Do you truly believe that Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Soviet Union, or Imperial Japan would have hesitated for a second to use nuclear weapons if they had developed them first?<p>I, for one, do not.<p>---<p>Sidenote:<p>The most remarkable aspect of the story of the atomic bomb occurred after the development of fusion weapons.<p>The President and his chief advisors called together a committee to determine whether to wipe out the Soviet Union. The discussion took place in the Roosevelt Room shortly following the development of the hydrogen bomb.<p>With its massive bomber fleet, unparalleled fusion technology, and large stockpile of fission weapons, the United States could have quite literally conquered the world.<p>Yet it chose not to do so. I know of no parallel in world history where such an event has occurred.<p>Prior to the conference, Hans Bethe of the Manhattan project wrote to the President:<p><i>&quot;If we fight a war and win it with nuclear weapons, what history will remember is not the ideas we were fighting for, but the methods we used to accomplish them.<p>These methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan, who brutally killed every last inhabitant of Persia.&quot;</i>