[rlmorel]

I have heard very few veterans of the Pacific war who opposed the use of nuclear weapons.

In one of my favorite books, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”, Richard Feynman talked about the supposed hand-wringing in the scientific community about the bomb, and said there was very little of it. Everyone thought it should be used, and was of the opinion that all the hand-wringing and soiled consciences came after the fact...

[left that other site]

Indeed.

[Retain Mike]

Harry Truman appointed a civilian committee to provide recommendations about the alternative of using atomic bombs. Henry Stimson would chair. The members would be James Bryant Conant, president of Harvard and chairman of the National Defense Research Committee; Karl T. Compton president of MIT; Vannevar Bush president of the Carnegie Institute in Washington and director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development; Ralph A. Bard Undersecretary of the Navy and a former Chicago financier; William L. Clayton Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs with specialty in international trade; George L. Harrison president of New York Life Insurance Company and Stinson’s special assistant on matters related to the atomic bomb project; and Jimmy Burns as Truman’s personal representative.

Later an advisory committee of four physicists actively involved in development joined them. They were Enrico Fermi and Arthur H. Compton of the University of Chicago; Ernest O. Lawrence of the Radiation Laboratory at University California Berkley; and J. Robert Oppenheimer head of the Los Alamos Laboratory where the bombs were being assembled.

The committee and scientific panel reached three unanimous conclusions, which Truman reluctantly agreed to, because he could see no alternative.

The bomb should be used against Japan as soon as possible.

It should be used against war plants surrounded by worker’s homes and other buildings susceptible to damage, in order to make as profound a psychological impression on as many inhabitants as possible.

It should be used without warning.

I think my source is Hell to Pay by D. M. Giangreco.