Truman's Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb
Causes and Effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945
Jan 18, 2009
On August 6, 1945, Florida Senator Claude Pepper noted in his diary, “President Truman announces atomic bomb loosed on Japan equal in power to 20,000 tons of TNT or the load of 2,000 B-29s. The discovery and the product have great possibilities for peace.” [1] The United States had become the first nation ever to utilize what George Kennan called a “sterile and hopeless weapon.” [2] What motivated President Truman to use this weapon twice within three days?
President Truman’s Decision to use the Atomic Bomb
Margaret Truman, the President’s daughter, writes convincingly that the decision was military. The atomic bomb was nothing more than another weapon to end the war quickly, and her father did not hesitate to use it. [3] Historians such as Stephen Ambrose point out that in the summer of 1945, the United States did not have the two million men thought necessary to conquer the Japanese home islands. Logistically, that could take another six months.
Other historians cite the entry of Russia into the Pacific War, an arrangement concluded at the earlier Yalta Conference between Josef Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt, once Germany surrendered. Use of the bomb might deter Russian advances and the spread of Communism as well as sending a signal to the USSR that the US possessed, what was first believed to be, the weapon to keep the world from future wars.
Others stress that the US mindset embraced the terrible weapon as part of the wartime psyche. Donald Spector writes that the United States refused, “to rise above wartime emotionalism and the momentum of unrestrained militarism…” [4] 140,000 Japanese died at Hiroshima and many that survived suffered long term affects of the bomb. But Americans still remembered Pearl Harbor.
It should also be noted that few Japanese cities in the summer of 1945 had been untouched by the relentless low-altitude bombings under General Curtis LeMay. The atomic bomb attack, seen in this light, was merely a logical extension of those incendiary attacks. President Truman signed the order to use the bombs on July 24th, eight days after the successful bomb test in New Mexico. [5]
Response to the use of the Atomic Bombs
The Nagasaki bomb achieved its purpose: Japan surrendered. Americans were jubilant and supported Truman’s actions. According to Spector, Truman’s initial telegrams of support urging the harshest possible terms numbered 153 out of 170. [6] Others, however, were not so optimistic.
Some historians cite use of the bombs as symbols and explanations for origins of the Cold War. [7] Douglas MacArthur viewed the bomb as a curse and Admiral William Leahy predicted that the United States would regret using the weapon. Scientists like J. Robert Oppenheimer voiced doubts regarding an arms race based on such weapons even as Edward Teller was preparing to develop the hydrogen bomb.
Use of the atomic bomb was considered several times after 1945. In 1949, Russia tested its own bomb, raising Cold War tensions to new heights. Yet despite these effects, President Truman never regretted his decision. The bomb ended the war and saved American lives.
Sources:
[1] Claude Denson Pepper with Hays Gorey, Pepper: Eyewitness to a Century (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987) p. 150.
[2] George F. Kennan, The Nuclear Delusion (Pantheon, 1983) p. 7 ff.
[3] Margaret Truman, Harry S Truman (Easton Press, 1972)
[4] Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War Against Japan (McMillan, 1985) p. 558.
[5] Truman.
[6] Spector, p. 558.
[7] Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed: The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance (Vintage Books, 1977) p. 238.
See also:
Dan Kurzman, Day of the Bomb: Countdown to Hiroshima (McGraw Hill, 1986)
