"I am not sure it can ever be used...I don't think we ought t..." — Harry S Truman

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I am not sure it can ever be used...I don't think we ought to use this thing unless we absolutely have to. It is a terrible thing to order the use of something that is so terribly destructive, destructive beyond anything we have ever had. You have got to understand that this isn’t a military weapon. It is used to wipe out women and children and unarmed people, and not for military uses. So we have got to treat this differently from rifles and cannon and ordinary things like that.

— Harry S Truman

Harry S. Truman: A Life

Nuclear bombs Destruction Nuclear Overkill

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Regarding nuclear weapons, as quoted in Harry S. Truman: A Life, by Robert H. Ferrell, p. 344

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