Decker, if India and Pakistan get along, why is it that these once combined nations are now individual nations?
What was the reason behind the revolution?
ALL the heads? Are you 100% sure it was ALL the heads?
I can Google up some powerful names saying that dropping the bomb helped stabilise the situation and end the war.
In hindsight it's easy to know exactly what to do.
"LeMay: The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb.
"The Press: You mean that, sir? Without the Russians and the atomic bomb?
"LeMay: Yes, with the B-29…
"The Press: General, why use the atomic bomb? Why did we use it then?
"LeMay: Well, the other people were not convinced…
"The Press: Had they not surrendered because of the atomic bomb?
"LeMay: The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all."
"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were almost defeated and ready to surrender...in being the first to use it, we...adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages."
---Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy,
Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during World War II
Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, quoted by his widow:
". . . I felt that it was an unnecessary loss of civilian life. . . . We had them beaten. They hadn't enough food, they couldn't do anything." And – E. B. Potter, naval historian wrote: "Nimitz considered the atomic bomb somehow indecent, certainly not a legitimate form of warfare."
Rear Admiral Richard Byrd:
"Especially it is good to see the truth told about the last days of the war with Japan. . . . I was with the Fleet during that period; and every officer in the Fleet knew that Japan would eventually capitulate from . . . the tight blockade."
Rear Admiral Lewis L. Strauss, special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy:
"I, too, felt strongly that it was a mistake to drop the atom bombs, especially without warning." [The atomic bomb] "was not necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion . . . it was clear to a number of people . . . that the war was very nearly over. The Japanese were nearly ready to capitulate . . . it was a sin – to use a good word – [a word that] should be used more often – to kill non-combatants. . . ."
Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, Commanding General of the US Army Air Forces.
". . . [F]rom the Japanese standpoint the atomic bomb was really a way out. The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell. . . ."
Eisenhower was equally appalled, writing in his 1963 Mandate for Change that when he learned from Stimson at Potsdam that use of the bomb was imminent, “I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face.’”
http://japanfocus.org/products/topdf/2479 There are a lot more quotes just like that from some big guns.
I don't know why Truman discounted their advice.
