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Why Was the Myth of a Million Lives Saved Created? - The Converging Pressures of August 1945 | Sleepy Facts About History · Sleepy Facts About History

0:00
Welcome to Sleepy Facts About History. The standard
0:13
narrative of August 1945 is deceptively straightforward.
0:17
A single terrible decision, two atomic bombs,
0:22
and the immediate end of the Pacific War. This
0:25
episode examines how that simple picture was
0:28
assembled later, and why it obscures a much denser
0:31
web of historical pressures. We look at the military
0:35
blockade of Japan. the firebombing of Tokyo,
0:39
the planned Operation Downfall invasion, and
0:43
the deep divisions within the Japanese Supreme
0:45
War Council to understand the full context of
0:48
the final months of World War II. Beyond the
0:51
immediate destruction, the episode explores the
0:54
overlapping factors that forced the Japanese
0:57
surrender. We weigh the traditionalist view that
1:00
the atomic bombs were necessary to shock a committed
1:03
military leadership against the revisionist argument
1:06
that Soviet entry into the war was the true turning
1:09
point. We also trace the origins of the claim
1:13
that the bombing saved a million American lives,
1:16
contrasting post -war memoirs with contemporary
1:19
military estimates from 1945. I wanted to understand
1:24
why a historical event so heavily studied still
1:27
resists a single explanation. While working on
1:31
this episode, I kept returning to one question.
1:34
How do we hold the genuine horror of the atomic
1:37
bombings alongside the complex, multi -layered
1:40
diplomatic and military reality of that summer?
1:43
The result is an attempt to move past simplified
1:46
myths and explore the uncertain, difficult history
1:49
of how the nuclear age actually began. The simple
1:55
picture we inherited, one terrible decision,
1:58
two bonds, war ended, was assembled later, by
2:03
the people who needed it to mean something clear.
2:06
What August 1945 actually contained was a convergence
2:11
of pressures so dense that no single thread can
2:14
be pulled out and called the cause. Most of us
2:18
carry a simple picture of August 1945, a single
2:22
terrible decision. two bombs japan surrendered
2:26
and the war ended some of us were taught that
2:30
the alternative was an invasion costing a million
2:32
american lives others were told the bonds were
2:36
unnecessary that japan was already beaten what
2:40
we are going to examine is how that simple picture
2:43
came to exist and why it obscures something more
2:46
difficult to hold in mind that harder truth is
2:51
that the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
2:53
occurred within a web of pressure so dense that
2:56
no single thread can be pulled out and called
2:59
the cause. By the summer of 1945, Japan had been
3:04
at war with the United States for three and a
3:07
half years. The Pacific War that began at Pearl
3:10
Harbor had consumed the Japanese Empire. The
3:14
navy that struck Hawaii was now largely at the
3:18
bottom of the ocean. The army had been pushed
3:21
back across island chains, through the Philippines,
3:24
toward the home islands themselves. American
3:27
bombers were flying regular missions over Japanese
3:30
cities. In March, the firebombing of Tokyo had
3:34
killed approximately 100 ,000 people in a single
3:38
night. That was more than either atomic bombing
3:41
would kill immediately. The blockade of Japanese
3:45
ports was strangling what remained of industry
3:47
and food supply. And yet, The war continued.
3:52
This is the first thing to understand. The atomic
3:55
bomb did not arrive in a vacuum. It arrived in
3:59
a country already being destroyed by conventional
4:02
means, whose leadership was numberless divided
4:05
about whether to surrender at all. The weapon
4:08
itself had been under development since 1942.
4:12
The Manhattan Project was a secret program of
4:15
staggering scale. At its peak, it employed over
4:19
130 ,000 people. and cost roughly two billion
4:23
dollars it had begun not in response to any specific
4:27
battlefield crisis but from the fear that nazi
4:30
germany might develop atomic weapons first by
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spring 1945 germany was defeated the bomb now
4:38
nearing completion would be ready for use against
4:41
japan its scientific director jay robert oppenheimer
4:46
and its military director general leslie grows
4:50
had overseen the construction of facilities across
4:52
the American Southwest and in Tennessee and Washington
4:56
State. The work was compartmentalized to the
4:59
point that many participants did not know what
5:02
they were building. At Oak Ridge, Tennessee,
5:05
workers performed repetitive tasks. They operated
5:09
machinery, monitored dials, and processed materials
5:13
without understanding that their labor was producing
5:16
uranium for a weapon. They knew only their own
5:20
station. On July 16th, 1945, the first atomic
5:25
device was detonated in the New Mexico desert.
5:29
The Trinity test took place in the early morning
5:32
darkness at a site called Jornada del Muerto,
5:36
the Journey of the Dead Man. The device sat atop
5:40
a steel tower 100 feet tall. When the detonation
5:44
came, observers at base camp saw a flash. that
5:48
some later described as like the sun rising in
5:50
the west. It was brighter than any light they
5:54
had seen, casting visible shadows in the pre
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-dawn dark. The heat was intense enough to scorch
6:01
the sand for hundreds of yards. A shockwave rolled
6:05
across the desert floor, felt by observers miles
6:08
away. Then the mushroom cloud rose, slowly at
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first, then billowing upward into the atmosphere.
6:17
It carried debris and condensation to a height
6:20
of over seven miles. The weapon had moved from
6:24
theory to physical reality. President Harry Truman,
6:28
who had succeeded Franklin Roosevelt in April,
6:31
received the news while at the Potsdam Conference
6:34
in Germany. He was meeting with British and Soviet
6:37
leaders to determine the shape of post -war Europe.
6:41
Truman had not known about the Manhattan Project
6:43
before Roosevelt's death. Now we possessed a
6:47
weapon whose implications were only beginning
6:50
to be understood. The decision to use it was
6:53
not made in a single moment. It emerged through
6:57
an institutional process that had been underway
6:59
for months. In May and June 1945, a high -level
7:05
advisory group called the Interim Committee had
7:08
met to consider the bomb's future. Its members
7:12
included Secretary of War Henry Stimson, who
7:15
had overseen the project, James Burns, soon to
7:18
be Secretary of State, and several military and
7:21
scientific advisors. The committee recommended
7:25
that the bomb be used against a military target
7:28
or a war industry installation without prior
7:31
warning as soon as it was ready. This recommendation
7:35
was not unanimous. Some scientists within the
7:39
Manhattan Project had urged alternatives. The
7:42
Frank Report. prepared in June by a group of
7:45
physicists including James Frank, argued for
7:48
a demonstration of the weapon in an uninhabited
7:51
area before any military use. The report warned
7:56
of a nuclear arms race if the bomb were used
7:59
against cities. It was considered and set aside.
8:04
Truman's own thinking is visible in his diary
8:07
and correspondence from this period. He described
8:10
the bomb as the most terrible thing ever discovered.
8:14
but also as a means to end the war quickly. The
8:17
Soviet dimension was present in his mind. At
8:21
Potsdam, Truman had received Stalin's confirmation
8:24
that the Soviet Union would enter the war against
8:26
Japan within three months of Germany's surrender.
8:30
Germany had surrendered in May. The clock was
8:33
running. Soviet entry would mean a divided Pacific
8:37
War, Soviet influence in East Asia, and complications
8:41
for American post -war planning. Whether this
8:44
consideration significantly influenced the decision
8:47
to use the bomb remains debated among historians.
8:51
Contemporary documents show awareness of the
8:54
Soviet factor, but do not establish it as the
8:57
primary motive. What they do show is a president
9:00
and his advisors seeking to end the war before
9:03
the invasion of Japan became necessary. That
9:07
invasion, Operation Downfall, had been planned
9:10
in two phases. Operation Olympic would land forces
9:15
on Kyushu in November 1945. Operation Coronet
9:20
would follow in March 1946 with a landing on
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Honshu near Tokyo. Military planners projected
9:27
heavy casualties. The figure of one million American
9:32
lives saved by the atomic bomb was not a contemporary
9:35
calculation. It emerged in post -war memoirs
9:39
and political argument. contemporary estimates
9:42
were lower and more uncertain. Still, the experience
9:47
of Okinawa, where American forces had suffered
9:50
approximately 50 ,000 casualties in three months
9:53
of fighting, suggested that any invasion of the
9:56
home islands would be extraordinarily costly.
10:00
Japanese military planners, meanwhile, were preparing
10:03
to defend the beaches with massed infantry, suicide
10:06
aircraft, and whatever remained of the fleet.
10:10
The Japanese military leadership, represented
10:13
in the Supreme War Council by the so -called
10:16
Big Six, remained committed to resistance. The
10:20
diplomatic picture was equally fraught. Since
10:24
1943, the Allied demand had been for unconditional
10:27
surrender. This formula, articulated at Casablanca,
10:32
was intended to prevent any negotiated peace
10:35
that might allow militarist elements to remain
10:38
in power. But it also complicated Japanese decision
10:42
-making. The peace faction within the Japanese
10:45
government, led by Prime Minister Kentaro Suzuki
10:48
and including some civilian officials, sought
10:52
Soviet mediation to secure terms that would preserve
10:55
the Emperor's position. The war faction, dominated
10:59
by military leaders, insisted on fighting to
11:02
the end. The Emperor, Hirohito, occupied a position
11:07
above this division. but had not yet intervened
11:10
directly. On July 26, 1945, the Potsdam Declaration
11:17
was issued. It demanded Japan's immediate unconditional
11:21
surrender and threatened prompt and utter destruction
11:25
if it did not comply. The declaration did not
11:29
specify what would happen to the Emperor. This
11:32
omission was significant. Japanese leaders interpreted
11:36
it differently. The peace faction saw possible
11:39
room for negotiation. The war faction saw confirmation
11:43
that Japan must fight on. The Japanese government's
11:47
former response transmitted through the press
11:49
used the term mokusatsu. This word carries an
11:54
ambiguity that has been much debated. It can
11:57
mean to kill with silence, to ignore, or to withhold
12:01
comment pending further consideration. The Allied
12:05
powers interpreted it as rejection. Whether a
12:09
clearer Japanese acceptance of the Potsdam terms
12:11
with explicit protection for the Emperor would
12:14
have prevented the bombings as one of the counterfactual
12:17
questions that cannot be answered with certainty.
12:20
What is clear is that by early August, the machinery
12:23
for using the atomic bomb was in motion. The
12:27
first bomb, a uranium device code named Little
12:31
Boy, was loaded onto a B -29 bomber. named the
12:35
Enola Gay in the early morning hours of August
12:37
6th at Tinian Island in the Marianas. The aircraft
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sat on the tarmac in darkness, runway lights
12:45
tracing the long concrete strip. The bomb, over
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nine feet long and weighing approximately 9 ,000
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pounds, was winched carefully into the bomb bay.
12:55
Its shape was unusual. It was a long cylinder
12:59
with stabilizing fins, unlike conventional ordnance.
13:04
The crew completed their preparations in the
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humid Pacific night. The Enola Gay took off at
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2 .45 in the morning, climbed into darkness,
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and flew north toward Japan. The target was Hiroshima,
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a city of approximately 350 ,000 people. It had
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been chosen in part because it had not yet been
13:27
heavily bombed and would therefore provide a
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clearer demonstration of the weapon's effects.
13:33
The bomb detonated at 8 .15 in the morning, at
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an altitude of approximately 1900 feet. The immediate
13:41
effects were unlike anything previously witnessed
13:44
in warfare. A fireball expanded outward. Temperatures
13:50
at the center reached thousands of degrees. A
13:54
shockwave flattened buildings across the city.
13:57
At the hypocenter, directly beneath the detonation,
14:00
structures and people simply vanished. Farther
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out, buildings collapsed and fires merged into
14:07
a firestorm that consumed what remained. Survivors
14:12
beyond the immediate destruction faced injuries
14:14
and a strange new illness, radiation sickness,
14:19
that medical personnel did not initially understand.
14:23
Estimates of immediate deaths range from 70 ,000
14:26
to 80 ,000 people. Tens of thousands more would
14:30
die in the following weeks and months from injuries.
14:34
burns in the effects of radiation. The destruction
14:37
was concentrated in a way that even the firebombing
14:40
of Tokyo had not been. A single aircraft, a single
14:45
bomb, a city destroyed. Truman received the news
14:50
aboard the USS Augusta, returning from Potsdam.
14:53
His public statement announced that an American
14:57
airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, destroying
15:00
its usefulness to the enemy. The statement emphasized
15:04
the scientific achievement and the warning that
15:07
further resistance would bring further destruction.
15:10
It did not describe the human consequences. Three
15:15
days later, on August 9, the second bomb was
15:18
dropped on Nagasaki. This was a plutonium device,
15:22
different in design from the Hiroshima bomb.
15:25
Its effects were complicated by the city's terrain.
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Approximately 40 ,000 people died immediately.
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with total deaths rising to between 60 ,000 and
15:36
80 ,000 by the end of 1945. The timing of this
15:41
second bombing has been particularly questioned
15:43
by historians. It occurred only three days after
15:47
Hiroshima, before Japanese leaders had fully
15:50
processed the first attack, and on the same day
15:53
as another decisive event. For between these
15:56
two bombings, the Soviet Union had entered the
15:59
war. On August 8, Soviet forces invaded Manchuria,
16:04
attacking the Japanese army positions there in
16:07
a massive offensive prepared in secrecy. This
16:11
fulfilled Stalin's commitment at Yalta and transformed
16:14
the strategic situation. The Japanese leadership
16:18
had hoped, however faintly, that Soviet mediation
16:21
might secure negotiated terms. That possibility
16:25
was now gone. The Soviet entry meant that Japan
16:29
faced not only American naval and air power,
16:32
but also a land assault from the north, with
16:36
Soviet forces positioned to occupy territory
16:38
that Japan had held for decades. The convergence
16:42
of these events, the Hiroshima bombing, the Soviet
16:45
invasion, the Nagasaki bombing, produced a crisis
16:49
within the Japanese government that had been
16:51
building for months. The Supreme War Council
16:54
met in emergency session on August 9. The military
16:58
members insisted on continuing the war. They
17:02
argued that the homeland could still be defended
17:05
and that the terms of the Potsdam Declaration
17:07
were unacceptable. The civilian members, led
17:11
by Foreign Minister Togo, argued for acceptance.
17:15
The council was deadlocked. For the first time
17:19
in the war, Emperor Hirohito intervened directly
17:22
in a meeting held in the imperial shelter beneath
17:26
the palace. He spoke to the council members.
17:29
He stated that he could not bear to see his people
17:32
suffer further and that the war must end. The
17:36
precise wording of his statement has been variously
17:39
reported, but the effect was decisive. The council
17:43
accepted the Potsdam terms with the sole condition
17:46
that the Emperor's position be preserved. This
17:50
condition was ultimately accepted by the Allies,
17:53
though not without internal debate. Japan's surrender
17:57
was announced on August 15 in an extraordinary
18:00
radio broadcast. Most Japanese citizens had never
18:04
heard the Emperor's voice. They gathered around
18:08
radios in homes and public squares, listening
18:10
to a transmission that crackled with static.
18:13
The Emperor spoke in formal, archaic court language
18:17
that many listeners struggled to pass. He used
18:21
phrases about the war not developing necessarily
18:23
to Japan's advantage. about enduring the unendurable,
18:27
about the enemy's new and most cruel bomb. The
18:32
meaning emerged gradually through the archaic
18:34
cadences. The war was over. The silence that
18:39
followed in many rooms was itself a kind of comprehension.
18:43
What role did the atomic bombs play in this outcome?
18:47
This is where the historical record becomes most
18:51
contested and where our simple picture begins
18:54
to dissolve. The traditionalist interpretation,
18:58
articulated most forcefully by historians such
19:01
as Richard Frank, emphasizes the Japanese military's
19:04
commitment to resistance and the projected costs
19:08
of invasion. On this view, the atomic bombs were
19:12
necessary to shock the Japanese leadership into
19:14
surrender. The military faction, particularly
19:18
within the army, had been prepared to fight to
19:21
the last Japanese citizen. Only the demonstration
19:24
of overwhelming destructive power, delivered
19:27
twice to show that it was not a fluke, could
19:30
break this commitment. The projected casualties
19:33
of Operation Downfall, while uncertain, were
19:37
sufficiently dire that any means of avoiding
19:40
them was justified. The revisionist interpretation,
19:44
associated with historians such as Gar Alperovitz
19:47
and more recently developed by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa,
19:51
challenges this view. Alperovitz's extensive
19:55
documentary study argues that Japan was already
19:58
seeking peace through Soviet mediation and that
20:01
the bombs were used primarily to demonstrate
20:03
American power to the Soviet Union, shaping the
20:07
post -war order in Europe and Asia. Hasegawa's
20:11
research, drawing on Japanese and Russian as
20:13
well as American sources, emphasizes the role
20:16
of Soviet entry in the Japanese surrender decision.
20:20
On this view, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria
20:24
was at least as important as the atomic bombs
20:26
in convincing the Japanese leadership that the
20:29
war was lost. The bombs, on this interpretation,
20:33
were not militarily necessary to end the war.
20:36
Between these positions, a scholarly consensus
20:39
has emerged that resists both simplifications.
20:42
The historian J Samuel Walker, in his careful
20:46
synthesis of the debate, argues that the bombs
20:49
were neither solely decisive nor irrelevant to
20:52
Japan's surrender. They were one of several converging
20:56
pressures, each of which contributed to the final
20:59
outcome. The blockade had already crippled Japan's
21:03
economy. The conventional bombing had destroyed
21:06
its cities. The Soviet entry eliminated any hope
21:10
of negotiated peace. The atomic bombs demonstrated
21:14
that resistance was not merely costly but futile.
21:17
The Emperor's intervention broke a deadlock that
21:20
these pressures had created, but could not alone
21:23
resolve. What the documentary evidence from 1945
21:26
supports is this. The Japanese leadership was
21:30
divided before Hiroshima, remained divided after
21:34
Hiroshima, and was moved to surrender by the
21:36
combination of shocks that August delivered.
21:39
The Emperor's own statements, recorded in the
21:42
accounts of those present, indicate that he was
21:44
influenced by both the atomic bombings and the
21:47
soviet entry the military leaders who opposed
21:51
surrender until the final moment did so not because
21:54
they were unaware of the bomb's power but because
21:57
they believed that national honor required continued
21:59
resistance the bomb did not change their minds
22:03
it changed the emperors and his authority exercised
22:08
for the first time in this manner was sufficient
22:11
to override them The million lives saved figure
22:15
requires particular attention because it has
22:18
become so embedded in popular understanding.
22:21
This number originated not in 1945 but in later
22:25
justifications, particularly in the memoirs of
22:29
Truman and Stimson. Stimson's 1947 article in
22:34
Harper's Magazine popularized the claim that
22:37
the bomb had saved over a million lives. Contemporary
22:41
documents from the spring and summer of 1945
22:44
do not contain this figure. Military estimates
22:47
of invasion casualties varied widely, and the
22:51
planning assumptions were themselves subject
22:53
to revision. The figure served a political and
22:56
moral purpose in post -war argument. It does
23:00
not represent a calculation made at the time
23:02
of decision. Similarly, the question of whether
23:06
demonstrating power to the Soviet Union influenced
23:09
the decision has been subject to retrospective
23:11
inflation. Contemporary documents show that Burns,
23:15
in particular, was attentive to the Soviet dimension.
23:19
Truman's own diary entries suggest satisfaction
23:22
that the successful test at Potsdam gave him
23:25
leverage in negotiations. But the primary documentary
23:29
record, meeting minutes, military communications,
23:33
the formal recommendations of the interim committee,
23:36
frames the decision in terms of ending the war
23:39
quickly. and avoiding invasion. The Soviet factor
23:43
was present but not predominant. Later interpretations,
23:48
shaped by the emerging Cold War and by access
23:51
to new documents, have sometimes overstated its
23:54
role in 1945 itself. Human consequences of the
23:59
bombings must be acknowledged without being exploited.
24:02
The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki introduced
24:05
a new category of warfare. The immediate deaths
24:09
from blast and fire were compounded by deaths
24:12
from radiation sickness in the following weeks
24:14
and months. Survivors, known in Japanese as Haibakusha,
24:20
faced long -term health effects that continued
24:23
for decades. The exact death tolls remain uncertain
24:27
due to the destruction of records and the difficulty
24:30
of tracking deaths from radiation over time.
24:34
Estimates of total deaths in Hiroshima by the
24:37
end of 1945 range from 90 ,000 to 166 ,000. In
24:43
Nagasaki, the range is from 60 ,000 to 80 ,000.
24:48
These numbers represent individual human deaths,
24:51
not merely statistical entries, and the episode
24:55
must convey this without descending into graphic
24:57
detail or spectacle. The comparison with conventional
25:01
bombing is instructive and also limited. The
25:05
firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945 killed comparable
25:08
numbers to either atomic bombing, but that raid
25:12
required hundreds of B -29s dropping thousands
25:15
of incendiary bombs over hours. Hiroshima was
25:19
destroyed by a single aircraft. A single bomb
25:23
in an instant. The atomic bomb introduced qualitative
25:27
differences that this quantitative comparison
25:30
obscures. A single weapon. delivered by a single
25:34
aircraft could now destroy a city the effects
25:38
of radiation extended destruction across time
25:41
affecting survivors and their descendants and
25:45
the psychological impact of instantaneous city
25:48
-wide devastation altered how warfare was understood
25:51
the atomic bomb was not merely a bigger bomb
25:55
it was a different kind of weapon and its use
25:58
established a precedent that could not be undone
26:02
The bombings established a precedent, and that
26:05
precedent shaped what followed. The categories
26:08
of military victory, civilian destruction, and
26:11
global diplomacy became permanently entangled.
26:14
From that entanglement, the nuclear age emerged.
26:18
The Soviet Union, having learned of the American
26:21
bomb through espionage as well as observation,
26:24
accelerated its own program. Britain, France,
26:28
and eventually China developed nuclear weapons.
26:32
The proliferation that the Franck Report had
26:35
warned against proceeded through the decades.
26:38
The doctrine of deterrence emerged as a way of
26:41
managing the danger, resting on the threat of
26:44
mutual annihilation. Diplomacy in the nuclear
26:48
age became inseparable from the calculation of
26:51
destructive capacity. Every international crisis
26:54
acquired a nuclear dimension. The Cuban Missile
26:58
Crisis of 1962, the various alerts and near -misses
27:02
of the Cold War, and the continuing negotiations
27:05
over proliferation and limitation all descended
27:09
from the events of August 1945. What remains
27:13
uncertain, despite decades of research, is the
27:17
precise weight of each factor in the Japanese
27:19
surrender decision. We cannot rerun August 1945
27:23
to see what would have happened without the atomic
27:26
bombs. or with only one, or with a demonstration
27:30
in an uninhabited area. A count of factual questions
27:34
that historians ask cannot be answered with certainty.
27:38
Would Japan have surrendered without the bombs?
27:41
Would the war have ended with Soviet entry alone?
27:45
The evidence permits confident statements about
27:48
what did happen. The bombs were used, the Soviet
27:52
Union entered the war, the Emperor intervened,
27:55
and Japan surrendered. It permits less confident
27:58
statements about what would have happened under
28:01
different conditions. The debate continues because
28:04
the stakes remain high. The decision to use atomic
28:08
weapons against cities represents a threshold
28:11
in human history. How we understand that decision
28:15
shapes how we think about military ethics, technological
28:18
development, and political responsibility. But
28:22
the debate also continues because the evidence
28:25
is genuinely ambiguous. The documents from 1945
28:29
are extensive but incomplete. The memories of
28:33
participants, recorded in later years, were shaped
28:36
by the responsibilities they bore and the grief
28:38
they experienced. The Japanese records, while
28:42
substantial, do not provide transparent access
28:45
to the Emperor's private thoughts or to the full
28:49
deliberations of the military faction. What we
28:52
can say with confidence is this. The destruction
28:56
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not a simple choice
28:59
between invasion and bombing, nor was it a gratuitous
29:03
act of destruction. It occurred within a web
29:06
of pressures that had been building for years.
29:09
A Japan under siege from air and sea. An American
29:14
leadership weighing terrible options. A Soviet
29:18
Union preparing to enter the Pacific War. and
29:21
a Japanese government paralyzed between factions
29:24
that could not agree on whether survival or honor
29:27
was the higher value. The atomic bombs were one
29:30
element in this convergence. They were not the
29:33
only element. They did not alone end the war,
29:37
but they were not irrelevant to its ending. They
29:40
opened an age in which the categories of military
29:43
victory, civilian destruction, and global diplomacy
29:47
became permanently entangled. and from which
29:50
we have not yet emerged the listener who began
29:54
with a simple picture bombs dropped war ended
29:57
should leave with something more difficult to
30:00
hold an event that cannot be reduced to a single
30:04
cause or a single meaning a decision that emerged
30:07
from process rather than moment and a consequence
30:11
that extended far beyond anything its makers
30:14
intended or foresaw this is the nature of historical
30:18
thresholds They appear simple in retrospect because
30:22
we know how they turned out, but they were experienced
30:26
in complexity, and they are understood, if at
30:29
all, only through that complexity. The atomic
30:32
bombings of August 1945 were such a threshold.
30:36
They ended one war amid several converging pressures,
30:40
and there began an age in which the destruction
30:43
of cities became a permanent feature of military
30:46
calculation. and in which no victory could be
30:49
conceived without reckoning the means by which
30:52
it was achieved.