Fun fact: the US military was going full-on for the invasion of the Japanese home islands. The atom bomb was top-secret, remember? Casualty estimates were huge for both sides. The Japanese had a defense plan, and it was a good one. They had correctly predicted what the Americans were going to do. It would have been a bloodbath. When the Japanese surrendered it was a huge relief to both sides.

August 5, 1963

Dear Kup:

I appreciated most highly your column of July 30th, a copy of which you sent me.

I have been rather careful not to comment on the articles that have been written on the dropping of the bomb for the simple reason that the dropping of the bomb was completely and thoroughly explained in my Memoirs, and it was done to save 125,000 youngsters on the American side and 125,000 on the Japanese side from getting killed and that is what it did. It probably also saved a half million youngsters on both sides from being maimed for life.

You must always remember that people forget, as you said in your column, that the bombing of Pearl Harbor was done while we were at peace with Japan and trying our best to negotiate a treaty with them.

All you have to do is to go out and stand on the keel of the Battleship in Pearl Harbor with the 3,000 youngsters underneath it who had no chance whatever of saving their lives. That is true of two or three other battleships that were sunk in Pearl Harbor. Altogether, there were between 3,000 and 6,000 youngsters killed at that time without any declaration of war. It was plain murder.

I knew what I was doing when I stopped the war that would have killed a half a million youngsters on both sides if those bombs had not been dropped. I have no regrets and, under the same circumstances, I would do it again -- and this letter is not confidential

. Sincerely yours,

Harry S. Truman

Primarily, you'll want to build an honest rapport with the other person. Get inside their head a little and allow them to brag A LOT. Ask how they found the place and what they did to change it. You'll want to breeze through all of the high level and important documentation first so you'll have a baseline. Take as much notes as you can. Ask what websites/resources they use to make it easier to follow in their tracks. Explain your situation to them. It will humanize yourself in their mind and you might be able to engage their compassion for you. Perhaps they would be available to answer questions after they leave! Is there budget money for them to be used as a compensated resource? Hopefully they like the idea of helping others and putting some scratch in their pocket.

Bon chance!

Steve