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Truman Trial Decision Essay

909 Words4 Pages

Trial Decision This trial of President Harry S Truman attempts to malign him as a war criminal after the role he played in dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As Commander in Chief during World War II, President Truman made the final decision in whether the atomic bombs should or should not be dropped to put an end to Japanese resistance and bring the second world war to a close. It is being called into question whether the Japanese’s unwillingness to surrender called for such a severe response from the United States. During this trial, President Truman’s innocence was formally debated based on the information presented from the prosecution and defense, and we, the judges, have reached a verdict. We find President Harry S …show more content…

For instance, the defense continually mentioned the Bushido code and the Japanese’s unwillingness to surrender. Firstly, nowhere in the Bushido code does it state that surrender was not an option. Secondly, even if this proved true, the United States still had the capability to easily overcome Japan’s weakening army rendering this point mute. Whether the Japanese planned to surrender or not, the United States had the power to end Japanese resistance without the bombs and the severe damage they caused. Additionally, they backed every statement with the same point of “President Truman had to put the American people first.” While this may be true of a president’s duties to their country, morally, Truman still should have weighed the potential damage the bombs would cause on a global scale. Knowing that the United States, a dominant nation, could conquer the Japanese with ease, he should not have used a weapon of mass destruction on the innocent citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The defense used this repeatedly to support their claims and offered no variation to their rationalizations of Truman’s actions. I feel that in this case, the defense team did little to truly justify the dropping of the atomic bombs. In essence, the ineffectiveness of their argument and their hackneyed statements used to explain the president’s actions did not provide enough evidence to clear his name and wash his hands of

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