Was dropping the atomic bombs the right thing to do?

[gougou]

What I meant was, go ahead and drop the bomb if they don't surrender. That would be the best effort we can do. And there would be less people questioning the bombs today. Again, I didn't take the thought seriously and this kind of plan could never exist in reality.

The way I read wushijiao's statement (and the way I read others before) is that the risk of sacrificing one bomb was a big one. After the inital test in the desert, there were only two left, and both not guaranteed to function. Say, you bomb an island, Japan is unimpressed, and the second one that you release over Hiroshima or Nagasaki malfunctions. Then America would have no alternative but fighting a ground war, at least until enough radioactive substance for a new bomb could have been won.

But having said that, I too would have preferred an uninhabited island...