Tony Magliano’s opinion (CR, Aug. 5) of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was naïve and ill-researched.
While President Truman was making the decision to drop the bombs, our armed forces under the command of General MacArthur were planning, rehearsing and arming for the invasion of Japan. The leadership of the enemy’s conduct of the war was encouraging all Japanese citizens to prepare for the invasion and do everything they could to kill the Americans when they landed. Estimates of the cost to America would have been close to one million men and certainly as many Japanese soldiers as well as armed civilians.
We were fighting Japan because it attacked the United States on Dec. 7, 1941. It threatened to dominate the entire Pacific Rim as a totalitarian nation.