How Did President Truman's Decision To Use The Atomic Bomb

One of the most controversial and heavily scrutinized issue of the twentieth century was President Harry S. Truman’s decision to unleash atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The motives behind Truman’s actions are shrouded in controversy as top military officials publicly denounced the use of such a disastrous weapon. There is overwhelming evidence supporting both sides of the decision, as historians are split in opinion. The United States had been using conventional bombing to try to push Japan over the edge to surrender, but with countless Japanese civilians loyal to their country, invading Japan proved to be more problematic than first thought. Harry S. Truman made the ultimate decision of dropping the atomic bomb in hopes that it would end the war, but the amount of casualties caused by it has historians questioning if it was morally right, “The bomb was unfortunate, but it was the only means to bring Japan to a surrender,” historian Sadao Asada states (Bomb 9). Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justifiable because they would ultimately lead to the end of the war and would demonstrate U.S. supremacy.

In the brutal and deadly Pacific Theater of World War ll, President Truman had to make a crucial decision on whether or not to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. Some believe that Truman’s actions to drop the atomic bomb were unethical and inhumane; however, Truman was justified in his decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan due to the fact that they are our enemy, saving American lives is the first priority, and the atomic bomb will ultimately prevent Russia from gaining control of Asia.

1. Long after World War II and the use of the atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a great debate remains. It seems that there are two main potential arguments as to why the bombs were detonated and whether or not they were even necessary to begin with. The first theory surrounds the notion of the national security interests of the United States. In this theory essentially, Truman’s actions had been defended and justified as necessary in order to quickly end the war with U.S. causalities kept to a minimum.

The necessity of the atomic bombs have long been debated in America. Although they did contribute to stopping the war, Americans still wonder if murdering Japanese civilians was a necessary means to an end, or if it could have been avoided. Some people believe that the war would have ended without using the bombs. Others believe they were the sole purpose that the war finally ended. Many people were involved with bringing the bombs to fruition, such as the scientists, the government and military leaders, and the very teams that flew them to their targets. Then the President addressed the situation and American citizens spoke their minds. All of these people had their own thoughts on whether the bombs were needed. In this essay, the opinions on the atomic bomb’s necessity will be reviewed by presenting both the pros and cons from a variety of sources.

On May 1945, a long-awaited V-E Day finally came and brought an end to the war in Europe. But, the war in the Pacific was still continuing against Japan since they are being reluctant to surrender despite the continuous indiscriminate bombardments The United States began to consider about using the atomic bombs as the only way to end the war immediately. On the other hand, many argued that Japan’s staggering losses were enough to force Japan’s surrender. In the end, President Harry S. Truman didn’t hesitate to use this nuclear weapon and bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki with only three days interval between the two bombing. As a result, Japan has surrendered, but if I were to make a decision, I haven’t used atomic bombs because it was unnecessary since Japan has virtually lost already.

The dropping of the atomic bombs was so devastating because no one saw it coming. Although, the bombs shortened the war the lives of thousands were taken including men, women, and innocent children. The United States did send the Japanese a warning stating what they were going to do, but the citizens refused to pay attention to the warnings.When the bombings took place there were a lot of different arguments that will be discussed in this paper. These events took place on August 6, 1945, and August 9, 1945, and about 225,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many individuals have shared their opinions stating why they are for or against the bomb.

Imagine yourself making the toughest decision in your life, whether sacrificing a million of our men and thousands of war ships and plans, verses several thousand of Japanese civilian populists. This decision was on the shoulder of Harry S. Truman, the United States President, who had to make this decision by deciding whether or not to drop a newly designed weapon. The atomic bomb was tested in the sands of New Mexico, where it proved to be very successful. Harry S. Truman made a very successful decision, because he wanted to end the war quickly, show others that the United States had power, and the retribution of Pearl Harbor.

Many debates have been provoked based on President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The debate is not solely based on the bomb being dropped, but more on the actual necessity and intention of the bomb being dropped.

America's decision to use the atomic bomb on Japan was only done to assert our position over the Soviet Union, and Japan's surrender was only an extra accomplishment of the attack. During the years 1939 to 1947, numerous conferences were held to discuss diplomatic matters, and the strive towards getting Japan to accept an unconditional surrender. The Japanese had already been weakened, and the military predicted that they would eventually be forced to surrender in a short amount of time. Even the scientists who worked on the atomic bomb agreed that it was unnecessary to drop the bomb on Japan, since their surrender would be evident in the near future. Therefore, the United States' decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan had nothing to do

The absolute terror of nuclear weapons and the substantial amount of death of the Japanese has forced many questions to be asked whether the U.S. should have decided to use these destructors against Japan, ending World War II. After more than seventy years after the event, the decision to drop the first atomic bomb continues to be widely debated. The primary focus for the U.S. was to win the war at the lowest possible cost. Truman was looking for the most effective way to end the war quickly, not for a way to prevent the use of

As the war continued and violence escalated, bombings caused enormous destruction and high death tolls, leading inevitably to the use of the atomic bombs. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki represented a culmination in the destructiveness of bombings, not a significant deviation from previous bombing practices. The alternatives to the use of the atomic bomb were likely to have caused equal suffering for the Japanese people. The use of the atomic bomb was no less moral than these horrific wartime practices. Harry Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan was justified by Japan’s refusal to immediately surrender. Harry Truman gave the Japanese time to surrender in order to preserve the existence of their people. They did not comply and as a result endured the consequences. (Walker) Yet an alternate perspective states that it was quite unnecessary to drop the Atomic Bombs in that Japan was practically an already defeated opponent. If a conditional surrender were to be issued by the United States to Japan in

Truman’s decision to use atomic weapons has long been a controversial subject throughout the decades after he used it. Many scholars and people who surrounded the president at the time published memoirs and books about the decision to use the weapon. As years went, more works of writing and information were released which added more information to the vast knowledge we have of the decision to drop the bomb and of what the Japanese faced after the event took place. J. Samuel Walker wrote a book called Prompt & utter destruction which uses new knowledge gained about the bomb and new information the Japanese released, which Walker said, “has greatly enriched our understanding of the agonizing deliberations in Tokyo over ending the war”

The discussion on what motives affected Harry S. Truman’s decision to launch atomic weapons against Imperial Japan remains undecided. The debate on whether domestic, diplomatic, military, or moral factors affected him most substantially seems to be clearly established in the writings of Robert James Maddox. Although many aspects go into making important decisions, the one that appeared to persuade Truman the most was strictly military influence.

When President Harry S. Truman ordered the nuclear attack on Hiroshima on the 6th of August, 1945, most people were supportive of it because it ended the war before an invasion became necessary. Seventy two years since the first and last nuclear attacks, many 'traditionalist' historians still believe that Truman made the best possible decision in the given circumstances. However, in the 1960's, Truman's critics, who reinterpreted history began to believe that the bomb played no significant role in ending the war and was thus unnecessarily used. These revisionist historians have gone so far as to characterize the use of nuclear weapons as “the single greatest acts of terrorism in human history” (Awan, 16). On the other hand, traditionalists argue that the bomb was an important

Some regard the atomic bomb as “the thank God for the atom bomb”. This places God on the U.S. side and regards the bombs as our saving grace. This bomb forced the Japanese to surrender which in turn proved the U.S. to be the heroes who saved the American’s lives.1 The Americans intended on ending the war but did not expect to end it with such a large number of casualties. The results of the atomic bomb and how it effected the Japanese people both emotionally and physically will be addressed. “The bombs marked both an end and a beginning—the end of an appalling global conflagration in which more than 50 million people were killed and the beginning of the nuclear arms race and a new world in which