Part 25 (1/2)

26. TRUMAN.

NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN,.

ON BOARD THE USS AUGUSTA JULY 8, 1945.

The swells were gentle, made more smooth by the escort s.h.i.+p that broke the waves before them. She was the USS Philadelphia, another cruiser, designated not only as escort to smooth rough waters, but one more powerful piece of security. He was, after all, the President of the United States.

He stood against the rail, weary of meetings, the various officials mostly belowdecks, some sleeping, certainly. He knew there was seasickness, but not much, and the men who traveled with him would be unlikely to admit it to their boss anyway. The sea didn't bother him as much as he had feared, but the memories did. He had made this crossing before, in the first Great War, as an artillery officer. In 1917 the training had been brief and virtually useless, no one in his small command having any way to know what awaited them in that place they called the Western Front. But the fear was there, would stay there throughout the entire campaign, something an artillery captain could not admit to anyone, certainly not to the men who looked to him for authority, for leaders.h.i.+p. He stared out at the swells, the hint of moonlight, thought, it is no different now. Well, maybe it is. This time I have a h.e.l.l of a lot more authority, and a h.e.l.l of a lot more people looking at me for answers. Three months ago I didn't even know the questions.

He had served as vice president for a total of eighty-two days, and during that time it had been made plain to him that President Roosevelt was not exactly his best friend. Vice presidents were chosen to help win an election, and Truman was under no illusion that his greatest benefit to Roosevelt's fourth campaign came from geography. FDR was a New Yorker, an easterner, something that concerned the campaign strategists even though Roosevelt's election to a fourth term was never really in doubt. But balance had always been the key word, and they had sought a midwesterner to round out the ticket. The previous vice president had been another midwesterner, an Iowan, Henry Wallace, but Wallace had caused rumbles around FDR's closest advisors for what some said was a kind of bizarre religious zealotry. It was the excuse made behind closed doors why Wallace should go, but Truman knew that the more likely reason Wallace had been replaced on the ticket was that Winston Churchill despised him. Whether Truman, a plain-spoken senator from Missouri, would do any better job than his predecessor seemed not to matter. The key for the political strategists was whether Truman was a liability to Roosevelt's presidency. Truman had never considered himself a liability to anyone, but then, his own career in politics had been turbulent only on a level that was invisible to anyone outside Missouri. And since Roosevelt's death, Churchill had surprised Truman by accepting him with far more helpfulness than Truman had any right to expect. It was a sad irony to Truman that Churchill seemed willing to support the new president with even greater zeal than many of the men in Was.h.i.+ngton, who were now Truman's subordinates. The grumbling about him in the halls of various government departments had not been a surprise. While Roosevelt was alive, Truman was very much a fifth wheel, kept outside FDR's inner circle, the president rarely conferring with Truman at all. The vice president's job had included presiding over the Senate, and Truman was perfectly content in that role. He was comfortable there, the familiar faces, the familiar squabbles. But on April 12, the world had changed. The man who was so much the country's grandfather had suddenly gone away. Truman had seen clear signs of Roosevelt's physical decline, but the reality of that had not sunk in until the president's sudden death. Truman the anonymous was now Truman the president, and more important, to the men who confronted the astounding challenges of waging a world war, he was Truman the Commander in Chief.

The air was warm, the only breeze coming from the movement of the s.h.i.+p, and he treasured the solitude, so rare now. He knew his plush quarters belowdecks was the appropriate place for him to be, catching up on whatever sleep he could. If the sleep wasn't there, the worries were, so many details about policy and personality, who among his party were dependable, and who were just along for the ride. He pushed his shoulders back, felt the first rumblings of a headache, thought, if my posture was sound before, it is miserable now. People b.i.t.c.h and moan about carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. I can honestly say, I am one of them. But I'll put my b.i.t.c.hing up against anybody's. Try this job for a few weeks, pal. See how your shoulders droop. FDR suffered through that with more grit than anyone I've ever known, and no matter how much adulation or respect he earned, he refused to let it go. I suppose he believed that no one else in Was.h.i.+ngton could do it, no one had the shoulders for it. He may have been right about that. I don't know of a single senator or anyone else who was worthy, no one who could have pulled the country together. Well, most of it, anyway. Now, in every corner of the globe, the question being asked is whether I've got the shoulders, whether I'm worthy. h.e.l.l if I know. d.a.m.n if I can find the instruction book. My job is to ... do my job. Lead, for G.o.d's sake. Keep my nose out of places where the machine is working, and stick it in deep where it isn't. Thank G.o.d this war is on the downhill side. At least, they tell me it is. We won in Europe, we're winning in the Pacific. Maybe the biggest challenge I'll have to face is figuring out how to manage the peace. I can't leave that to military men.

Already a dark cloud was forming over Europe, the very reason for this voyage. His destination was Potsdam, near Berlin, a formal summit with Churchill and Joseph Stalin. Truman winced, thought, Old Joe has made it pretty clear that his best interests are in his best interests. Our best interests are an inconvenience. Tough nut, this one. Screw this up, Harry old boy, and we could find ourselves in another war. Europe needs a little quiet for a change, a few cities allowed to rebuild themselves, the people allowed to find some kind of life again. No one needs the kind of c.r.a.p Stalin is inflicting on those people. How in h.e.l.l do I stop that? Do I? With Stalin you either need extraordinary diplomacy ... or a baseball bat. I think he's bigger than me, so the bat would have to be a surprise. But so far, every communication I've had with the man tells me he's got the big bat, and the big glove, he owns the ball park, and the umpire's in his pocket. Thank G.o.d for Churchill. At least he knows the man, knows how to talk to him, knows what to expect. But we're not getting any respect from the Russians for what we did to the Germans, for the help we gave Stalin's people. Respect? h.e.l.l, they don't even acknowledge us. That's not blind pride either. It's calculated. He's going to push us as far as he can, and that might mean he's going to push us right out of Europe. That won't happen. Can't. Churchill knows that, but he's not in a position to stand up to the Russian tanks like we are. From what they tell me, Old Joe has one h.e.l.l of a lot of tanks. We have Ike, Marshall, Bradley, good people. And a few tanks of our own. Tanks. He pondered the sight of that, what it must have been like for the Germans to watch a sea of Russian armor pouring into Germany, crus.h.i.+ng their army, their cities. We did most of that kind of work from the air, I suppose. Germans learned the hard way, that no matter what your boss is telling you, you aren't going to win a war when your factories are getting blown to h.e.l.l every night. And the cities. And the people. Tough decision, there, Franklin. How do you bomb cities and not accept that you're bombing the civilians right along with the munitions plants? Churchill pushed FDR hard on that one, had every right to. Hitler was happy blowing London to h.e.l.l, and we had to return the favor. It was sure as h.e.l.l the right decision. And it worked.

And now we're going to do it again. Been doing it, of course, those puff-chested boys out there in their B-29s, torching every square mile of Tokyo and anywhere else they can find a target. Keep it up, that's all I can say. That's working too. Now ... it might work even better. I've given them the okay, and if what they tell me is accurate, this war oughta be over pretty d.a.m.n soon. If they're wrong, we've gotta send a whole bunch of American boys into j.a.pan, to fight the most fanatical people who've ever tossed a grenade. No, not we. I.

Batter up, Harry.

He turned, looked up at the lights from the bridge, could see more lights beyond the bow of the cruiser, beyond the pair of three-gun turrets that aimed past the Philadelphia. The wars.h.i.+ps had no need to run in darkness, a wonderful change from the days of the U-boats. But there were no other escorts close by, no aircraft overhead, no great fleets of patrol boats keeping an eye on the new Boss. I wanted this trip kept secret as long as possible, and, by d.a.m.n, they obliged me. I rather like that, asking for something and n.o.body arguing about it.

Truman caught a shadow, a brief flicker of movement back near a row of steel drums. He knew it was a Secret Service agent, knew there were more, and probably some naval guards, lurking in every dark hole. Truman turned again to the water, thought, yep, I suppose there's somebody out there who'd do whatever it took to knock a hole in my head. j.a.p agents all over the d.a.m.n place, so they tell me. Well, not out here. If there were any j.a.p subs puffing around anywhere in this whole d.a.m.n hemisphere, they wouldn't let me hang my face over the side of this s.h.i.+p like some gawking tourist. But in Was.h.i.+ngton ... watch your step. They hated it when I walked to work, couldn't wait for me to move my a.s.s from Blair House to the White House. h.e.l.l, I liked walking to work. Hardly anybody recognized me, and the mornings can be d.a.m.n nice in the spring. Once the Secret Service started clearing off sidewalks, shoving people aside, well, that took all the fun out of it. I liked Blair House too. There are too d.a.m.n many offices in the White House, too many people who insist on talking to me. Everybody's in a hurry, their pressing matter more pressing than the next guy's. At least the Secret Service is happy. I'm behind thick walls, makes it a lot tougher for some j.a.p agent to pop a rifle in my direction. Well, maybe we can put a stop to that business altogether, give those people a reason to go home. I oughta hear something once I get to Potsdam. Unless there are delays, some problem that rattles the physicists, some reason why Oppenheimer or any of the rest of them think we need to wait, to do more research. They're pretty rattled already, and I can't blame them for that. I'm rattled, and I don't have the faintest d.a.m.n idea how this new bomb is supposed to work. They don't like to talk about it, but they're not sure the d.a.m.n thing will work at all. Or, maybe it will work too well, and destroy the world. Now, there's a h.e.l.l of a notation for the encyclopedia. Harry Truman, Final President of the United States. Most Notable Accomplishment: Destroyed the World.

For eighty-two days he had become accustomed to being on the outside, rarely included in FDR's most high-level discussions, especially with the military people. Truman wasn't bothered by that, knew that the relations.h.i.+p between the president and his vice president could never be chummy. Both men were, after all, politicians, and there was always life after holding office, and then you were likely not to be chums at all. Indeed, he thought, Was.h.i.+ngton is still Was.h.i.+ngton. He shook his head. Well, it's not always like that. But we're not used to having our president die in office. Now there's one d.a.m.n good thing about the Const.i.tution. Rules for this sort of thing. Otherwise somebody would just take charge, big mouth and big guns. We'd end up with somebody like ... oh G.o.d ... MacArthur. Yes, thank you, Founding Fathers. Whether FDR kept me involved really didn't matter. But that piece of paper told everyone what they had better do next. There's a new guy in charge. Tell him all the secrets.

The meeting had come in late April, and after Roosevelt's death, it was the second shock Truman received. The messenger had been Henry Stimson, the secretary of war, and across Truman's desk had come the astonis.h.i.+ng details of something called the Manhattan Project. Until that meeting, just days after FDR's death, Truman had no idea at all what the project was, no idea that the United States had been spending enormous numbers of man-hours, employing some of the finest minds in the world of physics, to develop a weapon unlike any ever known. Truman had faced the nervous Stimson, who seemed unhappy to be the one to inform the new president that the project had been so secret it was thought unwise to include in its inner circle the vice president of the United States. But Truman knew about it now, even if he didn't completely understand the physics of nuclear fission. Stimson had told him that the physicists were confident then that the first atomic bomb would be ready for testing within four months of that meeting.

He glanced up at the sliver of moon, thought, that's pretty d.a.m.n soon. And d.a.m.n it all, I have to go to this conference and stare down Joe Stalin, and keep my mouth shut about the biggest d.a.m.n bomb ever built, a weapon that could very well stop this war. We're not even sure the thing will explode, and that's gotta be driving the physicists and their teams insane. Never been done before, ever. Might be a nice enhancement to my baseball bat if I could tell Joe Stalin that this d.a.m.n bomb not only exists, it actually works. Hey, Joe, you get your d.a.m.n tanks out of Poland or we might have to use Moscow as a testing ground.

He closed his eyes, a sharp shake of his head. Don't do that, Harry. This isn't a backyard spat, and this is a h.e.l.l of a lot more important than punching a bully in the eye. This is a secret, and if there's one man on this earth who doesn't need to hear about it, it's Stalin. Churchill knows, thank G.o.d for that. He knew from the beginning, and I guess it makes sense that FDR would have brought him into the ring. The Brits were aching pretty bad, too much blood, too much gloom. Even if Churchill had to keep his mouth shut, at least we could let him know that we were working like h.e.l.l to stick something new up our sleeve. The thing that stirs my coffee is that, from what we know now, Hitler was doing the same thing. Whether this big d.a.m.n son of a b.i.t.c.h actually fires off or not, I'm a lot happier that we're testing this thing over some desert in New Mexico than some n.a.z.i b.a.s.t.a.r.d doing it over London. G.o.d, I can't even think about that.

There had been additional meetings, some with the military men who stood guard over the Manhattan Project, some with the physicists themselves. With every piece of new information, Truman had become increasingly amazed that the secret had been as well kept as it had. This is Was.h.i.+ngton, for G.o.d's sake. Between Drew Pearson and William Randolph Hearst, you know d.a.m.n well that FDR's enemies would have paid big to expose something as big as this. j.a.p agents had to be throwing money around every military base, every Was.h.i.+ngton hotel, trying to find out any little ditty they could. This one could have made somebody rich as h.e.l.l. But so far, the secret is still ... a secret. d.a.m.n impressive.

The latest word had come just prior to his boarding the Augusta, that the first test would come very soon in the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The plan was for three bombs to be built, one for the test, and the others for use against targets in j.a.pan. The arguments over targets had begun in earnest, and Truman knew that the military men would be the best qualified to make that decision. The city most favored was Kyoto, a city of such importance to the j.a.panese that its destruction would surely bring the j.a.panese to the peace table. But Kyoto's importance was the primary reason Truman vetoed it as a target. The city was more historical than military, a religious and cultural center like no other city in j.a.pan. Truman had insisted that the target be someplace with more military significance, a direct strike into the heart of j.a.pan's war machine. The list had been a.s.sembled, and the advisors had come up with four that made the most sense. Truman had studied the short list with no real sense of the priorities of each, though the military men had offered suggestions why each, or any, was important. Truman had the list still, studied it in his mind now. Kokura, Hiros.h.i.+ma, Niigata, and Nagasaki. I can't really tell them which one is the best target. I just don't have that answer. It might depend on weather, of course, and it might be the pilot's decision, the ultimate discretion, which target can be hit. d.a.m.n, what a place to put a bomber pilot.

Throughout the meetings, the physicists, especially Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi, had been adamant that this bomb would end the war. Even though nothing like this had ever been used before, and even though no one really knew just what might happen when it detonated, there had been no hesitation among those men that the bomb be used directly against a j.a.panese target. Truman agreed with the military men who had been enthusiastic about the possibilities of what this weapon could do. The j.a.panese had defined the moral argument from the very beginning, and as word reached the Western newspapers of what was happening in China, what had been done to prisoners of war at Bataan, or the civilians in every place the j.a.panese had conquered, the fury of the American people had grown substantially. The military had their own fury, of course, and yet throughout the war, the Americans had played as close to the rules as anyone could expect. But the kamikaze attacks against American sailors had seemed to be the final straw, confirmation that the enemy in the Pacific was nothing like the Germans. Not even the spreading news of the Holocaust had seemed to affect the American troops with the kind of visceral disgust for what the j.a.panese had done. Germany's sins could be placed too easily at the feet of Hitler and a few of his henchmen, but the astounding viciousness of the j.a.panese seemed to pervade their entire military culture, a culture that Truman knew was nothing the Americans had ever faced before. He had been astounded to hear a broadcast, forwarded to him from the monitoring stations that recorded j.a.panese radio. The speech had come from j.a.pan's Prime Minister Suzuki.

Should my services be rewarded by death, I expect the hundred million people of this glorious empire to swell forward over my prostrate body and form themselves into a s.h.i.+eld to protect the emperor and this imperial land from the invader.

With such resolve being fed to the j.a.panese people, who would no doubt respond as their emperor hoped, the decision to use this extraordinary weapon caused Truman no heartburn at all. Quite the opposite. Without such a decisive piece of weaponry, the American invasion of j.a.pan was the only viable strategy that remained. If the speculation about the power of the atomic bomb was accurate, Truman believed along with his generals that this one weapon could prevent the potential loss of an enormous number of American troops. But Suzuki's speech had offered up another reason for the Americans to avoid an invasion, something that many of the military advisors had given little attention. If the j.a.panese defended their homeland with the same ferocity they had inflicted on other lands, Truman had to believe that the loyalty of the j.a.panese people to their emperor might result in a fight that would cause the slaughter of millions of j.a.panese civilians, a moral nightmare for the United States, and especially for the young American soldiers who would stand at the point of the spear. To the commanders who had seen the barbarity of the j.a.panese up close, the morality of that was no issue at all. Increasingly there was a mood among the troops that j.a.pan needed to be punished, all of j.a.pan. It was an argument Truman could not dismiss. Throughout Asia, the people who had suffered such extreme depravity at the hands of the j.a.panese troops and their leaders had to receive at least some compensation, even if the best that could be accomplished was a weapon that some might see as overkill, an act of vengeance.

Though the military chiefs were mostly unequivocal in their support for the Manhattan Project, as June rolled into July, Truman felt that something had changed among the physicists, a slight whiff of what Truman felt was hesitation, or even pacifism. Truman suspected that the s.h.i.+ft in mood was the result of the victory at Okinawa, the sense that the j.a.panese were beaten already, that this new weapon might be unnecessary. But the military chiefs had blasted that opinion to pieces, few believing that Okinawa would change anything in Tokyo.

A serious argument had been made for exploding a bomb off the j.a.panese coast, with no surprises, everyone notified well in advance, the whole world allowed to watch. If the j.a.panese High Command had any doubts about American superiority in arms, some said that this would clinch it, would inspire even the most fanatical j.a.panese generals to call it quits. But many of the military people thought that idea a waste of time, and there were two very good reasons why. Since 1942, j.a.pan's newly acquired empire had been crushed around the edges, then crushed in the vicious campaigns that drove closer and closer to j.a.pan. But every American commander who faced them saw for himself that the j.a.panese tactics and strategy had never seemed to change at all, no matter how much might and how much superiority in arms they had faced. No, he thought, if they won't even give up some p.i.s.sant little island in the middle of nowhere, how can we expect them to lay down arms to give up their whole d.a.m.n country, emperor and all? That one's pretty simple. Their losses have been staggering, and yet they've shown no hint of any willingness to accept defeat. Truman had been as baffled by that as the men around him. Okinawa had been a perfect disaster for the j.a.panese, and surely the Imperial High Command would know that mainland j.a.pan was the next target. And yet the rhetoric from Tokyo had not changed at all. Truman had heard some of the Ultra intercepts, the j.a.panese communications codes broken early in the war. The code breakers had done the same with the German codes, which had given the Allies in Europe an outstanding advantage. Most of the j.a.panese communications had now become so primitive that the code breakers were hardly in use at all, since most of the bases far from j.a.pan had been crushed or cut off. But Truman had heard some of the p.r.o.nouncements, had been astounded that the j.a.panese people were being told of ongoing victories against the enemy, including their magnificent triumph at Okinawa. The Americans knew of food shortages, and that, for j.a.panese civilians, gasoline and many basic staples were nonexistent. And their men, he thought. Their sons and husbands and fathers are simply gone, and no one there sees a problem? So, no, we cannot expect that a demonstration of some new powerful weapon, no matter how dramatic, is going to change that.

The second argument was more straightforward. What if the bomb didn't work? Yep, that would be a good one. We tell Tokyo, hey, bring your emperor and half your army and come on out to Yokohama Beach, and watch this. And so they gather out there, with half the world's newspaper reporters, just to watch us drop a big d.a.m.n steel ball into the ocean. Sploosh. I can just hear MacArthur, or even Nimitz. Uh, never mind, boys. And excuse us, but we've gotta go back home and help the president beat the c.r.a.p out of every d.a.m.n physicist we can find. As for the war, yeah, well, we'll get back to you on that one.

No, it's not funny. Not even close. The military says we need this, and it's hard to argue against that. Already we're mobilizing hundreds of d.a.m.n transports, and gathering up every healthy GI for a beach party that will make Normandy look like a rainy day in Miami.

The noise that came from the j.a.panese High Command was as militant as ever, defiantly antic.i.p.ating that the Americans would make their next move against the mainland itself, which was exactly what was planned. The invasion was scheduled for November 1, a ma.s.sive surge into the harbors and across the beaches at several points near key j.a.panese targets. The operation had been given a name, Olympic, and Truman had been briefed by the joint chiefs that the first phase of the invasion would involve more than a half-million American ground troops, with that many more to follow close behind. George Marshall and the other planners a.s.sumed the operation would carry on through the spring of 1946. Despite the most optimistic estimates, it was apparent that the war would last for another year, possibly longer. As for casualties ... Truman pondered that, all those estimates of American dead, some far more optimistic than others. Some of those boys think that if they feed me baby food, I'll give my okay to their plans without a second thought. Sorry, but no general has to tell me what a ground war looks like, because I've seen one. I know exactly what will happen to our boys. If I thought the j.a.panese could be convinced they ought to quit, fine, show me how to convince them. Nothing, not a d.a.m.n thing has worked so far. We've been busting up their bases and driving their people into h.e.l.l for better than three years, and no one's given me any sign that they're any less willing to die for their d.a.m.n emperor today than they were in 1942.

It was disturbing to him that some of the very scientists who developed this extraordinary weapon were now hedging their bets by insisting it not actually be used on a target, but only as a demonstration, a show of force that could not be ignored. That's pure bull, he thought. Every report says their people are more enthusiastic about fighting now than ever. We won't be fighting just their army, we'll be fighting every d.a.m.n j.a.p citizen. Call it what you will, their Home Guard, or militia. It means that sooner or later every GI will stand face-to-face with some mama-san holding a musket, or a pitchfork, and they won't just step aside. What will that do to our boys, faced with civilians who are as dangerous as the soldiers? How many more cities will General LeMay have to incinerate before he eliminates that threat? h.e.l.l, we'd do the same thing if the j.a.ps landed a fleet of invasion s.h.i.+ps on the California coast. American civilians would put up a h.e.l.l of a fight if they were defending our homes in San Francisco or Los Angeles. Put anybody's back to their own wall and they'll turn up the volume. So, sure, if there's a chance to end this sooner ... there's no argument that trumps that. We sure as h.e.l.l don't need p.u.s.s.yfooting about this, not after so much has gone into it, and by d.a.m.n, every one of those scientists and every d.a.m.n general knows this decision is mine, and mine alone, and that order left my office a month ago. Right now it doesn't much matter which city it'll be ... if this son of a b.i.t.c.h works, we'll hit those people hard enough to make even the emperor take a little pause.

Truman began to pace now, caught a glimpse of the guard in the shadows, moving with him. He stopped, hands clasped behind his back, turned to the shadows.

”Come out here. You're giving me the jitters.”

The man emerged, two more to one side.

”Sir. Sorry, but you know our orders.”

”No problem there, boys. But you can knock off the cloak-and-dagger stuff.” He paused. ”You know what I've done?”

The man seemed puzzled by the question, searched past Truman toward the railing.

”Not here, you ... sorry. You know the kinds of decisions I've gotta deal with? Every d.a.m.n day?”

”Yes, sir. Difficult decisions, sir.”

”You have no idea, son. But there's one I've made that wasn't difficult at all. It has to be done.”

”Yes ... sir.”

Truman felt a dangerous need to talk about it, a simple conversation, letting off some of the pressure. But his brain held him back, and he looked back out toward the moon, the low swells, heard the hum of the engines beneath his feet. Those d.a.m.n scientists will keep chewing on this, he thought. But the decision has been made, and it might be the only time in this job when I'm completely sure I'm right. Just tell me that the son of a b.i.t.c.h works.

BABELSBERG, NEAR POTSDAM,.

SOUTHWEST OF BERLIN, GERMANY.

JULY 16, 1945.