Atomic Bomb Development
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Working for the welfare of the United States was a confusing and difficult job when Truman took it on as President. Within months of taking office, he was forced to the most fateful decision made by any President in the country's history- the decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan. What Truman knew of the strategic direction of the war he had learned chiefly through his service in the Senate, especially as chairman of the Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. So important a secret as that of the Manhattan Project's war-stopping work on the atomic bomb had not been shared by Roosevelt with his vice-president. After Germany's defeat, the fall of Japan could be seen as inevitable. But political and military decisions vital to the future of the country and the world remained to be made. On Japan alone there were serious issues to be resolved: "Such questions as the timing of, and the price to be paid for, the defeat of Japan, the occupation of the enemy nations, and the use of the atomic weapon had to be settled by the new commander-in-chief."1(May 182) In 1940, a research team at Berkeley, California, discovered the artificial element plutonium, extractable from raw uranium, and both being fissionable, were the two keys to the bomb. The news was soon forthcoming: "On December 6, 1941, the President of Harvard University, chemist James B. Conant, announced to a select group in Washington the inauguration of a full-scale secre
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ot a foregone conclusion with the coming of either the Cold War or the nuclear age. Rather it was the logical outcome of Truman's policies and practices since the first nuclear explosion in the summer of 1945. The bomb's paramount role in American policy emerged hesitantly. As World War II ended many people- including senior American policymakers and military leaders- expected the bomb, like mustard gas, to be banned or placed under some regimen of international control. The result of this uncertainty was to throw the ultimate fate of nuclear weapons into limbo for at least the next year-and-a-half. Yet, if the bomb's future military role remained unclear in the immediate aftermath of the war, its impact on the world political environment did not. Its mere possession added immensely to America's prestige, and convinced other countries that they would have to become nuclear powers in order to participate in power politics. This fact became increasingly apparent in the U.N. debates over international control that took place during 1946. With the subsequent deterioration of East-West relations after 1947, however, the prospects for international control steadily dimmed.
Whether international control would have made a difference re
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Approximate Word count = 4359
Approximate Pages = 17 (250 words per page)
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