Harry S. Truman's Decision To Drop The Atomic Bomb

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman was a simple man from Missouri who, in his own words, stated “if ever there was a man forced to be President, I am that man” (Ferrell, 1980). During the 1944 election, the Democratic Party nominated Truman for the Vice Presidency against his wishes. His loyalty to the Party ran deep, however, so he humbly accepted and became Franklin Roosevelt’s running mate. It was no surprise when Roosevelt won his fourth term, but many people had never heard of Harry Truman. This was about to change. In April 1945, only 82 days into Truman’s Vice Presidency, he received word that President Roosevelt died. He now found himself President of a nation in the midst of World War II. Although Truman never actively sought out to become the
His decision statement was to end the war in Japan and his decision criterion was to have Japan surrender unconditionally. Based on this statement and criterion, he then developed alternatives to end the war. These alternatives were to continue the conventional bombings, conduct a ground invasion, drop the atomic bomb, or conduct a demonstration of the atomic bomb to the Japanese (National Park Service, 2017). Once these alternatives were developed, the risks were analyzed. In the end, Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb. On the outside this may seem like a rational decision but the closer you look, the more you realize that this decision was skewed by bias, loyalty, worry over image, and drive for success. Just like most Americans during this time period, Truman was bias against the Japanese and loyal to America. The Japanese had bombed our service members at Pearl Harbor and they killed our POWs. America was seen as the good guy and Japan was the evil that needed to be defeated. This bias impeded his critical thinking skills and his patriotism helped him fall into the loyalty syndrome ethical