Truman and the Bomb

Many myths have grown up around President Harry S. Truman’s decision to use nuclear weapons against Imperial Japan. In destroying these myths, Truman and the Bomb will discomfort both Truman’s critics and his supporters, and force historians to reexamine what they think they know about the end of the Pacific War. Myth : Truman didn’t know of the atomic bomb’s development before he became president. Fact : Truman’s knowledge of the bomb is revealed in his own carefully worded letters to a Senate