Thread by @jlawrencenc

1/ Eighty years ago today, on August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was destroyed by an atomic bomb.

What’s often forgotten: many on the American Right—including those published in National Review—criticized President Harry Truman’s decision to use nuclear weapons.

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2/ During a speech in October 1946, Senator Robert A. Taft, known as "Mr. Republican," called the bombings a departure "from the principles of fair and equal treatment which have made America respected throughout the world before this Second World War."

3/ Two former GOP presidents criticized the decision to drop the bombs.

In an interview in 1963, Dwight Eisenhower argued the bombings were "unnecessary."

Herbert Hoover wrote the bombing of Hiroshima "with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul."

4/ Over at @HumanEvents, Felix Morley, one of the publication's co-founders, wrote that the use of the atomic bomb provoked a "sense of shame and degradation."

Southern agrarian conservative Richard Weaver called the bombings "a final blow to the code of humanity."

5/ National Review repeatedly ran critiques of the use of the atomic bombs.

One article in 1959 went so far as to argue that "[t]he indefensibility of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima is becoming a part of the national conservative creed."

6/ Whatever you think of the merits of these critiques, they have been underrepresented within the modern American Right.

That said, the situation has improved since @ToryAnarchist wrote this article back in 2006 for @amconmag.