Harry S. Truman Quotes

Bethe and other European refugees joined American and British scientists at Los Alamos, NM, for the development of the atomic bomb.

The second atomic bomb had just been dropped.

Bombing had reached the point where conventional bombing raids on industrial cities like Tokyo and Hamburg produced even more civilian casualties than did the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. Tibbets’ view, through the lens of hindsight, was developed by many of the Allied servicemen who had been forced into war by expansionist and militaristic nations like Japan and Germany both of which placed much of their war material manufacturing capability in the midst of their otherwise civilian cities. Both brutally violated the laws of war and committed atrocities many times over before the allies began retaliating. There are still some who believe that it was wrong to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. Some even feel that the mass bombing of Japanese and German cities in retaliation and in furtherance of the war effort was morally wrong. But at the time, the millions of casualties anticipated in the invasion of the Japanese mainland, persuaded virtually every American soldier and civilian that there was nothing wrong with use of the Atomic bomb, and many saw it as an absolute Godsend to prevent all the American and Japanese causalities that would have come otherwise. Many scholars remark on how it was virtually impossible to find any significant number of misgivings before or just after Hiroshima. Tibbet’s view was typical.

The note was found in an abandoned Japanese camp on Bataan. There are some who believe that this note was a forgery. However, most think it genuine as it reflected one of the Japanese
“aces in the hole” to defend against an allied invasion of the Japanese mainland. It was one of the reasons that some American planners advocated use of the Atomic Bomb. Of course that was a real risk of using the bomb. The Japanese might be so angry and feel morally abused and kill the many allied prisoners they had. Many thought it was a lesser risk because it did not have the symbolic animus that foreigners occupying the Japanese homeland had. The quotation illustrates the amazing complexity that the American and allied leadership faced trying to end WWII in the Pacific.

When the doubts began to be expressed, the scientists were briefed on the planned invasion of the Japanese mainland and the military medical preparations for treating and caring for ½ million serious wounded casualties. In addition, given the state of war, there was expected about the same number of American Military deaths. On top of that, there would be many more Japanese military casualties plus even more Japanese civilian deaths and wounded. The use of the Atom Bomb would save all those lives but have casualties of its own, but far fewer. At the time, surprising to most people now, the use of the atomic bomb was not an issue of controversy at all. There were no Congressman who questioned it, no newspapers which editorialized against the use of the bomb. There were not even any other counties which protested its use.

Fermi was the scientist who organized and planned the first controlled nuclear chain reaction as a part of the Manhattan Project and was one of the major scientific advisors to the Atomic Energy Commission until he, Oppenheimer, and several other scientists opposed the development of the Super (the name Edward Teller had given to the proposed hydrogen bomb). The scientists knew that we had and could make enough atomic bombs to destroy any nation and to make it doable with just a few bombs as opposed to many they saw as of little military
value. They further expected that the Russians and some others would be forced to keep up with us in an arms race and that the bomb would never be able to be used without retaliation in kind and the destruction of most of America. The politicians and military did not really believe that the Russians had the scientific capability to develop hydrogen weapons and some thought if we had them and no one else did, we could dictate a “pax Americana” to the world. Others feared that Russia or some other country would develop a hydrogen weapon and then dictate to us. We did have a monopoly on the Super for a few years and America never dictated to the rest of the world. When other countries developed the weapons, we entered the era of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

The bombing of Tokyo to which she referred, killed over 100,000 Japanese in a single raid, more than each of the two atomic bombs. However, those who, in hindsight, raise the issue of the morality of using the atomic bombs, say nothing about the firebombing. The graphic is of Dr. Libby when she was working with Enrico Fermi to create the first nuclear chain reaction to prove the feasibility of a nuclear bomb. She was the only female on the team.

When the American troops invaded Okinawa, the individual Japanese soldiers and civilians would not surrender, even when completely surrounded and out numbered. Surrender was culturally dishonorable and the Japanese had been told by their leadership that if they did surrender the Americans would kill them anyway. Almost all the Japanese died and the United States forces had an astoundingly high casualty rate—37%. Truman was fearful that there might be hundreds of thousands American casualties in the subduing of the Japanese mainland. The atomic bomb solved that problem.

The background of the statement was Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

This prediction was sadly terribly accurate. Nuclear terrorism is a realistic threat at the millennium. Pannekoek was one of the first to predict it.

Truman had just told Stalin about the new technology. Stalin had actually already known something about it as the result of Soviet espionage in the United States.

Although generally a right wing conservative, Clark today sounds like almost like an extreme leftist on the issue. At the time however, many thought that he had taken leave of his senses. He not only was completely contrary to bipartisan national policy but opposed by almost universal American public opinion. He is one of the very few significant American officials to oppose the war policies.