ally saying that inorder for Americans to have an advantage over the Russians in getting China that aquarter of a million Japanese had to die. Most of the deceased would probably be womenand children. When discussing the decision-making process many people had opinions in favorof the use of the bombs. A secret government advisory group called the InterimCommittee on June 1, 1945, recommended to President Truman "that the bomb should beused against Japan as soon as possible; that it should be used on a war plant surrounded byworkers' homes; and that it be used without prior warning." Byrnes felt that one millionlives would be saved; General George Marshall stated that the figure would be closer to ahalf a million. After the dropping of the two bombs Truman noted that Hiroshima was amilitary base and that we wished to avoid killing civilians. Despite the fact that Trumanwas trying to justify killing civilians people surrounding him believed that the bomb wouldnot do much more harm than continued conventional bombing. This idea came from thefact that in Tokyo alone, conventional bombing had killed 100,000 civilians. This basicallyforced killing civilians to be deemed proper and inevitable even in democratic nations. Truman in a diary entry on August 11 of 1945 stated that "nobody is more disturbed overthe use of Atomic bombs than I am but I was greatly disturbed over the unwarrantedattack by the Japanese of Pearl Harbor and their murder of our prisoners of war. The onlylanguage they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them." A USintelligence study does say that Truman knew that the bomb was not really needed. Whatthe study does not point out is that Stalin's declaration of war was not really sufficientenough for Truman's decision. He did not feel Stalin was that dependable. The Russianleader had promised for months to enter the war against Japan but never did make adeclaration until August the sixth, the...
