Countdown to Hiroshima: X Minus 1 Day

I have been marking the days here for awhile, and now we are down to just a day before the 67th anniversary of the first atomic bombing, which transpired about 8:15 a.m. on August 6,  in Japan.   Here's my look back (from Huff Post last year) at the final days before the decision to detonate the new weapon directly over a major city producing at least 125,000 deaths, the vast majority of them women and children, and here's my report at The Nation (also from last year) on August 5, 1945.  Truman, who had just met (and liked)Stalin had already written in his diary "fini Japs" when the Russians entered the war on August 7--and he also noted Japanese feelers for surrender. His chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Leahy, bitterly opposed the decision to drop the bomb(s).  See my earlier post today--and my two books on the subject on the rail at the right.