OPINION: "If Atomic Bombs Had Not Been Used"

As the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki approaches, commentaries abound about why the United States used its atomic weapons, and whether they (or the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan) prompted the Japanese government to surrender.However, there is an equally important question that is generally ignored. What was the legacy of the atomic bombings?To frankly confront this question, it is necessary to consider how different the postwar world would have been if atomic bombs had not been used against Japanese cities.What if Secretary of War Henry L…READ FULL ARTICLE