Interpret the Evidence and Put It in Context

Document Links:

Document 23.5 Petition to the President of the United States, July 17, 1945

Document 23.6 President Harry S. Truman, Press Release on the Atomic Bomb, August 6, 1945

Document 23.7 Hiroshima, August 6, 1945

Document 23.8 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, 1946

Document 23.9 Father Johannes Siemes, Eyewitness Account of the Hiroshima Bombing, 1945

Interpret the Evidence

  1. What arguments do the scientists who oppose dropping the atomic bomb on Japan put forward (Document 23.5)? Under what conditions do they believe the use of the bomb would be justified?

  2. How do the scientists opposed to the use of the bomb view its use within the context of postwar international relations?

  3. What reasons does Truman give for dropping the bomb (Document 23.6)?

  4. According to the strategic bombing survey, what factors delayed Japan’s acceptance of unconditional surrender (Document 23.8)?

  5. How does what you see in the photograph of the day after the bombing of Hiroshima (Document 23.7) compare with the eyewitness account in Document 23.9? Which do you find more powerful and why?

Put It in Context

How did political and racial motives affect the United States’ decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan?

What alternatives besides dropping the atomic bomb were available to the United States? Why weren’t they used?

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