SOURCE 1 Henry Stimson was the Secretary of War during World War Two.

He was an advisor to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman. He was involved in the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan. After the war, he wrote this explanation of how President Truman and his advisors reached their decision. It was published in Harpers magazine in 1947. An excerpt is below:

The principal political, social, and military objective of the United States in the summer of 1945 was the prompt and complete surrender of Japan. Only the complete destruction of her military power could open the way to lasting peace. Japan, in July 1945, had been seriously weakened by our increasingly violent attacks. It was known to us that she had gone so far as to make tentative proposals to the Soviet government, hoping to use the Russians as mediators in a negotiated peace. These vague proposals contemplated the retention by Japan of important conquered areas and were therefore not considered seriously. There was as yet no indication of any weakening in the Japanese determination to fight rather than accept unconditional surrender. If she should persist in her fight to the end, she had still a great military force. In the middle of July 1945, the intelligence section of the War Department General Staff estimated Japanese military strength as follows: in the home islands, slightly under 2,000,000; in Korea, Manchuria, China proper, and Formosa, slightly over 2,000,000; in French Indochina, Thailand, and Burma, over 200,000; in the East Indies area, including the Philippines, over 500,000; in the by-passed Pacific islands, over 100,000. The total strength of the Japanese Army was estimated at about 5,000,000 men. These estimates later proved to be in very close agreement with official Japanese figures. The Japanese Army was in much better condition than the Japanese Navy and Air Force. The Navy had practically ceased to exist except as a harrying force against an invasion fleet. The Air Force has been reduced mainly to reliance upon Kamikaze, or suicide, attacks. These latter, however, had already inflicted serious

damage on our seagoing forces, and their possible effectiveness in a last ditch fight was a matter of real concern to our naval leaders. As we understood it in July, there was a very strong possibility that the Japanese government might determine resistance to the end, in all the areas of the Far East under its control. In such an event the Allies would be faced with the enormous task of destroying an armed force of five million men and five thousand suicide aircraft, belonging to a race which had already amply demonstrated its ability to fight literally to the death. I felt that to extract a genuine surrender from the Emperor and his military advisers, they must be administered a tremendous shock which would carry convincing proof of our power to destroy the Empire. Such an effective shock would save many times the number of lives, both American and Japanese, that it would cost. We estimated that if we should be forced to carry this plan to its conclusion, the major fighting would not end until the latter part of 1946, at the earliest. I was informed that such operations might be expected to cost over a million casualties, to American forces alone. Additional large losses might be expected among our allies, and, of course, if our campaign were successful and if we could judge by previous experience, enemy casualties would be much larger than our own. Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, and Nagasaki on August 9. These two cities were active working parts of the Japanese war effort. One was an army center; the other was naval and industrial. Hiroshima was the headquarters of the Japanese Army defending southern Japan and was a major military storage and assembly point. Nagasaki was a major seaport and it contained several large industrial plants of great wartime importance. We believed that our attacks had struck cities which must certainly be important to the Japanese military leaders, both Army and Navy

SOURCE 2

The petition below was written by Leo Szilard, a scientist involved in the development of the atomic bomb. It was signed by 70 other scientists and sent to President Truman shortly after the bomb was successfully tested and three weeks before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. July 17, 1945 A PETITION TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES Discoveries of which the people of the United States are not aware may affect the welfare of this nation in the near future. The liberation of atomic power which has been achieved places atomic bombs in the hands of the Army. It places in your hands, as Commander-in-Chief, the fateful decision whether or not to sanction the use of such bombs in the present phase of the war against Japan. We, the undersigned scientists, have been working in the field of atomic power. Until recently, we have had to fear that the United States might be attacked by atomic bombs during this war and that her only defense might lie in a counterattack by the same means. Today, with the defeat of Germany, this danger is averted and we feel impelled to say what follows: The war has to be brought speedily to a successful conclusion and attacks by atomic bombs may very well be an effective method of warfare. We feel, however, that such attacks on Japan could not be justified, at least not unless the terms which will be imposed after the war on Japan were made public in detail and Japan were given an opportunity to surrender. If such public announcement gave assurance to the Japanese that they could look forward to a life devoted to peaceful pursuits in their homeland and if Japan still refused to surrender our nation might then, in certain circumstances, find itself forced to resort to the use of atomic bombs. Such a step, however, ought not to be made at any time without seriously considering the moral responsibilities which are involved. The development of atomic power will provide the nations with new means of destruction. The atomic bombs at our disposal represent only the first step in this direction, and there is almost no limit to the destructive power which will

become available in the course of their future development. Thus a nation which sets the precedent of using these newly liberated forces of nature for purposes of destruction may have to bear the responsibility of opening the door to an era of devastation on an unimaginable scale. If after this war a situation is allowed to develop in the world which permits rival powers to be in uncontrolled possession of these new means of destruction, the cities of the United States as well as the cities of other nations will be in continuous danger of sudden annihilation. All the resources of the United States, moral and material, may have to be mobilized to prevent the advent of such a world situation. Its prevention is at present the solemn responsibility of the United States -- singled out by virtue of her lead in the field of atomic power. The added material strength which this lead gives to the United States brings with it the obligation of restraint and if we were to violate this obligation our moral position would be weakened in the eyes of the world and in our own eyes. It would then be more difficult for us to live up to our responsibility of bringing the unloosened forces of destruction under control. In view of the foregoing, we, the undersigned, respectfully petition: first, that you exercise your power as Commander-in-Chief, to rule that the United States shall not resort to the use of atomic bombs in this war unless the terms which will be imposed upon Japan have been made public in detail and Japan knowing these terms has refused to surrender; second, that in such an event the question whether or not to use atomic bombs be decided by you in light of the considerations presented in this petition as well as all the other moral responsibilities which are involved.

SOURCE 3 Arguments Supporting The Bomb by Michael Barnes on authentichistory.com The main argument in support of the decision to use the atomic bomb is that it saved American lives which would otherwise have been lost in two D-Day-

style land invasions of the main islands of the Japanese homeland. The first, against the Southern island of Kyushu, had been scheduled for November 1 (Operation Torch). The second, against the main island of Honshu would take place in the spring of 1946 (Operation Coronet). The two operations combined were codenamed Operation Downfall. There is no doubt that a land invasion would have incurred extremely high casualties, for a variety of reasons. For one, Field Marshall Hisaichi Terauchi had ordered that all 100,000 Allied prisoners of war be executed if the Americans invaded. Second, it was apparent to the Japanese as much as to the Americans that there were few good landing sites, and that Japanese forces would be concentrated there. Third, there was real concern in Washington that the Japanese had made a determination to fight literally to the death. The Japanese saw suicide as an honorable alternative to surrender. The term they used was gyokusai, or, "shattering of the jewel." It was the same rationale for their use of the socalled banzai charges employed early in the war. In his 1944 emergency declaration, Prime Minister Hideki Tojo had called for "100 million gyokusai, and that the entire Japanese population be prepared to die. Studies estimating total U.S. casualties in the event of an invasion were no less grim. One by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in April 1945 resulted in an estimate of 1,200,000 casualties, with 267,000 fatalities. A concurrent, though ironic argument supporting the use of the bomb is that because of the expected Japanese resistance to an invasion of the home island, its use actually saved Japanese lives. Military planners included Japanese casualties in their estimates. The study done for Secretary of War Stimson predicted five to ten million Japanese fatalities. There is support for the bomb even among some Japanese. In 1983, at the annual observance of Hiroshima's destruction, an aging Japanese professor recalled that at wars end, due to the extreme food rationing, he had weighed less than 90 pounds and could scarcely climb a flight of stairs. "I couldn't have survived another month," he said. "If the military had its way, we would have fought until all

80 million Japanese were dead. Only the atomic bomb saved me. Not me alone, but many Japanese, ironically speaking, were saved by the atomic bomb.

SOURCE 4 Gar Alperovitz Professor of Political Economy University of Maryland

When General Dwight D. Eisenhower, then the Supreme Allied Commander, was informed by the Secretary of War that the atomic bomb was going to be used, he later recalled saying it was unnecessary because Japan was already largely defeated. Eisenhower said the bomb was "no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives." At one point after the war he said bluntly, "It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." Before the bomb was used, U.S. intelligence officials believed the war would likely end when two things happened: When the U.S. let Japan know their Emperor could stay on as a figurehead, and when the Soviet army attacked. The U.S. did tell Japan the Emperor could remain, and the Soviets declared war, as agreed, on August 8. But U.S. officials chose not to test whether this intelligence was correct. Instead, Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, and Nagasaki on August 9. Because of logistics, an invasion of Japan could not begin for another three months, so the U.S. could have waited to see if Japan would surrender before dropping the atomic bombs. Most top World War II military leaders are all on record agreeing with Eisenhower. Admiral William Leahy, President Truman's Chief of Staff, later called the bomb a "barbarous weapon" that was unnecessary. Leahy wrote,

"The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. . . . In being the first to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages."

SOURCE 5 Hiroshima 255,000 66,000 69,000 135,000 Nagasaki 195,000 39,000 25,000 64,000

Pre-raid population Dead Injured Total Casualties