The documentary "the fog of war" is a nice view (via the study of Robert S. McNamara) of just how brutal the war in the Pacific was in terms of civilian casualt

The documentary "the fog of war" is a nice view (via the study of Robert S. McNamara) of just how brutal the war in the Pacific was in terms of civilian casualties. The US was using (in modern parlance, however ugly it is) data science to optimize bombing missions to the point that the nuclear weapons were merely a large blip rather than a sudden burst of killing sandwiched by silence. Le May (whose group dropped the bomb IIRC) and McNamara both agreed they'd have been tried as war criminals. For Truman at least I can see why he'd be annoyed. Maybe not as annoyed as he claimed to be, but in terms of decision making I think anyone who claims to have an easy answer to whether to drop the bomb or not is either a fantasist or an idiot.