Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II

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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 Americas decision to drop the atomic bomband Japans 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 Hirohitos 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 Stimsons 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.

Reviews

Urgent, compulsively readable and powerfully resonant Sinclair McKay

This dramatic, you-are-there masterpieceprovides a convincing explanation of one of the great moral questions of 20th century history: was America right to drop the atom bomb on Japan at the end of World War IIThis is an indispensable book for those who want to understand the moral issues surrounding the use of great power.Walter Isaacson

In this meticulously crafted and vivid account,Evan Thomas tells the gripping and terrifying storyof the last days of the Second World War in the Pacific. Writing with insight and understanding, he recreates for us thosecritical moments when, for better or worse, the decisions, from the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the Japanese surrender, were made.Margaret MacMillan

A terrifying, heart-breaking account of three men under unimaginable pressure Nathaniel Philbrick, author ofTravels with George

An indispensable portrait of power, anxiety, and moral ambiguity Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prizewinning author ofAnd There Was Light

A taut, thrilling narrative, rich, compassionate, and superbly nuanced. Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author ofThe Revolutionary

As Christopher Nolans movieOppenheimershows, the shockwaves reverberate still. The veteran biographer Evan Thomas now enters the debate." The Wall Street Journal

Author Bio

Evan Thomas is the author of ten books, including the New York Times bestsellers JOHN PAUL JONES, SEA OF THUNDER, and FIRST: SANDRA DAY OCONNOR. Thomas was a writer, correspondent, and editor for thirty-three years at Time and Newsweek, including ten years as Newsweeks Washington bureau chief. He appears regularly on many TV and radio talk shows. Thomas has taught at Harvard and Princeton.