Japan's Military Refused to Surrender Even After Two Atomic Bombs and a Coup Nearly Succeeded
About this episode
The episode discusses Japan's military refusal to surrender after the atomic bombings and the events surrounding Truman's presidency.
At 1:15 p.m. on April 12, 1945, Franklin Roosevelt was sitting for a portrait at his cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia, when his face suddenly fell forward. He raised his left hand to his temple and whispered to his cousin Daisy: "I have a terrific pain in the back of my head." He was dead by 3:35. That evening, Harry Truman, a former farmer and failed haberdasher who had been vice president for eighty-two days and had met with Roosevelt only twice, placed his hand on a Bible and became the thirty-third president of the United States. He had never been briefed on the atomic bomb. Thirteen days later, War Secretary Henry Stimson handed him a three-page memo that began: "Within four months we shall in all probability have completed the most terrible weapon ever known in human history, one bomb of which could destroy a whole city." Today's guest is James M. Scott, author of Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War . We discuss how a Hungarian physicist who did his thinking in the bathtub tracked down Einstein by asking a boy on a Long Island street corner to launch the Manhattan Project, why Oak Ridge, Tennessee, became a secret city of 75,000 people who had…
People in this episode
Host: History Unplugged
Guest: James M. Scott
Topics covered
- atomic bomb
- World War II
- Japanese military
- Truman administration
- Manhattan Project
- firebombing
- historical events
Keywords
- atomic bomb
- Japan
- Truman
- World War II
- firebombing
- Manhattan Project
- Henry Stimson
- Franklin Roosevelt
Mentioned in this episode
Places: Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Kyoto, Japan
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