The Biggest Decision: Why We Had to Drop the Bomb

360 Words2 Pages
The reading, “The Biggest Decision: Why We Had to Drop the Bomb,” by Robert James Maddox, explains the process taken in for the Americas to decide to drop the two newly discovered atomic bombs over the Japanese homeland cities of Hiroshima and three days later Nagasaki. Americans should be well informed on this information. This is a perfect article for this class because it marks a very important milestone in our nation’s history. The Japanese were a strong powerful enemy of the US during the end of WWII. “The Japanese had more than 2,000,000 troops in the home lands, and were training millions of irregulars” pg. 168 Readings in United States History. President Truman was determined to find a way to have Japan surrender from the war. Truman held a conference on June 18, 1945 where he would be discussing with the chiefs to take a look at different views of approaching the Japanese. After multiple ideas along with deep thought, Truman along with the chiefs decided the most efficient, least costly and less bloody approach would to be dropping the atomic bombs on the Japanese home land. The essay states “evidence points to the conclusion that he acted for the reason he said he did: to end a bloody war that would have become even bloodier had invasion proved necessary” pg 175 Readings in United States History. The writer’s purpose of this essay is to educate the readers about the difficulty of this decision. I believe the writer did a fine job explaining the whole process. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing are two greatly important milestones in the United States history, and the essay “The Biggest Decision: Why We Had to Drop the Bomb,” by Robert James Maddox is a perfect essay to be read over and discussed in a class like this. The process taken in this matter was very important. It was extremely long and had lots of thought put into it. But the decision,
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