Truman and the A-Bomb: Targeting Noncombatants, Using the Bomb, and His Defending the “Decision””*

doi:10.4324/9781315237145-19

Chapter

Truman and the A-Bomb: Targeting Noncombatants, Using the Bomb, and His Defending the “Decision””*

ABSTRACT

I have told the Secretary] of War, Mr. Stimson[,] to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children …. The target will be a purely military one.