Harry S. Truman, Diary, July 25, 1945
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President Truman told his diary on July 25, 1945, that he had ordered the bomb used.(杜鲁门总统在1945年7月25日的日记中谈到他已命令使用原子弹) lt;pgt;Emphasis has been added to highlight Truman\'s apparent belief that he had ordered the bomb dropped on a quot;purely militaryquot; target, so that quot;military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children.quot;
------------------------------------------------------------------------lt;pgt;We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.lt;pgt;Anyway we quot;thinkquot; we have found the way to cause a disintegration of the atom. An experiment in the New Mexico desert was startling - to put it mildly. Thirteen pounds of the explosive caused the complete disintegration of a steel tower 60 feet high, created a crater 6 feet deep and 1,200 feet in diameter, knocked over a steel tower 1/2 mile away and knocked men down 10,000 yards away. The explosion was visible for more than 200 miles and audible for 40 miles and more.lt;pgt;This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. (该武器将在8月10日之前用于轰炸日本。)I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new. lt;pgt;He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I\'m sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance. It is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler\'s crowd or Stalin\'s did not discover this atomic bomb. It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful...(对于全世界来说,希特勒或斯大林的手下没有发现这种原子武器真是一件幸事,它是有史以来被发现的最可怕的武器,不过也可以是最有用的。。。)lt;pgt;Truman quoted in Robert H. Ferrell, Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (New York: Harper and Row, 1980) pp. 55-56. Truman\'s writings are in the public domain. |