A tape of former US president Harry Truman meeting a group of Japanese Atom bomb victims in 1964 has surfaced, showing the president justifying the nuclear bomb as a way to rapidly end the Second World War.

The Mainichi Shinbun newspaper obtained taped footage of a meeting between the man who ordered the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and a group of survivors suffering from the effects of radiation exposure.

The tape is approximately two and a half minutes in length, and shows Mr Truman talking to Dr Takuo Matsumoto, the leader of a nine-member peace group from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at the presidential library in Independence, Missouri in May 1964.

The meeting took place almost 19 years after the bombings.

In the footage, Dr Matsumoto, who witnessed the deaths of over 350 girls and 18 staff at Hiroshima Girl’s School where he was president, wishes Mr Truman a happy 80th birthday, and complements him on his youth and health.

Neither Mr Truman nor Dr Matsumoto directly refer to the Atom bomb, though the former president alludes to the bombings in a round-about fashion by saying, “the objective that you’re interested in was to end the war in such a way that there would not be half a million killed on each side.”

Photographer: U.S. Airforce via WikipediaNuclear cloud in Nagasaki, Japan

Then in tones reminiscent of the no-nonsense attitude for which he became famous, the former president concludes, “and that is all there was to it.”

Elsewhere, Mr Truman was not so circumspect. His public papers note that he said, “The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold.”

In a follow-up sequence, where Dr Matsumoto is interviewed by the local media, he reveals that he suffers from Leukemia as a result of the A-bomb. He never criticizes Mr Truman or the US.

In 2012, Truman’s grandson visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Clifton Truman Daniel, told Kyodo News that he believed he had an obligation as the president’s grandchild to make an effort to prevent nuclear arms being used again.

He also noted that, contrary to popular opinion, his grandfather was horrified by the destructive power of the bomb