Atomic Bombs Were Not Necessary Essay, Research Paper
From: wicket@mailcity.com To: QUICKPAPERS@TOTALLY.NET Subject: Submit a paperDate: Monday, November 03, 1997 7:46 PMTitle: studentCategory: HistoryDescription:Body of paper: Was The Atomic Bomb Necessary?Thesis: The Atomic Bombs were not necessary. I. Morality A. Hiroshima B. NagasakiII. Decisions A. Where to drop it B. Did it need to be used?III. Making of the bombIV. Public Interviews A. Leo Szilard B. Hiroshi SawachikaV. Should it be used again? Over the years there have been many opinions as well as facts circulated about theatomic bomb droppings of World War II. Misconceptions and discrepancies over themorality and even the legality of actually using the Atomic Bomb have yet to be resolved.The Atomic Bomb was not necessary. There have been arguments and debates for over 50 years now about whether theAtomic Bomb was necessary. Most of the debates focus on weather it was necessary.That skirts the question of morality. President Harry Truman even questioned himself onhis own decision, saying, “We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of theworld” (Bernstien 4). Many of the scientists that made the bomb and others that made thedecision to use the bombs have realized the same thing, and ask themselves, was itnecessary?”Fifty-years ago in a three day period in August 1945, the U.S. dropped twoatomic bombs on Japan, killing more than 115,000 people and possibly as many as250,000, and injuring at least another 100,000″ (Bernstien 1). It was approximately 8:15in the morning of August 6, 1945, when Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima. The tenfoot, 8,900 pound bomb was dropped from the B-29 bomber, Enola Gay. Little Boy wasthe more destructive of the two bombs, wiping out five square miles of Hiroshima, 60% ofthe city. “The first reports on August 6, 1945, accordingly described Hiroshima as aJapanese army base” (Glines 2). Quite the contrary, of an estimated 80,000 deaths only6,769 of them were military personnel. That’s only 9% of the deaths. “Many people died,the victims were primarily the old, the young, and women; and all the belligerents formerlytook the position that the killing of civilians violated both the laws of war and commonprecepts of humanity” (Powers 2). In other words, the killing of over 73,000 can be callednothing but murder. After the first bombing, reports said that it destroyed a military baseof Hiroshima, which most government officials knew wasn’t true. It was only three days later at 11:02 AM on August 9, 1945 when the secondAtomic Bomb was dropped. Fat Man was the name given to it, being heavier and morecomplex than the first. Nagasaki was the chosen target for Fat Man to be dropped, still nota big military threat. Due to the geography of the area, Fat Man did less damage, but itstill killed at least 40,000 people and injured 60,000 more. The final estimates were73,884 people killed and 44,909 people were injured. Most of the damage at Nagasakiwas the housing. Over 18,000 homes were completely burned, destroyed, or badlydamaged. “About one-third of Nagasaki city was destroyed, 150,000 people were killedor injured, and it was said at the time that the area would be devoid of vegetation for 75years” (Long 1). Many people think that President Truman made the final decision of where thebombs were to be dropped. Truman, instead of picking a target himself, he left it up tothe Secretary of War, Henry Stimson. President Truman wrote in his diary: “I have toldMr. Stimson to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target andnot women and children…” (Bernstien 3). Instead, Stimson chose to drop the bomb onthe Japanese city of Hiroshima, saying it was a military base. There were many U.S. citizens and even government officials and agencies thatknew the war was coming to an end, even without the bombs. The citizens showed theirfeelings by holding protests and sending letters to government officials. As forgovernment officials, they made statements such as “by the summer of 1945 Japan hadalready lost the war” (Powers 2). The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey released aSummary Report saying ” Japan would have surrendered even if the A-bombs hadn’t beendropped, even if Russia hadn’t entered the war, and even if no invasion had been plannedor contemplated” (Glines 2). For even Truman wasn’t sure of the decision he had made,saying “wielding a weapon of such vast power; knowing that Japan had already beenbrought to the brink of surrender” (Ahba 2). The mayor of Nagasaki knew, along with therest of the Japanese, that the Atomic Bomb was wrong. The mayor expressed his feelingswith a press release saying ” How can the killing of 100,000 civilians in a day for politicalpurpose ever be considered anything but a crime” (Bernstien 4)? President Truman inmany reports expressed that he disliked the bomb. In a letter to Senator Richard Russelthe president said in response to the Senators request for more atomic bombing, “I knowthat japan is a terribly cruel and uncivilized nation in warfare but I can’t bring myself tobelieve that because they are beasts, we ourselves should act in the same manner” (Long3). Still many people believe that even the making of the atomic bomb was wrong.Los Alamos, New Mexico, people who live there are the keepers of an eerie legacy, froma single bomb built in Los Alamos, that changed the world. The first atomic bombexplosion was on July 16, 1945 in a remote desert of New Mexico. It was given the nameTrinity. One observer said it had “the radiance of a thousand suns” (Masko 1). A man by
the name of Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos project.Oppenheimer knew
Bernstien, Barton J. “The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered.” Foreign Affairs. Jan. Feb. 1995: 135-152. Glines, C.V. “The Bomb that Ended W.W.II.” Aviation History. September 1995: 42-49. “Leo Szilard Interview: President Truman Didn’t Understand.” On-line Available http://www.peak.org/ danneg/decision/usnews.html. Long, Doug. “Hiroshima: Was it Necessary?” On-line Available http://www.he.net/ douglong/hiroshima.htm 2/4/97. Masko, David. “The Bomb is Born.” On-line Available http://www.af.mil/pa/features/features95/f_950630-085_95jun30.html. Ohba, Mitura. “A-Bomb WWW Museum.” On-line Available http://.csi.ad.jp/ABomb/index.html. This paper was written by WIcket and they can be reached at wicket@mailcity.com.