"first, that the first use of these terrible weapons was unnecessary; second, that this was understood by decision makers at the time; and third that there was very substantial though not absolutely definitive evidence that by the late summer of 1945 the decision was primarily influenced by diplomatic considerations related to the Soviet Union"

- Gar Alperovitz, founding fellow of the Harvard Institute of Politics and author of "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth"