Essay: WHAT IF HIROSHIMA HAD NEVER HAPPENED?

WHAT IF HIROSHIMA HAD NEVER HAPPENED

It is a hot August evening in Tokyo, just after nightfall, in the summer of 1945. Workers scurry home through darkened streets still littered with the charred rubble of the spring fire-bomb raids. The Cabinet sits late, pondering the accumulating evidence of Japan's almost certain defeat; but the diehards, led by War Minister Korechika Anami, want to fight to the last breath. Suddenly, air-raid sirens wail. In the sky, just short of the city, two Superfortresses wheel, and a single huge projectile drops through the dark toward...

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