Was Harry Truman justified in deciding to use the atomis bomb?

Essay by bubbleyblonde_07College, Undergraduate July 2005

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the development of teh atmoic bomb began in 1939 when a small group of scientists in this country called to the attention of the U.S.Government the vast potentialities of atmoic energy for military purposes and warned that the Germans were already carrying on exeriments in this field. The program initiated October of that year with a very modest appropriation and later expanded into the two billion dollar Manhattan Project had only one purpose to harness the energy of the atom in a chain reaction to produce a bomb that could be carried by aircraft if possible, and to produce it before the Germans did. So long as the success of the project remained in doubt there seems to have been little or no discussion of the effects of an atomic weapon or the circumstances under which it would be used.

There was a special committee, known as the Intermin Committee, and it played a vital role in the decision to use the atomic bomb.

the worl of the Intermin Committee, "ranged over the whole field of atomic energy, in its political, military, and scientific aspects." During the first meeting the scientific members reviewed for their colleagues the sevelopment of the Manhattan Project and described vividly the destructive power of the atomic bomb. The Intermin Committee also made it very clear that there was no known defense against this kind of attack. The work of the Intermin Committee was completed on June 1, 1945, when it submitted its report to teh President it recommened that the bomb should be used against Japan as soon as possible; that it sholid be used against a military target surrounded by other buildings; and that it should be used without prior warning of the nature of the weapon.

On August 6, in 1945 the U.S.