Yes, the message to Stalin idea carried great weight for Truman et al .... the bomb could have been dropped on mount Fuji and retained its message quality though
A lot of it was that Roosevelt had died, and Truman had to rely more on advisors than FDR would have .... another great mistake that year, that impacted for decades to come, was losing contact with the vietnamese .... the US major Archimedes Patti had developed excellent rapport with them, made them solid allies, fought with them, but he was transferred to the Balkans for his value in contacts and language capability there .... i think it is Patti, in his book 'Why Vietnam?', who says that had Roosevelt lived out the year 1945, the cooperation with the viet minh would not have been irretrievably lost, because FDR never would have caved to de Gaulle on the re-colonisation demand
A lot of the Rest of Us in the independent democracies could have been convinced of the merits of intervention in Iraq, i think .... but there would have had to be some straight shooting diplomacy out of US admin, a sense of cooperation, an ability to listen and not just dictate, and absolutely none of this shameful lying .... we're not going to trust an 'ally' that tries to con us into their war-only war-now agenda |
