That's the point. We don't know, even today, what would have happened if we hadn't dropped the bombs.
Far, far less did they know then what might happen if they didn't.
Truman made a very hard call in a very difficult situation, where he did not have any of the benefit of hindsight, where the price of America were getting slaughtered on the beaches of islands in the Pacific and on ships being attacked by terrifying kamakazi pilots (it is always scary to be faced with anyone who is eager to sacrifice their life if they can only take you with them), with the Bataan Death March and the Japanese atrocities very much in the forefront--not just things to read about, as we do, but things to have lived through. It was his job, and his alone, to make the call. And he did it. And, frankly, I think he made the right call But even if he had made the wrong call, there is no basis for impugning his integrity or attacking his character. That's cowardly behavior, generally only engaged in by people who have never had to, and expect never to have to, face enemy fire, but can sit on their comfortable chairs in their warm houses in front of their glowing computer screens throwing out brickbats at people whose courageous responses to some of the greatest horrors the world have ever seen are what enable them to be around today living in free countries with the opportunity to thrown those brickbats. |
