Did President Truman in the 1940's open the floodgates of terrorism with the hiroshima and nagasaki atom bombs

Proud to be an AMERICAN

Everything else aside, there's no way Truman could have not used the bomb.

If he refused, he would have been thrown out of office and someone else would have done it.

Unfortunately, destruction of civilian populations has long been a part of warfare. Read about Coventry, Dresden, and Tokyo.

PS Awful things happen in war. We allied ourselves with Stalin, a genocidal dictator. It would be hard to top that one, before or since. Yet it may have been the least awful alternative, when no good ones were available.

MontyBob

Trying to hide science is like trying to hold back the tides. If you think one country's scientists cannot discover what another country's can you're wrong. It might take longer, but it will happen. In fact, the Manhatten Project scientists estimated a lead time of about 5-10 years over the USSR.

The Sov's also had a cheeky advantage. Klaus Fuchs (British atomic engineer of German extraction, and a communist) had been feeding the sov's information about the bomb from day one, most likely via the Rosenbergs.

The US did TRY to keep the technology secret.

It just didn't succeed.

Incidentally - everyone who ever quotes "1 million American casualties" is talking nonesense - the US Joint Chiefs never actually gave an estimate of casualties, and the first mention in official records of the '1 million' figure was by Henry Stimpson in 1946.

Basically, its a retroactive argument designed to cover his and Curtis LeMay's behinds.

agedlioness

terrorism started the first time one human being
threatened to bop another. truman just raised the
ber.

Richard_917

Nah the cold war did. Both the USSR and the Americans, sponsored terrorists in attempts to influence regions and each other. Look at Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Peakey

If he didnt do it, someone else would have. The Germans were very close.

Snowy

The answer to your question is no, its a ridiculous extrapolation of conjecture.

By the way the Germans would have had the bomb before the Allies if it were not for the RAF bombing raids on the heavy water factories at Peenemunde. They were very well advanced.

Uncle Joe

No. Terrorism was used long before WWII by various groups such as the anarchists who terrorised Victorian London or the Russian anarchists of the 19th Century. It's use is simply more widespread now as terrorism has become an accepted tactic of armed revolutionary groups.

It would have been impossible to keep atom bomb technology secret as various spies were passing atomic information to the Soviet Union in the 1940s and 50s.

Michael T

No I don't think he did. Terrorism is at best an uncivilised way of getting revenge. It's been around for thousands of years.
What we need is tolerance, communication, acceptance and above all good education.

crazyj

it was neccisary. we had to show them who was the superior nation. show them that you dont screw with the u.s. nuclear weapons are great i think that we should use one of ours right now on iraq and iran. it would end this taliban s&*t.

soulrider

The two issues are not connected. Acts and groups (e.g., Irish republicans in the early 20th century) that would be defined as terrorists, today, occurred long before the US dropped the atom bomb.

In fact, the atom bomb and the cold war that followed, with its division of the world into two major camps, most likely inhibited the expansion of terrorism. Both sides liked to make things challenging , but the last thing they wanted was chaos. As a result, there were lots of "wars of liberation" but very few truly independent actors. That is what's different about about terrorism today. Before, it typically had tones of nationalism. Now, it is much more ideological.

Not to be too incendiary, but if you want to trace the current bloom in terrorism to a policy decision of a US president, President Reagan's decision to arm and support the Mujaheddin (sic) in Afghanistan and Pakistan really opened the floodgates.

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