Mauricio Garcia

HIST-1700-407-Sp16
April 14st 2016

Dropping the Bomb

One of the most controversial decision a president has had to make in the history of the human
race, was whether to invade Japan or drop the Atomic Bomb. Harry S. Truman was the
commander in chief at the time, and the decision ended up authorizing the bombing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, the two only instances in the history of mankind where nuclear weapons have
been used.
With conflicts at the time accounting for over 75,000 lives of American Soldiers fighting
abroad, the tenacity of Japanese soldiers which would become projectiles themselves in order to
defend their empire, and the fresh memories of the Pearl Harbor attack, the option of actually
invading Japan seemed less effective.
In July 1945, the Allies declared that the Japanese should unconditionally surrender with
a document known as the Postdam Declaration
These extracts from the Postdam Declaration provide a good summary of the intentions
and tone of the document The time has come for Japan to decide whether she will continue to
be controlled by those self-willed militaristic advisers whose unintelligent calculations have

brought the Empire of Japan to the threshold of annihilation, or whether she will follow the path
of reason (Postdam Declaration, 1945)
The United States allegedly tried to warn the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to
evacuate the cities, also called the Truman Leaflets. The leaflets urged the citizens to petition
the Emperor to end the war and evacuate the cities
Close to 100,000 people died as the direct result of the bombings, but the indirect effects
of the bombing would linger in the society for a long time, as described by this extract from a
Nobel-Prize winner in literature Japanese writer Kenzabur e For ten years after the atomic
bomb was dropped there was so little public discussion of the bomb or of radioactivity that even
the Chugoku Shinbun, the major newspaper of the city where the atomic bomb was dropped, did
not have the movable type for 'atomic bomb' or 'radioactivity'. The silence continued so long
because the U.S. Army Surgeons Investigation Team in the fall of 1945 had issued a mistaken
statement: all people expected to die from the radiation effects of the atomic bomb had by then
already died; accordingly, no further cases of physiological effects due to residual radiation
would be acknowledged (oe, 1996)
Given the information I researched when writing this paper, even after knowing the
importance of putting an end to the war without any more casualties to the United States at the
time, I personally believe the use of weapons of mass destruction such as Atomic Bomb or BioChemical weapons should never be justified, especially if the bombings happen in places were
citizens could be affected by collateral damage.
Considering the United States warning to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki about
the bombing and giving instructions to the people to evacuate, one could debate that civilians

were not targeted by the attack, but that should not justify the killing of civilians that could not
have had the chance to receive such warning. I do believe a more humane approach should have
been taken by the United States.

Works Cited
oe, K. (1996). Hiroshima Notes.
Postdam Declaration. (1945, August 2). New York.