Heard a radio interview last evening with the author of this site. He has a new book coming out that broke news about Truman and the bomb. Truman didn't know anything about the nuclear bomb until FDR died and he received a briefing. The military wanted to make Kyoto the first target. But an aide who had visited Kyoto as a young man fought the decision and escalated it up to Truman.
Leaflets were dropped on Japanese cities after Hiroshima warning another city would be destroyed. Sadly the leaflets that dropped on Nagasaki were sent 24 hours after the bombing. The military wanted to keep using nukes after Japan surrendered. Truman was so shocked about the women and children that had already died that he forbade it.
I grew up in Detroit and remember the nuclear drills in elementary school where we'd run to the basement and wait for the all clear. They had military style rations and jugs of water. They warned us not to touch the pipes which were wrapped in asbestos. This was in the late fifties and early sixties. So why was the World Trade Center built using asbestos a dozen years later?
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