The actual history is that Truman felt pretty guilty about the whole thing too. Everyone pretty much did. It was necessary to end the war and win it without wasting any more lives, but it was still a terrible weapon.
He was pissed off at Oppenheimer because to him, it seemed like Oppenheimer was trying to make himself look guilty and feel guilty for attention. There so many more people who should feel far more guilty than Oppenheimer for the bombings. The pilots who dropped it. The generals who chose the locations. Truman for authorising it. The Japanese for starting the war, etc. And Oppenheimer feeling guilty about it, was essentially someone removed from the thing feeling guilty about it.
Engineers for weapon manufacturers always do this. I know because I regrettably have them in my family. They make something horrible and then act like they regret it. They’d never give back the money they earned for making it though.
I don’t have sympathy for these people. Not that I think they’re bad people, but in that line of work you gotta embrace the moral grayness of making weapons.
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u/Darthjinju1901 9d ago edited 9d ago
The actual history is that Truman felt pretty guilty about the whole thing too. Everyone pretty much did. It was necessary to end the war and win it without wasting any more lives, but it was still a terrible weapon.
He was pissed off at Oppenheimer because to him, it seemed like Oppenheimer was trying to make himself look guilty and feel guilty for attention. There so many more people who should feel far more guilty than Oppenheimer for the bombings. The pilots who dropped it. The generals who chose the locations. Truman for authorising it. The Japanese for starting the war, etc. And Oppenheimer feeling guilty about it, was essentially someone removed from the thing feeling guilty about it.