Truman's Dilemma: The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb

President Roosevelt’s death had been shocking to everyone and The Death of President Franklin Roosevelt states “America’s longest serving president who had led the nation through the Great Depression and World War 2 was dead.” Truman made the right decision in dropping the atomic bomb on Japan, because he was under a lot of pressure to be like Roosevelt, he was new in office, and he wasn’t fully aware of what the bombs capabilities were.
On April 12th, 1945 while in the “Little White House” in Georgia with friends and family, President Roosevelt suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage that killed him within a few minutes. Before Roosevelt’s death, Truman and Roosevelt had only met and talked a few times.“Vice president Harry Truman took office, and was suddenly faced with being the leader who would need to gain total victory over Japan.” It is stated in Interview Transcripts: The Bomb. The American Experience. As soon as 12 days after becoming our new president, Truman and Stimson, the Secretary of War, began talking about the effects of using the Atomic Bomb and Truman began to consider it with further explanation from Stimson.
During this period of time, Truman was in a difficult place where he couldn’t decide between using an invasion or bombs. The Atomic Bomb was

still a relatively new idea and had never been tested before they used it so they had no idea if it would work or backfire. During Operation Downfall, so many bombs killed Japanese soldiers and citizens that our bombings were renamed slaughter bombings. As the author of Building the ‘Superbomber’ Would Not Be Easy. B-29’s Over Korea would say, “The United States was finally satisfied that firebombing was the answer to crushing the Japanese,” But on the other hand, and invasion was another long thought about idea. The invasion would involve more Americans risking their lives then the bomb.
Choosing to use the Atomic Bomb without it being tested before carried a big risk for backfire.The Atomic Bomb killed many more people than any of the other invasions we took on. There was also a bigger risk for failure because the pilot of the plane carrying the bomb had to make sure it landed in the target area, and if the bomb just didn’t work at all that would’ve been bad for Truman.
Truman, was justified in dropping the Atomic Bomb.

He was doing it for several reasons and some of them make sense. Strategically, Truman’s decision makes sense, because he was dropping the bomb to help end the war with the Japanese and he felt this was the best way to deal with it. Also, his political reasoning makes sense, as he was thinking about trying to end the ETO with the Russians at the same time. But, morally was the one area where the bombs don’t make sense. He killed over 80 thousand people in 3 seconds just with the Atomic Bomb, and “After 5 years, the long term death toll from the blast and sickness is believed to be about 200,000.” the National Archives of the United States

says.
Although Roosevelt died during WW2 leaving the vice president to take control, Truman took care of the ETO and PTO the way he thought was best for America. He used quick thinking and his best judgement to try and wrap up both ends of the war.