President Truman’s Rash and Detrimental Decision Harry Truman was the 33rd President of the United States of America. He was a farmer, business man and in his later life, a politician. During the First World War he served with France as an artillery officer. Even though he states that his strong values for honestly and decency, his experience from serving in the war later affects his decisions in regards to the safety of America. His Vice Presidency was only 82 days, during this time he only spoke to Roosevelt twice. He had no knowledge that the US was in the works of making an atomic bomb. The bomb was created in order to show the Russians that the US has power and to stop the spread of communism. In the course of his Vice Presidency …show more content…
Roosevelt's secretary of agriculture, Henry Wallace, Jimmy Byrnes and Truman met at Washington’s union station for a meeting. Truman heavily relied on Byrnes for advice and Byrnes was also the first to tell Truman about the atomic bomb. By the end of 1944, the Japanese airforce was extremely weak, it was clear that they were going to try to finish the war soon. The Japanese asked for peace and the US understood that the Japanese wanted the war to be over soon. Truman’s advisors wanted the war to end sooner and put pressure on Truman. The US was also offered a deal from the USSR on ending the war, the US refused because they felt they could do better. The US continued at war with Japan. Curtis LeMay, a major in the US army sent 330 planes over with flammable bombs to hit Tokyo because the city is built up with wood and bamboo. This event killed up to 100,000 civilians. On May 8th, 1945 the war in Europe, the war and Asia continued. Even though the Germans surrendered the US was still planning on continuing the war in Japan. In July 1945, Truman attended the conference of Potsdam in order to ensure the Soviets entry into the Pacific war. Truman delayed this conference by two weeks in order to give the scientist more time for testing the bomb in New Mexico. Truman deceived that the US had a new unusual destructive force on July 24th, though Stalin did not understand the extent of how dangerous this bomb was. Truman was in charge of The Manhattan Project, this was the decision of whether to drop the first atomic bomb ever to be used at war or not. Truman, George Marshall and Dean Acheson were known as a group called ‘the wise men’. This group was called upon to give Truman advice for his
In addition to the desire to end the war and thus the casualties to the American troops, Truman had other reasons for considering the approval of the atomic attacks. Truman was enlightened by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson in a meeting on April 25, 1945 on the capability of the bomb, and the enormous expense incurred in developing it. This was one reason that Truman’s conclusion was to use the bomb against Japan, as there had to be a justifiable explanation for the expense incurred. Also, if he had not employed the use of the atomic bomb, he would not be able to justify to the American people why he had chosen not to do so, as there were so many American lives lost. It was alleged after the
Harry Truman (1884-1972) was the most influential person in the race for the super bomb. As President Roosevelt’s Vice President, he knew nothing about the development of the atomic bomb. But within months of assuming the office of President of the United States on April 12, 1945, he became the first and only American leader to authorize the use of atomic weapons against an enemy target. Truman’s era only marked the beginning of the race for nuclear weapons. The development of nuclear weapons is still an issue today, decades after Truman left office.
Harry Truman was one of the United States most important presidents. He was the 33rd American president. He took office after President Franklin Roosevelt. At the time of his assumption into office, World War II was occurring. Truman made the biggest presidential decision of his time to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. Truman also helped rebuild postwar Europe. He worked to contain communism and led America into the Korean War.
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.
President Roosevelt knew that America was making these highly deadly bombs, but they were top secret, no one knew, so he made the choice to keep from telling anyone, including his Vice President Truman. When President Roosevelt died Truman was swore in right away and was immediately told about the atomic bombs. After the atomic bombs were finished, successful and ready, the United States Generals started saying that we needed to use them on Japan because they felt that was the plan whole time. They voiced their opinion but left the decision to President Truman. Truman had to decide if he was, or was not making a good decision before he made it. Therefore, he made a committee to help him decide, so the decision was not all on him. The committee came up with four different options for Truman to choose from. Option one was that they just “conventional Bomb the
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the United States of America. He became president because Franklin D. Roosevelt died during his term; Truman was Roosevelt’s Vice President at the time. Truman found himself facing some of the greatest challenges met by any 20th-century president. He discovered in July 1945 that some scientists working for the United States government had successfully tested an atomic bomb in New Mexico. President Truman wanted to use the atomic bomb to end the war in the Pacific, but with fewest U.S. catastrophes. This decision was one of the most momentous decisions of the 20th century and extremely perplexing when analyzed.
Harry S. Truman became the 33rd president of the United States after the death of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt on April 12, 1945. He was Roosevelt's vice president, and at first was ill-prepared to begin his presidency due to the lack of communication with Roosevelt. This lack of communication made his presidency a challenge, and Truman encountered many different international and domestic problems. World War II was approaching its end and domestically the economy was in very bad shape. Internationally, tensions were building with countries, especially communist Russia during the Cold War. Despite numerous conflicts and predicaments, Truman had a positive attitude and the perseverance to attack these challenges head on which in the
When Harry S. Truman left the presidency in January 1953, he was one of the most unpopular politicians in the United States. However, this is unjustified as he was a real democrat for the people and was an honest president. Furthermore, he did not make many poor discussions nor was he inadequate leader, yet he got undeserved and bias criticism by the people of the United States. Truman continually faced tough challenges and had to pick up from where Franklin D. Roosevelt 's unanticipated death left the nation in a mess. He was the Commander in Chief of the United States military during the final months of World War II. Under his command, the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, effectively ending the war. For many Americans, Truman 's legacy as the nation 's leader centres on these controversial decisions. He had courage, imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand, yet he was branded as a bad president during his time. In spite of that, he has overcome his challenges and had stayed strong even after he returned to private life,
President Truman felt after weighing the outcomes of what else could have been done, he chose the most effective one. In my opinion, he chose the right way to use the atomic weapon. He had to think about his people over the enemy’s citizens. Truman did his best to not harm a well-known
President Harry S. Truman 's intentions of the atomic bomb were to bring an end to the war, the Japanese had made it clear that there would be no surrender on their side. In Truman 's diary entry from the Potsdam Conference, he discussed that the bomb would only be dropped and used on "military objectives and soldiers and sailors", the innocent women and children where not their target. Although he did state “Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless, and fanatic, we as the leaders of the world for the common welfare cannot drop this terrible bomb on the old capital or the new.” Truman was aware of the affect the atomic bomb had, and how dangerous it was; making it known that dropping such forces on the people of Japan would cause major damage. He also mentioned that there would be a warning to the Japanese government to and save the lives of their people, even though they had
The nature of the careers and by extension the feelings of the president as opposed to scientists was one of the factors that differentiated the finer points of their views on the usage of the atomic bomb. Truman was not aware of the true effects of dropping the atomic bomb, and therefore his decision lay as a purely military choice. Truman, as president, was obligated to protect, preserve and defend America, and the American lives taken by Japanese kamikaze pilots stood as a threat to homeland security. He viewed the bombing as no different than the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo; essentially, a necessary step in protecting America, blind to the inevitable repercussions for the Japanese, such as radioactive sickness. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the lead scientist of the Manhattan Project, explains the viewpoint of the scientists. The scientists were unaware of the ill effects of the bomb as well, and felt deep regret as expressed by Oppenheimer that such a drastic scale of damage had resulted from the very thing that they had spent months
After Roosevelts death, Harry Truman became the 33rd president of the United States, where his Presidency is famous for his war-ending actions against Japan. (Whitehouse, Harry). Truman was put in the position to choose if an atomic bomb should be dropped upon Japan to trigger quick surrender from the Japanese. To this day, people question if dropping the atomic bombs was necessary, and if so, to what extent? (nsarchive, The End of World War II)
President Truman elected to use the atomic bomb against Japan to hasten the end of the World War II. President Truman saw no issues with using the atomic bomb against Japan if it would save American lives in doing so (Roark 856). Japan, with their numerous defeats, still had millions of reserves to use as a last-minute defense against the Allies. U.S. military advisers estimated that the last-minute defense would kill at least 250,000 Americans (Roark 856). President Truman issued an ultimate surrender completely or face ruin. The Japanese failed and the U.S. bombed Hiroshima on August 6. When Japan would still not surrender the U.S. used a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki on August 9. Japan surrendered on August 14, after receiving assurance
Introduction After the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the new president Harry Truman became president and was faced with crucial decisions which would steer the future of the war. Harry Truman was alerted about the very confidential Manhattan Project to build a working atomic bomb. Just as soon as the Japanese Islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa were taken from them, the time to attack Japan was soon arising. Japanese soldiers deployed in those two Islands killed or wounded over 89 thousand Americans(PBS.org). Harry Truman was right to drop the Atomic Bombs because it saved considerable American and Japanese lives, ender WW2 faster, and turned the USA into a global superpower.
Secretary of War Stimson informed him of the important matter: A project to develop a new bomb of almost unbelievable destructive power, this was the first time Truman had heard of the atomic bomb. A few months later, while Truman was attending Potsdam, The weapon was successfully tested"(Air power history pg.56). "President Harry S Truman" had a lot of decision-making to make. He would have to depend on the information that was getting to him from his war advisors furthermore, he wasn’t sure the decision he had to make, would be an easy one for him to make. But he knew he had to drop the bomb on Hiroshima. The destructive force was more than any human had ever seen before. Hiroshima was devastated by the "fat man" bomb. The devastation was so great there was almost 100,000 life taken with that one bomb that was dropped. With that said there was another decision to make, Whether or not a second bomb was