Imagine, Being The President Of The United States, The

They think that the Japanese were going to surrender, that Truman’s advisers didn’t all agree that the bomb was necessary, and that there was a better way to get Japan to surrender. But, it turns out that this was not the case. Japan was an honor-based country. Surrendering was not honorable to them. They were taught that suicide was an honorable death. “A prominent local Navy man, a former employee, had committed suicide the day before by throwing himself under a train- a death considered honorable enough to warrant a memorial service.”. (Hersey, 16). If it was honorable enough for a normal man to commit suicide, then people wouldn’t hesitate to die for their country. Japan would be wiped out because they wouldn’t know when to give up. In an interview with a high ranked Japanese officer on v-j day, Karl T. Compton asked him what he thought would happen if we hadn’t dropped the bomb, and invaded instead. He said, “We would have kept on fighting until all Japanese were killed, but we would not have been defeated.”. By this he means that they would have kept fighting until they were dead, and even though they would lose, it wouldn’t be losing if they died honorably, fighting for their country. Another reason why people did not think that he atomic bomb was not necessary was because people think that Truman’s advisors were not in favor of the bomb, therefore making the decision to drop the bomb only up to Truman,

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.

The Manhattan Project was a secret problem barely anyone knew about.Many of the scientists that were involved with the Manhattan Project heard about the Axis powers gaining knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons that could destroy a whole nation.The Manhattan Project produced two atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan.The atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Hiroshima was chosen as the target for the first atomic bomb because it was a large port city with an army base. The bomb dropped on Nagasaki missed its target by over a mile.

To ensure his plan, the Manhattan Project was created to develop an atomic bomb that would have a chained reaction in order to get a massive explosion. However, the goal was to create this nuclear technology before German scientists could figure it out. To test the atomic bomb and to see if it would be successful on Japan, they created the Trinity Test 210 miles south of Los Alamos (which was the headquarters of the Manhattan Project) which tested a plutonium implosion device. The results were successful and when they dropped the bomb from the tower, it created a crater and shattered windows 125 miles away! Furthermore, as President, it means Truman is appointed Commander in Chief, meaning he runs the armed forces. President Truman is justified to his decision of dropping the atomic bomb because it’s his duty as President to make those calls. Equally important, in Document A, President Truman states, “...[The atomic bomb] would be likely to bring the war to an end.” In the best interest of the Americans, Truman knew dropping a 5-ton bomb would quickly end the war against Japan, therefore making the Americans feel secure and

In the 1930’s and the 1940’s there was a change in American leadership. Having this change not only changed the outcome of the war that we were currently in, but how the rest of the world would view our country after the war. The decision that Harry Truman was forced to make on the choice to drop the atomic bomb or to attempt more land invasions was a choice that shaped the outcome of the war. There were major influences and side effects from the dropping of the atomic bomb and what it did to the country of Japan. Having the option and the weight of the moral decision weighing on Truman’s shoulders about what decision should be made, he was the only one who was capable of making the decision that shaped the outcome of the war. Having dropped the bomb on Japan, as a statement of power and a means to an end in a form was the only way that American lives could have been spared as comparing that to the lives that would have been lost in a land invasion. Knowing what the issues with the bomb was; one has to look at the moral issues, the results of the incident, and also how it played in the rest of the development of the world.

During World War II, President Harry S. Truman ordered for an atomic bomb to be dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6th ,1945. The second and last atomic bomb to ever be dropped was in the city of Nagasaki on August 9th, 1945. Many Americans believed dropping the atomic bomb was necessary to end the war in a more timely manner, however, many others believed dropping the atomic bomb was too extreme of a measure to take against Japan. With the creation of the atomic bomb, the United States had a weapon of mass destruction that no one else yet had. Therefore, with the power the atomic bomb possessed, some people believed its use should only be used as a last resort. If Japan would not surrender during this war, then the United States would have a valid and necessary reason in using the power of an atomic bomb. For the other Americans that believed in the immediate drop of the atomic bomb, dropping it would end the war sooner, which would then decrease the amount American soldiers who would be killed during the war. Whether dropping the atomic bomb on Japan was the most ethical decision that President Truman could have ordered is still debated.

The Manhattan Project was created out of the fear of their current enemy, Germany of making the first atomic bomb and using it in the war. The current President of the United States was Franklin Roosevelt. It was seen that Germany was making great advances in the war which worried many. But the people who were very worried were three prestigious scientists. Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, and Edward Teller who were Hungarian scientists who immigrated to the United States during the war. Szilard and the other scientists wished to advocate for the start of a program that put all efforts into making an atomic bomb. But of course they were very intelligent on how to get their cause across seriously. “Though the three men, particularly Szilard, were well known

Japan during the 1940’s was a nation that prided itself on the concept of never surrendering. It was something that they took fierce and obsessive pride in. Their culture dictated that they are never to give up, even if they fought until every single man,woman, and child living in Japan was slaughtered, they would never surrender. This doctrine was one of the key deciding factors that influenced Truman in making the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Several weeks before the Atomic bomb was dropped, The Untied States of Military issued a warning to the Japanese government. “It warned the Japanese to surrender immediately or face ‘prompt and utter destruction.” (Yes! Harry Truman’s Simple Decision) Unfortunately, a mere two weeks before the first atomic bomb dropped, the Japanese prime minister publically dismissed the warning and refused to surrender. Even after the bombing of Hiroshima, the Japanese government refused to stand down. Even though they had suffered over 225,000 civilian casualties in the attack, the Japanese military refused to surrender. It took until the second bombing of Nagasaki to finally force the Japanese to surrender on American

This thought brings me to my next motive of why Truman might have dropped the bomb. I do not think Truman was unaware of the lasting effects of the atom bomb, but by the time these facts were presented to him, piled upon facts about the actual bomb and the projects supporting them, it was to late to change his decision. He needed to save face for America (which brings me to the next motive of pressure) even if it public opinion was not his main concern. Truman did not want to look soft upon the Japanese, something further consideration and negation of the plan to bomb would have caused in some officials eye's. Also, Truman and much of the rest of the nation did not like seeing the U.S. as moral failures like many other nations. Who knows what the reaction to the President's decision would have been like if he had decided to let an invasion with hundreds and thousands of our men involved take place.

Therefore, The United States dropped it in order to finish the war. They wanted to prevent more deaths and if the atomic bomb didn’t stop them, nothing would’ve stopped them. For example, after Truman dropped the bomb he released a letter and sources from CNN quoted “that the decision to use the two nuclear bombs saved the lives of 250,000 Allied troops and 250,000 Japanese by helping to prevent an invasion”. Although it was rough because they didn’t know the long term effects on that the atomic bomb would have on the cities. If the U.S. didn’t drop the bomb the war could’ve gotten worse and be more deadly in the long run.

In World War II, Japan has been one of the biggest threat to the Allies. As the war goes on, the atomic bomb has been discovered and the U.S decided to bomb it surprisingly in Hiroshima, Japan, that had been one of Japan’s largest cities during late 1600’s. It became a horrible situation to the people who got bomb on August 6, 1945. America stated that they have a lot of reasons on why did they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, like to save more of their people and lessen their casualties, to make Japan surrender as quickly as possible and according to President Truman, the main reason of it was to end World War II. Others were not convinced with their reasons and said that the bomb has been dropped on Hiroshima because America wanted to see how

“Truman stated that his decision to drop the bomb was purely military. Truman believed that the bombs saved Japanese lives as well. Prolonging the war was not an option for the President,” (ushistory.org 1). President Truman and the United States government made a fair decision by dropping the atomic bomb on the Japanese citizens in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during 1945. The bomb allowed the United States to appear more powerful and led to them influencing the rest of the world. The dropping of the atomic bomb was also a just response to the previous atrocities committed by Japan to other countries including the United States. In the long run, the bomb saved more lives that would have been lost in the war, since the bombs caused the

When Truman dropped the bomb he wanted to tell “not only Japan but the world that we are not afraid to do what we have to do to protect our homeland and defeat our enemies”(Debate.org) and to show how strong the United States was. President Truman needed to prove to the enemies that the United States were prepared for anything; that they had the money and knowledge for war. The atomic bomb not only showed that the United States were capable, but proved that “Japan’s leadership [would] surrender easily”(Ahmed) meaning Japan surrendered right away when Truman dropped the bomb which ended the

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

The decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the hardest decision for President Truman to make. He had the power right there in his hands to end the war but he would have to unleash the most powerful weapon known to man, at this time. Everyone was very tired of fighting but the Japanese would not give up so Truman decided to drop it. Even though we told Japan that if they did not surrender we would completely demolish some of their cities, they did not listen and they did not surrender. Maybe they did not think about what kind of weapons we would use because