Campus Bookstore to Host Book Signing on Feb. 24

The Fairmont State University and Pierpont Community & Technical College Bookstore is hosting a book signing for a new book by an FSU adjunct faculty member. Dr. Dennis D. Wainstock teaches history at the Gaston Caperton Center in Clarksburg. He will sign copies of his book, “The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb: Hiroshima and Nagasaki 1945,” from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 24, at the bookstore located on the second floor of the Falcon Center on the main campus.

 Published by Enigma Books in New York, N.Y., Wainstock’s book explores the process and the players in the decision by the U.S. to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945. More than 200,000 people died as a result, and both cities were destroyed.

Of his book, Wainstock writes: “By the end of 1945, if not before, Japan was defeated militarily. The political leaders were actively trying to find a diplomatic solution to end the war. The main issue was America’s insistence on unconditional surrender. Japan’s civilian and military leaders agreed, the United States must allow them to retain Emperor Hirohito.

“President Harry Truman was told about the existence of the atomic project the day he became president on April 12, 1945. The main proponent of using the bomb was Henry Stimson, the secretary of war, along with General George C. Marshall. The time for decision was at hand once the device was successfully tested in the desert in New Mexico at the end of July.”

Wainstock is also the author of three other books: “The Turning Point: The 1968 U.S. Presidential Election,” “Malcolm X: The Life and Times of an African-American Revolutionary” and “Truman, MacArthur and the Korean War.” He resides in Salem.

Dennis WainstockGaston Caperton Center