Roosevelt: I believe that we are going to get along very well
With marshal stalin.
The american people have always had guts
And always will have.
Crowd: We want wallace! We want wallace!
Roosevelt: I'll accept the results of this conference
As the beginnings of a permanent structure of peace.
Truman: Our demand has been,
And it remains,
Unconditional surrender.
A short time ago,
An american airplane dropped one bomb
On hiroshima
And destroyed its usefulness to the enemy.
The japanese began the war from the air
At pearl harbor.
They have been repaid manyfold.
And the end is not yet.
We shall destroy their docks,
Their factories
And their communications.
Let there be no mistake--
We shall completely destroy
Japan's power to make war.
It is an atomic bomb.
It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe.
Stone: This was August 6, 1945.
The war in europe had ended close to three months before
On may the 8th.
Looming on November 1 was operation downfall--
The invasion of the japanese islands,
Overseen by general douglas macarthur.
Many feared a bloodbath
As americans confronted a fanatically hostile
Civilian population
As well as the remaining japanese imperial armed forces.
The climate for the war on japan
Was shaped by the profound hatred
Americans felt towards the japanese.
Pulitzer prize-winning historian allan nevins
Wrote after the war, "probably in all our history,
No foe has been so detested
As were the japanese."
Admiral william "bull" halsey,
Commander of the south pacific force,
Was notorious in this regard,
Urging his men to kill the "yellow monkeys"
And "get some more monkey meat."
Halsey: They were tough monkeys, but they could be had.
Stone: An article in "time" magazine stated
"the ordinary unreasoning jap is ignorant.
Perhaps he is human.
Nothing indicates it."
The british embassy in washington
Reported back to london that the americans viewed the japanese
As a "nameless mass of vermin."
When popular war correspondent ernie pyle
Was transferred from europe to the pacific
In February '45, he observed...
Pyle: In europe, we felt that our enemies,
Horrible and deadly as they were,
Were still people.
But out here I soon gathered
That the japanese were looked upon
The way some people feel about cockroaches or mice.
Stone: Some of this sentiment can be attributed
Certainly to racism.
But american rancor towards japan soared
With the sneak attack at pearl harbor.
And in early 1944,
The government released information
About the sadistic treatment of u.S.
And filipino prisoners during the baton death March
Two years earlier.
Reports of unspeakable japanese cruelty--
Torture, crucifixion,
Castration, dismemberment,
Beheading, burning and burying alive,
Vivisection,
Nailing prisoners to trees
And using them for bayonet practice--
Flooded the media.
Even president truman's bigotry
Long antedated reports of japanese savagery.
As a young man courting his future wife, he wrote...
Truman: I think one man is as good as another,
So long as he's honest and decent
And not a nigger or a chinaman.
Uncle will says that the lord
Made a white man of dust,
A nigger from mud,
Then threw up what was left and it came down a chinaman.
Stone: To be fair, truman was a product
Of his time and place.
His biographer merle miller reported...
Miller: Privately, mr. Truman always said 'nigger.'
At least he always did when I talked to him.
Stone: This racism prevailed when president roosevelt
In February 1942 signed an executive order
Calling for the evacuation of over 110,000
Japanese and japanese-americans
From california, oregon and washington
On the grounds that they
"represented a threat to national security."
70% of them were american citizens,
But still with few defending these citizens' constitutional rights,
They were eventually placed in 10 different camps,
Often referred to at the time as concentration camps.
Conditions here were deplorable.
Lacking running water, bathroom facilities,
Decent schools,
Insulated cabins and proper roofs.
They worked under scorching desert sun
For miniscule pay.
Evacuees were only allowed to bring what they could carry
And some greedy westerners used the opportunity
To seize their neighbor's properties
At a fraction of their real value.
The japanese lost an estimated $400 million
In personal property.
Worth more than $5 billion today.
Japanese resoluteness in the face of defeat
Was legendary.
In February and March of 1945,
After five weeks of combat at iwo jima,
Almost 7,000 american sailors and marines
Were killed and over 18,000 wounded.
- Stryker! - Yes, sir?
The colonel has ordered that we put up this flag
As soon as the top is secured.
- Be sure that it gets there. - Aye, aye, sir.
Find something we can use for a standard
And we'll put this up.
Even hollywood movie star john wayne
Would fall victim.
Well, conway, I see you made it.
Yeah, I guess that little voice was wrong.
I feel better.
I feel a lot better too.
As a matter of fact, I never felt so good in my life.
- How about a cigarette? - ( gunshot )
♪ first to fight for right and freedom ♪
♪ then to keep our honor clean, we are... ♪
All right! Saddle up!
Let's get back in the war!
♪ the United States marines.
Stone: At okinawa, the bloodiest battle of the pacific,
Over 12,000 americans were killed or missing
And over 36,000 wounded.
100,000 japanese soldiers
And an equivalent number of okinawan civilians
Were killed.
Many of them committed suicide.
Americans were especially shocked
By the 1,900 kamikaze attacks
Which sank 30 and damaged some 360 naval vessels.
Japanese soldiers fought for the emperor,
Who many worshipped as a god.
They believed that surrender would shame their families,
But that death on the battlefield
Would bring the highest honor.
All military planners agreed
That an invasion would be costly.
But the debate over just how costly
Has raged for decades.
Marshall told truman on June 18th,
He expected no more than 31,000 casualties.
America's moral threshold would be dramatically lowered
By world war ii.
Urban area bombing had begun before
During the first world war
When the europeans had bombed each others' cities.
And to its credit, the u.S. Had strongly condemned
Japanese bombing of chinese cities in 1937.
When the war began in '39,
Roosevelt implored combatants
To refrain from the inhuman barbarism
Involved in bombing defenseless cities.
But by the mid 1940s,
Great cities such as barcelona, madrid,
Shanghai, beijing, nanjing,
Warsaw, london, rotterdam,
Moscow, leningrad, budapest,
Vienna, cologne, berlin,
And many others had been severely bombed.
Germany had begun with deadly raids on british cities,
And the british responded with thousand-plane formations
Over urban targets in germany.
When u.S. Air force general curtis lemay
Arrived in England in 1942,
Air force strategy was targeting germany
With precision bombing of key industries
And transportation networks in vast daylight raids.
But the crews were being shot to pieces.
Terrified for their lives,
Many pilots simply aborted their missions
And returned to base.
Morale was at the point of collapse.
Lemay issued a severe order to his flyers.
Lemay: Our abort rate is far too high.
The cause of it is fear.
Therefore I will be on the lead plane
In these missions. And any crew that takes off
And doesn't get to the target
Will be court-marshaled.
Attention!
I can tell you now one reason I think
You've been having hard luck.
I saw it in your faces last night.
I see it there now.
You've been looking at a lot of air lately
And you think you ought to have a rest.
In short, you're sorry for yourselves.
Now I don't have a lot of patience
With this what-are- we-fighting-for stuff.
We're in a war, a shooting war.
We've got to fight.
And some of us have got to die.
I'm not trying to tell you not to be afraid.
Fear is normal.
But stop worrying about it
And about yourselves.
Stop making plans.
Forget about going home.
Consider yourselves already dead.
Once you accept that idea,
It won't be so tough.
Now if any man here can't buy that,
If he rates himself as something special
With a special kind of hide to be saved,
He'd better make up his mind about it right now.
Because I don't want him in this group.
I'll be in my office in five minutes.
You can see me there.
Stone: The abort rate dropped off to nothing.
But even then, lemay looked to overhaul strategy,
Frustrated with the restrictions of conventional bombing.
His inspiration came from the british,
And especially the notorious sir arthur "bomber" harris
Who made no distinction between military
And civilian targets.
It was harris in February '42
Who masterminded the shift from precise but dangerous daytime bombing
To notoriously imprecise nighttime area bombing raids
That indiscriminately kill civilians.
The u.S. Had in the past balked at such slaughter,
But now round the clock bombing ensued.
British at night, the americans by day.
In July '43, british bombers, including harris,
Destroyed the german city of hamburg,
Creating fires higher than the empire state building.
Lemay felt he could do even better.
And in November '43, the u.S. Air force destroyed munster.
It was the beginning of a new war.
On the night of February 13, 1945,
The beautiful baroque city of dresden
On the elbe river,
Packed with refugees fleeing the red army,
Disappeared from the face of the earth.
25,000 were killed by british bombers at night,
Followed by the u.S. Air force the next morning.
The city had little military value.
The cost of allied area bombing in europe
Was vast in terms of men and material,
Representing almost a quarter of the entire british war effort,
And much of the american.
But was it worth it?
The bombing slowed the rate of increase
In german armaments production
And took its toll on civilian morale,
Killing more than an estimated half million
German, italian and french civilians.
And it forced the luftwaffe to divert forces
To defend the mainland, making them unavailable
For the soviet front.
But defending itself and repairing damage
May have cost the germans less than the allies spent
To wreak such damage.
Over 79,000 u.S.
And an equal number of british air crew members
Were killed in action.
Even churchill wondered out loud in 1943,
"are we beasts?
Are we taking this too far?"
By mid-April, there was simply nothing worthwhile left
To destroy in germany.
Lemay argued...
Lemay: You gotta kill people. And when you kill enough,
They stop fighting.
Stone: In late 1944, the man the japanese came to know
As "demon lemay"
Was transferred to the pacific
Where he bombed japanese civilians
With a ferocity never before witnessed
In the annals of war.
More explicit than the british area bombing,
Lemay called it "terror bombing."
In that year, the u.S. Was capturing
More and more japanese-occupied territories,
Bringing japan itself within range of u.S. Bombers.
And on the night of March 9th, 1945,
Lemay sent 330 planes over tokyo,
The imperial capital...
Carrying incendiary bombs,
Consisting of napalm, thermite,
White phosphorous,
And other inflammable material.
Tokyo was a thousand-year-old concentration of bamboo and wood.
It was called a paper city.
B-29s destroyed 16 square miles,
Killing up to 100,000 civilians
And leaving an estimated one million homeless.
The scalding inferno caused canals to boil,
Metal to melt, and people to burst
Spontaneously into flames.
The stench of burning flesh was so powerful
That crew members vomited in their planes.
The tokyo raid was to be known as lemay's masterpiece.
He said...
Lemay: To confuse morality
With what we were doing-- nuts.
Stone: The american air force actually firebombed
Up to an estimated 100 japanese cities,
Some of no military significance,
Taking more than an estimated half million lives.
Almost no one objected to the slaughter bombing
Of japanese civilians.
It was, as one brigadier general said,
"one of the most ruthless and barbaric
Killings of non-combatants in all history."
Destruction reached 99.5% in the city of toyama.
Secretary of war henry stimson told truman
He did not want to have the u.S. Get the reputation
Of outdoing hitler in atrocities.
Seeing through the prism of the terrible destruction
Being wrought by lemay's terror bombing,
The atomic bomb can be viewed
As a chilling, if logical, next step.
But as it crept closer,
Many scientists began to squirm.
Leo szilard and others
Understood implicitly that this bomb they were building
Was a primitive prototype to what was to follow.
Szilard, nobel prize-winning chemist harold urey,
And astronomer walter bartky
Attempted to see truman
To caution against use of the bomb.
But they were rerouted to south carolina
To speak with byrnes,
Whose response appalled szilard.
Szilard: Mr. Byrnes knew at that time,
As the rest of the government knew,
That japan was essentially defeated.
He was much concerned about the spreading
Of russian influence in europe
And that our possessing and demonstrating the bomb
Would make russia more manageable.
Stone: Leslie groves also admitted
That in his mind, russia had always been the enemy.
Groves: There was never, from about two weeks
From the time I took charge of this project,
Any illusion on my part
That russia was our enemy,
And the project was conducted on that basis.
Stone: In June, scientists at chicago's met lab
Drafted a report warning that a nuclear attack on japan
Would not only destroy america's moral position,
But would instigate a nuclear arms race
With the soviet union.
The report also noted that because there was no secret to the bomb,
The soviet union would soon catch up.
When security officers banned its circulation,
Szilard drafted a petition to truman
Signed by 155 project scientists.
But robert oppenheimer barred its circulation
At los alamos and alerted groves,
Who made sure the petition did not reach truman.
Groves' security agents had been conducting
Extensive surveillance of szilard
Throughout the war.
And at one point, groves had labeled szilard
An "enemy alien" and requested
That he be interned for the duration of the war.
In may '45,
General marshall supported oppenheimer's suggestion
To share information with soviet scientists.
If not, his proposal to invite soviet observers to the test,
But byrnes in any case vetoed the whole idea.
The bomb's use now seemed inexorable, unstoppable.
And it came to an apocalyptic head
In potsdam in July
Where the big three were discussing the shape
Of the postwar world.
It was the perfect place to reveal the existence of the bomb.
The conference setting was strange and otherworldly.
Soviet troops occupied the wrecked capital of berlin.
Truman had said his primary reason
For going to potsdam was to insure the soviet entry
Into the pacific war,
An assurance that stalin was ready to give again.
Truman wrote in his diary...
Truman: He'll be in the jap war on August 15th.
Fini japs when that comes about.
Stone: Allied intelligence concurred, reporting...
Yet, it was clear to most that the japanese
Were already finished.
By the end of 1944,
The japanese navy had been decimated,
The air force badly weakened,
The railroad transit system in tatters,
The food supply shrunk,
Public morale plummeting.
Upon germany's defeat, the russian army began gathering
In siberia in enormous numbers, preparing to invade
Japanese occupied manchuria
In early August of 1945.
In February of that year, prince konoe,
The former prime minister had written to the emperor...
( speaking japanese )
Stone: In may, japan's supreme war council decided
To feel out the soviets for peace terms.
They wanted not only to keep the u.S.S.R. Out of their war,
But also to see if the soviets could help secure
Better surrender terms from the americans.
This was a delicate negotiation,
But american intelligence had been intercepting
Japanese cables since the start of the war.
And a July 18 cable from tokyo
To the japanese ambassador in moscow
Seeking surrender terms said unequivocally,
"unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace."
Truman, unambiguously characterized this
As the "telegram from the jap emperor
Asking for peace."
Forrestal noted evidence
Of a japanese desire to get out of the war.
Stimson described japanese maneuverings for peace.
Byrnes pointed to japanese peace feelers.
They all knew the japanese were finished.
The end was near.
And several of truman's close advisors
Urged him to modify the unconditional surrender
To signal that japan could keep its emperor
And speed the end of the war.
To the people, the emperor was a sacred figure,
And the center of their shinto religion.
To see him hanged like mussolini in Italy
Or humiliated in a war trial
Would be more than they could bear.
Macarthur's command reported,
"the hanging of the emperor to them
Would be comparable to the crucifixion of christ to us.
All would fight to die like ants."
But jimmy byrnes told truman that he would be
Crucified politically if the imperial system was retained.
Once again, his advice prevailed.
Truman and byrnes believed they had a way to speed
Japanese surrender on american terms
Without soviet help,
Thereby denying the u.S.S.R.
The territorial and economic concessions
Promised by roosevelt.
Truman had delayed the start of potsdam
For two weeks,
Giving the scientists time to ready the bomb test.
It worked.
Stimson gave him the news.
The conference began the very next day.
He later read the full report.
The test was terrifying, almost beyond comprehension.
Truman's demeanor changed completely.
Churchill was stunned by the transformation.
Churchill: I couldn't understand it.
He was a changed man.
He told the russians just where they got on and off
And generally bossed the whole meeting.
Stone: On the 24th of July, truman informed stalin
That the United States was in possession
Of a new weapon of unusual destructive force.
Mr. President, I remember you told stalin at potsdam
That we had the atomic bomb.
- Yes. - Did he seem to be impressed
- At that time? - No. I don't think
He quite understood what I was talking about.
I told him that we had discovered a tremendously powerful explosive
And that we proposed to use it to end the war with japan.
And he smiled and said that he was very happy to hear it,
Then the conversation ended and I went my way
And he went his.
Stone: But truman was naive in this matter.
Klaus fuchs, a man of ideological conviction
Who was part of the british scientific mission
At alamogordo,
Had delivered technical information
Relating to the bomb to his soviet handlers.
Stalin already knew when the test had been scheduled
And now was being told it had succeeded.
Anthony eden, british foreign secretary,
Noted stalin's response to truman
Was a nod and a muttered "thank you."
Apparently, once he stepped away from the conference,
Stalin called his secret police chief,
Beria, and scolded him for not having told him
Of the success of the test before truman.
Foreign minister andrei gromyko reported
That when stalin returned to his villa,
He remarked that the americans would use their atomic monopoly
Now to dictate terms in europe.
But that he wouldn't give in to that blackmail.
He ordered soviet military forces
To speed their entry into the asian war
And he ordered soviet scientists
To pick up the pace of their research.
Truman's behavior at potsdam
Reinforced stalin's belief that the u.S.
Intended to end the war quickly,
And renege on its promised concessions in the pacific.
On July the 25th, truman approved
A directive signed by stimson and marshall
Ordering the atomic bomb to be used against japan
As soon after August 3rd
As the weather permitted.
He and byrnes fully expected the japanese government
To reject the potsdam declaration,
Which failed to give any reassurances about the emperor.
The u.S. Even vetoed
Stalin's wish to sign the declaration.
Adding stalin's signature would have signaled the japanese
That the soviet union was about to come into the war.
It was incredibly underhanded behavior
By the u.S. Both towards the japanese
And the u.S.S.R.
While the hours were ticking off
Until the atomic bomb was ready to use,
The absence of a soviet signature
Was encouraging the japanese
To continue their futile diplomatic efforts
Since may of that year to keep the soviets out of the war,
Knowing that the entry of their giant army
Would crush the japanese empire.
Stimson, who had serious misgivings
About using the bomb-- referring to it as "the dreadful,
The terrible, the diabolical"--
Repeatedly tried to convince truman and byrnes
To assure the japanese about the emperor,
But it was an exercise in futility.
When stimson complained to truman about being ignored,
Truman told his elderly, frail secretary of war
That if he didn't like it, he could pack his bags and go home.
Though truman always somewhat proudly
Accepted responsibility for his decision,
Groves, who drafted the final order to drop the bomb,
Contended that truman really didn't decide.
Groves: As far as I was concerned,
His decision was one of non-interference.
Basically, a decision not to upset the existing plans.
Truman did not so much say "yes," as not say "no."
Stone: He described truman scornfully as a little boy on a toboggan.
Truman's attitude in all this was puzzling.
Though at times treating the bomb as a poker hand
To hold over stalin's head,
He also understood that it was really a sword of damocles
Hanging over all humanity.
He wrote in his potsdam diary...
Truman: We have discovered the most terrible bomb
In the history of the world.
It may be the fire destruction
Prophesied in the euphrates valley era,
After noah and his fabulous ark.
Stone: Six of america's seven five-star officers
Who received their final star in world war ii
Declared the bomb morally reprehensible,
Militarily unnecessary
Or both.
Eisenhower said...
Eisenhower: So then stimson told me
They were going to drop it on the japanese.
I listened. I didn't volunteer anything
Because after all, my war was over in europe
And it wasn't up to me.
But I was against it on two counts.
First, the japanese were ready to surrender,
And it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing.
Second, I hated to see our country
Be the first to use such a weapon.
Stone: General macarthur, supreme commander of allied forces in the pacific,
Considered the bomb completely unnecessary
From a military point of view.
He later said that the japanese would have surrendered in may
If the u.S. Had told them they could keep the emperor.
Opposition was sufficiently known
That groves imposed a requirement
That u.S. Commanders in the field
Clear all statements on the bombings
With the war department.
After three years of the highest tension--
Groves: We didn't want macarthur and others saying
The war could have been won without the bomb.
Stone: Ironically, shortly after the war was over,
General curtis "demon" lemay said...
Lemay: Even without the atomic bomb
And the russian entry into the war,
Japan would have surrendered in two weeks.
The atomic bomb had nothing to do
With the end of the war.
Stone: The target committee had selected a number of sites
On the japanese mainland.
Stimson removed kyoto,
The ancient cultural capital, which was spared its fate
Over the strong opposition of groves.
It was the city of hiroshima that was decided upon.
It had been deliberately left undamaged
By lemay's bombers.
Here the u.S. Could showcase its new weapon.
On August 6th at 2:45 a.M.,
Three b-29s took off from the island of tinian
For japan.
The lead plane, the enola gay,
Carried the uranium bomb little boy.
Pilot paul tibbets named the plane
After his mother.
Six and a half hours later, the enola gay
Came into sight of its target.
The doomed city lay quiet
In the flooding early morning sunshine.
Hiroshima's 300,000 civilians,
43,000 soldiers,
And 45,000 korean slave laborers
Were just beginning their day.
The target was a bridge near the center of the city.
At 8:15, right on schedule,
The giant plane went into its bombing run
At 31,000 feet,
Speed 330 miles per hour.
As the bomb was released, the plane twisted violently
To get as far as possible from the blast.
At the last minute, a gust of wind blew the bomb
Carrying it toward shima hospital
At one end of the bridge.
The bomb fell almost five miles to 2,000 feet
And then the two masses of uranium
Came together at lightning speed
And turned to energy.
The plane, now nine miles away
Was battered by the shockwave.
The fireball expanded outward
Enveloping the densely populated center of the city.
Its intense heat and blast
Driving outward to shatter buildings
And ignite all debris.
The bomb totally destroyed an area
Extending approximately 1.2 miles in all directions.
An hour and a half later,
From almost 400 miles away,
The crew could look back and still see the mushroom cloud
Rearing up to 40,000 feet or more.
At the hypocenter where temperatures reached 5,400° fahrenheit,
The fireball roasted people to bundles of smoking black char
In a fraction of a second as their internal organs boiled away.
Tens of thousands were killed instantly.
An estimated 140,000 were dead by the end of the year
And 200,000 by 1950.
The u.S. Officially reported only 3,243
Japanese troops killed.
Among the casualties were 23 american prisoners of war.
Some of whom survived the blast
Only to be beaten to death by bomb survivors.
When the bomb had exploded at hiroshima,
Truman, aboard the augusta, had gone from one crew member to another
Telling them the great news like a town crier.
Truman: This is the greatest thing in history.
Stone: Responding to this,
Catholic layworker and pacifist dorothy day wrote...
Day: We have killed 318,000 japanese.
Mr. Truman was jubilant.
President truman-- true man.
What a strange name, come to think of it.
We refer to jesus christ as true god
And true man.
Truman is a true man of his time
In that he was jubilant.
Stone: But the japanese did not surrender.
Stalin, honoring his pledge to roosevelt
And having now moved one and a half million men
To the eastern front, attacked japan on August 9th
On three fronts in manchuria.
The fighting was bloody.
The kwantung army was practically obliterated.
Estimates range up to 700,000 japanese killed, wounded and captured.
Stalin also attacked in korea
And in the kuril islands and sakhalin island.
This enormous event has been mostly forgotten to history,
Because later that morning on August 9,
Before japan had time to react
To the soviet invasion,
The United States dropped its second bomb,
An implosive plutonium bomb nicknamed "fat man,"
On the city of nagasaki.
Exploding ironically over the largest catholic cathedral
In asia, with a force of 22 kilotons,
40,000 died immediately.
Of them, 250 soldiers.
Henry wallace wrote of truman and byrnes
In his diary on August 10th,
One day after nagasaki...
Wallace: It is obvious that the attitude of truman, byrnes,
And both the war and navy departments
Will make for war eventually.
Stone: Yet neither the announcement of nagasaki
Or army minister anami's fallacious report
That the u.S. Had 100 more atomic bombs
Moved tokyo any closer to surrendering unconditionally.
After all, japanese cities
Were being wiped out all through 1945.
200 planes and thousands of bombs
Or one plane and one bomb--
It didn't seem to make a noticeable difference.
For japanese leaders, the devastating news on August 9
Was the soviet invasion.
Nagasaki was just one more city that was destroyed.
But the red army easily overwhelming japanese forces
In their richest colony,
The puppet state of manchukuo,
Was cause for alarm.
General kawabe, the army deputy chief of staff
Explained...
Kawabe: It was only in a gradual manner
That the horrible wreckage which had been made
Of hiroshima became known.
In comparison, the soviet entry
Into the war was a great shock,
Because we had been in constant fear of it
With a vivid imagination that the vast
Red army forces in europe
Were now being turned against us.
Stone: Prime minister suzuki said...
Suzuki: Japan must surrender immediately
Or the soviet union will take not only manchuria,
Korea, karafuto, but also hokkaido.
This would destroy the foundation of japan.
We must end the war
When we can deal with the u.S.
Stone: A top secret study done in January 1946
By the intelligence staff of the war department's
Operations division concludes...
Not only would the soviets destroy their empire,
But they would have no qualms
About destroying the emperor himself.
After all, they murdered their own emperor in 1918.
On August 14th, five days after
The second bomb was dropped at nagasaki,
And with desperate fighting still raging
Against the soviets, emperor hirohito
Now exerted his personal power.
For centuries, the japanese emperors
Had lived without contact with their people,
Revered as divine beings.
But now, hirohito,
Speaking to the japanese people directly,
Ordered surrender over the radio.
( hirohito speaking japanese )
Stone: It was the first time
Most of them had heard the voice of god.
Macarthur: Let us pray that peace
Be now restored to the world
And that god will preserve it
Always.
These proceedings are closed.
Stone: The horrors and bloodshed of world war ii
Coarsened a lot of people to the suffering of others.
Freeman dyson, the renowned future physicist
Who was part of the tiger force fleet
Of 300 british bombers explained...
Dyson: I found this continuing slaughter
Of defenseless japanese
Even more sickening than the slaughter of germans,
But still I did not quit.
By that time, I had been at war so long
That I could hardly remember peace.
No living poet had words
To describe that emptiness of the soul
Which allowed me to go on killing without hatred
And without remorse.
But shakespeare understood it.
And he gave macbeth the words...
Stone: In that spirit, 85% of the american public,
Convinced that the bombs had ended the war,
Applauded their use.
Murrow: When the bomb was dropped,
The war was near to ending anyway.
Was this the result of a miscalculation
Of the japanese potential? Was our intelligence faulty in this area?
It was done on the theory that the--
Our troops were expecting to invade japan
In a very short time,
And it was estimated that it would take
About a million and a half men to make that invasion,
And in all probability there'd be a half a million of them of casualties
And 250,000 of them killed.
And we had this powerful new weapon.
I had no qualms about using it,
Because a weapon of war
Is a destructive weapon.
That's the reason none of us want war
And all of us are against war.
But when you have the weapon that will win the war,
You'd be foolish if you didn't use it.
Stone: Truman's estimates of american casualties
Kept climbing as the years went by.
Almost 50 years later, in 1991,
President george bush praised truman's
"tough calculating decision
Which spared millions of american lives."
Controversy over the atomic bombings
Continued to roil american society.
Protests by the american legion,
The air force association
And congressional conservatives
Forced the smithsonian air and space museum
To cancel a 1995 exhibit on the bombings.
Young second lieutenant paul fussell,
Who was in the pacific at the time of the bombing,
Published "thank god for the atom bomb" in 1988
In which he wrote...
Fussell: For all the fake manliness of our facades,
We cried with relief and joy.
We were going to live.
We were going to grow up to adulthood after all.
Stone: Like millions of others of his generation,
And millions since,
Fussell was convinced that truman and the bomb
Saved them from invading japan.
But attributing victory to the bomb
In a sense insults the memory
Of the many men and women who gave their lives
To defeat the japanese year by grinding year.
Robert oppenheimer met with henry wallace
Shortly after the war,
Deeply worried at the eventual slaughter
Of tens of millions.
Earlier that year, he informed
Top military and civilian leaders
That within three years,
The u.S. Would likely have weapons
Up to 7,000 times as powerful as the bomb
That would destroy hiroshima.
He proposed international control
Of the atomic technology to assuage soviet fears
Over u.S. Intentions.
Wallace wrote in his diary...
Wallace: The guilt consciousness of atomic scientists
Is one of the most astounding things I have ever seen.
Stone: He agreed with oppenheimer.
What was needed was an olive branch.
And it came from the most unexpected quarter.
Henry stimson, "the colonel,"
Was a true old soldier,
But he was terrified by the forces he'd helped unleash,
And now wanted to put the genie back in the bottle.
In early September, stimson sent a memo
To truman saying that the soviets
Should be treated as allies.
Stimson: If we have this weapon rather ostentatiously
On our hip, their suspicions
And their distrust of our purposes and motives
Will increase. The chief lesson
That I have learned in a long life
Is that the only way you can make a man trustworthy
Is to trust him.
And the surest way to make him untrustworthy
Is to distrust him and show your distrust.
Stone: He proposed that the u.S. Dismantle its atomic bombs
If the soviets agreed that both countries would ban
Atomic weapons research.
And thus submit to an international
System of control.
Truman devoted the historic September 21, 1945,
Cabinet meeting-- stimson's last--
To discuss his proposal.
Wallace allied himself with stimson,
Indicating the absurdity of trying to keep
- An atomic monopoly. - Wallace: I then went at some length
Into the whole scientific background,
Describing how foreign jewish scientists
Had in the first place
Sold the president in the fall of 1939.
I indicated the degree to which the whole approach
Had originated in europe,
And that it was impossible to bottle the thing up,
No matter how much we tried.
Stone: With byrnes away in london, navy secretary james forrestal
Argued that the soviets could not be trusted.
"the russians," he said, "like the japanese,
Are essentially oriental in their thinking."
The cabinet split sharply over stimson's proposal
Which would have put the United States
Squarely on the side of wanting world peace.
But truman vacillated and ultimately yielded
To the byrnes-forrestal hardline faction.
The feared, and potentially suicidal arms race,
Would continue.
When truman finally met with robert oppenheimer
In October 1945,
He asked him to guess when the russians
Would develop their own atomic bomb.
Oppenheimer did not know.
Truman responded that he knew the answer: "never."
Clearly surprised by the president's truculent ignorance
And frustrated that he did not understand
The seriousness of the evolving crisis,
Oppenheimer blurted out, "mr. President,
I feel I have blood on my hands."
Truman responded with anger.
Truman: I told him the blood was on my hands
And to let me worry about that.
Stone: Afterwards, truman told dean acheson...
Truman: I don't want to see that son of a bitch
In this office ever again.
Stone: Oppenheimer was later attacked by right-wing conservatives
As an agent of the soviet union,
And subjected to numerous investigations
By the f.B.I.
In 1954, his security clearance was revoked.
His real crime in the eyes of american authorities
Was opposing building the new hydrogen bomb,
Which he considered a weapon of genocide.
Contrary to the belief of truman's inner circle,
The dropping of the atomic bombs
On hiroshima and nagasaki
Did not make the soviet union
Any more pliable.
Soviet forces occupied the northern half
Of the korean peninsula,
Left face to face with u.S. Forces in the south.
Korea would later become a major flash point
In the cold war that would engulf the world
For another 50 years.
But on a far larger scale,
The bombing haunted the soviet imagination.
Future foreign minister andrei gromyko's son
Anatoly recalled his father telling him that
Hiroshima set the heads of the soviet military spinning.
The mood in the kremlin was neurotic.
The mistrust towards the allies grew quickly.
Opinions floated around to preserve
A large land army to establish control
Over extended territories
To lessen potential losses from another atomic bombing.
And in what many consider a cruel irony,
The japanese were allowed after all to keep the emperor,
Whose retention most experts believed essential
To postwar stability in japan.
Truman suffered no political repercussions
From this decision.
Murrow: How did you manage it? How did you keep
Your equilibrium? How did you sleep at night?
No trouble sleeping at night.
All my life, whenever it comes time
To make a decision, I make it.
And forget about it and go to work on something else.
Murrow: Do you have any reason to think, in historical terms,
That this new and terrible hydrogen weapon
Will not be used?
I hope it'll never have to be used,
Because I hope we'll keep the peace in the world
And it won't be necessary.
If the world ever gets into turmoil, however,
It will be used. You can be sure of that.
Stone: As truman anticipated,
The process he unleashed did indeed threaten
The future existence of life on this planet.
Even pugnacious winston churchill
Had moral qualms.
When he visited truman towards the end of his presidency,
Margaret, the president's daughter,
Described the scene.
Margaret: Everyone was in an ebullient mood,
Especially dad.
Without warning, mr. Churchill turned to him and said...
Churchill: Mr. President, I hope you have your answer ready
For that hour when you and I stand before st. Peter
And he says, "I understand you two
Are responsible for putting off those atomic bombs.
What have you got to say for yourselves?"
Stone: Although harry truman left office
With approval ratings so low that only george w. Bush
Has come close since,
He is now widely viewed as a near-great president
And routinely showered with praise
By republicans and democrats alike.
Former national security advisor
And secretary of state condoleeza rice,
Who george bush credited with
"telling me everything I know about the soviet union,"
Named truman her "man of the century"
To "time" magazine.
David mccullough's 1993 biography of truman
Won him a wide readership and a pulitzer prize,
Followed by an emmy-awarded best tv movie
On the cable network h.B.O. In 1995,
Seen by millions.
The first bomb will be ready
By the end of the first week in August.
The japs know they're licked.
Why won't they quit?
Their strategy is to prolong the war,
No matter what the cost,
Until we agree to let the emperor stay on the throne.
They'll prolong it by any means necessary.
They just will not surrender.
Some of the scientists
Who developed the bomb
Believe that it should never be used.
Is that so?
Well, what the hell do they think we built it for?
We can't uninvent it, henry.
What about the idea of setting one off for the japs to see?
What happened to that idea?
Mr. President,
I can only speak to the military questions.
We must use overwhelming force
To crush the japanese army,
Destroy their will to make war.
Stone: In the myth the film creates,
Henry stimson and general george marshall
Are portrayed as looking down on the underdog,
Little man truman,
Who is following his moral conscience.
But their real positions on the bomb and japan
Are misrepresented.
With regular weapons, the firebombing of dresden
Killed 30,000 in one night.
Tokyo is utterly gone
With almost everyone in it.
They figure 100,000 dead there.
Seems to me, if there is
A moral point of no return,
You've long since passed it.
If I don't drop the bomb,
So many more of our young men
Will die in the invasion of japan.
Their men too, and women and children.
How could I face the people
When it's finally over
And say that I had the power
To possibly end the war long ago,
Spare the lives of their loved ones
And I chose not to use it?
Stone: In the film, the soviet point of view
Is entirely ignored
And the characters of henry wallace and jimmy byrnes
Are not included.
But the real harry truman is far darker
Than mccullough's heroic underdog.
Despite his denials, his flawed and tragic
Decision to use the bomb against japan
Was meant instead as a ruthless
And deeply unnecessary warning
That the United States could be unrestrained
By humanitarian considerations
In using these same bombs against the soviet union
If they continued to interfere in europe or asia.
However, on a larger moral scale,
Truman knew he was beginning a process
That could end life on the planet,
As he said explicitly on at least three occasions.
Yet he forged ahead recklessly.
Unnecessarily killing people is a war crime.
Threatening human extinction goes far far beyond that.
This is what henry wallace understood more deeply
Than any other government official.
The man who did his utmost to end
The u.S. Monopoly of the atomic bomb
Has been largely lost to history.
Newsreel voice: Henry wallace, u.S. Secretary of commerce,
Is called to the white house by president truman.
He had advocated publically a more conciliatory attitude
Towards russia. Faced with public criticism
Of american official policy on world affairs
By a member of his own cabinet,
The president asked for and accepted wallace's resignation.
"dear harry,
As you requested,
Here is my resignation.
I shall continue to fight for peace.
I am sure that you approve
And will join me
In that great endeavor."
Newsreel voice: His walking papers in the outgoing mail,
Last official act of the one remaining cabinet member
Appointed in roosevelt's first administration.
That's that.
And so mr. Wallace takes a walk
After 13 years in government posts.
From cabinet seat to park bench,
He's going to renew those attacks
On secretary byrnes' policies at paris.
But right now, the man who predicted
60 million jobs in america
Seems to be busy reading the help-wanted ads.
Stone: After leaving government in 1946,
He ran for president in 1948
As a candidate for the newly formed
Progressive party.
Their message of peace in a time of rising tensions
Was not heard.
Repeatedly attacked by truman and the press
As a communist sympathizer,
Wallace garnered less than 3% of the vote.
Following the election, he retired from politics.
Increasingly accused of sheltering communists
During his campaign, he compromised himself
During the pressures of the korean war
And the mccarthy period,
Loudly condemning the soviets.
But he clung to his progressive ideals
And decried later u.S. Involvement in vietnam.
He lived quietly on his farm in upstate new york
Where he died in 1965.
In an irony that only an american capitalism can embrace,
The hi-bred corn company, which wallace founded in 1926,
Was sold in the late 1990s to the dupont corporation
For more than $9 billion.
A bittersweet reminder to those who repeatedly
Denigrated "mr. Smith goes to washington"
As naive and communist.
He remains one of the unsung heroes of the second world war,
Showing the world a kinder vision of america.
Though his vision was opposed at every step,
It did not die.
Following in the footsteps of others before him,
Henry wallace continued to lay the foundations,
And others followed.
Franklin roosevelt said...
Roosevelt: No man was more of the american soil than wallace.
Stone: But few now remember how close wallace came
To getting the vice presidential
Nomination on that steamy chicago night
In July 1944.
It was here that roosevelt committed the greatest blunder
Of his splendid career--
Acceding to the party bosses' choice of harry truman.
He could have resisted and, with the people's backing,
Had wallace as his vice president.
But he was tired of defending his vision
For world peace.
Very tired and near death.
This sad moment points most clearly
To the fallibility of all human history--
"to fail is not tragic,
To be human is."
What might this country have become
Had wallace succeeded roosevelt in April '45
Instead of truman?
Would no atomic bombs have been used in world war ii?
Could we have avoided the nuclear arms race and the cold war?
Would civil rights and women's rights have triumphed
In the immediate postwar years?
Might colonialism have ended decades earlier
And the fruits of science and industry been spread
More equitably around the globe?
We'll never know.
Some have spoken of the american century.
I say that the century on which we are entering,
A century which will come out of this war,
Can be and must be
The century of the common man.
If we really believe we are fighting
For a people's peace,
All the rest becomes easy.
( dramatic music playing )