1.) For what reason did President Truman decide to use atomic weapons to end the war in the Pacific?

Essay by Preci28University, Bachelor'sA+, December 2003

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Truman used the atomic bomb to shortening the war in the

Pacific and to save the lives of Americans and to keep

American public opinion positive. Truman's defense in

using atomic weapons was that it protected and saved

thousands of American lives and money that would have

had to been used to fight the war.

I disagree with President Truman's reasoning in dropping

an atomic weapon. I feel that Truman could have used

different tactics to get the Japanese to surrender. By

dropping an atomic bomb the United States killed

thousands of innocent civilians. While I disagree with

dropping bombs, I feel that by dropping a different type

of bomb would have had the same effect and spared lives.

Also to drop a second atomic bomb only a few days later

on Nagasaki was unnecessary. The effects of the atomic

bomb affected the lives of Japan for years to come.

Many

say that by dropping an atomic bomb the US saved

thousands of lives. How is this true when ten years

later there was an increase of children dying of

leukemia and other diseases caused by radiation? In his

book, The Threat of Impending Disaster, Robert J.

Lifton, talks about how the survivors appeared healthy

for over ten years and suddenly their hair would fall

out unexpectedly and they would die. When I was younger

I read a book called Sadako and the Thousand Paper

Cranes by Eleanor Coerr. Sadako Sasaki, a young Japanese

girl, on the threshold of adolescence, developed

leukemia in 1955, from the effects of radiation caused

by the bombing of Hiroshima. It explains how Sadako was

only an infant when the bombs were dropped in the city

of Hiroshima, her mother was holding her and they were

outside their home. Her grandparents were in...