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  4. Decision: The Conflicts of Harry S. Truman - Dialogue With the Future, Part I, Episode No. 19

Motion Picture MP81-9

Decision: The Conflicts of Harry S. Truman - Dialogue With the Future, Part I, Episode No. 19

Administrative Information

Original Format(s)
Motion Picture
Footage
907 feet
Running Time
26 minutes
Film Gauge
16mm
Sound
sound
Color
Black & White
Produced by
Columbia Pictures - Ben Gradus in association with Screen Gems and David Noyes
Restrictions
Restricted
Description

Episode 19, Dialogue With the Future, Part 1. This episode deals with the decision to drop the atomic bomb. Unfortunately, the Decision series is copyright Sony Pictures Entertainment, and the Truman Library may not reproduce any episodes without their consent.

Date(s)
1964

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Moving Image Type
Motion Picture

Shot List

  • Reel 1
2:11   "Mr. President, why did you drop the atomic bomb?".
2:29   Credits.
3:11   Atomic bomb; atomic bomb explosions; the future?
3:42   Truman announces the atomic bomb dropped on Japan.
4:22   Truman speaks: atomic energy.
4:58   Destruction and death at Hiroshima.
5:18   Truman speaks - program on atomic energy with Secretary of War.
6:10   Laboratory.
6:16   Albert Einstein quoted "If I had known the Germans would not have succeeded in adopting the atomic bomb, I would have never lifted a finger in its development."
7:30   Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the initial $6,000 for the - 1/2 billion dollar project.
8:02   J. Robert Oppenheimer.
8:26   Program received whole-hearted support (1941) before Pearl Harbor.
8:50   Franklin D. Roosevelt placing wreath on tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
9:10   Enrico Fermi.
9:27   Arthur Compton.
9:58   Workers on the project.
10:21   CBYNT explosives in Germany.
11:05   Truman, 1945, at Potsdam - told Joseph Stalin about bomb.
11:27   Scientists in New Mexico awaiting the test
    Gap in film
11:59   Atomic explosion, New Mexico
12:14   Truman, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin at Potsdam.
12:35   Atomic bomb destruction - Hiroshima.
13:13   Truman speaks - choice - had the bomb, use it or not?
13:39   July 16, 1945, 5:30, testing of atomic bomb - Alamagordo, New Mexico.
14:10   Major General Leslie Groves, Chief, Manhattan Project, describing bomb.
14:52   1937 - Americans shocked at Franco’s bombings.
15:05   1938 - Americans protested Japanese bombing Nanking.
15:24   U.S. failed to sign 1899 Hague agreement against biological warfare.
15:45   Japanese war scenes.
16:12   Okinawa battle.
17:38   Truman speaks - losses at Okinawa gave idea for requirements to defeat Japan.
18:22   Secretary of State Henry Stimson speaks - war death.
18:54   Truman speaks - Stimson questioned bombing of Tokyo.
19:19   Japanese school children - air raid.
19:28   Fire bombs at Tokyo.
20:01   Tokyo destruction.
20:35   Truman speaks - Americans planned big invasion of Japan via island of Kyushu.
21:04   Truman speaks - no such invasion - losses too great.
21:45   American soldiers at hospital.
22:36   Japanese military scenes; training.
23:57   Truman (Japan invasion) "I saw nothing godly about the killing of all the people necessary to make that invasion."
24:45   May, 1945, Truman speaks - Stimson worried about how use of atomic bomb would appear in the future.
25:12   Truman speaks "I could not worry about what history would say about personal morality."
25:23   Mega-Death (million deaths).
25:25   Truman - "I made the only decision I ever knew how to make. I did what I thought was right."