Did President Truman Ever Regret His Hiroshima Decision?

Newsweek ^ | Aug 05, 2020 | Greg Mitchell

[SeekAndFind]

Seventy-five years ago this week, President Harry S. Truman exulted when he heard the first report that the atomic bomb he had ordered dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, by a B-29 bomber, had exploded as planned and on target, most likely devastating most of the large city.

Truman was on the ocean, returning to Washington from the Potsdam Conference in Germany, where he had secured Joseph Stalin's promise to declare war on Japan around August 10. An article in the press the day after the first atomic attack depicted Truman, his voice "tense with excitement," personally informing his shipmates about the atomic attack. "The experiment," he announced, "has been an overwhelming success."

Missing from this account was Truman's burst of triumphalism when the news of the bombing first reached the ship: "This is the greatest thing in history!"

Truman's official announcement, released while he was still at sea, again showed pride in America's achievement. The atomic bomb, he declared, represented "a harnessing of the basic power of the universe." America had "won the greatest scientific gamble in history." And Japan had now been repaid for Pearl Harbor "manyfold."

From that moment on, Truman rarely (some would say, never) looked back from a different angle, inevitably responding to questions about ordering two bombs dropped over Japan—from the media or in sometimes hostile letters to him at the White House—by affirming that decision, or even with what we would now call "doubling down."

He said he "didn't have any doubt" about the wisdom of the decision—unlike those he pictured as "eggheads" or "Monday morning quarterbacks."

[God luvs America]

Regardless- the Japs refusal to surrender after the fire bombing/nepalming of their major cities like Tokyo, led to the dropping of the A-bombs...

[Fury]

In view of the demonstrable monstrousness of the Japanese Empire and its absolute refusal to recognize any standards of decency or humanity in waging its war of aggression in the Pacfic and Eastern Asia - I remind you that the infamous Rape of Nanking, lasting from Dec. 1937 till March 1938, i.e., occurred long before the Einstein–Szilard letter had even been conceived - there was no "moral dilemma" on America's side, once hostilities erupted.

Except the war crimes committed by the Japanese at Nanking were committed almost exclusively by the Japanese military.

[Captain Walker]

I wouldn't have demanded unconditional surrender; it made capitulation by Japan that much more difficult (even if it resulted in our propagandists being able to claim, "Hey, look. They're not surrendering; the Bombs are justified).

You brought up Unit 731.

The people who ran Unit 731 were tried by the Russians, not the Americans. In fact, the Americans (the Good Guys) went so far as to protect the psychopaths who ran it from any prosecution.

So how bad were they, really, if the Good Guys took pains to protect them?