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CONCERNING THE WASHington Post‘s coverage of the revisionist atomic bomb use over Japan (“How the Bomb Was Spun,”8/18), there are some facts that historians agree on without dispute. The dropping of the bomb did shorten the war. Over 100,000 Japanese died in those attacks. Invasion would have been necessary short of dropping the bomb.
The real concern of the revisionist historians is the moral justification of the bomb. The article asked if it was “necessary to fry…women and children,” with the reader supplying the answer, of course not. The real question should be, was it morally justified to kill 100,000 innocent human beings to save no American lives? That question had been previously answered in raids over Tokyo, Dresden, and Hamburg. Why isn’t this undisputed fact mentioned? What is the moral difference?
This leads to the prevailing defense community, and I feel the vast majority position, that nuclear weapons are just a bigger bomb, and morality is not a question. Countering this argument is the revisionists’ real position.
Olney, Md.