WAR FANATICISM NOT A `PROBABILITY'

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 15, 1992                   TAG: 9202170206
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
WAR FANATICISM NOT A `PROBABILITY'
FRANK Munley's letter (Feb. 5) questioning the necessity of our nuclear attack upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki deserves comment.
The piece is based on the tenuous premise of "probability" with respect to the Japanese unwillingness to repeal an invasion of the home lands. There was, of course, no way of knowing at the time, nor can it be known now, the degree of enemy resistance.
What cannot be categorized as a probability, though, is the well-documented fanaticism, both civil and military, that is borne out by the historical record. The suicidal charges at Guadalcanal and Buna, the mass self-destruction on Saipan, the kamikaze off Okinawa, the brutality at Imphal, the Bataan Death March and the rape of Manila were not probables, they were facts.
In making his decision to approve the A-bomb attacks, President Truman was fully aware of the Japanese war record, but he could not know what would actually befall the 20 American divisions poised to make the final assault. Mr. Munley has apparently allowed his eyes to be clouded by time and, like many a historical revisionist, suffers from selectivity in his reasoning.
Finally, it would be interesting to know how many who inveigh against the use of the A-bomb would not now be moralizing simply because their fathers' or grandfathers' lifeblood ebbed away at some Japanese beachhead or in some Japanese rice field. GEORGE J. WINTER MONTVALE

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB