June 6, 2000
Web posted at: 10:39 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- Bob Greene, a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune, has written a new book, "Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War." Greene’s father, an infantryman in World War II, often spoke of Paul Tibbets, a local resident, as "the man who won the war." In 1945, Tibbets had piloted the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

When Greene’s father lay dying, the author met with Tibbets in an attempt to understand what his father and the veterans of WWII had experienced. The result was a friendship, an understanding of his father’s generation of soldiers and, now, this book. Greene’s commentary appears in more than 200 newspapers in the United States, Canada and Japan. He has also written a number of best selling books.

Chat Moderator: Welcome to CNN Book Chat. Author Bob Greene is joining us today to discuss his new book, "Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War." We are pleased to have you with us today.

Bob Greene: Thank you very much. I'm pleased to be here.

Chat Moderator: Tell us about your book, "Duty," and why you decided to write about this experience.

Bob Greene: Well, my father was an infantry division soldier during WWII. And, as he was dying two years ago, I went home to central Ohio to be with him. Like a lot of sons, I think, I was not very good at talking with my father about the things that mattered most to him. But I knew that the war was the most important experience of his lifetime.

As I was with him during his last days, I remembered that he used to come home from work in downtown Columbus and say to us children, "I was buying some shirts today for work, and in the next aisle buying ties was Paul Tibbets." And we children would ask him, "Who's Paul Tibbets?" And our dad would say, "the man who won the war."

Paul Tibbets at the age of 29 did, at the request of our country, what no one had ever done before. He was asked to fly an atomic bomb to an enemy nation and drop the bomb. And he did it. He flew the atomic bomb to Hiroshima. And the war would soon end. It was the single most violent act in the history of mankind. And it ended WWII. But by the 1970s, Paul Tibbets, like my father, was just another anonymous businessman in central Ohio.

As my father was dying two years ago, I went to find Paul Tibbets to ask him the things about the war, and about my father's and his lives, that I was unable to ask my father. We began to talk and the best phrase I can use to describe it is the phrase I used in the book, which is, "It sounded like the whisper of a generation saying goodbye to its children."

Chat Moderator: How did Mr. Tibbets feel about you finding him?

Bob Greene: I had tried for 20 years to talk to Mr. Tibbets as a journalist. I had left messages at his office. I had written to him. He never responded. He never said "No," he just never got back to me at all. But when I went to see him as my dad was nearing the end of his life a few miles away, Mr. Tibbets seemed to understand why I had come to him. And he couldn't have been more gracious.

I think what sort of sums it up is after I got ready to leave Mr. Tibbets that first day, not knowing at that time that there would be many more conversations, I tried to thank him. And I said to him, "Even though you were a famous combat pilot, and my father was a soldier no one ever knew." Mr. Tibbets interrupted me and he said, "Don't ever say that." And I said, "I'm not trying to insult my father, but it is true, you ended the war and no one even knew who he was." And Mr. Tibbets said, "Who knew about who doesn't matter."

And I think what he meant was that whether you were a celebrated soldier or an anonymous soldier, you were all there for the same reason. And from that day, we began to talk about all kinds of things about the lives of these men and women that lived.

Question from Jeff-CNN: How much did he know about his mission? Did Mr. Tibbets understand the consequences of his actions at the time completely?

Bob Greene: Mr. Tibbets and Mr. Tibbets alone knew that his crew would be flying the atomic bomb. He was put in charge of 1,800 men. And he was only 29. And he was ordered not to tell anyone else on the base exactly what they were there for.

And it was not until the Enola Gay was on its way to Hiroshima that Mr. Tibbets crawled back through the plane and told his fellow crewmembers that they had the atomic bomb riding underneath them. He told me that he has never lost a night's sleep. Because as terrible as the deaths and carnage on the ground was, he believes that a million or more lives, both American lives and Japanese lives, were saved because the war ended and there was no ground invasion of Japan.

And many times when I was with Mr. Tibbets, men of 70 and 80 and women of 70 and 80 would come up to him with tears in their eyes and thank him for letting them live their lives and raise families. These were men who were soldiers in 1945 and who were on their way to Japan for the ground invasion, which would have been the bloodiest and deadliest of the entire Second World War. And what they said to Mr. Tibbets when I was with him was that because of him, they got to come home and start families and live their lives.

Question from CennSingapore: How have the events that occurred in your life affected your writing?

Bob Greene: I've always tried to go out and see the world and come back and tell my readers about it. I'm not an op-ed page philosopher or a political pundit. I have always been a reporter. I like to go out and find stories and tell those stories. And the story in the pages of "Duty" is one I thought I would never tell. I couldn't have planned it. And for obvious reasons, it is the most moving story I have ever been a part of.

Chat Moderator: Was your father able to understand that you were meeting with Paul Tibbets?

Bob Greene: The first day I went to see Mr. Tibbets, my dad was in his bed several miles away, not doing well at all. And as I left Mr. Tibbets, he asked me what rank my father had been in the Army. And I said that when the war ended, my dad had been a major with an infantry division.

Mr. Tibbets wrote on a piece of paper, "To Major Greene, a World War II warrior, from Brigadier General Paul W. Tibbets, USAF (Ret)." He said, "Give this to your dad." I went home and showed it to my mother who took it to my father in his bed. And he looked at it and I could tell in his eyes that he understood.

Question from Jeff-CNN: Any particular reason for the title "Duty"? Do you think we have a lesser sense of duty today than in 1945?

Bob Greene: I think "duty" has two meanings as I use it in the title of the book. The first is the sense of duty that those men and women in the 1940s showed for their country. But the second meaning is this: when they came home from the war, it was as if they made it their full-time job to provide a safety net for their children. I think it was the strongest safety net any generation has ever given its children. And the proof of that was that we didn't even know it was there.

But now as our mothers and fathers are leaving us every day, I think it is our duty, the duty of us, their children, to find out exactly who they were and what made them the men and women they were. It’s as if they decided not to trouble us with the story of what they went through in the war. But now as they leave us, it's up to us to find out. Paul Tibbets may have been right when he said that during the war, who knew about who didn't matter. But now, as our parents leave us every day, I believe that nothing matters more.

Chat Moderator: Do you still keep in touch with Mr. Tibbets?

Bob Greene: Yes. I was giving a talk at a public library in Columbus, Ohio last week. I was talking about how self-effacing and modest Mr. Tibbets and my father and all those other men and women have always been. And I looked out in the audience in the library, and sitting in the chairs with everyone else was Mr. Tibbets.

And he has told me that the same way I was never able to talk to my father about the war, that he, Mr. Tibbets, had never really talked with his own sons about what he had gone through in his life. And he told me that by bringing to him my questions about my father's life, he, Mr. Tibbets, in answering, asked himself questions he had never really asked himself before.

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Chat Moderator: Do you have any final thoughts for us today?

Bob Greene: I hope that when people read "Duty" they will understand that it is not just about two men, but about so many of our parents. The book has only been out for about a week and a half now. But people have been calling me in tears saying that the story is the story of their parents also. It has been an honor to write it.

Chat Moderator: Thank you, Bob Greene, for joining us today and sharing your poignant story.

Bob Greene: I'm going to be on "Talkback" at 3 p.m. Eastern time on CNN today, June 6.

I appreciate it. Bye.