Winston Churchill on Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

“This revelation of the secrets of nature, long mercifully withheld from man, should arouse the most solemn reflections in the mind and conscience of every human being capable of comprehension. We must indeed pray that these awful agencies will be made to conduce to peace among the nations, and that instead of wreaking measureless havoc upon the entire globe, may become a perennial fountain of world prosperity.”

“To quell the Japanese resistance man by man and conquer the country yard by yard might well require the loss of a million American lives and half that number of British- or more, if we could get them there: for we were resolved to share the agony. Now all this nightmare picture had vanished. In its place was the vision- fair and bright indeed it seemed- of the end of the whole war in one or two violent shocks... The Japanese people, whose courage I had always admired, might find in the apparition of this almost supernatural weapon an excuse...”