Thomasa Hicks

MALS 610: Contemporary History

Fall 2014
Paper 1: Truman and the Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb
On August 6, 1945, the world changed when the United States dropped the first atomic
bomb on the Japanese city Hiroshima. Three days later a second bomb was dropped on another
Japanese city, Nagasaki. The decision to drop the atomic bomb was left to one person, President
Harry S. Truman. Since the decision to use the atomic bomb and following the unprecedented
destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many questions regarding the decision have been asked,
including if President Truman had made the correct decision by unleashing the bomb and what
his actual motivations for doing so.
When President Truman was alerted that the atomic bomb had become an available
option for use against the Japanese, he was also alerted to its destructiveness. In addition to his
knowledge of the bombs destructive abilities, there was a variety of additional factors that also
influenced President Trumans decision to drop the atomic bomb. In his book Prompt and Utter
Destruction, historian J. Samuel Walker gives five reasons that he has determined to be major
factors that ultimately influenced President Trumans finial decision.1 According to Walker, those
reasons included:

Ending the war at the earliest possible moment

Justification for the cost of the Manhattan Project
Impressing the Soviets
A lack of incentives not to use the bomb
Responding to the attack on Pearl Harbor. 2

1 Walker, J. Samuel. 1997, Quoted in Donohue, 2012

2 Donohue, 2012

As we know from the historical record, President Truman had taken most of these factors
into consideration at the time, but had zeroed in on, at least publicly, two major factors. The first
was the ruthless attacks conducted by the Japanese Military, specially the bombing attack on
Pearl Harbor. The second was the need to prevent the deaths of more American, and event that
was sure to occur if the war continued. These points were highlighted by President Truman
himself in an August 9, 1945 radio address following the Potsdam Conference, President Truman
stated, in regards to his decision to use the atomic bomb;
Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who
attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and
beaten and executed American Prisoners of war against those who have
abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it
in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and
thousands of young Americans.3
In this statement President Truman is pointed directly at the ruthless actions of the
Japanese military, and the need to save American lives resulting from ongoing, long-term
conflict with the Japanese, as major factors in his decision to deploy the atomic weapons, this is
a stance that President Truman would hold firmly to for the rest of his life. Overall, these two
factors are the ones most often cited by President Truman and his supporters as the major reasons
for the use of the atomic bombs, and as far as the American public was concerned at the time,
those reasons were good enough, and the boys were comin home.
We know now, President Truman had additional options that he could have taken that
would not have has such destructive result. We now know there were three options that President
Truman could have taken, and most likely considered, in lieu of the use of the atomic weapons.
Those options included:

3 Harry S Truman: "Radio Report to the American People on the Potsdam Conference," August 9, 1945

(1) the intensification of traditional bombing raids on selected military targets and naval
blockades,
(2) a concession to the proposed surrender to the Japanese, which would allow them to retain
their Emperor, Emperor Hirohito, or
(3) to wait for the Soviet Union to enter the war, which they had agreed to do at the Yalta
conference in negotiations with President Trumans predecessor, President Franklin
Roosevelt prior to his death in April 1945.4
While all of these options were available to President Truman, he still decided to use the atomic
bomb, because he felt it was the most effect means to end the war.
Taking in to consideration all of the options that President Truman had, I argue that his decision
to drop the atomic bombs was the right decision for the United States, and that, in fact, it may
have been the only means to end the war. One major factor has greatly influenced my support of
the atomic bombings that is my understanding of the overwhelming nationalism of the Japanese
people, especially during World War II. The nationalism of the Japanese people had been an
almost unstoppable force, driven by loyalty to Empirical Japan, which made the military both
ruthless and persistent; both characteristics presented major issues for the Allies throughout the
war and would have been a major obstacle to overcome before the war could have ended.
The Japanese culture is imperialistic and as a result it bonds the people of the nation to
the nation, the leadership and the ultimate destiny of the nation as a whole, resulting in the strong
sense of connection to country and the willingness of many to die for cause of the nation. In the
eyes of Japanese, the cause was Japanese supremacy on a global scale, because as a people had
believed the gods had ordained them to rule the earth.5 This shared belief among the Japanese
people is what led to their willingness to fight and die in the name of Japan. This is most evident
4 Donohue, 2012
5 Jennings, 1995

in the actions of the Japanese Kamikazes, who knew that the mission they were on to harm the
enemy would result in their own death. These pilots represented the extreme feelings Japanese
empirical destiny held by the majority of the Japanese and an example of mindset of the enemy
the United States faced.
The idea that the shared belief of Japans destiny, is further supported by the many of nations
leaders and their unwillingness to surrender, even after the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
According to the diary of Japanese leader Hideki Tojo, his personal desire was to continue to
fight even after the bombs had fallen, and in correspondence with a former aid acknowledged
that it was his belief that lives of the dead Japanese throughout the war were meant to be
sacrificed for a great cause. 6 That cause was the supremacy of the Japanese people. It is my
belief that this was a shared opinion among the majority of the Japanese.
In the end, many arguments have and will be made regarding President Trumans decision to use
the atomic bomb. The use of the bomb was the most devastating military action to have every
occurred in human history. While I do not feel that the destruction of the cities of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and the loss of innocent lives on those two August days were the most moral way to
bring a conclusion to the war, it was the only way to stop the rampage of the Japanese people. A
culture who even in the days following the bombings and in the shadow of the destruction they
caused, were persistent in their desire to continue to fight in the name of destiny, in the name of
total Empirical Japanese Supremacy.

6 Yamaguchi, 2008

Works Cited
Donohue, Nathan. 2012. Understanding the Decision to Drop the Bomb on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Center for Strategic and International Studies. Center for Strategic and International
Studies. August 10. http://csis.org/blog/understanding-decision-drop-bomb-hiroshima-andnagasaki.

Harry S Truman: "Radio Report to the American People on the Potsdam Conference," August 9, 1945
Online by Gerhard Peters and John T Woolley, The American Presidency Project
Http://wwwpresidencyucsbedu/ws/?pid=12165.

Jennings, Peter. 2014. Hiroshima: Why the Bomb Was Dropped (1995). YouTube. na. January 4.
http://youtu.be/9-wnlnle3sk.

Walker, J. Samuel. 1997. Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against
Japan. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, quotes in Donohue, Nathan. 2012.
Understanding the Decision to Drop the Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Center for
Strategic and International Studies. Center for Strategic and International Studies. August 10.
http://csis.org/blog/understanding-decision-drop-bomb-hiroshima-and-nagasaki.

Yamaguchi, Mari. 2008. Diary Shows Tojo Resisted Surrender Till End. AP Worldstream, August 12.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1a1-d92gp1rg0.html?refid=easy_hf.