The Filson features Evan Thomas in Gertrude Polk Brown Lecture Series

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Filson Historical Society will host the Gertrude Polk Brown Lecture Series on Wednesday, April 10 at 6:00 p.m. at The Kentucky Center – Bomhard Theater, featuring “New York Times” bestselling author Evan Thomas’ book, “Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II.” This program will be moderated by his wife, Osceola Freear Thomas.

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 America’s decision to drop the atomic bomb—and Japan’s 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 Hirohito’s 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 Stimson’s 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.

Evan Thomas is the author of eleven books: “The Wise Men” (with Walter Isaacson), “The Man to See,” “The Very Best Men,” “Robert Kennedy,” “John Paul Jones,” “Sea of Thunder,” “The War Lovers,” “Ike’s Bluff,” and “Being Nixon,” “First,” and “Road to Surrender.” “John Paul Jones,” “Sea of Thunder,” “Being Nixon,” and “First” were “New York Times” bestsellers. Thomas was a writer, correspondent, and editor for thirty-three years at “Time” and “Newsweek,” including ten years (1986–96) as Washington bureau chief at Newsweek, where, at the time of his retirement in 2010, he was editor at large. He wrote more than one hundred cover stories and in 1999 won a National Magazine Award. He wrote “Newsweek’s” fifty-thousand-word election specials in 1996, 2000, 2004 (winner of a National Magazine Award), and 2008. He has appeared on many TV and radio talk shows, including “Meet the Press” and “The Colbert Report,” and has been a guest on PBS’s “Charlie Rose” more than forty times. The author of dozens of book reviews for “The New York Times” and “The Washington Post,” Thomas has taught writing and journalism at Harvard and Princeton, where, from 2007 to 2014, he was Ferris Professor of Journalism.

Osceola Freear Thomas met her husband Evan at the University of Virginia law school, where they were classmates. In 1977, she joined Donovan Leisure, a litigation firm, in New York and Washington DC, before moving to AT&T, retiring as a Federal Government Affairs Vice President in 2000. Since then, she has worked with Evan on his books as an editor and researcher.

The Gertrude Polk Brown Lecture Series will be held on Wednesday, April 10 at 6:00 p.m. at the Kentucky Center – Bomhard Theater, 501 West Main St., Louisville. Tickets are free for Filson members and $26.62 for non-members (taxes and fees included). This lecture is offered both in person and virtually. Parking fees are separate. Tickets for this event must be purchased from The Kentucky Center Ticket Service. Please call (502) 584-7777 or visit kentuckyperformingarts.org for tickets.

Initiated in 1993 as a memorial to the life of Gertrude Polk Brown and made possible by the generous support of her children and grandchildren: Dace Brown Stubbs, Marshall Farrer, Dace Polk Brown, Laura Lee Brown, Garvin Deters, Polk Deters, Laura Lee Gastis, Garvin Brown IV, and Campbell Brown. The Gertrude Polk Brown Lecture Series has brought both nationally and internationally recognized historians and journalists to Louisville, many of them Pulitzer Prize winners. Speakers are selected based on their overall excellence in research, writing, and speaking and are not restricted to historians. The Filson hosts up to three lectures per year in this series.