03-13-2022, 04:44 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-13-2022, 05:00 PM by Genuine Realist.)
(03-11-2022, 12:55 PM)martyup Wrote:(03-11-2022, 12:32 PM)JohnR34231 Wrote:(03-10-2022, 09:46 PM)81alum Wrote:(03-10-2022, 12:32 PM)martyup Wrote: Truman acted decisively and, arguably, saved millions of lives.It is arguable. Truman certainly saved millions of lives compared with a land invasion of Japan, which was the only real alternative he considered.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/what-if-...d-in-1938/
Bart Bernstein's Hist 252 course has long raised other possibilities which we could discuss here, but which would be off topic in an already off topic thread. Suffice it to say that Curtis LeMay himself, architect of the bombing campaign against Japan, stated “The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb,” Eisenhower regretted the decision to use the bomb, and Chester Nimitz stated “The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. … The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan.” (Bernstein's argument is that the A-bomb was used more for diplomatic reasons--to prevent the USSR from contributing to the defeat of Japan and thus gaining greater influence in Asia. The Cold War in this view began before the end of WWII.)
This review of a 1995 book by Alperovitz discusses the controversy and some of the evidence that came to light long after the war.
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/30/books...op-it.html
Debating whether the A-bomb was necessary or useful for ending WWII became a cottage industry in the 1990s and there is a lot of interesting reading about it. In the 1970s when I confronted my parents about Hiroshima, I was told that my father would have been in the invasion, he would likely have been killed, and I never would have been born. That was a conversation-stopper.
My father-in-law would have also been in the invasion. My wife and I have never complained, either.
My point was less about Truman's decision to drop the bombs and more about FDR's failure to take out Hitler early when he had the chance. With today's advanced technology, he should be vulnerable to assassination. Is that justified at this point? Who makes that call? Biden? Israel? Nato?
That's a little unfair to FDR, since the US had no cachet at all in Europe at the time. Better blame Stanley Baldwin and a number of French premiers.
I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

