6, 1945, and another on Nagasaki three days later.
casualties that would have resulted if the bomb had not been dropped.Īs originally planned, the display included a graphic account of the devastation caused by the bomb and discussion of the issues that influenced President Harry Truman's decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. military leaders exaggerated the number of U.S. 'They were not looking for analysis, and, frankly, we did not give enough thought to the intense feelings such an analysis would provoke.'īeginning almost a year ago, veterans groups criticized numerous features of the draft script for the planned exhibition: that it unfairly showed the United States as the main aggressor in the Pacific war, that it dwelled excessively on the suffering of the Japanese people and that it suggested that U.S. 'In this important anniversary year, veterans and their families were expecting, and rightly so, that the nation would commemorate and honor their sacrifice,' he said. At a packed press conference with most members of the museum's board of regents standing behind him, Heyman, the former University of California at Berkeley chancellor, said the museum erred in trying to combine a 'historical treatment' of whether dropping the bomb was necessary with a commemoration of the end of World War II.
