The atom bomb was no ’great decision.’ It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness.

The line frames the atomic bombings not as a uniquely agonizing moral crossroads but as an extension of wartime logic: a new instrument deployed to secure victory. By calling it “merely another powerful weapon,” the speaker minimizes the bomb’s qualitative difference from conventional arms, while “arsenal of righteousness” casts the Allied cause as morally justified and therefore entitled to use overwhelming force. The phrasing also functions defensively, anticipating later ethical criticism by insisting the decision required no special moral reckoning beyond the broader imperative to end the war. In effect, it is an argument about moral continuity: the bomb is portrayed as a means, not a rupture, within a righteous war effort.