Sir – When John Tanner calls for the removal of atomic weapons (Letters, August 20) does he mean from the world of from the UK? If he means from the world I think that he’s being more than a little naive.

The trouble is that you can’t uninvent nuclear weapons and, so long as there are intolerant and aggressive regimes out there, and I can think of at least two who are unlikely to agree with their disposal, it is unlikely that those peaceful nations who have the bomb, and that includes the UK, will, unilaterally, agree to their disposal.

Even if those nations who appear aggressive at the moment disappear, it’s pretty certain that other warlike regimes will come into existence who could obtain the knowhow to produce the weapon – I’m afraid nuclear weapons are something we will have to live with.

The morality of using the bomb is constantly debated, but there is nothing moral about war. The bombing of Dresden, using conventional bombs, killed an estimated 25,000.

In the Far East, President Truman’s objective had to be to get the war over as quickly as possible to prevent further loss of American servicemen’s lives.

Truman did ask the Japanese for unconditional surrender or suffer a terror from the air. The ultimatum was rejected. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were then chosen because they were as near as they could get to a military target and far enough from Japan’s ancient cities.

Had the war continued, and the allies had to invade Japan, there would have been considerable damage to the country and its cities and a great loss of civilian life, probably more than resulted from the atomic bombs.

Derrick Holt
Headington