A riveting, immersive account of the agonizing decision to use nuclear
weapons against Japan--a crucial turning point in World War II and
geopolitical history--with you-are-there immediacy by the New York
Times bestselling author of Ike's Bluff and Sea of Thunder.
"A terrifying, heartbreaking account of three men under unimaginable
pressure . . . I challenge you not to read this book in a single
sitting."--Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Heart of the Sea and
Travels with George
At 9:20 a.m. on the morning of May 30, General Groves receives a
message to report to the office of the secretary of war "at once."
Stimson is waiting for him. He wants to know: has Groves selected the
targets yet?
So begins this suspenseful, impeccably researched history that draws on
new access to diaries to tell the story of three men who were intimately
involved with America's decision to drop the atomic bomb--and Japan's
decision to surrender. They are Henry Stimson, the American
Secretary of War, who had overall responsibility for decisions about the
atom bomb; Gen. Carl "Tooey" Spaatz, head of strategic bombing in
the Pacific, who supervised the planes that dropped the bombs; and
Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, the only one in Emperor
Hirohito's Supreme War Council who believed even before the bombs were
dropped that Japan should surrender.
Henry Stimson had served in the administrations of five presidents, but
as the U.S. nuclear program progressed, he found himself tasked with the
unimaginable decision of determining whether to deploy the bomb. The new
president, Harry S. Truman, thus far a peripheral figure in the
momentous decision, accepted Stimson's recommendation to drop the bomb.
Army Air Force Commander Gen. Spaatz ordered the planes to take off.
Like Stimson, Spaatz agonized over the command even as he recognized it
would end the war. After the bombs were dropped, Foreign Minister Togo
was finally able to convince the emperor to surrender.
To bring these critical events to vivid life, bestselling author Evan
Thomas draws on the diaries of Stimson, Togo and Spaatz, contemplating
the immense weight of their historic decision. In Road to Surrender,
an immersive, surprising, moving account, Thomas lays out the
behind-the-scenes thoughts, feelings, motivations, and decision-making
of three people who changed history.
