Atomic Bomb Szilard Analysis

In 1945, when it became open knowledge that President Truman and his cabinet planned on using atomic weapons against Japan, a group of scientists who had worked on the project that led to the Atomic bomb, decided to protest. With Leo Szilard in the lead, an appeal was written to the President. This petition asked the President “to rule that the United States shall not, in the present phase of the war, resort to the use of atomic bombs” (Szilard). This letter contained the use of both ethos and pathos in hopes of convincing the President to change his point of view. While the use of pathos and egos was effective, the fact that Szilard was a nuclear physicist would have leant greater credibility to his letter than trying to appeal emotionally

The vital information that only the scientists held should have been used as the main motivation to sway the President. By not bringing up the fact that it was them who invented the atomic bomb and they knew of its massive annihilation abilities, was a key argument that must have been brought forth. The petitioner’s repeated use of pathos and appeals of emotion and moral responsibility sidetracked the rational facts of their arguments. A factual representation of the scientist’s true information of the matter should have been the main thought process and might have possibly altered the course of history. Leo Szilard and his group of co-signers failed to prevent the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thus demonstrating that the point of view of the scientists failed to carry the strong talking points needed to stop the world’s first atomic weapons attack. The verbiage and main points should have been sterner and utilized the fact that the scientists held specific knowledge about these weapons. A more meaningful effort might have altered the way history played out. If the Szilard and the other scientists would have gone about petitioning the bombings in complete and 100 percent opposition rather than attempting to try and dictate national policy, they might have actually been