Makers of history want historians to treat them favorably. Those who wield power often wish to influence the way in which history will view them. They are concerned about securing their place in history. This chapter explores how participants in the decision to use the bomb, provoked by criticism and worried about how historians would treat them, explained and justified their decision. The impact of John Hersey’s bestselling Hiroshima and other writing critical of the use of the bomb deeply troubled participants in the decision. They instigated Henry Stimson’s Harper’s 1947 article “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,” which defended the decision as necessary to avoid an invasion, bring the war to an early end, and save American and Japanese lives. Despite its shortcomings, Stimson’s defense stood for two decades as the largely unchallenged interpretation of the use of the bomb and became the foundation of the “orthodox interpretation” which still remains a widely held view.

The American public is assumed to have overwhelmingly supported the use of atomic bombs on Japan, but this impression comes in part from a Gallup poll conducted just days after the bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The poll found that eighty-five percent of Americans were in favor of the bombs. Only ten percent disapproved, and five percent were unsure. Those figures might suggest a deep current of hatred toward Japan, the depths of which can only be hinted at by polling data. But it must be considered along with another Gallup poll taken in June 1945, barely two months prior to the nuclear strikes. In this survey Americans were asked if they supported the use of poison gas against the Japanese, if doing so would reduce American casualties. Forty percent said yes, but almost fifty percent said no. As horrible as poison gas undeniably is, a nuclear bomb is vastly worse. This suggests that most Americans simply had no concept of what an atom bomb meant. This chapter examines what Americans actually thought about the bomb.

After seemingly endless and bitter infighting over postwar policy, Roosevelt clearly needed his administration heads to come together. Joint Chiefs of Staff Directive 1067 would become the ultimate document to govern American occupation policy. Thanks to his relentless plotting, wrangling, and badgering, Morgenthau had succeeded in bending it to his will. The consequences would prove disastrous. This chapter tries to understand how Morgenthau succeeded in outmaneuvering the majority within FDR’s administration.

We have longed believe that after Pearl Harbor, Americans demanded the removal of Japanese Americans from the west coast and into concentration camps. This views stems largely from the racist sentiments expressed by some prominent politicians and media figures along with one oft-cited poll showing fifty-nine percent of Americans supporting internment. But a closer look at public opinion polls conducted in the months after Pearl Harbor but before the President’s interment order reveal remarkably low support for the policy. The letters that supposedly flooded into the White House calling for mass evacuations only swelled after the order on February 19, 1942. In other words, it was only after Japanese Americans were framed as dangerous that the general public approved of internment.Unfortunately for the roughly 112,000 Japanese Americans living on the west coast, they were about to become the victims of one of America’s worst cases of misplaced revenge. Tragically, this would be only the first of many vengeful acts America inflicted upon the innocent during and shortly after the war. And with each destructive deed, a majority of Americans insisted that this is not who we are. Why, then, did the politics of vengeance prevail?

The final chapter asks what became of the men and women who played vital parts in America’s struggles between vengeance and virtue. It asks whether any of these leaders regretted their actions, which actions, and why.