We didn’t need to drop the bomb — and even our WW II military icons knew it

[longship]

29. Here's a good read on the topic.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes.

BTW, FDR was dead months before the A Bomb was finished, let alone tested, let alone dropped on Japan. It was Harry Truman who decided to use it, not FDR.

And again, BTW, many of the scientists who worked on the bomb were against its use, including Leo Szilard (who had the fucking patent on nuclear chain reaction). They petitioned the US government to use the bomb as a demonstration (which Japan would witness) before using it on Japan proper.

Unfortunately, we only had two completed bombs in summer, 1945, both hand made (ignoring the one used for the Trinity test). We dropped both of them on Japan. Interestingly, Rhodes reports that after Hiroshima, Japan doubted that we had this new bomb, or we had maybe just one. After Nagasaki they thought we had many of them. In reality we only had the two, but more in process.

The Rhodes book won the Pulitzer. It holds up very well. Highly recommended.

My best to you.