Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan

Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan. By J. Samuel Walker. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. xvi, 142 pp. Cloth, $34.95, ISBN 0-8078-2361-9. Paper, $14.95, ISBN 0-8078-4662-7.)

This book contains a mere 110 pages of text. The usual aim of so short a work is to provide an introductory overview for college teaching. The usual approach-especially in connection with highly contested issues-is to offer an evenly balanced account, pro and con, of the various "positions" in the historical debate.

J. Samuel Walker, chief historian of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission-but writing here as an independent ("on his own time," he stresses)-has rejected the traditional approach. Instead, he presents his personal judgment on the many difficult issues involved. This decision creates two very large problems: First, it...