Thread: If you were president Truman, what decision would you have made regarding the atomic bomb?

Would you have made the same decision as him to warn, then drop the bomb if there's no surrender? If not, tell what decision you would have made and tell why.

He did exactly right and saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

The japanese would never have surrendered. They'd have armed EVERY person on the island. Some military estimates proposed it would've taken two to three more years and cost an additional 1million American and 6-7 (?) million Japaneses lives. I'd have done just what Truman did.

No, I'm with Truman on that decision. Even then, it was well understood that an actual invasion of Japan to force an end to the war would have resulted in a million Japanese dead, and upwards of 100,000 US military dead. ( Did you know that the US hasn't had to manufacture any Purple Heart medals since 1945, because they bought so many in anticipation of all the wounded soldiers that were expected from that invasion ? )
In spite of the dropping of both Bombs, there was still an attempted coup in Japan to prevent their surrender. They're weren't going to stop without a massive cause to stop.

Bombs Away. The alternative to invasion was continued blockage that would have cost at least ten million lives from starvation, exposure, disease and brought about a complete breakdown of civil governments making the country simply ungovernable.
The bomb gave the Japanese an honorable reason to surrender. To his credit, the Emperor Hirohito insisted on surrender.

I certainly would have dropped the bombs. Especially given his background as an artillery officer during WWI, I don't see that he had much choice. Americans were still dying at the rate of some 7,000 per month, and the planned invasion of Japan would have cost hundreds of thousands of additional American casualties, not to mention the huge numbers of Japanese who were dying from air raids and who would have died in the invasion. Keep in mind that the whole Pacific war had taught the US that the Japanese would fight to the bitter end, would use every possible means at their disposal. The Empiror was calling for the sacrifice of 10 million lives to drive the invaders back into the sea.

Given all of that, and the fact that Truman's responsibility was to the American people, rather than humanity at large, I would have dropped the bombs in the gamble that it would force Japan to surrender early.

He probably made the right call. I can't really put myself in his shoes, but the one area I'd be hesitant about would be his showing the power of the bomb to the Soviets. It might have been better to keep them guessing a little longer. That's a mighty trivial argument for a time when our troops were taking lots of casualties.

wow i cant believe u actually payed attention in history class to know this would even be on the test lol!! (btw, people, this is her bff) i hope i get a good grade and u too :]