He got the headaches the week he made the call. He never mentioned them again; not once, for the rest of his life.

In July 1945, President Truman had one decision that belonged to no one but him: whether to use the first nuclear bomb ever built. The invasion estimate was 250,000 American dead, maybe a million. He picked up his pen. What happened in Hiroshima, in Nagasaki, and in the thirty years Truman spent defending a decision he never once called wrong; but never called good, either.