That is not remotely what happened. We are not each putting stock in two different and competing quotes from the same man. We disagree on what the same single quote from the same man means.
Regardless, Leahy believed the A-bombs would not win the war. For all I know, he did not believe they won the war even after. But if he thought the bombs would not end the war, I don't think its a stretch to say he believed American lives would not be saved by the action.
The question becomes, then, did Leahy say what he did because he took moral issue with atomic weapons, or if he did so for political reasons, i.e. recognition that in a climate where atomic weapons are an acceptable means of prosecuting conflict conventional warfare, and those that engage in it, become obsolete? This is not an abstract question, for it caused the extensive evaluation of military policy for the United States. During the early years of the Cold War, there was profound antipathy with the United States Navy between those that supported the dominance of carriers and supercarriers, whose great mobility and fleets of aircraft represented the pinnacle of fast, surgical conventional warfare, and those that supported submarine warfare, which had much greater stealth
and nuclear strike capability. Similar contention existed between those that believed that bombers where the superior delivery method for nuclear bombardment and those the preferred the strategic precision of long-range ballistic missiles. The point is that while a soldier is a tool of policy, there is nonetheless a political aspect to the discharge of his duty, which as you noted later in response is resistant to change. Carl von Clausewitz recognized as much in the seminal
Vom Krieg.
Oppenheimer condemned his own role in the bombings. But Oppenheimer was a scientist. Truman was a politician.
Oppenheimer did nothing of the sort. He did, rightly, express his misigivings about having helped bring the world into the nuclear age. In later life, he was quoted as saying:
"I have no remorse about the making of the bomb and Trinity. That was done right. As for how we used it, I understand why it happened and appreciate with what nobility those men with whom I'd worked made their decision. But I do not have the feeling that it was done right. The ultimatum to Japan was full of pious platitudes. It wasn't a pretty world and it is always easy to enjoy another man's bad conscience. But our government should have acted with more foresight and clarity in telling the world and Japan what the bomb meant."
Clearly, Robert Oppenheimer cared less for the fact that America used the bomb, and more that it did not discharge due diligence in explaining to the world, and especially Japan, the terrible power of atomic weaponry. But as you say, he was a scientist and not a politician, for neither a politician nor a soldier is so foolish as to give his enemy advanced warning of the means by which he will lose a conflict.
One must also consider that it is a favorite pastime of scientists to damn military action, or its occasional necessity, with faint praise. Not because of any innate, objective moral stance, but because the recognition of that necessity undermines their secular humanistic world in which warfare is the product of ignorance, hatred or greed. In reality, such belief is merely representative of a mind that does not accept objective reason, principle or morality.
Carl Sagan once said: " In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion."
While Sagan's quote does mention politics, its purpose was to undermine the concept of triumphalism and infallible truth, both of which are integral to formal religion or any sort of objective philosophy, and the idea that Sagan was not a politician in his own right is absurd. He, more than any other scientific mind of the modern period, worked to imbue political and social philosophy with the same falsifiability, and thus temporal subjectivity, as pure science.
ts not enough because on the one hand you say it was immoral, on the other you excuse it. One gets the feeling that morals don't mean much to some people. But I don't even think the bombs achieved much even if I were to cast morality by the wayside to replace it with expediency.
No one that is here arguing that the military and psychological effects of the bombs played a significant, or even primary, role in prompting the Japanese surrender are excusing it in any fashion, except perhaps Roland. One cannot conflate recognizing a salutary effect of an evil act with supporting that act, or the persons or beliefs of those that committed it. It is not uncommon that clinical data from Nazi human experimentation is used or referenced in medical research today. Are we to forget this data, pretend it doesn't exist, or refuse to utilize it for the benefit of others simply because it was derived by evil acts or intentions?
