Neither had a choice...as the US had been attacked. Surely you heard about that.
Actually pacifists believe that, when struck, you don't have to strike back. Secondly, neither FDR nor Truman advanced a policy of pacifism - quite the opposite.
Also in point of fact: both these presidents were opposed by a small but very real faction of Republican Isolationists. (In fact, it took the pressure of postwar anti-communism to finally drain the GOP of its isolationists, many of whom opposed Truman's Cold War policies as too expansionist and expensive. They were weary of giving Washington too much money and power, which Truman said was required to defend/manage the globe. They supported
the idea of spreading market freedom and democracy to the developing world, but they believed that Washington bureaucrats lacked the necessary information and competence to pull it off without making a bigger mess. They warned of the law of unintended consequences, one of which found expression much later in the words of Eisenhower, when he warned of the creation of a massive, unaffordable defense bureaucracy that was beholden to special interests. This is why it was so ironic when Bush talked about improving the middle east by spreading freedom. It sounded like the same ol' liberal fantasy of saving the world top-down from Washington. Indeed, many of us would love to live in a world without poverty, drugs and evil-doers, but Republicans have traditionally not trusted Washington with the increased budget & power to pursue these fantasies. Republicans are realists, and they have always been more willing to accept the limitations of Washington)
But back to the point: FDR developed the plans to build & drop the nuclear bomb, and Truman dropped it twice, melting whole civilian-filled cities. They could have chosen any number of military tools, with far fewer civilian casualties, but they chose the most lethal.
John Kerry never once mentioned pacifism to oppose the Vietnam War which Bush hid from. He opposed it from a policy perspective. He thought it was a terminal stalemate - something that was creating body bags without a clear political solution. He realized that Washington didm't know what the **** it was doing. Unfortunately, both political parties and Republican voters decided to trust in the power of
Washington bureaucrats to improve the word top-down with military solutions.
And what about LBJ? Was he a pacifist? He reversed Kennedy's plans to pull out of Vietnam and escalated the war. He could of ended it and pulled the troops out (like Reagan did in Libya). It took a Republican President to end the Vietnam stalemate.
The only place I see the pacifism you're talking about is in documentaries about sixties radicals who opposed the bombs dropped by a
Democratic president.
"Hey, Hey LBJ How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?"
Pacifism? -from a democratic president? Are you kidding me? Democratic presidents have higher body counts than body Republican presidents. You are strawmanning a small section of sixties radicals that never got their polices passed by a sitting democratic president. This would be like conflating the John Birch Society with the RNC, which crazies on the Left love doing. Be careful with Talk Radio, FOX News and the Internet (Drudge, etc). These information sources are very entertaining - and they're sometimes correct in their interpretations - but they are dangerously simplistic, and they depend on a growing horde of illiterate patriots who have passion but have never read actual policies.
: head explodes:: )
