The Decision To Drop The Atomic Bomb Summary

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The United States decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 is undoubtedly one of the main factors in ending the Second World War. Whether or not this operation was simply to end World War II or to start the Cold War with the Soviet Union is a controversy that is still being argued today. Historian Gar Alperovitz, the author of The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth, is more supportive of the fact that the United States ulterior motive for dropping the bomb was to provoke the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Robert James Maddox, author of Weapons for Victory: The Hiroshima Decision Fifty Years Later, dismisses the Cold War theory as nothing but a myth, and believes that the atomic bombs were utilized to accomplish Allied war goals and attain their policy of unconditional surrender from Japan. By analyzing Alperovitz and Maddox’s works, the idea that the atomic bombs were solely used to end World War II is more plausible than the Cold War theory. A point often overlooked is that aside from other factors, the United States chose to drop the atomic bomb because of clear indication that Japanese military …show more content…

Alperovitz believes that Truman was influenced by his foreign policy advisor James F. Byrnes to do so (389). However, Maddox asserts that Truman wanted to keep Soviet-American relations peaceful and inadvertently omitted the nature of such a weapon at the Potsdam Conference. Maddox easily demonstrates the constant uncertainty Byrnes had leading up to the bombing in regards to the Soviet Union (159). He was either arguing for omission of the decision from the nation or arguing for it’s disclosure. Despite Byrnes’ advice, it is known that Truman, although somewhat uncertain at the beginning of his term, was more supportive of the current alliance with

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