Day of the Bomb; Countdown to Hiroshima

New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1985. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xiv, [2], 546, [6] pages. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Minor damp stain at bottom of inside of DJ and on the bottom edge of the book (covers and some pages). Dan Kurzman was a former foreign correspondent for the Washington Post. Kurzman had written or broadcast from almost every country in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. His dispatches from Cuba earned him the Front Page Award. He has also won the George Polk Memorial Award and the Overseas Press Club's Cornelius Ryan Award. Day of the Bomb vividly explores the momentous decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan--a decision that would thrust the world into a new and perilous era. Kurzman skillfully interweaves the stories of the key American and Japanese players in that drama as they tried to master destiny, only to become its pawns. Here are newly installed President Truman, who was terrified by the thought of using the bomb, but even more by the thought of history's judgment if he failed to use it. Here also are Emperor Hirohito, Klaus Fuchs, Leo Szilard, Robert Oppenheimer, and others who were driven by egoism and idealism.