Hiroshima and Nagasaki 75 years later

Today is the 75th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Three days later another atomic bomb would be dropped on Nagasaki.

I imagine at the time very few people indeed would have believed it possible that 75 years would pass without another nuclear weapon being used in warfare.

I’m posting some links below to prior LGM posts regarding this topic. I’ll only add that, while reading three biographies of Harry Truman recently (Ferrell, Hamby, and McCullough), I was struck by the extent to which Truman didn’t have a choice in regard to the bomb’s use. A sudden accidental president, he was caught up in a web of political, military, cultural, and bureaucratic processes that, as a practical matter, dictated that he make a decision that wasn’t really his.