Comment Re:"Three years ago today" (Score 1) 142
I'm thinking of the days before MAD. By the start of the Korean war, the Soviets had tested one device only. Some might have entered service by the time of the war, but the Americans still had the upper hand with nuclear weapons at that time.
There was arguments to use them, and Truman did go so far as to release them to the theater, but he never dropped them. Nor did Ike when he won the election. There seemed to be a reluctance to use them even before the whole arms race and MAD became what it did.
Now generals and admirals would probably have tossed the things around like fire-crackers, and they definitely had plans for first-strike use, but the civilian bosses are the ones who were reluctant when it came to their use.