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."

---

TOPICS: History; Military/Veterans; Society
KEYWORDS: 100percentright; atomicbomb; goodcall; hiroshima; nagasaki; truman

[AlaskaErik]

It was the correct thing to do and he should never have had any doubts about his decision.

[SeekAndFind]

He said he "didn't have any doubt" about the wisdom of the decision—unlike those he pictured as "eggheads" or "Monday morning quarterbacks." He called it the "most terrible decision that any man in the history of the world had to make" but "I'd do it again" and "I would not hesitate." On one occasion, asked how long it took him to decide to use the new device, he simply snapped his fingers.

When the scientific director of the bomb project at Los Alamos, Robert Oppenheimer, revealed during a private meeting with the president shortly after the war that he feared he had "blood on my hands," Truman (by varying accounts) either offered to pass him a handkerchief or simply told him to quit worrying, the decision was his. After he left, in any event, Truman complained to a top adviser that the "Father of the Atomic Bomb" was a "crybaby scientist."

In an interview he cited the Japanese soldiers as vicious fighters and "I thought that wiping out complete cities with the bomb would be better." And in 1959, long out of office, he declared (not for the last time) that "I never lost any sleep over my decision," perhaps the line most associated with Truman and the bomb. But Truman went further: He didn't want anyone else to lose any sleep over it, either. In private, he instructed the pilot of the plane that dropped the first bomb, Paul Tibbets, "Don't you ever lose any sleep over the fact that you planned and carried out that mission. It was my decision. You had no choice."

[TexasFreeper2009]

If the Nazi’s or Japan had developed it first, they sure as hell would of used it against us!

[packagingguy]

His decision probably saved more lives than it took, especially with the Soviets bearing down on northern Japanese territory.

[AppyPappy]

It not only saved American lives, it saved Japanese lives.

[MNJohnnie]

Anyone questioning the decision is a historic illiterate who understand nothing about the situation at the time

An Invasion or a land-sea siege would of killed 10s of millions of Japanese. Either as collateral damage or via starvation and disease

The Japanese Government was mobilizing to wage a total war if invaded. Every Japanese from child to elder was to be used as a weapon.

It idiocy this question is still being asked by Democrat Marxists in the US “News” media

[Vermont Lt]

I have a letter that my uncle wrote while sitting on Leyte waiting for the next phase of the war to start.

He wrote, “I heard about the atomic bomb used on Japan. It sounds like a horrible weapon. But Japan could have surrendered whenever they wanted.”

He was exhausted and was just happy the war ended. He never held a grudge against the Japanese…but he wasn’t a fan either. I think that applied to a lot of people in his position.

My Dad, who lost a brother and who did War Crimes Investigations in Japan, was another story.

[God luvs America]

An estimated 220,000 died from the bombs at Hiroshima & Nagasaki....that amount would’ve be 10x had the US & allies been forced to attack the Jap mainland, which would’ve been the only way to end the war and get the Japs to surrender...

[albie]

Truman was a good man. “Don’t you ever lose any sleep over the fact that you planned and carried out that mission. It was my decision. You had no choice.”

[Vision]

Nobody regrets it now.

[Zhang Fei]

But after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Truman took the dropping of the bomb outside of the hands of the military staff. Unlike for conventional bombs, he had to be consulted for every nuke dropped. Sadly, today, that micromanagement has extended to conventional bombs, with LBJ really horning in on what had been the prerogative of GOFOs.

[God luvs America]

It sounds like your uncle got to Leyte in the waning stages of the war...had he been there in late 1940/early 1941, i’m sure he would’ve held a big grudge, had he made it out alive...

[Zhang Fei]

Meetinghouse killed in a day over Tokyo 100K residents, more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

[rdcbn1]

Despite the objections from revisionist historians, President Truman’s decision to end the war with Japan via the use of atomic weapons was the right decision on many levels, especially given the Soviet espionage penetration of the Manhattan project

The atomic weapons ended the war with Japan without massive losses of life in both the allied sides d the Japanese side of the war. Japan had enough trouble recovering and rebuilding after WWII without the total devastation that would have occurred in an invasion of Japan

Worse, Stalin was informed of the success of the Trinity test almost as soon as it took place and had the espionage on how to build a Soviet weapon from Greenglass, Fuchs and the Rosenberg espionage network

The world could have been a much different place place if Stalin had time to exploit the Soviet espionage to develop a Russian bomb while the US got bogged down and diverted in a land war in Japan and scaled back the Manhattan project

[xp38]

Even if he did regret it it cannot be undone. Most yutes these days don’t even know when WWII happened or why or who was involved.

[Deaf Smith]

Why are you posting a story by Newsweak from six years ago?

[Night Hides Not]

An estimated 220,000 died from the bombs at Hiroshima & Nagasaki....that amount would’ve be 10x had the US & allies been forced to attack the Jap mainland, which would’ve been the only way to end the war and get the Japs to surrender...

In the lead up to the planned land invasion of Japan, the War Department placed an order for 500,000 Purple Hearts. We continue to draw from that requisition today.

[The Unknown Republican]

Ask anyone that survived the invasion of Okinawa about the wisdom of dropping the bomb.

[dfwgator]

Chicago - Harry Truman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJy9V9krLdc