Editing Henry L. Stimson (section)

==Secretary of War (1940–1945)==
[[File:Henry Stimson and Frank Kellogg.jpg|thumb|[[US Secretary of State]] Henry L. Stimson (right) and [[Frank B. Kellogg]], as seen leaving from the [[United States Department of State|State Department]], (July 25, 1929)]] After World War II broke out, Roosevelt returned Stimson to his post at the head of the [[United States Department of War|War Department]], in July 1940. The choice of Stimson, a conservative Republican (and anti-New Dealer) and [[Frank Knox]] as secretary of the Navy was a calculated effort by the president to win bipartisan support for what was considered the almost-inevitable U.S. entrance into the war.

In the seventeen months leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Stimson, working side-by-side with U.S. Army Chief of Staff [[George C. Marshall]] (in offices adjacent to one another where the door between them was deliberately left open at all times) led efforts to prepare an unprepared America for war. Together, Stimson and Marshall had to build up the Army and Army Air Corps, organize housing and training for the soldiers, and oversee the design, testing, production, and distribution of the various machines, weapons, and materials required to support the country and its allies.

Ten days before the [[attack on Pearl Harbor]], Stimson entered in his diary the following statement: "[Roosevelt] brought up the event that we are likely to be attacked perhaps next Monday, for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning, and the question was what we should do. The question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves."<ref>Richard N. Current, "How Stimson Meant to 'Maneuver' the Japanese," ''Mississippi Valley Historical Review'' Vol. 40, No. 1 (Jun., 1953), pp. 67–74 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1897543 in JSTOR]</ref>

With respect to the war in Europe, Stimson was "pro-British" even before Pearl Harbor. Stimson's view was the [[British Royal Navy]], fighting [[Nazi Germany]] in the Atlantic, was protecting America, and was the reason the U.S. did not (for the time being) "have to do the fighting ourselves." Stimson said America should "rely on the shield of the British Navy," and that on that basis the U.S. should do everything possible to arm and supply the British.<ref name="The Colonel">The Colonel: The Life and Wars of Henry Stimson, 1867–1950 by Godfrey Hodgson</ref>

Because of this view, when the Senate voted to confirm him, all of the most notorious isolationist Senators such as [[Henrik Shipstead]] and [[Ernest Lundeen]] of Minnesota, [[Gerald Nye]] of North Dakota, [[Robert M. La Follette Jr.|Robert Marion La Follette]] of Wisconsin, [[David I. Walsh]] of Massachusetts and [[Burton K. Wheeler]] of Montana voted against his confirmation on the grounds he was "too pro-British" whereas all of the most "Anglophile" Senators such as [[John H. Bankhead II]] and [[J. Lister Hill]] of Alabama, [[Kenneth McKellar (politician)|Kenneth McKellar]] and [[Tom Stewart (politician)|Tom Stewart]] of Tennessee, [[Harry Schwartz (U.S. senator)|Harry Schwartz]] and [[Joseph C. O'Mahoney]] of Wyoming all spoke in favor of Stimson and his foreign policy views (and voted to confirm him as Secretary of War).<ref name="The Colonel"/><ref name="voteview.com">{{Cite web|url=https://voteview.com/rollcall/RS0760223|title=Voteview &#124; Plot Vote: 76th Congress > Senate > 223}}</ref> The British government watched his confirmation vote closely, hoping he would have enough votes to get confirmed by the Senate, and they celebrated when he was confirmed.<ref name="The Colonel"/><ref name="voteview.com"/>

Stimson and [[Frank Knox]], both "vigorous interventionists", were confirmed by the Senate at the same time.<ref name="Those Angry Days pg. 205">Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II by Lynne Olson, pg. 205</ref> Both advocated American entry into [[World War II]] on the side of the [[United Kingdom]], earning them the title of "war hawks" from isolationists. Knox was described as "''even more'' of a Hawk than Stimson."<ref name="Those Angry Days pg. 205"/> Stimson was hired by FDR explicitly to replace [[Harry Hines Woodring]], Knox was hired explicitly to replace [[Charles Edison]] on the grounds that Edison and Woodring were isolationists who did not agree with the philosophy of helping Great Britain in their war against the Nazis. Stimson referred to the views of isolationists as "hopelessly twisted."<ref>Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II by Lynne Olson, pg. 205–206</ref>

The power of isolationists explains why Stimson did not record "shock, horror or anger" after Roosevelt informed him of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Instead, he wrote, "my first feeling was of relief that the indecision was over and that a crisis had come in a way which would unite our people (…) For I feel this country united has practically nothing to fear while the apathy and visions stirred up by unpatriotic men have been hitherto very discouraging."<ref>{{Cite news |title=Uniting America review: how FDR and the GOP beat fascism home and away |last=Kaiser |first=Charles |date=27 November 2022 |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/nov/27/uniting-america-review-fdr-republicans-fascism-lindbergh-trump |access-date=20 December 2022 }}</ref>

During the war, Stimson oversaw a great expansion of the military, including drafting and training of 13 million soldiers and airmen as well as purchasing and transporting 30 percent of the nation's industrial output to the battlefields.<ref>Herman, Arthur. ''Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II,'' pp. 83–4, 90, 94, 112–15, 121, 125–6, 139, 141, Random House, New York, NY, 2012. {{ISBN|978-1-4000-6964-4}}.</ref> In addition to George Marshall, Stimson worked closely with his top aides [[Robert P. Patterson]], who succeeded Stimson as secretary;<ref>Keith Eiler, ''Mobilizing America: Robert P. Patterson and the War Effort'' (Cornell U.P. 1997)</ref> [[Robert A. Lovett|Robert Lovett]], who handled the Air Force; [[Harvey Bundy]]; and [[John J. McCloy]], Assistant Secretary of War.<ref>[[Walter Isaacson]] and [[Evan Thomas]], ''[[The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made]]'' (1986)</ref>

Stimson was 73 when he took the reins as War Secretary, and many critics questioned if a man of his age could tackle a job that was so enormous. He defied all naysayers and plunged into the task with "an energy that men 20 years his junior could not have mustered."{{quote without source|date=September 2016}} However, at 75, Stimson confessed that he was "feeling very tired. The unconscious strain has been pretty heavy on me."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hamilton |first=Nigel |title=The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941–1942 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |year=2014 |isbn=9780547775241 |location=Boston |pages=433}}</ref>

===Japanese American internment===
[[File:Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Col. W. H. Kyle (right) arrive at the Gatow Airport in Berlin, Germany to attend... - NARA - 198795.jpg|thumb|Stimson and Colonel William H. Kyle (right) arriving at the Gatow Airport in [[Berlin, Germany]] to attend the Potsdam Conference (July 16, 1945)]]
Stimson was initially opposed to the [[internment of Japanese Americans]] away from the West Coast, but he eventually gave in to pro-exclusion military advisers and secured Roosevelt's final approval for the incarceration program. The administration was split in the wake of Pearl Harbor, with [[United States Department of Justice|Justice Department]] officials arguing against "evacuation" and the Army and the War Department leaders demanding the immediate relocation. Still opposed to the idea of wholesale eviction, Stimson spent much of January 1942 in fielding calls from military advisers and West Coast politicians on the potential threat of a Japanese American [[fifth column]]. By February, John McCloy and others from the pro-exclusion camp had won him over.

On February 11, Stimson and McCloy briefed in a phone conference Roosevelt, who gave his Secretary of War the go-ahead to pursue whatever course he saw fit. McCloy contacted [[Karl Bendetsen]] to begin formulating a removal strategy immediately after. Roosevelt granted Stimson the final approval to carry out the eviction of West Coast Japanese Americans on February 17, and two days later, Roosevelt issued [[Executive Order 9066]], which authorized the establishment of military zones that excluded certain persons.<ref name=Niiya>{{cite web|last=Niiya |first=Brian |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Henry%20Stimson/ |title=Henry Stimson |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=15 October 2014}}</ref>

As the [[Western Defense Command]] began circulating civilian exclusion orders, a new debate formed regarding Japanese Americans in the [[Territory of Hawaii]]. Stimson joined other officials to push for the exclusion of all "enemy alien" Japanese from the islands.<ref name=Niiya/> (Japanese immigrants were [[History of laws concerning immigration and naturalization in the United States|prohibited by law from naturalization]] and so were classified as enemy aliens, regardless of their residential status.) However, Japanese Hawaiians were the largest ethnic group in the territory and the foundation of the Island's labor force. Since mass removal was infeasible both economically and politically, Stimson's proposal quickly fell through.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Scheiber |first1=Jane L. |last2=Scheiber |first2=Harry N. |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Martial%20law%20in%20Hawaii/ |title=Martial Law in Hawaii |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=15 October 2014}}</ref>

Although Stimson believed it to be "quite impossible" to determine the loyalty of Japanese Americans and eventually came to support the army's incarceration program, he remained unconvinced on the legality of the policy: "The second generation Japanese can only be evacuated either as part of a total evacuation, giving access to the areas only by permits, or by frankly trying to put them out on the ground that their racial characteristics are such that we cannot understand or trust even the citizen Japanese. The latter is the fact but I am afraid it will make a tremendous hole in our constitutional system."<ref>Hodgson, Godfrey. ''The Colonel: The Life and Wars of Henry Stimson, 1867–1950'' (New York: Knopf, 1990), p 259.</ref>

Stimson authorized the release of Japanese Americans from camp in May 1944 but postponed permission for them to return to the West Coast until after the November elections to avoid controversy in Roosevelt's upcoming campaign.<ref name=Niiya/>

===General Patton===
{{Main|George S. Patton slapping incidents}}
On November 21, 1943, the news broke that General [[George S. Patton]], commander of the U.S. Seventh Army, had [[George S. Patton slapping incidents|slapped an enlisted man]] who suffered from nervous exhaustion at a medical evacuation hospital in [[Sicily]].<ref>Atkinson, Rick, ''The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy 1943–1944'', New York: Henry Holt & Co., {{ISBN|978-0-8050-8861-8}} (2007), p. 147.</ref> The incident caused a storm of controversy, and members of Congress called for Patton to be relieved of command. General [[Dwight Eisenhower]] opposed any move to recall General Patton from the European Theater and said privately, "Patton is indispensable to the war effort – one of the guarantors of our victory."<ref>[[Carlo D'Este]], ''Patton: A Genius For War'', New York: HarperCollins, {{ISBN|0-06-016455-7}} (1995), p. 536</ref> Stimson and McCloy agreed; Stimson told the Senate Patton would be retained because of the need for his "aggressive, winning leadership in the bitter battles which are to come before final victory."<ref>D'Este, ''Patton: A Genius For War'', p. 543</ref>

===Morgenthau Plan===
[[File:Stimson Touring Italian Battlefront.jpg|thumb|Lt. Gen. [[Jacob L. Devers]] pointing out landmarks at devastated [[Battle of Monte Cassino|Cassino]] to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson touring the Italian battlefront]]

Stimson strongly opposed the [[Morgenthau Plan]] to deindustrialize and to partition Germany into several smaller states.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4ZNha4UcszYC&q=morgenthau+plan+1945&pg=PA118 |title=Morgenthau-Plan |date= 2003-10-07|access-date=2014-07-20|isbn=9780743244541 |last1=Beschloss |first1=Michael R.|publisher=Simon and Schuster }}</ref> The plan also envisioned the deportation and the summary imprisonment of anybody suspected of responsibility for [[war crimes]]. Initially, Roosevelt had been sympathetic to the plan, but Stimson's opposition and the public outcry when the plan was leaked made Roosevelt backtrack. Stimson thus retained overall control of the U.S. occupation zone in Germany, and despite the plan's influence on the early occupation, it never became official policy. Explaining his opposition to the plan, Stimson insisted to Roosevelt that 10 European countries, including Russia, depended upon German trade and its production of raw materials. He also stated that it was inconceivable that the "gift of nature," which was populated by peoples of "energy, vigor, and progressiveness," should be turned into a "ghost territory" or "dust heap."

What Stimson most feared, however, was that a subsistence-level economy would turn the anger of Germans against the Allies and thereby "obscure the guilt of the Nazis and the viciousness of their doctrines and their acts." Stimson pressed similar arguments on [[Harry S. Truman]], when he became president, in the spring of 1945.<ref>Arnold A. Offner, "Research on American-German Relations: A Critical View" in Joseph McVeigh and Frank Trommler, eds. ''America and the Germans: An Assessment of a Three-Hundred-Year History'' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990) v2 p. 176; see also Michael R. Beschloss, ''The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941–1945'' (2002)</ref>

Stimson, a lawyer, insisted, against the initial wishes of both Roosevelt and British Prime Minister [[Winston Churchill]], on proper judicial proceedings against leading war criminals.<ref>{{cite journal | surname = McHugh | first=Melissa S. | year = 2011 | title = The Legacy of International Cooperation at the Nuremberg Trials | journal = Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse | volume = 3 | issue=10 | url = http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=580 | access-date = 30 July 2023}}</ref> He and the War Department, drafted the first proposals for an International Tribunal, which soon received backing from Truman. Stimson's plan eventually led to the [[Nuremberg Trials]] of 1945–1946, which have strongly influenced the development of [[international law]].

===Atomic bomb===
{{Further|Manhattan Project|Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki}}
[[File:Photograph of Secretary of War Henry Stimson, evidently arriving at the White House for a Cabinet meeting. - NARA - 199142.jpg|thumb|Stimson arriving for a Truman cabinet meeting in August 1945]]
As Secretary of War, Stimson took direct and personal control of the entire atomic bomb project, with immediate supervision over Major General [[Leslie Groves]], the head of the [[Manhattan Project]]. Both Roosevelt and Truman followed Stimson's advice on every aspect of the bomb, and Stimson overruled military officers when they opposed his views.<ref>Sean Malloy, ''Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Bomb Against Japan'' The Manhattan Project, Department of Energy at mbe.doe.gov</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b4stimson-henrylewis.htm |title=Henry Lewis Stimson|access-date=2011-06-20 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100611232440/http://hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b4stimson-henrylewis.htm |archive-date=2010-06-11}}</ref> 

One example of Stimson using his authority in this regard is an episode in which Stimson changed the list of potential targets for the first (and if necessary second) attacks on Japan using the new atomic bombs produced by the [[Manhattan Project]].  The original target list included the city of [[Kyoto]], a place of immense cultural and historical significance to the Japanese people.  While Kyoto may have satisfied the military criteria for a useful target, Stimson objected, declaring in a meeting if the [[Interim Committee]] on June 1, 1945, "...there was one city that they must not bomb without my permission and that was Kyoto."<ref>Private Diary entry of Henry L. Stimson, June 1, 1945, as archived by Doug Long at http://www.doug-long.com/stimson5.htm</ref>

Stimson's reasons for this decision have been obscured by popular myth.  One well-traveled story is that Stimson didn't want to bomb Kyoto because he had spent his honeymoon there, and presumably had a nostalgic or sentimental attachment to the city (this motive is one of the only assertions made by Stimson's character in the hugely popular 2023 film ''[[Oppenheimer (film)|Oppenheimer]]'').  There is no concrete evidence for this version of events, nor is there any record of Stimson ever expressing such a motive.  Stimson did travel briefly to Kyoto in 1926, and spent a night there in 1929 as well, but both of these visits were more than 30 years after he and his wife married.<ref>{{Citation |last=Wellerstein |first=Alex |title=The Kyoto Misconception: What Truman Knew, and Didn't Know, about Hiroshima |date=2020-01-14 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780691195292-004/html |work=The Age of Hiroshima |pages=34–55 |access-date=2024-01-06 |publisher=Princeton University Press |language=en |doi=10.1515/9780691195292-004 |isbn=978-0-691-19529-2|s2cid=225044563 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Wellerstein |first1=Alex |title=Henry Stimson didn't go to Kyoto on his honeymoon |url=https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2023/07/24/henry-stimson-didnt-go-to-kyoto-on-his-honeymoon/ |website=Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog |access-date=25 July 2023}}</ref>

In his personal diary, Stimson recorded his concern that annihilating such an important cultural site could generate long-lasting hostility among the Japanese people, which could in turn make Japan more friendly to the Soviet Union.  In July 1945, while attending the Potsdam conference between Truman, Churchill and Stalin, which took place only two weeks before the first atomic bomb was dropped, Stimson wrote: 

{{blockquote|I again gave [Truman] ...my reasons for eliminating one of the proposed targets.  He again reiterated with the utmost emphasis his own concurrence on that subject, and he was particularly emphatic in agreeing with my suggestion that if elimination was not done, the bitterness which would be caused by such a wanton act might make it impossible during the long post-war period to reconcile the Japanese to us in that area rather than to the Russians.<ref>Private Diary entry of Henry L. Stimson, July 24, 1945, as archived by the National Security Archive of George Washington University, at https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/28467-document-48-stimson-diary-entries-july-16-through-25-1945</ref>}}

The Manhattan Project was managed by Major General Groves (Corps of Engineers) with a staff of reservists and many thousands of civilian scientists and engineers. Groves nominally reported directly to General [[George Marshall]], but Stimson was really in charge. Stimson secured the necessary money and approval from Roosevelt and from Congress, ensured that Manhattan had the highest priorities, and controlled all plans for the use of the bomb. Stimson successfully tried to get "[[Little Boy]]" (the Hiroshima bomb) dropped within hours of its earliest possible availability. Japan was to be forced to surrender, and the bombing of Hiroshima August 6 was likely a finishing blow for Tokyo.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Art|first1=Robert J.|last2=Waltz|first2=Kenneth Neal|title=The Use of Force: Military Power and International Politics|url=https://archive.org/details/useofforce00robe|url-access=registration|year=2004|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|page=[https://archive.org/details/useofforce00robe/page/179 179]|isbn=9780742525573}}</ref>

Stimson ultimately concluded if the U.S. had guaranteed the Japanese preservation of the imperial constitutional monarchy, Japan might have surrendered and prevented the use of atomic bombs.<ref>David F. Schmitz, ''Henry L. Stimson: the first wise man'' (2001) p 153.</ref> Historians debate whether the impact of continued blockade, relentless bombing, and the [[Soviet Union]]'s invasion of [[Manchuria]] would have forced Japanese Emperor [[Hirohito]] to surrender some time in late 1945 or early 1946 without the use of atomic bombs but with massive Allied casualties.<ref>{{cite journal|author= Barton J. Bernstein|title= "Seizing the Contested Terrain of Early Nuclear History: Stimson, Conant, and Their Allies Explain the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb," Diplomatic History 17 (Winter 1993): 35–72|journal= Diplomatic History|volume= 17|pages= 35–72|doi= 10.1111/j.1467-7709.1993.tb00158.x|year= 1993}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Alperovitz |first1=Gar |title=The decision to use the atomic bomb and the architecture of an American myth |date=1995 |publisher=Knopf |location=New York |isbn=978-0679762850 |edition=1st}}</ref>

After American journalist [[John Hersey]]'s [[Hiroshima (book)|account]] of the Hiroshima atomic bombing became a media sensation, Stimson and others published their own article "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb". It argued the atomic bombings saved the Japanese from themselves, that demonstrating it would have been impractical, and American casualties from a potential invasion would exceed 1 million, although military documents from July 1945 estimated under 200,000 casualties ([[Operation Downfall#Estimated casualties|other estimates]] put the casualties as high as 4 million). Stimson also sidestepped questions such as the suffering of the victims and the radioactive qualities of the bombs, saying they had a "revolutionary character" or "unfamiliar nature". Because his article was the first official account of the reasonings behind the bombings, news outlets that were covering Hersey's ''Hiroshima'' began to cover Stimson's article instead. President Truman commended Stimson, and [[McGeorge Bundy]], who had worked with Stimson on the article, later wrote, "We deserve some sort of medal."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Blume |first1=Lesley M. M. |title=Fallout : the Hiroshima cover-up and the reporter who revealed it to the world |date=2020 |location=New York |isbn=9781982128517 |pages=153–157 |edition=First Simon & Schuster hardcover}}</ref>

===Stimson's vision===
Stimson looked beyond the immediate end of the war. He was the only top government official to try to predict the meaning of the [[Atomic Age]], and he envisioned a new era in human affairs.<ref>Henry Stimson to Harry S. Truman, accompanied by a memorandum, September 11, 1945. [https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/documents/index.php?documentid=22&pagenumber=1 Truman Papers, President's Secretary's File. Atomic Bomb] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190101051342/https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/documents/index.php?documentid=22&pagenumber=1 |date=2019-01-01 }}.</ref> For half-a-century, he had worked to inject order, science, and moralism into matters of law, state, and diplomacy.<ref>Stimson, Henry. "Stimson Press Release". Atomic Heritage Foundation, 1945.</ref> The impact of the atomic bomb, he thought, would go far beyond military concerns to encompass diplomacy, world affairs, business, economics, and science. Above all, Stimson stated that the "most terrible weapon ever known in human history" opened up "the opportunity to bring the world into a pattern in which the peace of the world and our civilization can be saved."<ref>[http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/correspondence/stimson-henry/corr_stimson_1945-04-24.htm Top Secret Letter From Henry Stimson, Secretary of War] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210515194411/http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/correspondence/stimson-henry/corr_stimson_1945-04-24.htm |date=2021-05-15 }} 24 April 1945. Retrieved 31 December 2018.</ref> He thought the very destructiveness of the new weaponry would shatter the ages-old belief that wars could be advantageous.{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} It might now be possible to call a halt to the use of destruction as a ready solution to human conflicts.{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} Indeed, society's new control over the most elemental forces of nature finally "caps the climax of the race between man's growing technical power for destructiveness and his psychological power of self-control and group control—his moral power."<ref>Henry L. Stimson, ''On Active Services in Peace and War'' (1948) p. 636</ref><ref>Michael Kort, ''The Columbia guide to Hiroshima and the bomb'' (2007) p. 179</ref> To this end, Stimson advocated collaboration with the Soviet Union and genuine international control of atomic technology and weaponry, including possibly turning them over to the United Nations. He was opposed in this by other members of the Truman administration like [[James F. Byrnes|James Byrnes]].<ref>Campbell Craig and [[Sergey Radchenko]], ''The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War'' (2008) pp. 114–120, 164, 168</ref> Stimson's vision of such a new world order, shared in part by many atomic scientists as well as [[Albert Einstein]], would have meant yielding some sovereignty to something akin to a [[world government]].<ref>Campbell Craig and Sergey Radchenko, ''The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War'' (2008) p. 170</ref>

In 1931, when Japan had invaded Manchuria, Stimson, as Secretary of State, proclaimed the [[Stimson Doctrine]]: no fruits of illegal aggression would ever be recognized by the United States. Although Japan ignored it, according to Stimson, the wheels of justice had now turned and the "peace-loving" nations, as Stimson called them, had the chance to punish Japan's misdeeds in a manner that would warn aggressor nations never again to invade their neighbors. To validate the new moral order, he believed that the atomic bomb had to be used against combatants and workers in the war. [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]] had both contained combatant bases and major centers of war industry that employed tens of thousands of civilians. The question for Stimson was not one of whether the weapon should be used. Involved were the simple issue of ending a horrible war and the more subtle and more important question of the possibility of genuine peace among nations. Stimson's decision involved the fate of mankind, and he posed the problem to the world in such clear and articulate fashion that there was a nearly-unanimous agreement mankind had to find a way so that atomic weapons would never be used again to kill people.<ref>See Bonnett, John. "Jekyll and Hyde: Henry L. Stimson, Mentalite, and the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb on Japan." ''War in History'' 1997 4(2): 174–212. {{ISSN|0968-3445}} Fulltext: [[EBSCO Information Services|Ebsco]]</ref><ref>McGeorge Bundy, ''Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years'' (1988)</ref><ref>Robert P. Newman, "Hiroshima and the Trashing of Henry Stimson" ''The New England Quarterly,'' Vol. 71, No. 1 (Mar., 1998), pp. 5–32 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/366722 in JSTOR]</ref>