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201504
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Unsent Letter from Former President Harry S. Truman to Irv Kupcinet
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1
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201504
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document
title
Unsent Letter from Former President Harry S. Truman to Irv Kupcinet
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Harry S. Truman Post-Presidential Papers
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Correspondence
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201504
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5
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1963-08-05
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8
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1963
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e40f0540175a261d
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HARRY S. TRUMAN
INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI
August 5, 1963
Dear Kup:
I appreciated most highly your column of July 30th, a copy
of which you sent me.
I have been rather careful not to comment on the articles
that have been written on the dropping of the bomb for the
simple reason that the dropping of the bomb was completely
and thoroughly explained in my Memoirs, and it was done
to save 125,000 youngsters on the American side and
125,000 on the Japanese side from getting killed and that is
what it did. It probably also saved a half million youngsters
on both sides from being maimed for life.
You must always remember that people forget, as you said
in your column, that the bombing of Pearl Harbor was done
while we were at peace with Japan and trying our best to
negotiate a treaty with them.
All you have to do is to go out and stand on the keel of the
Battleship in Pearl Harbor with the 3,000 youngsters under-
neath it who had no chance whatever of saving their lives.
That is true of two or three other battleships that were sunk
in Pearl Harbor. Altogether, there were between 3,000 and
6,000 youngsters killed at that time without any declaration
of war. It was plain murder.
I knew what I was doing when I stopped the war that would
have killed a half million youngsters on both sides if those
bombs had not been dropped. I have no regrets and, under
the same circumstances, I would do it again - and this letter
is not confidential.
Sincerely yours,
Harybrunnes
Mr. Irv Kupcinet
Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago, Illinois