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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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