120,000 dead is likely conservative...and doesn't include those at Nagasaki 3 days later. At Hiroshima, it's estimated that 80,000 were killed in the blast and the resultant firestorm. More died in the following months/years from injuries and radiation effects. The total numbers aren't really known. What is known is that most of the dead were civilians, not military. Women, children, wounded and elderly....the very same populations that we vilified the Nazis and Japanese for attacking (while at the same time the Allies justified bombing residential areas because they were housing for "war industry" employees.
I actually agree with Truman's approval of dropping the bomb . But it should have been used on a military target. The way it was dropped, we can't really even pretend to say that was our intent. Look at this post-bombing map of damage...and notice that all of the legitimate military targets are so far from the aiming point that they fall outside the "maximum radius of damage". No, we intentionally dropped it on a city center (it detonated directly above a hospital), with the intent of destroying a city...and with the further intent of putting the Soviets on notice that we had the bomb and weren't afraid to use it...Geneva be damned.
