ans believed Japan would never surrender; if the bomb had not been dropped, thousands of American lives could have been lost in an invasion of Japan. 2) The Bomb had cost 2000 million dollars and the Americans wanted to use it; it would have been difficult to justify not using it after such as vast financial investment. 3) The Japanese had been very cruel to prisoners of war; some Americans thought they deserved to be taught a lesson. And lastly, 4) it was used to show the USA's military superiority to the USSR. Understandably, there has been much debate over whether it was truly necessary for the United States to unleash the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some claim both bombings were necessary to force the fanatical Japanese army to surrender. Others, such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, a famous general in World War IIand later President of the United States, was personally opposed to the use of the atomic bomb. As he confessed in a post-war interview: "I was against (use of the atomic bomb) on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon."So the question remains: should the United States have used the bomb to finally end the war with Japan, and what other American options were there in 1945? The first option was to invade Japan. This would allow the Americans to take a foothold in Japan. However, President Truman believed this would cost half a million American lives. The second option was to negotiate with Japan, instead of demanding unconditional surrender. And of course, the scientists who developed the bomb, debated what to do with it. Some found it wrong to drop the bomb without warning and supported a demonstration explosion to convince Japan to surrender. In Oppenheimer's view, this course of action was too uncertain and risky; only the shock of using the bomb on a Japanese city would for...
