[Osx-nutters] Truman Haunts Us by Eugene Jarecki

[Kevin Callahan]

<http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0810-30.htm>


Truman Haunts Us
by Eugene Jarecki

61 years ago this week, the United States became the first and (to  
this day) only nation ever to use a nuclear weapon. It happened  
twice. First “Little Boy” was dropped on the Japanese city of  
Hiroshima. Three days later (before the impact of Hiroshima could  
fully reverberate), “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki. An estimated  
200,000 died, the age of nuclear peril was born, and America sent a  
message to the world that resonates to this day. But as war rages now  
in Iraq and Lebanon, just what is the message?

In my movie, WHY WE FIGHT,

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000FBH3W2/commondreams-20/ 
ref=nosim/>

  I’ve been criticized for allowing Gore Vidal to suggest onscreen  
that the bombings were intended as much to send a message of American  
nuclear primacy to Stalin as to compel unconditional Japanese  
surrender. No claim in the film has generated more controversy than  
Vidal’s assertion that “the Japanese were trying to surrender all  
that summer, but Truman wouldn’t listen, because Truman wanted to  
drop the bombs.” I left this bold claim in the film because it is  
supported by a tragic mountain of evidence that Truman indeed acted  
against the advice of a chorus of voices among his military advisors  
arguing that the use of weapons of mass destruction against Japanese  
civilians was an unwarranted, immoral, and gratuitous act.