The Most Controversial Decision
Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan

Addresses the reasons the atomic bombs were used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the role they played in Japan's surrender.

Wilson D. Miscamble (Author)

9780521735360, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 April 2011

192 pages, 17 b/w illus. 1 map
22.6 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.32 kg

'Drawing on the many scholarly works that discuss the reasons why President Harry S. Truman and his closest advisers considered that the use of the atomic bomb against Japan in August 1945 was a necessary measure, the circumstances that surrounded the Japanese decision to surrender, and the role that possession of the atomic bomb may have played in American diplomacy towards the Soviet Union, Wilson Miscamble has also utilised his own formidable knowledge of the primary sources to produce a wonderfully compressed and trenchantly argued book.' International Affairs

This book explores the American use of atomic bombs and the role these weapons played in the defeat of the Japanese Empire in World War II. It focuses on President Harry S. Truman's decision-making regarding this most controversial of all his decisions. The book relies on notable archival research and the best and most recent scholarship on the subject to fashion an incisive overview that is fair and forceful in its judgments. This study addresses a subject that has been much debated among historians and it confronts head-on the highly disputed claim that the Truman administration practised 'atomic diplomacy'. The book goes beyond its central historical analysis to ask whether it was morally right for the United States to use these terrible weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It also provides a balanced evaluation of the relationship between atomic weapons and the origins of the Cold War.

1. Introduction: the most controversial decision
2. Franklin Roosevelt, the Manhattan project, and the development of the atomic bomb
3. Harry Truman, Henry Stimson, and atomic briefings
4. James F. Byrnes, the atomic bomb, and the Pacific war
5. The Potsdam conference, the trinity test, and 'atomic diplomacy'
6. Hiroshima, the Japanese, and the Soviets
7. The Japanese surrender
8. Necessary, but was it right?
9. Byrnes, the Soviets, and the American atomic monopoly
10. The atomic bomb and the origins of the Cold War.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], History of the Americas [HBJK], Asian history [HBJF]