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Was The Truman Atomic Bomb Justified Essay

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At the end of World War II, President Harry S. Truman dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But was it justified to end World War II or was it just for his greed for power projection? In this trial, the former president was tried for war crimes against humanity, with the punishment being sentenced to death by hanging. The jury vote guilty. We chose this because of testimony given by witnesses, Truman’s official atomic bombing order, and the impact of the closing statements. Julius Robert Oppenheimer was the head scientist of the Manhattan Project. He and his colleagues were the first to create an atomic bomb. Oppenheimer also knew of the blast technicalities and possible locations of where the bomb would be dropped. However, he had no idea that Truman would authorize two bomb droppings - he only …show more content…

He was one of Truman’s senior advisors. He advised that the bomb was the quickest way to end the war, instead of a mainland invasion, according to some rough “official” estimates of casualties. Stinson knew of the existence of the bomb before Truman did, and he had significant influence over Truman’s decision of the bomb. However, it was Truman’s final decision that would authorize the bomb’s fault, so even though the blame would be on advisors as well as Truman, he still takes some of the blame. Harry Truman chose to drop the bomb to shock the Japanese into surrendering. At POTSDAM, Truman warned the Japanese of an “extremely powerful weapon”, however he was vague about it. The Japanese probably didn’t believe him, so they didn’t respond. Truman also didn’t care about the fact that nearly all of Japan’s major cities were rubble and their air force was grounded. He also dismissed the idea of a conditional surrender (of which Japan keeps its emperor and its military) before the bombing, because he really wanted an unconditional surrender, to keep the United States’ influence in

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But he had no compelling reason to do so. The bomb provided a promising way to bring about a prompt Japanese surrender without the disadvantages of other alternatives, and in Truman’s mind, its use did not require a lengthy consideration” (Walker pg. 96). After the bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, people decided that the bombs were actually required. The people thought that if the bombs weren’t dropped, thousands of American lives would have died while America invaded Japan. The problem with this logic is that many people died in those bombings.

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Harry Truman gave many warnings before he put in place the dropping of the atomic bomb. He wrote a press release announcing the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6th,1945 defending using the atomic bomb. He stated that “japan began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid manyfold, and the end is not yet (Doc 8)”. Truman was tired of his country suffering from this long World war he put

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Document 33 shows a propaganda shows the amount of damage the bombs would do, Japan still did not surrender. Another piece of evidence is document 71: I know the Japanese intimately. The Japanese will not crack. They will not crack morally or psychologically or economically, even when eventual defeat stares them in the face.

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Supported by source 5 he mentions “how his object was to save as many Americans lives as possible but I also have a humane feeling for the Women and Children in Japan”. In Japan at the time it was a hard to live. They were dealing with cruelness and warfare being uncivilized even though they were considered “beasts”. Since the bomb saved millions of lives, without its use the war would have continued for many months. The bomb dropping was meant to help everyone in the world so that less people suffered overall.

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Harry S. Truman’s idea to drop the atomic bomb during World War II was a bad idea, it caused around 210,000 people to die and many of parts of their land and buildings were destroyed or ruined, it also had the scientists who made the bomb, ask the president to not use the weapon they had created and caused many after radiation effects. The after-effect of Harry S. Tuman’s plan to drop the atomic bomb was a bad idea because it caused the death of 210,000 people in only two bombs. There were multiple bombs during the war, and overall they killed way more people than the two bombs did overall. But statistically, the number of people who died during the bombings was far more than the number of people who would die during 5–6 bombings.

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