Eighty years after Hiroshima, a new book narrates the history of the atomic bomb

Summary

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NPR's Book of the Day – August 28, 2025

Episode: Eighty Years After Hiroshima: Garrett Graff’s Oral History of the Atomic Bomb
Host: Scott Simon (NPR)
Guest: Garrett Graff, author of The Devil Reached Toward the Sky
Duration: ~12 min (content only)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores Garrett Graff’s new book, The Devil Reached Toward the Sky, an oral history chronicling the creation and use of the atomic bomb, eighty years after Hiroshima. Through conversations with scientists, survivors, soldiers, and workers, Graff depicts the magnitude of the Manhattan Project and the lasting human, scientific, and ethical questions it raised. The discussion with host Scott Simon centers on why oral history is a powerful form for telling this story, the origins and scale of the bomb project, voices of survivors, and the sobering relevance of nuclear weapons today.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power and Challenge of Oral History

[00:02 – 01:07]

• Introduction to the format: Andrew Limbong from NPR points out that oral histories allow subjects to "speak for themselves," providing a sense of immediacy and uncertainty that traditional narratives lack.
• Why oral history for the atomic bomb? Oral histories put readers into the shoes of those who didn't know how events would unfold, mirroring the uncertainty experienced by the scientists and participants in the Manhattan Project.

"You handcuff your own authorial powers and just let the subjects speak for themselves... It gives you a sense of what it's like to be right next to these scientists who don't know what the future of the atomic bomb or even of World War II looks like."
— Andrew Limbong, [00:02]

2. Origins of the Manhattan Project: The Shadow of Hitler

[03:02 – 04:23]

• The Manhattan Project was spurred less by the Pacific War than by fears that fleeing European scientists brought, specifically that Hitler’s Germany was working on atomic weapons.
• Many scientists had personal connections to colleagues in Germany, which fueled their urgency.

"There's this very poignant quote...in the fall of 1942 as the team at the University of Chicago tries to build the first chain reaction reactor, where one of the scientists shows up early for his shift and he says, look, somewhere in Germany they're at work on Hitler's bomb. And if Hitler's working, I want to be sure that I am too."
— Garrett Graff, [03:12]

3. The People of the Project: Scientists, Secret Cities, and Unseen Labor

[04:23 – 06:36]

• The Manhattan Project is often reduced to Oppenheimer and a few top scientists, but Graff emphasizes the scale: hundreds of thousands worked in secret cities like Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Hanford, Washington, creating uranium and plutonium.
• These sprawling sites—hidden even from the American public—were logistical marvels.

"We so often oversimplify...to just J. Robert Oppenheimer and his Merry band of physicists...But the real majesty...is in the scale that only the United States could achieve...These were facilities 50 miles wide by 50 miles long that employed 100,000 people apiece...And no one knows the city exists at all."
— Garrett Graff, [04:42]

• U.S. industry was fundamental. Companies like DuPont and Tennessee Eastman staffed the projects, including “calutron girls”—high school girls hired due to labor shortages, who operated uranium-refining machinery without knowing what it was.

"...these high school girls, they called them calutron girls at the time, outperform the California Ph.D. scientists...Even though most of those calutron operators only hear the word uranium for the first time in that clip from Harry Truman on August 6, 1945."
— Garrett Graff, [06:45]

4. Survivor Voices: Haunting Memories of Hiroshima

[07:47 – 08:15]

• Graff foregrounds primary accounts from schoolchildren and survivors (Haibakusha) of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:
  • “I felt colors. I remember my body floating in the air.”
  • “I wondered if fire had been set in my eyes.”
  • “Nobody there looked like human beings.”
• The book’s emotional power is in its juxtaposition of American triumph with unbearable human devastation.

"...the Enola Gay lands back at Tinian and they have medals pinned to their chest and they literally go off to a barbecue party to celebrate the bombing while Hiroshima burns behind them...Reading the memories of the Haibakusa...is some of the most searing memories I have ever come across."
— Garrett Graff, [08:15]

5. The Endgame & Ethics: Did the Bomb "Save Lives"?

[09:02 – 10:21]

• Simon poses the enduring ethical dilemma: Did dropping the bomb prevent even greater loss of life by forcing Japan’s surrender?
• Graff’s perspective: There’s no comfort in such calculations. The Japanese military was far from surrendering, and it ultimately took imperial intervention and survived a coup attempt.

"This is a question we will never satisfy one way or another. But you have to put yourself back in what I talk about...as sort of the permission structure of the spring of 1945...I don't think that necessarily makes it any better that we dropped the bomb. But we now much better also understand that the hard right factions of the Japanese government were not close to surrendering."
— Garrett Graff, [09:19]

6. Nuclear Weapons Today: Enduring Relevance and Danger

[10:21 – 11:14]

• Graff warns: The risk of nuclear conflict is perhaps higher now than at most times since WWII, as nuclear weapons proliferate and new conflicts arise.
• Contemporary references: “conflicts this year between India and Pakistan...US and Israeli raids over the Iranian nuclear program...the so called nuclear club might be larger than ever by the 2030s.”

"...we are probably closer to nuclear danger in our age than we have been for most of the 80 years since World War II."
— Garrett Graff, [10:26]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “You handcuff your own authorial powers and just let the subjects speak for themselves.” — Andrew Limbong, [00:02]
• “If Hitler's working, I want to be sure that I am too.” — Quoted scientist, via Garrett Graff, [03:12]
• “We built these hundred thousand person secret cities...And no one knows the city exists at all.” — Garrett Graff, [04:42]
• “Nobody there looked like human beings.” — Hiroshima survivor quoted by Scott Simon, [07:47]
• "I have to say that reading the memories of the Haibakusa...is some of the most searing memories I have ever come across." — Garrett Graff, [08:15]
• "This is a question we will never satisfy one way or another..." — Garrett Graff on the bomb’s justification, [09:19]
• "...the so called nuclear club might be larger than ever by the 2030s.” — Garrett Graff, [10:26]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:02 – Introduction to oral history
• 03:12 – Fleeing fascism: scientists and the Hitler threat
• 04:42 – Life, labor, and secrecy in secret cities
• 06:45 – “Calutron girls” and American industry
• 07:47 – Survivor accounts from Hiroshima
• 09:19 – The morality of the atomic bomb decision
• 10:26 – Nuclear danger in today's world

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Tone & Language

The tone is reflective, somber, and inquisitive, blending journalistic objectivity with an evident emotional weight—particularly when quoting survivors or discussing the bomb’s legacy. Both Simon and Graff approach their subject with humility before the scale and complexity of historical and present risks.

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Summary Takeaway

Eighty years after Hiroshima, Garrett Graff’s oral history reminds us of the monumental forces—scientific, industrial, personal—that produced the atomic bomb. By foregrounding the lived uncertainty, trauma, and triumphs of those involved, his work deepens our understanding not just of the past, but the enduring and immediate dangers tied to nuclear weapons in our world today.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. As a reporter, as someone who interviews people and then uses those interviews to tell a story, I think the format of the oral history has gotta be one of the hardest ones to pull off. This is when you do a whole bunch of interviews and you just use quotes and what people said to lay out the story. You handcuff your own authorial powers and just let the subjects speak for themselves. The so why do it? What do you get out of an oral history that you don't get out of a more straightforward telling the writer Garrett Graff has written an oral history about a pretty big topic, the atomic bomb. It's titled the Devil Reached Toward the Sky. And in this interview with NPR's Scott Simon, Graff talks about the oral history's unique ability to put you in the lives of people who don't know what's going to happen next. It gives you a sense of what it's like to be right next to these scientists who who don't know what the future of the atomic bomb or even of World War II looks like. That's coming up.

[B]

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[C]

About 80 years since President Truman told the nation August 6, 1945. A short time ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb has more power than 20,000 tons of TNT. It was an atomic bomb. Three days later, when Japan had not surrendered, another was dropped, a Nagasaki. Were rough. Estimates put the death toll from both bombs at more than 200,000 people. Garrett Graff, the Pulitzer Prize finalist, has produced an oral history from scientists, politicians, pilots, soldiers and survivors of those weapons, which, as he writes, produced a horror so stark and visceral that the defining principles of international geopolitics in the eight decades since has been to avoid ever using the weapon again. His new book, the Devil Reached Toward the Sky, an oral history of the making and unleashing of the atomic bomb. Garrett Graff joins us in our studios. Thanks so much for being with us.

[D]

Thanks for having me, Scott.

[C]

Several voices point out early in the book that Adolf Hitler's crime set in motion scientific talent that would lead to the development of the bomb, didn't they?

[D]

When we talk about the atomic bomb in August 1945, we immediately associate it with Japan and the war in the Pacific. But the genesis for this project really is rooted in Europe and the scientists who flee the enveloping cloak of fascism in the 1930s and come to the United States and then urge the United States to launch this crash, no holds barred effort to develop an atomic bomb because they are afraid that Adolf Hitler will get the bomb first. They know the scientists personally, like Werner Heisenberg, the German physicist who are left behind, who they assume through the whole war is hard at work at building his own bomb. There's this very poignant quote to me in the fall of 1942 as the team at the University of Chicago tries to build the first chain reaction reactor, where one of the scientists shows up early for his shift and he says, look, somewhere in Germany they're at work on Hitler's bomb. And if Hitler's working, I want to be sure that I am too.

[C]

Tell us about the scientists in Chicago, Berkeley, Princeton. Come to Los Alamos, New Mexico. I wrote down your phrase. You call them the square dancing, pottery, buying graphite dust covered, mutton eating, poker playing, men and women who made the bomb a reality.

[D]

Yeah, I think one of the unique powers to me of oral history is the way that it puts you back in the footsteps and experiences of the people who lived these events firsthand before they know the outcome. I think part of the challenge of narrative history, as often as it makes events seem neater and simpler and more preordained than they felt to anyone who was living them at the time. And so what I really tried to do with this book was capture the experiences and the memories of the people before they knew what they were doing was going to work. What it was like to sit there and say, will we get the bomb first? Will the United States win World War II? Does an atomic bomb work at all? I think one of the things that you really see in this project is we so often oversimplify the story of the Manhattan Project to just J. Robert Oppenheimer and his Merry band of physicists on this mesa in Los Alamos. But the real majesty of the Manhattan Project is in the scale that only the United States could achieve at that time. We built these hundred thousand person secret cities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Hanford, Washington, where we developed the uranium and plutonium for the bombs, where These were facilities 50 miles wide by 50 miles long that employed 100,000 people apiece in August 1945. The Oak Ridge bus system is one of the 10 largest public transit systems in the United States. And no one knows the city exists at all. And it doesn't appear on a single map.

[C]

I mean, you make a point of saying that it wasn't obviously just American scientists, or for that matter, people in government and the military, but US industry.

[D]

A big part of this is the story of the industrial might that we bring. You know, the work that dupont brings, the work that Tennessee Eastman does in Oak Ridge. And there's this sort of amazing sequence where Tennessee Eastman is looking around at the labor market that it can bring to these uranium refining machines called calutrons. And they settle on basically high school girls from Tennessee because that's who they can hire in 1943, 1944, amid the wartime labor shortages. And as it turns out, these high school girls, they called them calutron girls at the time, outperform the California Ph.D. scientists in refining and making uranium. Even though most of those calutron operators only hear the word uranium for the first time in that clip from Harry Truman on August 6, 1945. They work the whole war without ever actually knowing the thing that their machine is making.

[C]

And heart piercing accounts from school children who lived through that morning of August 6, 1945. One young woman says, I felt colors. I remember my body floating in the air. Another says, I do not know how to describe the light. I wondered if fire had been set in my eyes. And then one young woman said later of the survivors, nobody there looked like human beings.

[D]

Yeah, the final chapters of this book just are this incredible, highly emotional juxtaposition between the triumph of the American bomber crews who deliver the bomb, the celebration of the workers on the Manhattan Project, that these are successful. I mean, the Enola Gay lands back at Tinian and they have medals pinned to their chest and they literally go off to a barbecue party to celebrate the bombing while Hiroshima burns behind them. And I have to say that reading the memories of the Haibakusa, the bomb affected people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is some of the most searing memories I have ever come across.

[C]

This thought is almost Terrible to utter. But did the decision to drop the atom bombs nevertheless avoid the killing of what would have been more people if the war had continued, the firebombing had continued, and the U.S. and Soviet Union would have had to invade Japan?

[D]

This is a question we will never satisfy one way or another. But you have to put yourself back in what I talk about in the book as sort of the permission structure of the spring of 1945, the end of the deadliest conflict in human history. There are 60 million people who have died in World War II, 45 million civilians, 15 million combatants. And I don't think that necessarily makes it any better that we dropped the bomb. But we now much better also understand that the hard right factions of the Japanese government were not close to surrendering even after the second bomb, and that it took Emperor Hirohito really interceding to surrender the country. And he survives a coup the night before his surrender on August 15th by hard right Japanese imperialists who want to keep fighting even after both of these bombings.

[C]

What thought should we take with us today, 80 years later?

[D]

To me, I think part of this story is also recognizing that we are living in a moment today where we are probably closer to nuclear danger in our age than we have been for most of the 80 years since World War II. You know, we've already seen conflicts this year between India and Pakistan, the two largest nuclear arsenals to ever come into open conflict. We've seen the US and Israeli raids over the Iranian nuclear program. And there's a very real possibility both in Europe and in Asia, that we will see actually new weapons proliferate to new countries over the years ahead. And that the so called nuclear club might be larger than ever by the2030s.

[C]

Garrett Graff, his new book, the Devil Reached toward the Sky. Thanks so much for being with us.

[D]

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[B]

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