The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of racism and violence, specifically wartime atrocities.

The historical evidence indicates that Truman first contemplated the actual use of the atomic bomb on June 1. The day began with the encouraging news, from Harry Hopkins, that Stalin had recommitted himself to the provisions of Yalta. A battery of meetings followed, including plans to induce Japan’s surrender and the prosecution of Nazi war criminals. Henry Stimson was preparing a final brief for the president on the atomic bomb, and he had become “transfixed by its potential historical impact,” noting to himself that it could be “Frankenstein or means to world peace” (233). General George Marshall suggested giving time for the target cities to evacuate, or even using nonlethal poison gas. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the lead scientist of the Manhattan Project, believed the bomb would be ready to test by July 4, and argued “that the United States should approach the Soviets now, in hopes of a postwar cooperation in this field. If the Americans sprang the bomb on the world as a surprise, the Soviets were certain to react with exponentially greater distrust and aggression” (235). Oppenheimer was told to form a committee of scientists to discuss the dropping of the bomb, but he believed that its eventual deployment was “a foregone conclusion” (236).