With more than 16 million copies in print, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard’s “Killing” series is the most successful history series…in history. Their latest book is “Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan.”  

In this episode, O’Reilly and Dugard discuss their new book, the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, and lessons we can all glean from history.

Bill O’Reilly on why he wrote Killing The Rising Sun (2:19-3:12)

“In order to defeat evil, you have to go to extraordinary length. Most of the attention in America is placed upon Hitler and the Nazis. So, we wrote about that extensively in Killing Patton.

“That’s because Hitler was so over-the-top, such a villainous figure, and the whole crew in Germany with the extermination camps, and all of the things that were well documented, was so horrifying that that has stayed as a boogeyman forever. And it will never die out. 

“But the Japanese did almost the same things that the Germans did, but very few people understand that because there wasn’t extensive reporting from those areas.” 

Martin Dugard on Truman’s decision to drop the bombs (18:21-18:40) 

“Nothing I’ve read says he has a moment’s hesitation about this. He just thought it was something that had to be done.

“Now what most people don’t know—there was a third bomb that was supposed to be dropped on Tokyo, and even though the Japanese had not yet surrendered, [Truman] was the one who said let’s not drop that bomb.”