In early August 1945, two atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These two bombs quickly yielded the surrender of Japan and the end of the American involvement in World War II. By 1946, the two bombs caused the death of perhaps as many as 240,000 Japanese citizens. The popular view that dominated the 1950s and 60s, presented by President Truman and Secretary of War Henry Stimson, was that the at the dropping of the atomic bombs was a solely military action that avoided the loss of

The military pressures stemmed from discussion and meetings Truman had with Secretary of War Stimson, Army Chief of Staff General Marshal, Chief of Staff Admiral William Leahy, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal and others. On June 18, 1945, General Marshall and Secretary of War Stimson convinced Truman to set an invasion of the island of Kyushu for November 1945. Truman knew of the ferocious fighting currently taking place in the Pacific, and naturally had a desire to minimize what he felt would inevitably be a long, bloody struggle. The solution was the bomb. Even to the end, Truman implied that the bomb was something for which the American people should be proud of, because it ultimately saved more American lives.

The third major source of pressures on Truman to drop the bomb was diplomatic tensions with Russia. Today, nothing about the dropping of the bombs is debated by historians more than whether diplomatic tensions played a role in Truman's decision. Truman's predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, followed a program of cooperation and good relations with Russia, highlighted by the Lend-Lease program and the symbolic gestures of good nature at the Yalta conference. Truman broke away from these good-natured relations and sought to follow a new "hard-line" policy. While preparing for his first meeting with a Russian official as President of the United States, Truman exclaimed that if the Russians did not wish to be cooperative, "they could go to hell." During his meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, "Truman told Molotov that the American interpretation [about the conflict over Poland] was the only one possible." Furthermore, as the meeting came to a close a flabbergasted Molotov responded, "I have never been talked to like that in my life." Collectively, these quotes leave little doubt that Truman embraced a new policy of strict bluntness and a willingness to "play hardball" with the Russians.

Truman learned of the project, then called by its code name, S-1 (and later as the Manhattan Project), from Secretary of War Stimson on 25 April 1945, only after becoming President. Concurrent with the Manhattan project, both Japan and America were making preparations for a final all-encompassing conflict. Both sides expected it would involve an American invasion of mainland Japan. The Americans expanded conventional bombing and tightened their increasingly successful naval blockade. The Japanese began the stockpiling of aircraft, amassed a giant conscripted military force, and commenced the creation of a civilian army, all who swore total allegiance to the emperor. This awe-inspiring army included "so-called 'Sherman Carpets,' children with dynamite strapped to their bodies and trained to throw themselves under American tanks."

Since these alternatives were not explored by Truman and his officials, Feis thought that it could never be known if the atomic bombs were indeed a savior of lives. Still, Feis stated that it was still possible to consider hypothetical situations. Feis wanted us to assume that Truman explored the two major alternatives above, and perhaps the three others as well. The first possibility is that the alternatives might have been successful before 1 November 1945. In this case the bombs were not savior of lives, but rather robbed Japan of as many as 240,000 innocent citizens. The second possibility is that the alternatives would have failed, and the November invasion would have proceeded as planned. To decide if the bomb would have been a savior of lives had the alternative failed, Feis could only guess how many Americans and Japanese would have died in the November invasion. Truman, Stimson wanted the American public to believe that the invasion would have cost America one million casualties, but there was no evidence available to support this claim. In a meeting on 18 June the Joint War Plans Committee gave Truman projected death rates ranging from a low of 31,000 to a high of 50,000, and a proje

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