There were several factors involved in the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It makes more sense to consider what led to the decision based on the atmosphere of 1945 rather than to try and weigh the pros and cons of the decision in our era. It is important not to take such decisions out of their historical context, which is difficult to do so many years after the fact. The lens through which we peer at that decision today is different from the lens that people were looking through 1945. Looking back at the bombing, historians find it easy to second-guess or use hindsight. Younger Americans, however, appeared to believe that the nuclear bombing of Japan was wrong. Fifty years after the bombing, a Gallup poll showed that senior citizens, by a narrow margin, supported the bombing. A plaque in a memorial at the park reads: 'Let all the souls here rest in peace for we shall not repeat the evil.' The Smithsonian Institute drastically had to alter a fiftieth anniversary exhibit about the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the bomb, because veteran's groups protested that the exhibit made the Japanese look like innocent victims. Until there are no more nuclear weapons in the world, an eternal flame continues to burn at Peace Park, Hiroshima. Today, if a nuclear test occurs, the leader who ordered it can expect to be the recipient of a telegram from the mayor of Hiroshima.
