History Bookclub FEB-2022
i'm wary of war
Tonight is my monthly history book club review. We read a different book and come together to discuss it monthly, where else, at our community public library.
The Inspiration
Tonight is easy. We don’t want to disappoint people if we can avoid it. COVID exhaustion and the lack of interaction brought out a great crowd to discuss our book this month. The second Tuesday of the month (two days ago) is the day we get together and talk as a group in our Rosemount History Book Club. The book for the month is “Countdown 1945: The extraordinary story of the atomic bomb and the 116 days that changed the world” by Chris Wallace with Mitch Weiss. I promised in a previous post titled “Are You Free” to provide a review of the books we read. This is our 2nd book for 2022.
The Setup
While I am unsure it is one of the 7 Deadly Sins exhaustively considered by Thomas Aquinas, arrogance is a bad trait. I did not vote for this book when we selected our choices for the year. Because of my life path, previous employment, and prior reading, I wasn’t keen on another book about the development and use of atomic bombs. This book became another, “I told ya so” moment where life teaches you a lesson and might even expose a character defect. In truth, if I were not in this book club and I saw this book, I would not read it, thinking there is nothing new to be learned. While there might be some kernel of truth to my beliefs (read my review), the GREATER truth is open-mindedness, and setting aside the arrogance that I know better was the serenity-inspiring takeaway of this book.
What’s It About
So for those not sure you care about this book, It is a countdown-style book of the 116 days leading up to the atomic bombings of Japan near the end of WW 2. It begins as the war in Europe is winding down and President Roosevelt has been re-elected for his fourth term. It ends with the use of two different atomic bombs over three days in August of 1945 catastrophically destroying two large Japanese cities.
My Opinion
The Bad
There are problems with the book perhaps due to its brevity which is my primary gripe. The book is (1) logically presented and (2) well illustrated. It is also short in length. I enjoy more depth. Unfortunately, a guy like me would likely ruin the flow of the book because it has a great flow with its current length. My issues are:
The book ignores the importance of Pasco WA and what has now become the largest industrial pollution story in the history of our nation. The Hanford WA complex was CRITICAL in the story that brings us to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I can only assume that some topics needed to be excised on the chopping block. Having some experience with Hanford means I believe excluding it from the story is a large gap.
The Belgian mining engineer and director, Edgar Sengier is critical to the whole Manhattan Project and does not even merit a mention in this book! He worked closely with French scientists and transferred the critical uranium making the Manhattan Project possible to Staten Island NY in 1940 before the US was even engaged in war! Those who might say, yeah but we would have figured it out; American and Canadian sources of uranium were less than 0.1% usable while the material Sengier transferred was nearly 65% uranium! If you understand the science of enrichment, both Oak Ridge TN and Pasco WA are IRRELEVANT in the effort without Sengier.
The Good
We all know how this story ends yet the book is a page-turner. It is largish type, short in length, and never languishes on part of the story. Wallace carefully chooses the critical moments in the timeline and fairly points out this is the 116 days. I read the book over two evenings and did not struggle to stop and start. I think the countdown chronology made it easier to note how close you were to the end of the story. Both in and out of the club I have a fair background on “The Manhattan Project” but Wallace does branch out to include the players beyond the scientists and politicians. I think that humanizes and rounds out the story very well.
Wallace even attempts to portray the decision-making process about the ethical dilemma related to the use of weapons against the Empire of Japan. We all spend our lives on a learning journey if we choose. Things change in our lives as they unfold and how we see things emerge based upon the path we take. My oldest son “J” is married to a wonderful Okinawan woman named “T”. Our lives have been enriched by having them become a part of our lives. The humanity and ethical decisions about the use of the atomic bombs change when you better understand that the cold-blooded weighing the numbers clashes with a reality that someone you love had their lives shaped by the decisions.
Is It Worth A Read
The book is wonderful and I strongly recommend it despite the omissions described for those who want a condensed, but frank presentation of the critical effort and decision to use atomic weapons for the only time in our planet’s history. The decision-making to pursue the effort, support it with great priority, evaluate its applicability and finally use the weapons is an important story to tell and Chris Wallace does it very well. I will rate the book 7.5/10 at the meeting. The book is GREAT and delivers on the advertised title.
For me, since my Dad was aboard the Sims Class Destroyer USS Roe, DD 418 in the Pacific, I believe that President Truman made the only decision possible under the circumstances. It certainly may have changed whether I am even here to write this. That said, I believe the military quickly usurped leadership and pivoted to the use of the second weapon of a different style on Nagasaki only three days later. The haphazard nature of that bombing run only reinforces that there was pressure to validate the plutonium-style design of “Fat Man” in comparison to the Hiroshima uranium-style design called “Little Boy”.
As always, the rest of the story will be to hear what my compatriots have to say.
What I Learned at the Meeting
The book was generally very well received and the turnout at the meeting was impressive. Truman was kept in the dark and unaware of The Manhattan Project as Vice President! In the aftermath of the death of FDR, it seems that President Truman made the only decision he felt was reasonable. The majority of our club members enjoyed the book (as did I). A handful did focus on errors in scholarship and the brevity of the book. I made light afterward that since I thought the last book we read was lacking I did not want to gain the reputation of being negative about the books we read so that is how I landed on 7.5/10.
One of the members of our club, “J” brings academic experience to the club having taught history. “J” is likely to read the footnotes and lends that perspective to the rest of us. In my early career, I worked with a scientific company. The types of things we were building were not consumer goods and had very specific applications. The documentation we would develop for our efforts often included a “Theory of Operation” which served as prose to describe what our gadget or component needed to accomplish. It was a bit like a list of our assumptions and what the design attempts to accomplish. My friend “J” would have been likely to read the TOO as we called them. Because he takes the time to evaluate what was said and explore the source, he makes our evaluation of books better. “J” noted some claims in the book not backed up by the facts and went from endorsement to panning the book at 5/10. His assessment of the book was lower than many of the rest of us and gave us something to think about. I am glad he is part of the club!
I also relearned at the meeting a familiar message. If you want to know what people are like, pay attention to how they spend their time and with whom. People genuinely interested in the world tend to not just reinforce their beliefs but explore different points of view. People who read regularly have a different perspective than so many. They don’t seem as easily swayed by passion but rather take a longer path to understanding. A long-form book has the power to change your opinion. I imagine that is one of the reasons some don’t enjoy reading. I love my book club and I’m glad I have made the acquaintance of so many interesting people as a result of joining so many years ago.
In this time of polarization, I am sure that the shortcut of anger and opinion might be “I don’t trust THAT book because…”. What is the solution? In my opinion, it is more books, not less. Those that would silence authors because they don’t like their opinion are the very forces that teenagers like my Dad as a seventeen-year-old signed up to fight against. It would be a shame and an indignity if we choose to ban books at school board meetings because we wish to decide what others can read, hear or simply handle as one opinion on an issue. Think about it the next time you hear a story about banning or restricting booksI. It is the very thing the Fascists and Communists are famous for and that the “greatest generation” of Americans sacrificed to prevent. Let it not be us because of disagreement or discomfort that set our children back.
Here’s tonight’s song. The song is good and on-point. The imagery that accompanies it might not be comfortable to watch. My answer to that is facts are stubborn things. Good night.