When the atomic bomb went off over Hiroshima on Aug.
1945, 70,000 lives were ended in a flash.
were weary from the long and brutal war, such a drastic measure seemed .
a necessary, even righteous way to end the madness that was World War .
II. However, the madness had just begun. That August morning was the .
day that heralded the dawn of the nuclear age, and with it came more .
than just the loss of lives. According to Archibald MacLeish, a U.S. .
poet, "What happened at Hiroshima was not only that a scientific .
breakthrough . . . had occurred and that a great part of the.
population of a city had been burned to death, but that the problem of .
the relation of the triumphs of modern science to the human purposes .
of man had been explicitly defined." The entire globe was now to live .
with the fear of total annihilation, the fear that drove the cold war, .
the fear that has forever changed world politics. The fear is real, .
more real today than ever, for the ease at which a nuclear bomb is .
achieved in this day and age sparks fear in the hearts of most people .
on this planet. According to General Douglas MacArthur, "We have had .
our last chance. If we do not devise some greater and more equitable .
system, Armageddon will be at our door." The decision to drop the .
atomic bomb on Japanese citizens in August, 1945, as a means to.
bring the long Pacific war to an end was justified-militarily, .
politically and morally. .
The goal of waging war is victory with minimum losses on one's .
own side and, if possible, on the enemy's side. No one disputes the .
fact that the Japanese military was prepared to fight to the last man .
to defend the home islands, and indeed had already demonstrated this .
determination in previous Pacific island campaigns. A weapon .
originally developed to contain a Nazi atomic project was available .
that would spare Americans hundreds of thousands of causalities in an .
invasion of Japan, and-not incidentally-save several times more than .
