HISTORICAL NOTES: Was Hiroshima Necessary?

Did the U.S. have to drop the atom bombs on Japan in 1945?

The raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are justified by ex-President Harry Truman on the ground that "it was my responsibility to force the Japanese warlords to come to terms as quickly as possible with the minimum loss of lives." Most U.S. military men, bent on unconditional surrender, backed him up. Last week the old question got a new airing in the wake of a report by Cowles newspaper Correspondents Fletcher Knebel and Charles Bailey, who were permitted to read still-secret...