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The Atomic Bomb

The Atomic Bomb

In early August 1945, atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These two bombs quickly yielded the surrender of Japan and the end of American involvement in World War II (Findley, 2006). By 1946, the two bombs caused the death of perhaps as many as 240,000 Japanese citizens. The popular, or traditional, view that dominated the 1950s and 60s put forth by President Harry Truman and Secretary of War Henry Stimson was that the dropping of the bomb was a diplomatic maneuver aimed at intimating and gaining the upper hand in relations with Russia (Wainstock, 1996). Today, sixty-two years after the two bombings, with the advantage of historical hindsight and the advantage of new evidence, a third view, can be presented. First, the dropping of the bomb was born out of complex military, domestic, and diplomatic pressures. Second, many potentially viable alternatives to dropping the bombs were not explored by Truman and other men in power. Third, because these alternatives were never explored, we can only speculate over whether or not Truman's decision was a morally just one, and if indeed it was necessary to use atomic energy to win the war (Wainstock, 1996).
The military pressures stemmed from discussion and meetings Truman had with Secretary of War Stimson, Army Chief of Staff General Marshal, Chief of Staff, Admiral William Leahy, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal and others. On June 18, 1945, general Marshall and Secretary of War Stimson convinced Truman to set an invasion of the island of Kyushu for November 1945. Truman knew of the ferocious fighting currently taking place in the Pacific, and naturally had a desire to minimize the long, bloody struggle. Stimson, Truman and others believed the invasion of the Japanese mainland would be extremely costly, and therefore embraced the bomb as a military weapon (Alperovitz, 1996). Truman's feelings that the bomb was a necessary military weapon were written...