Ernest Lawrence, who worked on the Manhattan Project (and won the Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the cyclotron), famously recommended a non-lethal demonst

Ernest Lawrence, who worked on the Manhattan Project (and won the Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the cyclotron), famously recommended a non-lethal demonstration of the bombs: > At the May 31 meeting, Lawrence suggested that a demonstration of the atomic bomb might possibly convince the Japanese to surrender. This was rejected, however, out of fear that the bomb might be a dud, that the Japanese might put American prisoners of war in the area, or that they might manage to shoot down the plane. The shock value of the new weapon could also be lost. https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1945/debate.htm https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Event...