Harry S. Truman Quotes

I hope that you will use your new bomb against the Japanese.

The atomic bomb is shit.... It will make a big bang—a very big bang—but it is not weapon which is useful in war.

I find wholly baffling the widespread belief today that the dropping of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs was an immoral act, even possibly a war crime to rank with Nazi genocide.

I had been conscious a feeling of depression and so I voiced to [Secretary Of War Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at this very moment, seeking a way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face.'

There is no doubt that the absence of a second front in Europe considerably relieves the position of the German Army, nor can there be any doubt that the appearance of a second front on the Continent of Europe - and undoubtedly this will appear in the near future - will essentially relieve the position of our armies to the detriment of the German Army.

I was against it on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.

Success in war depends upon the golden rule of war.

When I look round to see how we can win the war, I see that there is only one sure path . . . and that is absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from this country upon the Nazi homeland.

The American Revolution was a small part of a major world war going on between France and England, so the French intervened and that was a big factor, but the domestic contribution was basically guerrilla warfare.

The American way of war is to build an army, then another, then a third, while building fleets. If the war is still on at that point we smash.

The wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy. ... Red China is not the powerful nation seeking to dominate the world.

War is sweet to them that know it not.

There is nothing more common than to find considerations of supply affecting the strategic lines of a campaign and a war.

In war, practice dissimulation and you will succeed.

In war there is but one favorable moment; the great art is to seize it!

The first law of war is to preserve ourselves and destroy the enemy.

Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima. . . . The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.

The success of our surprise attack on Pearl Harbor will prove to be the Waterloo of the war to follow. For this reason the Imperial Navy is massing the cream of its strength in ships and planes to assure success.

The true lesson of the Vietnam War is: certainty of purpose and ruthlessness of execution win wars.

Rule 1, on page I of the book of war, is: "Do not march on Moscow". Various people have tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good. That is the first rule. I do not know whether your Lordships will know Rule 2 of war. It is: "Do not go fighting with your land armies in China". It is a vast country, with no clearly defined objectives...

The aggressive spirit, the offensive, is the chief thing everywhere in war, and the air is no exception.

The general at the radar screenRubbed his hands with glee,And grinning pressed the buttonAnd started world war three.

So far as I can see, the atomic bomb has deadened the finest feeling that has sustained for ages. There used to be so-called laws of war, which made it tolerable. Now we know the truth. War knows no law except that of might. The atomic bomb brought an empty victory but it resulted for the time being in destroying the soul of Japan. What has happened to the soul of the destroying nation is yet too early to see.

Isn't a policy of conventional weapons, with the terrible bombs raining down, with the missiles, with the aircraft, with the submarines, with the torpedoes, with the tanks, with chemical weapons - isn't that based on the possibility of threat?

The United States comes in 1945 and we basically blow the whistle.