The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb

Technology has allowed for the furtherance of warfare, from the invention of gun powder to the splitting of the atom. These findings have propelled the leap of numerous nations’ in the ability to wage war against each other. Of these discoveries, the splitting atom spawned an invention that would hurl the world from conventional warfare into the nuclear age. These ideals were the brainstorming of some of the greatest minds in America and abroad. These scientists began to formulate the creation of the atomic bomb, a device that would change the world in ways that had never been imagined before.

The world changed the day that the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. This evoked a cataclysmic spiral in the morals and methods of how warfare would be carried out. Those in powerful positions felt that they were omnipotent like God. However, in reality they were as small and insignificant as those they preyed upon. No one will ever be able to go back in time and undo what was done to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The options not to drop the bomb were made available to the leaders of America and her Allies. This alone shows not only the citizens of the United States, but the world what could have been formulated to save Japan from the nuclear horror that was unleashed that fateful day in 1945.

It has often been asked what was behind the dropping of the atomic bomb. Was it greed in the fact that nations would be captured and brought under the regime of another? Was it a precise move in the ultimate game of chess in which the execution was the “check mate” needed to highlight the country which possessed this power? It may never be known as fact to why President Truman gave the green light on a technology which he was well aware would...

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..., Commanding General’s File, 24 Tab D ,Document (a).

Henry Stimson, Memorandum discussed with the President, April 25, 1945, Henry Stimson Diary, Manuscripts and Archives, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers, Yale University, (New Haven, CT.), Document(b).

Joint Chief of Staff, "Minutes of Meeting Held at the White House”, 18 June 1945”, RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 76, Document 20.

President Harry Truman, Truman's Potsdam Diary, Barton J. Bernstein, "Truman At Potsdam: His Secret Diary," Foreign Service Journal, July/August 1980, Document 38.

Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, Diary Entry, April 25, 1945, Henry Stimson Diary, Sterling Library, Yale University, Document (d).

Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal, Diary Entry, July 24, 1945, "Japanese Peace Feelers", Naval Historical Center, Operational Archives, James Forrestal Diaries, Document 23.