Transcript: Chapter 12

NARRATOR: On May 8, Truman's 61st birthday, Nazi Germany surrendered. "Isn't that some birthday present?" he wrote his ninety-two year old mother. Now only Japan remained.

ARCHIVAL SOUND ON FILM OF TRUMAN: "The victory won in the West must now be won in the East. The whole world must be cleansed of the evil from which half the world has been freed."

NARRATOR: But Truman feared the Japanese would not surrender without a long and bloody struggle. Already they had been severely punished and yet showed no signs of yielding. While Truman was vice president, American B-29's had rained thousands of tons of bombs on the island nation. Five weeks before he took office, American planes dropped two thousand tons of napalm on Tokyo, burning sixteen square miles of the city to the ground. In a single day, 100,000 Japanese were killed.

BARTON BERNSTEIN, Historian: The fire-bombing raids prepares the way for even more devastating bombing. What has changed in the war is a redefinition of what is a legitimate target. A legitimate target is not simply a city, but people in the city who are primarily noncombatants in what is a redefined virtually total war. So that everybody becomes a target.

NARRATOR: The bombing destroyed nearly all of Japan's biggest cities and killed more than half a million civilians. Still, the Japanese fought on.

DAVID MCCULLOUGH: Truman knew they were defeated, they knew they were defeated. That really wasn't the question, the question was would they surrender.

NARRATOR: The battle for the island of Okinawa, 350 miles south of Japan, painted a bloody portrait for Truman of just how ferocious Japanese resistance could be. The fighting raged on for months. Ten thousand Americans were killed, 27,000 wounded. And entrenched in the jungles and caves of the island, more than 100,000 Japanese soldiers were burned or bombed to death rather than surrender.

ROBERT LIFTON: Okinawa was a bloody battle. One of the bloodiest battles of a vicious war. And Okinawa was an example of how much of a last ditch battle the Japanese could put up. And the kind of battle they might put up on their own islands in man-to-man combat. So Okinawa could be taken as an indicator that Japan needed dire measures to defeat it.

NARRATOR: On June 1, with the struggle for Okinawa reaching a climax, Truman received a report from a committee he had appointed to study the atomic bomb. The committee urged the president to use the weapon -- without warning. It did not recommend any alternatives.

BARTON BERNSTEIN: The use of the bomb was not a topic of debate. The issue was never should the bomb be used. For us, the bomb, whether we approve or not, is a question that should have been asked. For them living history forward and not backward, what's important to understand is that the use of the bomb was not a question; it was an answer.

DAVID MCCULLOUGH: If the weapon could stop the killing, then, it was felt, it had to be used. Was it right? Was it wrong? I don't think that was the issue. I think they saw it as necessary.

NARRATOR: Truman did not know that some of the scientists who had helped create the bomb were now actively attempting to limit its use. They advocated a demonstration bomb that would convince the Japanese to surrender. Their petitions never reached the president, but it is unlikely they could have changed his mind.

GEORGE ELSEY, Administrative Assistant to the President: I know of no occasion when President Truman ever spoke about doubts on using the bomb. All his advisors, without exception, recommended the use of the bomb just as soon as it was available. And he agreed with them.

NARRATOR: But the atomic bomb still remained untested. No one knew if it would work. June 18, Truman agreed to plans to invade Japan in early November. Tens of thousands of American soldiers were returning from the battlefields of Europe. For most, if the invasion went forward, it would be just weeks before they would sent back into battle. This time, fighting the Japanese.

DAVID MCCULLOUGH: We were going to invade the home islands. And the loss of life would be terrible. And for Truman whether it was going to be 20,000 lives or 100,000 lives was not really the question. The question was to stop the killing.

ALONZO HAMBY: Truman was one of the few presidents of the 20th century to have actually experienced wartime combat. He had seen corpses stacked up. He knew what war was like. He was very, very anxious to get World War II over with as quickly as possible.

NARRATOR: Only 30 days in office, Truman was still adjusting to the anxieties of being president, still telling his advisers that he didn't want the job. And Bess never wanted to be first lady. After just one month in the White House, Bess and Margaret went home to Independence.

DAVID MCCULLOUGH: Bess did not like living in the White House. She felt very uncomfortable, very ill-at-ease with all the fanfare and the attention of the press. Particularly when photographers pressed in around her, she would freeze and become kind of old stone face. And get an expression that looked as if her feet hurt. The spotlight, the limelight, did not appeal to Bess Truman ever. And she would return home to Independence as often as possible. Leaving the president feeling very alone, often desolate. It's hard for some people to understand what she was like and why the president was so devoted to her. But he adored her there's no question about that.

PAT HANNEGAN: I think she was a very shy person. Very ill-at-ease in that kind of an environment. When she was in the White House she used to have her old bridge club from Independence, Missouri, come up. And I think probably that's the only time she was really comfortable. It really was not a good niche for her. And I don't think she ever really enjoyed the public eye.

NARRATOR: Bess Truman's first public appearance confirmed her worst fears.

ARCHIVAL SOUND ON FILM: At the National Airport, ambulances with wings -- one each for Navy and Army. Ready to be christened by Mrs. Harry S. Truman, in her first public appearance. But Mrs. Truman is in for a surprise. ... Refusing to be rattled, the new First Lady joins in the crowd's laughter. By an oversight, the champagne bottle, unlike this one, hadn't been properly prepared -- etched to break the glass on impact. All's well that ends well.

NARRATOR: Truman smiled when he saw the newsreel, as did most of America, but Bess is said to have told her husband she wished she had swung the bottle at him.

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