Did President Truman make the right decision to drop the atom bomb on Japan?

Answer

It is a matter of opinion. A historian would agree that the bomb was necessary "the war to end all wars" and that it saved more lives to drop a bomb than to storm their beaches like D-day. This bomb was very necessary, though, if you think logically in historical and scientific terms. A prosponed Atombomb drop would affect the US and the Allied power in a very important detailed way. The bomb was dropped, for the main theory, to stop the operation that the axis power had in mind the whole time, where they will take in a lot of land. Before this happened, and to screw Jap up, this bombing had really great success and was very triumphic. That doesn't mean that the bomb was a good thing. Japan is a leading country in industry, architecting, and in beautiful artwork. But this Atom bomb's radiation caused many birth defects, which is still a big downside. Babys with no arm, AIDS, HIVS, and many cancer was very common. This bomb killed many important major people in Japan, and also killed many innocent people.

 

Answer_(and_a_few_corrections)">Answer (and a few corrections)

First the corrections. You cannot get AIDS or HIV from radiation. Also the "war to end all wars" actually refers to WWI, not WWII and most certainly not the bomb (it wasn't a war...) And (at least through every piece of material I have read) there was no "operation that the axis power had in mind the whole time, where they will take in a lot of land." The bomb was used to end the war, not some conspiracy of a Japanese invasion. (Or, if someone has evidence on that I would like to see a link.)

The use of the bomb was an alternative to Operation Downfall, an all-out Allied invasion of Japan, and effectively saved millions of Americans, and Japanese. Plus the atomic bomb actually killed less people than conventional bombing raids of Tokyo. Many argue additionally that through the destruction caused by the use of both bombs it created a stigma that became associated with nuclear weapons, which arguably may have resulted in their non-use throughout the entire Cold War. The theory says that no nukes have been used since Hiroshima and Nagasaki because no one knew how destructive they really were. Thusly the atomic bombs actually saved (or potentially saved) other lives that would have been lost had Russia or the U.S. first used WMDs in the Cold War which assuredly would have triggered MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) in which both countries would have engaged in retaliatory strikes against the other.

http://www.ushistory.org/us/51g.asp
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/46dec/compton.htm
http://harpers.org/archive/1947/02/0032863

(Also if you are really into this topic Alperovitz's book is probably one of the best guides out there, be warned it is very lengthy: http://www.amazon.com/Decision-Use-Atomic-Bomb/dp/067976285X )