He Never Lost Any Sleep Summary

1985 brought one of the most significant works to date regarding the changing public opinion on the atomic bombs. Paul Boyer’s “By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age,” explores the creation of a nuclear-orientated cultural landscape that was a direct product of President Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. The extensive amount of research and sources used by Boyer include relevant cartoons, opinion polls, radio programs, movies, literature, songs, and interviews. Boyer examines the ways in how the introduction of atomic warfare to the world drastically changed the American lifestyle in the beginnings of the new atomic era. This is the first book to diligently analyze the piles of primary sources originating from the late 1940s that are significant to

determining the varied American public opinion. Boyer, who places himself as part of the anti-nuclear movement, fails to prove his main points with the aid of testimonials from ordinary American citizens. The reliance on the thoughts of scholars, scientists, and government official to support his argument is the only vital piece missing from Boyer’s book.
Peter Kuznick’s article "He ‘Never Lost Any Sleep’: Coping with Truman's Nightmarish Nuclear Legacy,” published in 1999 revolves around President Truman’s legacy, often focusing on his nuclear weapons policy and the use of atomic warfare against Japan in 1945.

The perspective of the American people is widely positive on Truman, who is almost viewed as a great president, while the perspective of Japan often borders on anger and moral outrage. The significance of this source centers on its focus of U.S. propaganda following the atomic bombs and the absence of debate on the morality of the bomb. Kuznick claims that it took many years, even decades, for the media and general public to personalize the tens of thousands of Japanese civilians who lost their lives because of atomic warfare. The aspect of morality, so often proposed by Bernstein, made its way ever so slightly into a new question accompanying the original by asking whether respondents believed that the bombs saved American and/or Japanese lives. American public opinion continued its downward trend yet the majority of those polled approved Truman’s decision, usually in the range of

55-60%.
This project would be one of the first comprehensive and current analytical scholarly works on the fluctuating American public opinion on the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. The project would utilize and include every published poll posing to Americans the simple question of whether they approve of President Truman’s decision or not. This project would have access to polls conducted in the first six months following those fateful August 1945 days along with the numerous Gallup polls that took place from 1990 to 2005. Available primary sources of privately-held opinions by individual citizens would be appreciated and utilized in this project. In relation to the secondary sources being used, this project would enter an in-depth discussion into the varying levels of public approval of the atomic bombings as well as the relationship it has with the creation and increase of nuclear anxiety and fears. The project will consider the importance of the absence of the morality of atomic warfare and how Americans are only just recently considering the moral conflicts of killing tens of thousands of innocent Japanese to end a war quickly. The project will be able to consider polls and public opinion surveys over the last seventy years in retrospect and notice how world events stemming from atomic warfare influences Americans.