pushinghoopswithsticks: We’re made to believe dropping the atomic bombs in Japan was an act vital...

pushinghoopswithsticks:

We’re made to believe dropping the atomic bombs in Japan was an act vital to ending the war, here is a list of people who disagreed at the time, including:

Dwight Eisenhower-

“…the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”

Admiral William D. Leahy

“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 already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons…The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children”

Herbert Hoover

“…the Japanese were prepared to negotiate all the way from February 1945…up to and before the time the atomic bombs were dropped; …if such leads had been followed up, there would have been no occasion to drop the [atomic] bombs.”

Lewis Strauss, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy 

“…it was clear to a number of people, myself among them, that the war was very nearly over. The Japanese were nearly ready to capitulate…it seemed to me that such a weapon was not necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion, that once used it would find its way into the armaments of the world…”

Paul Nitze, Vice Chairman, U.S Strategic Bombing Survey

“While I was working on the new plan of air attack… [I] concluded that even without the atomic bomb, Japan was likely to surrender in a matter of months. My own view was that Japan would capitulate by November 1945.”

Brigadier General Carter Clarke

“…when we didn’t need to do it, and we knew we didn’t need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn’t need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs.”

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