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The Pros And Cons Of Dropping The Atomic Bomb

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The decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan is a decision that has been debated since the bomb fell. While Truman may have made the decision because he felt it was “ethical,” the actual amount of ethics in the decision has been up for debate. The atomic bomb had been in design before Truman stepped up to president when Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in April of 1945. The atomic bomb had actually been in development since Albert Einstein warned the United States that Germany was trying to develop an atomic bomb of its own in 1939. When America got that warning, they began to work on an atomic bomb, making progress at a rapid rate (Carnes, Garraty, pg. 727). The first successful bomb explosion occurred in Alamogordo, …show more content…

He wanted to end the war before the Soviet Union had a chance to intervene. However, President Truman stated in his diary that he only wanted the bomb to be used on military targets. He believed that the United States had a moral obligation to take the moral high ground (Dannen, …show more content…

One such scientist was Doctor Leo Szilard. Doctor Szilard was a Hungarian-born scientist who helped launch the atomic bomb project, but was one of the many scientists petitioning for it to not be used in 1945. In an interview he stated that he created a memorandum for President Roosevelt in March of 1945 that argued against the use of an atomic bomb on Japan. When President Roosevelt died, he didn’t have a clear way to meet with the new president, Harry Truman. In the end, he met with James Bryan and shared his reasons for opposing the use of an atomic bomb (http://members.peak.org/~danneng/decision/usnews.html). Doctor Szilard gave several reasons to Bryan as to why the bomb shouldn’t have been dropped. One such reason was he feared an arms race with Russia. He didn’t feel the short term success of dropping the bomb outweighed the potential long term effects. Another issue he brought up was the fact that the United States had no laws in place to deal with the aftermath of an atomic bomb and the effect it would have on the world. He believed that time should have been taken to put such laws in place

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