Overview

President Harry S. Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs on the Japanese home islands in 1945 was a continuation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's atomic legacy. With Roosevelt's untimely death an unprepared Truman was thrust into the presidency. He had neither the executive political background nor necessary mentoring from President Roosevelt to rely on. Instead--in his moment of crisis--Truman deliberately sought out Roosevelt's domestic, foreign and war legacy. In order to piece together Roosevelt's legacy Truman turned to Roosevelt's advisors and the fallen president's written documents. Then, without considering the ramifications, Truman implemented Roosevelt's legacy. Truman followed a similar pattern in his desire to implement Roosevelt's atomic legacy. As with the diplomatic and war efforts, prior to becoming President, Truman had little, if any, knowledge of US efforts to build an atomic weapon. Thus, Roosevelt's atomic advisors played a key role in defining Roosevelt's atomic legacy and implementing that legacy. For his part, Truman failed to consider the consequences of implementing this portion of Roosevelt's legacy. Instead of questioning the efficacy of Roosevelt's atomic legacy, Truman chose the path of noninterference. He accepted Roosevelt's atomic legacy at face value and directed the employment of atomic weapons against city-sized targets. Only after receiving the reports describing the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to include the number of civilian casualties, did Truman truly consider the cost of dropping the atomic bombs. His initial response to the reports was to remove the atomic option from future war plans. However, shortly thereafter Roosevelt's atomic legacy compelled Truman to once again consider employing atomic weapons against Japan. Fortunately, another bomb was not ready for employment. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

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