Moral Dilemmas Of President Harry S. Truman

President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the direct cause for the end of World War II in the Pacific. The United States felt it was necessary to drop the atomic bombs on these two cities or it would suffer more casualties. Not only could the lives of many soldiers have been taken, but possibly the lives of many innocent Americans. The United States will always try to avoid the loss of American civilians at all costs, even if that means taking lives of another countries innocent civilians.

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

Was it necessary for Truman to drop the Atomic Bombs on Japan in World War II? On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped by a US aircraft on Hiroshima. This atomic bomb was dropped to force Japan into surrender, this bomb alone destroyed Hiroshima and over 90,000 people were instantly killed in the explosion and an additional 100,000 people perished from burns and radiation sickness. On August 9, 1945 only three days later, the second atomic bomb was dropped over Nagasaki resulting in an additional 80,000 casualties of the Japanese population. The people of Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945 soon after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many people opposed to the use of the atomic bombs because people argued that Truman 's decision to use atomic bombs was a barbaric act of cruelty. People also argued that the US government had other ulterior motives to drop the atomic bomb that were necessary for America 's ideals. Necessary motives like presenting The Soviet Union a strong message for the Soviets to watch their step around America. A conventional way of warfare for Japan 's surrender would have costed many more American lives. Truman and others believed that the atomic bomb was necessary to save American lives but also Japanese lives. These actions from President Truman marked the end of the most destructive war in history. The two sources that will used and evaluated in this paper are is The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb by Dennis D. Wainstock (1996)

On August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. To this day there is controversy on whether the U.S. should have risked the lives of hundreds of thousands of people to win the second world war. The U.S. Should have considered other options before dropping the bomb on Hiroshima. There were many alternative actions that could have taken place instead of dropping the bomb, but President Truman decided that using it was the best way to get the Japanese to surrender. If he would have chosen differently, the world would be a different place today.

Some say the decision was moral and some say it was immoral. The people who think the bombing was immoral was because they think that the atomic bomb is the last thing for destruction on God’s scale. It is immoral to God’s creation of mankind. As the author of Nippon Times (Tokyo) said, a nuclear bomb “strikes at the very basis of moral existence” (Document 4). The author said that it is ethically wrong to bomb innocent humans and destroy mankind. But although the Japanese had to face poor conditions, the American lives were saved by President Truman. The decision was indeed justified on the United States standpoint but unfortunately the decision was immoral on the Japanese

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.

By dropping the atomic bomb, America demonstrated the power they had. America’s “Secret Weapon” displayed our technological and scientific superiority to the world. This helped deter the Soviet Union and others from further expansion. For example Dwight D. Eisenhower states, “We ought not to need to put ourselves in the position of requesting or begging for Soviet aid” (Document C). America proved once again to be a group of individuals who could rise above all adversities.

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.

“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

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

This enormous bomb killed a mass amount of innocents in the process and there was a huge uproar because of it. The extreme measures taken by President Truman made the Americans question: Was this bomb necessary? This decision took many months but President Truman concluded, from political, ethical and military perspectives, that it was best to end the war. What could have possessed the President to drop such a devastating bomb? From a military perspective, President Truman believed it was the simplest way to put an end to this killer war.

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

The President of the United States Harry S. Truman wanted to force Japan to surrender as quickly as possible to minimize American casualties. The United States needed to use the atomic bomb before the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan to establish US dominance afterwards. Truman at this time wasn 't thinking as a president should be during this time. Hiroshima is located on a flat river delta with little to no hills to protect the city. The bomb was dropped on the city centre, an area crowded with wooden residential structures and places of business. The death toll and destruction in Hiroshima was extremely high.

President Truman has to make one of the hardest decisions of all time. He had to decide whether it was better to use a weapon of mass destruction, or let the war end on its own. Ultimately, his decisions to use the atomic bomb and end the war was the correct and most ethical decision. This decision was an ethical one because America gave the Japanese ample warning, it saved countless America lives, and it was payback for Pearl Harbor.

President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the direct cause for the end of World War II in the Pacific. The United States felt it was necessary to drop the atomic bombs on these two cities or it would suffer more casualties. Not only could the lives of many soldiers have been taken, but possibly the lives of many innocent Americans. The United States will always try to avoid the loss of American civilians at all costs, even if that means taking lives of another countries innocent civilians.