarthur at one time wanted to drop the bomb in korea . the bomb is an awful thing. but if we did not have bombs,

would there be more wars now? we know that everybody has got a bomb and we are all playing chicken with it. maybe it will stop some more by having bombs. i don't know. host: peter kuznick? guest: the american public was was exactly what richard saying. susan rice, likely the next vice president, wrote an op-ed that truman saved her father' is life, that dropping the atomic forced the japanese surrender. obama basically said the same thing. said that world war ii reached its brutal end. 85% of the american people according to a gallup pole supported dropping the atomic bomb.

they said that 22.7% of the american people wish the japanese had not surrendered so quickly. 30% in the southwest. that was the attitude. with it, there was racism. that might have factored in a little bit. this does not get known in the u.s. until 44. did was japanese horrific. that is not a debate. we are not debating about that. we are debating whether the dropping of the bomb was the right thing and what the consequences were, because as scientists warned, it did lead to an uncontrollable arms race and we are lucky to have survived since then. , these sort of

don mclean's has been hanging humanity.f truman is not evil. he went into this with his eyes wide open, knowing he was beginning this process and knowing the way that we did it would trigger this exact response from the soviet union that was predicted at the time. the soviets test their bomb in august of 1949 and in 1952 the americans trade -- test this bomb. and they move the hands of the doomsday clock to two minutes before midnight. now it is at 100 seconds before midnight. the closest it has ever been. we are in a very dangerous situation and there have been many instances where we have

theived, including during cuban missile crisis. host: what has changed about the japanese perspective about the bombings? guest: we get to see the bomb -- the war through the american eyes and is always a lot of other agents on the trip. so they have a very different perspective than the japanese and we go to the commemorative event. we go to the bcm. we go to the peace parks. we also go to the japanese were in the subject.

and there's the museum and nagasaki and that is -- that is entirely dedicated to japanese atrocities. somewhat to americans, but mostly to other agents. the japanese were victims, but they were also victimizers. while american students did not participate, and they had to deal with their gills, the japanese have to deal with their guilt and sense of neither thety and american government nor the japanese government has the well with their history. the one country that has taken responsibility for their past in a much more comfortable way is germany. the japanese of not done it, especially not under shinzo abe, and the united states is not done it. we have seen what happened when thatoviets tried to have historical exhibit in 1965.

host: ryan. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for letting me speak. i have a question for your guest about some of the personalities. i am wondering if they made the decision to drop it at you all to or was it still in the planning stage, and with stalin of austria spies in the manhattan project, did he know exactly what was going on? and what about the generals and the admirals who are closer to the front lines? for example, in the pacific. were they briefed on what was going to happen before the bombs were dropped? go ahead. finish up. aller: did oppenheimer have

chance to talk to truman about what was going to go on it they dropped this bomb? thank you, brian. when was the decision made to drop that bomb? on may 5,a meeting they decided japan would be the target and not japan. made and afters ,he splitting of the adam physicists were very alarmed about the possibility -- the om,itting of the at physicists were very alarmed about the possibility of hitler getting to work. they were to eisenstein.

project really gets off the ground very slowly. it does not really get momentum until 19 to. the admirals and the generals, some of them were briefed about the use of the atomic bomb. but even someone like arsenaler, america's increases threefold. bombs.ve almost 30,000 they were going to drop the bomb. eisenhower said, they told me they are going to drop it on the japanese. but the war was over in europe and it was not up to me -- i am

getting more and more depressed, just thinking about it. he asked for my opinion. .e said, i'm against it he said, i am -- i hate to see our country be the first to use such a weapon. , in an exchange with former president hoover, macarthur says, if truman had followed your wise advice, the japanese would have surrendered and happily and that would have been as early as may. the possibility if we told the japanese they could keep the emperor. we told them we had a horrible new weapon. we could have ended the war possibly a month or two earlier and saved more lives. american left, japanese life, we droppedes, but

the bomb on august 6 in order to prevent an invasion that was november 1, anin invasion, which many of the military leaders did not want to see happen at all. the logic escapes me. did stalin know? according to the last caller was his question? guest: yes. there were two were more giving intelligence to the soviets. knew the americans were developing a bomb. he did not know exactly -- he knew it was going to be tested. he did not know the results. told him at what stem the united states had a terrible new weapon. stalin was poker-faced.

truman thought he did not get it. stalin knew exactly what that meant. marvin, calling from tuscaloosa, alabama. i think you have played fast and loose with the facts. it was germany, japan, and italy, they were dictators who started the war. i think you have ignored the fact that all of the atrocities committed by the japanese -- you mentioned them, but we don't hear a lot about that. those atrocities were proven at the tokyo war trials. you mentioned the backhand death march. the rape of nanking, the killing, the slaughter and torture of american pow's. i think you have played fast and

loose with the facts because truman had the facts and he made a reasonable decision. i'm not going to go into all that kind of detail, but i think thewe it to americans on 75th anniversary of the end of world war ii to just say to the americans and the families that died, including my two uncles that on her and glory, to all of those people, all of those families, i feel fair and are not putting this in context and i definitely disagree with your statement that, we have atrocities just like the japanese. that is three history and that that is, sir? -- destroying history and that is wrong, sir. host: marvin, let's get a response from peter kuznick. you are notn,

listening very closely. was ak that world war ii necessary war. i think that world war ii was on the side of the angels. downplayly do not japanese atrocities or german atrocities. the issue is very different. the entire history of the cold war and the nuclear arms race is not something that we can ignore. the bomb drop was instrumental in starting the cold war. there are so many people we should be quoting. example, said for i was unable to see any justification for an invasion of an already thoroughly defeated japan. so, you are saying we should have dropped the bomb to get

revenge on the japanese -- that's a different question. that is one that truman, in his statement, that's not the argument made. the argument is whether the bomb war.ecessary to end the brought them down to an and we did notr need to do it and we knew we did not need to do it. we use them as an experiment for two. atomic bombs. why would we do that? the united states is not in a moral country. general groves said there was never any illusion on my part

that russia was an enemy and the project was conducted on that basis. in march of 1944, overgenerous, he said, you realize the main purpose is to defeat the russians? top adviser said the same thing when they met in spartanburg, south carolina. he said, this is our way to make the russians more manageable in europe. if you think that is justifiable reason for killing hundreds of thousands of people there's almost no limit to what you can justify. you can justify using atomic bombs today. fortunately, that is not the world is adopted.

but they are developing two more usable weapons and the world is in a very precarious situation now. >> as we wrap up, what is the legacy of the bombings? the legacy. i think it undermines america's claims toward exceptionalism. we like to think of ourselves as different from other countries, as more moral, more just. we want to spread freedom and democracy. at the heart of that this that should begins with the cold war. it begins with our victory in world war ii.

work,war ii was a good the closest we have ever come to a good war. there is no such thing as a good war, really. the use of the bomb certainly compromises our moral position around the world. we have to look honestly at our past because if we do not study the past honestly we are going to commit the same mistakes or new mistakes going forward. the world is too dangerous for us to have that luxury. thanks for your -- host: announcer: weeknights this month, we are featuring programs as a preview of what is available every weekend on c-span three. on monday night, a look at the u.s. since indianapolis. two japanese torpedoes sunk the uss indianapolis in shark infested waters. only 317 out of 1196 crewmembers survived.

they were not rescued for several days. on the 75th anniversary of the ships sinking, congress awarded the entire crew the congressional gold medal, its highest civilian honor. watch monday night beginning at 8:00 eastern and enjoy american history tv this weekend every weekend on c-span three. ♪ week, c-span's the contenders looked at the lives of 14 men who ran for the presidency and lost, that changed political history. watch the contenders this week at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. starting on monday, 1844 presidential candidate henry clay. announcer: