I wonder if Truman’s statement to Tibbets, “Don’t you ever lose any sleep over the fact that you planned and carried out that mission. It was my decision. You had no choice” was a recognition of the horror of what was done and was meant to be a kindness to Tibbets. And perhaps was. There’s a certain integrity to insisting that you were the only one responsible for such a terrible act. Even if you won’t admit it was terrible. I don’t say this to defend Truman or using Atomic weapons.
As an historian who has studied Truman, and a kid who met him at age 14 when my great-grand-uncle, his WW1 First Sgt and career-long aide introduced me, it's my opinion that your idea of why is very likely accurate. It is the kind of guy he was.
An excerpt from the book "Plain Speaking an oral biography of Harry S. Truman" by Merle Miller, c. 1973:
Chapter 20, "The Bomb," pg. 227
(Miller speaking to the reader) "There had to be a program on the Bomb, the Bombs really, the one that was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9. I had written a book about the latter, deploring it. I don't know whether Mr. Truman had read that book; I doubt it. To my almost certain knowledge nobody had after the proofreader had finished with it.
But if there was one subject on which Mr. Truman was not going to have any second thoughts, it was the Bomb. If he'd said it once, he'd said it a hundred times, almost always in the same words. The Bomb had ended the war If we had to invade Japan, half a million soldiers on both sides would have been killed and a million more "would have been maimed for life" It was as simple as that. That was all there was to it, and Mr. Truman had never lost any sleep over THAT decision."
While it seems so popular today to judge the people of the past , I am perplexed at the blindness of recent generations who supported and continue to advocate for the slaughter of the preborn. Talk about a plank in the eye.
I wonder if Truman’s statement to Tibbets, “Don’t you ever lose any sleep over the fact that you planned and carried out that mission. It was my decision. You had no choice” was a recognition of the horror of what was done and was meant to be a kindness to Tibbets. And perhaps was. There’s a certain integrity to insisting that you were the only one responsible for such a terrible act. Even if you won’t admit it was terrible. I don’t say this to defend Truman or using Atomic weapons.
As an historian who has studied Truman, and a kid who met him at age 14 when my great-grand-uncle, his WW1 First Sgt and career-long aide introduced me, it's my opinion that your idea of why is very likely accurate. It is the kind of guy he was.
An excerpt from the book "Plain Speaking an oral biography of Harry S. Truman" by Merle Miller, c. 1973:
Chapter 20, "The Bomb," pg. 227
(Miller speaking to the reader) "There had to be a program on the Bomb, the Bombs really, the one that was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9. I had written a book about the latter, deploring it. I don't know whether Mr. Truman had read that book; I doubt it. To my almost certain knowledge nobody had after the proofreader had finished with it.
But if there was one subject on which Mr. Truman was not going to have any second thoughts, it was the Bomb. If he'd said it once, he'd said it a hundred times, almost always in the same words. The Bomb had ended the war If we had to invade Japan, half a million soldiers on both sides would have been killed and a million more "would have been maimed for life" It was as simple as that. That was all there was to it, and Mr. Truman had never lost any sleep over THAT decision."
While it seems so popular today to judge the people of the past , I am perplexed at the blindness of recent generations who supported and continue to advocate for the slaughter of the preborn. Talk about a plank in the eye.