QUOTE OF THE DAY

6.8.1945 -- Japan: US drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The B-29
Superfortress Enola Gay, eliminated 140,000 civilians from immediate effects of the
bombing; tens of thousands more in subsequent decades from radiation-
induced illnesses, including descendents. Nagasaki gets the same two
days from now.

""During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious
of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first
on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that
dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought
that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon
whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to
save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment,
attempting to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. . . ." ".the
Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them
with that awful thing." -- General Dwight D. Eisenhower

"It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the
Japanese were already on the verge of collapse." -- General Henry "Hap"
Arnold, Commanding General of the US Army Air Forces during World War II

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima
andNagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The
Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.. My own feeling
was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard
common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war
in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and
children.." -- Truman's Chief of Staff, Admiral William D. Leahy