One thing to bear in mind is that it took years, if not decades, for the true horror of nuclear weapons and their aftereffects to become accepted by most people. I mean fuck, look at how within a decade of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we were developing nuclear torpedoes, nuclear depth charges, and fitting nukes to virtually ever bomb and missile developed. Nukes weren’t seen as the world-ending abominations we view them now, they were just viewed as a bigger and more powerful type of bomb. Hell, MacArthur wanted the White House to give him permission to use atomic bombs in order to bring the North Koreans to the negotiating table.

We discussed the Cuban Missile Crisis the other night and I think that was really the first time that Americans began to come to grips with just how horrific nuclear weapons really were.