Word: nixonization
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...saying that the Hiroshima bombing saved ten times as many lives as it claimed, Nixon may actually be understating the issue. In fact, estimates at the time were that as many as 10 million Japanese would have been lost in an American invasion, as well as a million U.S. troops. In the summer of 1945, Japan had more than 2 million soldiers and 30 million citizens prepared to choose death over dishonor. The kamikaze pilots and the Japanese troops who fought at Okinawa and Iwo Jima had already established the point. This is not just the American view. Kawamoto...
...Hiroshima decision believed at the time that the Bomb would be effective and that its use was necessary. Both presumptions, applied initially to Japan, were soon to shape all nuclear diplomacy after the war, since the presumptions of necessity and effectiveness would make threats to use nuclear weapons believable. Nixon inherited those presumptions, though he came to question them. He did not believe that the bombing of civilian populations wins wars. Eventually the whole problem was to be made immaterial, once Soviet and American nuclear weapons so grew in numbers and in power that the threat of mutual annihilation emerged...
...Nixon talks, the mannerisms for which he has often been burlesqued start to crop up. Yet in his presence the sudden scowl, the self-administered hug are not only not funny; they do not seem at all spasmodic or out of joint with what he is saying. He is 72, and perhaps his mannerisms have grown less pronounced over the years. But here he is speaking about things with which he feels supremely comfortable, history and diplomacy, and the comfort shows in his face and body...
...takes a somewhat different tack. Arguing that "there is very little evidence that American atomic supremacy was helpful in American diplomacy," Bundy cites Iran in 1946 and Quemoy and Matsu in 1955 and 1958. But he also suggests that atomic diplomacy did not affect the outcome of Korea either. Nixon says otherwise...
...Nixon pauses. He seems amazed by Johnson's confession even now. Throughout this whole discussion of the Bomb's history, he does not move or fidget much, but his voice suggests how involved he is in these recollections...