Word: weaponize
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...addition, the Bomb, like any new weapon, had developed a constituency and a momentum of its own. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the charismatic master of Los Alamos, gave short shrift to those scientists working under him who urged that their creation not be used. Congressional committees, the first of them led by a Missouri Senator named Truman, had long been grumbling about the huge secret appropriations poured into the Manhattan Project and warning that the results had better be worth the $2 billion investment, which was serious money in those days. When the scientists succeeded, it became all but impossible...
...rather than viewing Soviet involvement as a way to avoid the need for the Bomb. Secretary of State James Byrnes, Truman's closest confidant on atomic matters, was eager to "get the Japanese affair over before the Russians got in" and felt that knowledge of America's new weapon would make the Soviets "more manageable." Secretary of War Henry Stimson, perhaps the most respected U.S. statesman of the century, was wary of using the Bomb as a diplomatic bludgeon, but even he referred to it as a "master card" in Washington's dealings with the Kremlin...
Ways to avoid dropping the Bomb were never really a matter of discussion. At one White House meeting in June, Stimson's assistant John McCloy suggested that Japan be issued a warning about the weapon and offered surrender terms that allowed the retention of the Emperor. McCloy's goal, however, was not so much to prevent the Bomb from being dropped as to avoid the need for the invasion being planned at the meeting. The secrecy surrounding the device known as S-1 was so pervasive that a hush quickly fell over the room and exploration of the options...
...crucial factor in the decision to proceed with the atomic bombing was that none of America's leaders felt any urgency about finding a way to avoid it. The scientists had not stressed that their creation might unleash radioactive fallout that would make the Bomb a more sinister weapon than even chemical warfare. Truman and his advisers knew that the explosion would be phenomenally large, but considered it no more morally repulsive than the massive fire-bombing raids that had cremated much of Tokyo. Stimson, the man who wrestled most with these imponderables, called the Bomb "the most terrible weapon...
...them or a million? How could he have justified continuing the war, transferring weary G.I.s to the Pacific to prepare for an invasion, proceeding with the grotesque fire bombings and allowing the Kremlin to expand its grip in the Far East when he had spent $2 billion on a weapon that could produce a quick end to the conflict...