Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II

Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II
With Evan Thomas
Part of Moments in History Week

At 9:20 a.m. on the morning of May 30, General Groves receives a message to report to the office of the secretary of war "at once." Stimson is waiting for him. He wants to know: has Groves selected the targets yet?

This is the opening to our guest's new book; Road to Surrender. So begins this suspenseful, impeccably researched history that draws on new access to diaries to tell the story of three men who were intimately involved with America's decision to drop the atomic bomb - and Japan's decision to surrender.

They are Henry Stimson, the American Secretary of War, who had overall responsibility for decisions about the atom bomb; Gen. Carl "Tooey" Spaatz, head of strategic bombing in the Pacific, who supervised the planes that dropped the bombs; and Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, the only one in Emperor Hirohito's Supreme War Council who believed even before the bombs were dropped that Japan should surrender.

Evan Thomas is the author of bestselling books including First: Sandra Day O'Connor, Being Nixon, John Paul Jones, and Sea of Thunder. Thomas was a writer, correspondent, and editor at Time and Newsweek and has taught writing and journalism at Harvard and Princeton.

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For an alternative interpretation of the same events, please watch the show with Paul Ham

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[davidk]

Excellent show, thank you both. Woody's point at ~22:45 regarding the Japanese leadership's mindset is so critical: :. . . it was a process . . . " Historians and enthusiasts may seem biased for a unifying/over powering event or decision to understand and explain outcomes. It wasn't just the A-bombs, the food situation, the fire bombing, the Soviets invading Manchuria on Aug 9, et al it was all of these and hundreds more contemporaneous events/decisions that influenced the Japanese leadership in the final days and hours. My brain seems to handle reasonably well "primary", "secondary", and "contributing" mental buckets for such events.

[philbosworth]

A good, balanced presentation from Evan. Thought provoking indeed.

[PeterOConnell-pqio]

Dr JR Oppenheimer in a 1965 interview about witnessing the fireball after detonation of the 'Trinity" plutonium device: "I remembered a line from the Hindu Bible, the 'Bagavad Gita' when Visnhu, trying to convince the Prince to do his duty, took on his multi-armed form and said 'now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds'. I think we all felt that, one way or another".

[TheVigilant]

Fascinating presentation by Evan.Many thanks

[susanyu]

I loved that it was a back and forth Q & A format, and both the questions and answers were thoughtful revelations behind the A Bomb decision. Good discussion about the Japanese side too. I like the tie in to the world's current situation. So important. Much to think about on how to prevent this from ever happening again. Thanks Evan for coming on WW2TV and yes, you convinced me to buy the book! Woody, always learn so much from you.

[davidlavigne]

Had to watch this after the fact due to work, but interestingly enough I had just heard an interview with Evan about his book listening to Nashville Public Radio a few days ago. I was so excited to see that he was going to be a guest of WW2TV. His conclusions reminded me of the episode on the World at War series in the 1970s about this very subject. I am in agreement that the decision to use the A-bomb was the only alternative that did not involve a more dreadful outcome of invasion or blockade. It was the lesser of two (or maybe three) evils IMHO. Another fine show and an opportunity to add to my history book collection as funds become available. Evan is a gifted speaker and I imagine his writing is the same.

[JakeCole]

A discussion between Evan and Paul Ham would be interesting. Great presentation as per usual.

[scottgrimwood]

What a great presentation. I really liked the format of focusing on three key people to tell a larger and very complex story.

[cenccenc]

I was in a sociology class, in the 90s, when a 20 year old Japanese exchange student said, "I never thought of myself as an individual until I moved to the United States". It simply had never occurred to her that she was an individual, and what she did or thoughts had any separation from what the group or society wanted.

[georgewnewman]

At this point, Stimson has been Secretary of War since the summer of 1940. He had been President William Howard Taft's Secretary of War in 1911-1913 and President Herbert Hoover's Secretary of State in 1929-1933.
The Hiroshima bomb drifted 880 feet off target and exploded over a private hospital, the Shima Hospital, that had been in operation for about 150 years. The Shima family rebuilt the hospital and it is now being operated by the grandson of the doctor who was chief in 1945.

[youghalclashmore]

Just read Damien Lewis SAS Brothers in Arms WOW will never look at men in battle again through the lens of Hollywood. Thanks for the interview a few months back look forward to further interviews

[morganhale]

Presentation and format was very entertaining and knowledgeable.

[KevinJones-yhjb]

This was an outstanding presentation by Evan, really opened up a lot to me on the decision of dropping the bomb etc. Also was great to hear an in-depth view of the Japanese high command. Just managed to start my catch up today. Thanks Evan and Paul

[youghalclashmore]

Good interview President Truman was a freemason and Nagasaki I believe had a large population of Catholics. As well Catholic priests survived the atomic bomb attack even though they were within the kill zone and never got cancer in the following years after the war

[peterfriedenspfeife]

Very interesting background information on the drop of the atomic bombs. I, too, sometimes fear that the memory of the nuclear horror is fading away, especially in the several rogue states. I remember well how frightened we were in the 1980ies of a nuclear war. Thank you for another great show, it is incredible, Paul, to how many historians you give a voice and a stage to present their results. Best greetings, Peter

[Ensign_Nemo]

The USA had a third A-bomb ready to be dropped as early as August 19, 1945, and starting in September was planning to make a new A-bomb "Every ten days." That is an exact quote from a telephone conversation between two aides to General Marshall, the top general in the US Army, and General Groves, the military commander of the Manhattan Project.

To read an article about the telephone conversation, or a re-typed version of the transcript, search for the titles "The USA had a Top Secret plan to make a new atomic bomb 'every ten days' in 1945" and "A phone call to chat about making a new A-bomb every ten days, and how to use them".

[morganhale]

I just realized this: from the beginning all precision bombing was area bombing by default. We didn't actually mean to bomb whole cities during our raids, we just did so by mistake, and we really didn't improve our accuracy very much throughout the war. Ooops. An interesting thought I wished to share.

[garyaugust]

Excellent presentation examing the ethics of unleashing ferocious power against an enemy. Was it justified? Yes it was, for all the reasons stated during the program The proliferation in future years, the capability of these modern warheads makes even a so called 'tacticle' nuclear war unimaginable.
Our only hope as a species is that as human beings, we never ever unleash this power upon this world ever again, and it remains the ultimate deterrent.

[MisterFastbucks]

As historians routinely say, events don't happen in a vacuum.
Truman knows there are over 1.3 million Soviets crashing down on the Kwangtun Army in China at the time he decides to drop the bomb.
If we don't end the war soon, the Soviets could have taken China, Malaya, Thailand, Indochina, and Korea. (or some combination of these)
We had already ceded most of eastern Europe to the Soviets. They didn't want to give them more of Asia as well.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Dropping the bombs was also a political act, insofar as the US warned Stalin that we had these things and would use them. Stalin knew about them already, surely, but seeing them deployed was in the US mind was deterrence being presaged, perhaps. Given that the Russians couldn't launch a mass invasion and that the Americans might simply starve out the islands, dropping these bombs is in my thinking a warning to the Russians that landpower is not everything and you may wish to think about this other problem.

Truman was already skeptical about Stalin's intentions by Yalta. This might too have been an input into the decision.