Seventy-five years ago the US president Harry Truman faced a horrendous choice: whether or not to drop the world's first nuclear bombs on Japan. We all know what his decision was—he used the world's most dreadful weapon ever devised, in an attempt to bring World War II to an end. There was no intent to use the atomic bomb as a means to punish or crush the Japanese nation... only to terminate the horrible war that had caused such death and destruction for over five years.
The US had implemented a crash program only three years earlier, to develop the atomic bomb—to a large degree because of the fear that Nazi Germany had already embarked on a similar effort, and the thought that Hitler wouldn't hesitate to use the bomb in order to conquer the world. The Manhattan Project to build the bomb was successful... the US was the first country to step across the nuclear threshold.
So Truman had in hand by far the most destructive weapon the world had ever seen. The US had just gone through an extremely nasty battle to take possession of the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. The ferocity with which the Japanese troops defended their island—literally fighting almost to the last soldier at the cost of thousands of lives—created the terrifying specter of the far greater loss of lives that would occur when the Japanese homeland was invaded.
What to do? The desperation of the times had to add an urgency to Truman's choice. The end of WWII was inevitably approaching, but the possibility of horrendous battles and loss of life lay before him. Germany had recently capitulated and Japan could not hold out much longer. The US and Europeans had negotiated with the Soviet Union about how to carve up and occupy Germany's conquered lands, but the US had the premonition that future animosity with the USSR was unavoidable. Japan and Russia were old foes and the Red Army was massing to join the fray. Surely, Truman wanted to defeat Japan, without having to cope with Stalin in the Pacific as well.
Can a super weapon—in the hands of the good guys, of course—be used to achieve the benefit of ending a war? Does the calculus of causing the deaths of thousands of people sanction the use of the bomb, because it may save many more thousands—if not millions—of lives? Can immoral means ever bring about a moral end? Truman's dilemma was certainly a classical example of having to choose between two immense evils. Previous poor choices on the part of many political leaders had consigned him to being thrust between a rock and a hard spot.
The US had the ultimate weapon in 1945... but only two bombs. It was like an Old West, small-town sheriff having a terrific new gun, but only two silver bullets, to face a gang of desperadoes.
We all know what Truman's decision was. No matter his choice, there would be endless speculation about whether or not it was the best one. History offers you only one chance. You can't rerun the scenario and evaluate the other choice. Was it preferable to have killed some 200 thousand Japanese—many of them civilians—or face the possibility of many more dead, from a land invasion of Japan? And were those the only two choices? No, but that's the way Truman entered the history books. Who can say if there was a better choice?
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