Many others around the world agreed, but many others did not. Most world leaders agreed with Winston Churchill, who supported Truman's decision, and saw little other choice (Osborn)
However, the words of the survivors tell the real consequences of the bombs most powerfully. One survivor wrote this poem about the bomb and what was left in Nagasaki, "Under a pale blue glow, the black sun, / dead sunflowers, and a collapsed roof, / people lifted their faces voicelessly: / bloody eyes that exchanged looks then / loosely peeling skin / lips swollen like eggplants / heads impaled with shards of glass-- / 'how can this be a human face' everybody thought at the sight of another / yet each who so thought had the same face" (Selden 118)
"The event was not spectacular,' Fermi wrote in 1952, 'no fuses burned, no lights flashed. But to us it meant that release of atomic energy on a large scale would be only a matter of time'" (Szasz 14)
Stimson that gave details about the bomb, and described the long-term changes the bomb could have on the Earth. "The world,' said the memorandum, 'in its present state of moral advancement compared with its technical development would be eventually at the mercy of such a weapon' and 'modern civilization might be completely destroyed'" (Wainstock 37)
The counterpoint to the utilitarian argument is that there may have been other approaches to solving the problem that would have delivered the same results (Japanese surrender) without the high cost of life that either the bombings or a ground invasion would have had. Another ethical frame for understanding the decision is the one that is reflected in the Fourth Geneva Convention, the deontological approach based on specific acts always being wrong, regardless of their consequences (Alexander & Moore, 2007)
One ethical frame that can be used is the utilitarian frame, which weighs the ethics of an action based on the consequences of the action. Utilitarianism is "one of the most powerful and persuasive approaches to normative ethics (Driver, 2009)
Civilian centers like Hiroshima were now legitimate military targets in a grueling war of attrition to the death. To illustrate this, one of the figures, Reverend Tanimoto an American trained Christian minister did everything possible to look like the patriotic Japanese civilian, including overseeing the air raid preparations for some 20 neighborhood families (Hersey & Sloan 2010, 4-6)
Finally they decided on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as ideal military targets. Near the end of the war, Stimson observed that Japan was near defeat but not near surrender and looked upon the bomb to push Japan into surrendering (Bernstein, 1976, pp
The world's second test of a nuclear weapon proved the tremendous power of nuclear weapons for killing and maiming. President Truman wrote in his diary on July 25, 1945, that he had ordered the atomic bombings of two Japanese cities (Ferrell, 1980, pp
The Manhattan Project was a bureaucratic industrial giant with over 120,000 employees and facilities all over the U.S. (Takaki, 1995, p
34). Of all the political and military decisions in history, few have been the subject of more analysis and controversy than the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Miles, 1985,121)
119-121). It is well documented that alternatives plans were under consideration; however, these were risky compared to simply dropping a bomb, and therefore passed over in favor of the bomb (Oh, 2002, p
If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the likes of which has never been seen on this earth." When President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, Harry Truman took over the Presidency, which included responsibility for final nuclear weapon decisions (Morton, 1960, p
military needed to resort to stronger tactics. Even before Japan initiated WWII, its leadership was divided into two opposing groups (McManus, 1995): 1