IF Messrs Williams and Hornby had used their common sense, they would have realised that I was likely to be relying on academic research for my statements concerning Truman's motives in using the atomic bomb.
What they condemn as "absurd", "nonsense" and "utter rubbish" is in fact the conclusion of the American academic, Gar Alperovitz, whose definitive study, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, is a work of exhaustive and meticulous scholarship.
What is most disquieting, however, is Mr Hornby's explicit belief that the dropping of the atomic bombs could be justified, because this is essentially a moral judgement independent of the precise circumstances.
If we cease to believe that there are acts which are intrinsically wrong, we destroy the moral basis of society. If incinerating and vaporising some 150,000 men, women and children and irradiating the survivors is not intrinsically wrong, then nothing is.
We cannot teach our children the difference between right and wrong because it has ceased to exist.
Malcolm Pittock
St James's Avenue
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