Opinion: The Crybabies

One thing about Missouri’s Harry S. Truman: once he made up his mind, he never changed it—and last week he was still sticking to his guns. Appearing in Denver at the American Legion’s 43rd annual convention, Truman invited the delegates to “ask any smart-aleck questions, I’ll give you some smart-aleck answers.” Among the questions: Did Truman have any regrets about dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The reply: “I do not . . . These tearjerkers, these fellows who are always saying what oughta been done and they weren’t there and they don’t know a damn thing about it … They keep crying their eyes out about those people who were killed by those bombs. I haven’t heard any of them crying about those boys who were in those upside-down battleships in Pearl Harbor.”