calherewecome

So I have to stop watching late night TV. There’s always some author on pitching their latest book. Then, I decide that I have to read it.

So last week I was watching CBS Sunday Morning. Also, saw him on Stephen Colbert. They were interviewing Chris Wallace (reporter for Fox News). The book has nothing to do with Fox News (If it did, I wouldn’t be reading it.).

So the book is titled “Countdown 1945” and it covers the time from when Harry Truman becomes president on April 12 1945 until the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

So Truman was going down to a room in the capitol called “The Board of Education” that was operated by Speaker Sam Rayburn. It was a room in the Capitol would go at the end of the day to have a drink and hang out.

He headed from the main public floor of the Capitol down to the ground floor, downstairs to House Speaker Sam Rayburn’s private hideaway, Room 9, which was known as the “Board of Education.” It was the most exclusive room in the Capitol—entry by Rayburn’s personal invitation only. Most afternoons, members of Congress met here after official business hours to discuss strategy, exchange gossip, and “strike one for liberty,” enjoying a drink, or two. Truman was a regular. And his drink of choice was bourbon and branch water.

The book starts with Truman being summoned to the White House in April 1945. There he was informed FDR had died. A couple of days later he is told about the project to develop an atomic bomb to be dropped on Japan. This is the story of the days leading up to the eventual dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

One last quote:

But Truman confounded the conventional wisdom. He campaigned relentlessly and effectively, often making speeches from the back of trains as he barnstormed across America. At almost every juncture he was greeted by enthusiastic crowds shouting: “Give ’em hell, Harry!” In one of the biggest comeback victories in American political history, Truman defeated Dewey in November 1948.

While Truman had notable achievements—he issued executive orders banning racial discrimination in the military and the government—he continued to face problems at home and overseas. He introduced what he called his “Fair Deal” program, designed to build on FDR’s New Deal. It included proposals for universal health care and more funding for education. He couldn’t get it through Congress.

I couldn’t put the book down. You know what the ending is but that doesn’t matter. Go ahead and read it.

This entry was posted on June 10, 2020 at 7:21 pm and is filed under Books, Reviews. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Atomic Bomb, Chris Wallace, Harry Truman, Japan, Wallace, WW2