PRESIDENTS: So much for history

President Harry S. Truman was far from whimsical when he gave the order to use atomic weapons against Japan, as Frederick Fuechsel stated in his letter to the editor on Dec. 30 last year. Japan refused unconditional surrender after The Potsdam Declaration was issued on July 26, 1945. The ultimatum stated that without surrender, the Allies would attack, resulting in "the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland." In his diary, Truman wrote: "We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark."

Clearly, it was not a "whimsical" decision.

In a letter on Jan. 8, Stanley Kwake wrote that Eisenhower was a Military General during World War II. True, but Ike was also a West Point Graduate, a 5 Star General, and Supreme Allied Commander of the European Theater. Doug McArthur, Omar Bradley and George C. Marshall are the other "Generals of the Army."

In the same letter, Kwake remembers Kennedy as a womanizer and the assassination. JFK's affair with Marilyn Monroe is well known, but he is probably better known for being a war hero as skipper of PT-109 (Patrol Torpedo Boat), the Cuban Missile Crisis and authorizing the Apollo moon project on May 25, 1961, before a joint session of Congress.

What are they teaching in school anyway?

JACK EVENSIZER

Dalton Gardens