Truman’s Moral Dilemma on Dropping the Bombs
By
Cara Haynes
History 1302
Mr. Hastings
Due April 21, 2015
The decision to use the atomic bombs posed several significant moral dilemmas for
President Harry S. Truman, and among these dilemmas was saving the lives of American soldiers
and Japanese citizens, as well as intimidating the Soviet Union. One of the main reasons America
wanted to bomb Japan was because of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941; the
bombing killed more than two-thousand three-hundred Americans, sunk twelve ships including
the U.S.S. Arizona and the U.S.S. Oklahoma, and destroyed about one-hundred sixty aircraft.1
The bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese caused America to enter World War II. “The foul
attack on Pearl Harbor brought us into war and I am unable to see any valid reason we should be
so much more considerate and lenient in dealing with Japan than with Germany,” wrote
President Truman on April 7, 1945.2 In able to seek revenge on Japan, the Manhattan Project was
created, using scientists from Germany and Italy, such as Einstein and Fermi, to build the two
bombs that the United States would drop on Japan; the scientists from Germany were significant
in the forming of the bombs because in 1939, the Germans were successful in learning how to
split a uranium atom.3 After the creation of the atomic bombs, the United States, Great Britain,
