What They Thought

1. What They Thought

2.      “Atomic energy might be as good as our present day explosives, but is unlikely to produce anything very much more dangerous”   Winston Churchill

3. “. . . The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. . . . My own feeling was that being the first to use [the atomic bomb], we adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.” William D. Leahy

4.      “The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul” Herbert Hoover

5.      “I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed.”   Albert Einstein

6.      “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.” J. Robert Oppenheimer

7.      “The way to win an atomic war is to make certain it never starts.” Omar Bradley

8.      “I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new—one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare.” Dwight David Eisenhower