The highly dangerous plan to bomb Japan was even worrying to scientists. Scientists discovered that the people of the united states were unaware of the issues in store for the nation in the years to come if they did not think through with there plan of bombing. If the United States would have made their decision to bomb Japan public, maybe they would have surrendered. It was unmoral and unjustified to attack Japan without their knowing, and also opened up a door to a new devastating weapon. Having the nuclear bomb as an option for wars now, it will continue to threaten nations worldwide.
Truman to Russell, August 9, 1945
This document shows that even the President of the United States somewhat regretted the fact that they brutally attacked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He says that he feels bad for wiping out the Japanese population, because of what their leaders caused. Truman finishes by saying that his main responsibility is to save as many American lives as possible, while he still feels responsible for the Japanese civilians too( men, women, children), even though he felt it necessary to act upon them. It seems as if Truman wishes that Japan would have surrendered so that he did not have to pursue the nuclear defeat. Truman shows that he knew it was unjust for the United States to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but felt like there was no other choice.
Post dam Declaration
This was a very important document which shows that the United States gave the choice to Japan to take an unconditional surrender before they took action, which Japan refused to do. But also in the article, it does not say anything about nuclear power. Maybe if the use of atomic weapons was mentioned, Japan would have considered their surrender. Japan should have been warned that there was a nuclear bomb and the effects of it, which they had no idea about. The Americans had an extremely unfair advantage, and even when many of the American citizens told President Truman to give this information to Japan, he refused to do so. Not only did dropping the atomic bomb cost many innocent lives, it also proved to other countries the "beauty" of nuclear threat to their advantage. Now, even today, we suffer from nuclear bombing threats.
http://www.history.com/videos/rare-color-films-document-atomic-bomb#rare-color-films-document-atomic-bomb
This video shows that there were other options than dropping the bomb. They could have dropped the bomb into the water and threatened Japan; that if they did not surrender, they would drop the bomb. Maybe if Japan had realized what an extreme weapon they were dealing with, they would have surrendered. Nuclear weapons should never be an actual option, as it wipes out civilization in any nation. It opens the doors to a whole other world of weapons, and now other countries may use it because they think it is okay. Truman also lied to the Soviets, and is a bad example of a leader.
This acticle is about the sneak attack at Pearl Harbor, and is one of the most famous newspapers of World War II. It was published on Dec 7, 1941. It shows the start of the tension between Japan and the United States.
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