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THE DECISION

THE DECISION. “The final decision of where and when to use the atomic bomb was up to me. Let there be no mistake about it. I regarded the bomb as a military weapon, and never had any doubt that it should be used.” - Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Years of Decision. Problem?

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THE DECISION

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  1. THE DECISION

  2. “The final decision of where and when to use the atomic bomb was up to me. Let there be no mistake about it. I regarded the bomb as a military weapon, and never had any doubt that it should be used.” • -Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Years of Decision.

  3. Problem? • SHOULD THE U.S. USE ATOMIC BOMBS ON JAPANESE CITIES? • Alternatives? • More Warning • An Invasion of Japan • A Demonstration of the Bomb

  4. Japanese Army2 000 000 • American Invasion of Okinawa35% Casualty Rate (12 000 American casualties) • Use of Atomic Bomb100 000 dead instantly FACTS

  5. Save an estimated 500 000-1 Million American Lives • Show Off Military Might, New Weapon in the Arsenal • End War PROS

  6. American Soldier (End War, Spare His Life) • American Allies (End War) • Pentagon Officials (End War, New Weapon) SUPPORTERS

  7. Thousands of Innocent Lives Lost • Mostly Women, Children, and Elderly (140 000, +- 10 000 in Hiroshima) • Health Risks for Survivors and Future Generations (Radiation) • Marked a New Era of Fear and Paranoia CONS

  8. Japanese Civilians (Innocent/Noncombatant) • Humanitarians • Future Generations (Led to Arms Race, Japanese have suffered severely due to radiation exposure) PROTESTORS

  9. 6 August 1945-Hiroshima, Japan • Atomic bomb explodes with light bright enough to be seen from space • 100 000 die instantly • 40 000 injured • 20 000 missing • Burns, blindness, radiation sickness • Victims still suffer and die to this day PRESIDENT TRUMAN’S DECISION

  10. 9 August 1945-Nagasaki, Japan • Plutonium Bomb (Stronger than U-235 bomb used in Hiroshima) • 80 000 dead • 14 August 1945-VJ Day • Japan surrenders unconditionally • Planned third atomic bomb does not get used as planned PRESIDENT TRUMAN’S DECISION

  11. “Everything in sight which can be called a building is crushed to the ground and sending out flames. People who are burned so badly that the skin of their bodies is peeling off in strips are raising shrieking cries that sound as though the victims would die the next minute. There are even some people who are already dead. The street is so covered with dead people and burned people stretching out and groaning, and with fallen houses and things, that we can’t get through.” -Composition by a schoolboy who survived the Hiroshima blast

  12. “Thank you for being upset about me. I am spending very miserable days since the beginning of January. I feel as if my whole body is rotting away from my internal organs. As time goes by, I feel weaker and weaker. I feel as if I am being cooked alive. My condition is becoming worse day by day and I’m unable to work…To suffer with a disease which has no cure is like drinking poison every day and waiting for my life to end.” -Fumio Nakamura, Hiroshima survivor who died in 1958.

  13. “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” -J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967)

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