The decision which Winston Churchill most agonized over, in retrospect, was his decision to drop a nuclear bomb.

In a conversation with Lord Mountbatten, he said,

The decision to release the atom bomb was perhaps the only thing that history will have a serious question to ask about.

I may even be asked by my maker why I used it, but I shall defend

myself vigorously, I shall say, why release this knowledge to us when mankind was raging in

furious battle? Now, you might point out, Winston Churchill did not authorize the bombing of

Hiroshima. Let me just check my notes here.

Or Nagasaki.

That was Canada.

Wait, I read that wrong.

Nope, that was America.

They were both America.

The United States had ushered in nuclear war.

Harry Truman did that.

Now, part of it is, of course, that Winston Churchill had an ego large enough that

it affected tides and the flight path of migratory birds. But also, Churchill had played a role

in the advent of nuclear war. He was a close friend and advisor to Roosevelt during the Manhattan

project. He had long discussions with the president about the ramifications and morality of developing

and deploying an atom bomb. And he had signed off on it, not just ethically but legally, in the

Quebec Agreement, in which the United States and the United Kingdom merged their nuclear

programs and legally agreed to only deploy them with the express permission of the other state.

So Winston Churchill had indeed authorized dropping atom bombs on Japan.

...