<p><span class="deck">In a conflict that saw saturation-bombing, Auschwitz, and the atom bomb, poison gas was never used in the field. What prevented it?</span></p>
<p><span class="body"><span class="body">Truman was Commander in Chief of the American armed forces, and he had a duty to the men under his command that simply was not shared by those sitting in moral judgment decades later.</span></span></p>
<p><span class="deck">Stationed near Nagasaki at the close of the war, a young photographer ventured into the devastated city and stayed for months.</span></p>
<p>The U.S. government managed to hide the magnitude of what happened in Hiroshima until John Hersey’s story appeared in the <em>New Yorker</em>, driving home the truth about America’s new mega-weapon.</p>
<p>In the spring of 1945, American bombing raids destroyed much of Tokyo and dozens of other Japanese cities, killing at least 200,000 people, without forcing a surrender.</p>
<p>When judging the morality of the use of atomic weapons in World War II, observers typically focus on Japanese deaths, while ignoring the far-larger number of non-Japanese casualties.</p>
<p>American leaders called the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki our 'least abhorrent choice,' but there were alternatives to the nuclear attacks.</p>
