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Truman's Role In Dropping The Atomic Bomb

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Harry Truman became the 33rd president of the United States of America, taking over from Roosevelt after his sudden death. Truman was sworn to presidency on April 12th, 1945, only having served 3 months as vice president. Little did Truman know, but he would be the man to make one of the most important decisions in mankind history, about the dropping of the most lethal weapon known to mankind. As found in his personal diaries, Truman was not prepared for managing a war, the decisions and consequences that came along with it. Here he writes to his wife, Margaret Truman; “As you know I was Vice-President from Jan. 20 to April 12, 1945. I was at Cabinet meetings and saw Roosevelt once or twice in those months. But he never did talk to me confidentially …show more content…

Not only did they bring the Americans unwillingly into the war at Pearl Harbour, but the atrocities committed by the Japanese throughout wartime were horrific. The Alexandra Hospital Massacre for example, where the Japanese slaughtered majority of a hospital including those being operated on, or the Massacre of Manila, where two Japanese Generals disobeyed orders and made their men fight to the death in order to make a ‘final stand’. When the Americans arrived the Japanese started killing any civilians inside the city, a total of 100,000 civilians killed, a similar number to those killed in Hiroshima. Although most of Truman's decisions were based on facts, figures and politics, also taking the atrocities the Japanese committed into account, he knew full well the horrific consequences of the bomb. He states in a diary entry after the bomb; "Nobody is more disturbed over the use of Atomic bombs than I am but I was greatly disturbed over the unwarranted attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and their murder of our prisoners of war. The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them.” Truman wanted these Japanese atrocities to end, for the war to end, and for eventual world peace. He made the decision to drop the bomb in order to save as many of his own as he could, which any good leader would

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