ABSTRACT
The A-bomb "student research file," which was intelligently compiled by archivists Erwin Mueller and Dennis Bilger, and then also sharply abridged for a small binder version, has been used. Some have suggested, Harry S. Truman after the war normally referred to the various A-bombed cities incorrectly, as exclusively or almost entirely "military" targets. The targets were, in fact, mostly noncombatants. After the war, Truman publicly and privately continued to defend his use of the A-bombs, though often rewriting some of the important details of the pre-Hiroshima actions. The issue of high-level, pre-Hiroshima casualty estimates for United States forces in the invasion has become a hot subject of debate. In December 1945, at the "Gridiron Dinner," in a little-known talk, Truman did seem somewhat uneasy but not defensive about his A-bomb decision.
