nuclear-news

From History News Service July 29, 1998:
“Second-Guessing Hiroshima?
By Leo Maley III and Uday Mohan

Second-guessing the necessity and morality of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 53 years ago is nothing new. Contrary to widely held opinion, the first critics of America’s use of atomic weapons were not disillusioned 1960s radicals but figures from the conservative establishment and the highest ranks of the military.

Criticism began within days of the obliteration of the two Japanese cities. On August 8, 1945, two days after the destruction of Hiroshima, former President Herbert Hoover wrote, “The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul.”

Two days later, John Foster Dulles and Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam together urged President Truman to forgo additional use of the new weapon, saying they opposed the bomb’s indiscriminate obliteration of human beings.

Within days of…