Names: Period Student Handout 1 Instructions: Read the following background information about the image you re viewing aloud to your group. Have one member of the group record important information as your read through. You will need this information to support the groups answer to the critical thinking question that follows. Albert Einstein was regarded as the most brilliant physicist of his time. A German Jew, he had immigrated to the United States after the Nazis took away his citizenship and seized his property. Through his connections in the German science community, he had knowledge that Hitler was intrigued with the idea of developing an atomic bomb. As a result, Einstein wrote to President Roosevelt, urging him to develop the bomb first. (Excerpts from the letter are printed below.) After considering what Einstein recommended, Roosevelt was persuaded that if the bomb could be built, the United States should be the first nation to build it. The development of the atomic bob started in May 1942, six months after U.S. entrance into the war, and was code-named The Manhattan Project. It cost over $2.5 billion and required the construction of the biggest industrial complex ever built. It employed over 590,000 people. Plants were built to produce the elements needed for the bomb. A giant laboratory was created at Los Alamos, New Mexico. The town became a secret city the people who worked there could not tell their relatives where they were or what they were working on. And top scientists constructed the first nuclear reactor under the football stadium at the University of Chicago. Since time was so important, all this work was done under tremendous anxiety and tension. The first nuclear chain reaction was achieved on December 2, 1942. This proved that the theory behind the project was correct. 32 months later, on July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was exploded in a remote desert in New Mexico. Scientists and others who watched from five miles away were staggered at its devastating effects.
Student Handout 1 Instruction: Read the following excerpt from a letter written by Albert Einstein to President Roosevelt in August 1939. Then, answer the critical thinking question. One student from the group must present your groups argument. Some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important form of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring to your attention the following facts and recommendations: In the course of the last four months it has been made probable through the work of Joloit in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which large amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future. This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable though much less certain that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air. Critical Thinking Question: If you were the president and received this letter, what would you do? What risks would there be in trying to develop such a weapon? In retrospect, why do you think President Roosevelt decided to develop the atomic bomb?
Student Handout 2 Instructions: Read the following background information about the image you re viewing aloud to your group. Have one member of the group record important information as your read through. You will need this information to support the groups answer to the critical thinking question that follows. So secret was the Manhattan Project that when Truman took over the presidency after Roosevelt s death, even he did not know about it. Later Truman said, I regarded the bomb as a military weapon and never had any doubt that it should be used. The atomic bomb was no great decision, not any decision you had to worry about. Many in the Roosevelt and Truman administration felt that the prospect of using the bomb was no more inhumane than the massive fire bombing raids that had taken place over Germany and over Tokyo. The raid on Tokyo in March of 1945 did more damage and caused more casualties than the atom bomb in Hiroshima. According to the Truman administration, the Japanese could be persuaded to end the war only by shocking and dramatic evidence that resistance was foolish, and that the United States had the power to destroy Japan completely. The atom bomb would cause the necessary shock. If not utilized, there was the danger that the Japanese would continue to fight, making necessary a bloody invasion of Japan.
Student Handout 2 Instruction: Read the following excerpt from President Truman s speech to Congress. Then, answer the critical thinking question. One student from the group must present your groups argument. We won the race of discovery against the Germans. We had to use it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans. We shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan s power to make war. Critical Thinking Question: Given Truman s statement, what were the officially stated reasons for dropping the atomic bomb? What were the alternatives to dropping the bomb? What other, unstated reasons might there have been for dropping the bomb?
Student Handout 3 Instructions: Read the following background information about the image you re viewing aloud to your group. Have one member of the group record important information as your read through. You will need this information to support the groups answer to the critical thinking question that follows. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, the United States dropped another bomb on the city of Nagasaki. Finally, Japan surrendered on August 10, 1945. Japan realized that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, coupled with the Soviet Union s declaration of war on Japan on August 8, 1945, made resistance futile. Japan sued for peace with the provision that Emperor Hirohito be permitted to retain his throne.
Student Handout 3 Instruction: Read the following examples of worldwide reaction to the use of the bomb. One student from the group must present your groups argument The Vatican condemned the use of the bombs as a catastrophic conclusion to the war s apocalyptic surprises. A Vatican spokesperson compared the bomb s invention with that of the submarine of Leonardo da Vinci and expressed regret that the nuclear scientists did not, like da Vinci, destroy their creation in the interest of humanity. In Britain, the government welcomed the bomb was a means of quickly ending the war. H.G. Wells, who had predicted the creation of atomic bombs 12 years earlier in his book, The Shape of Things to Come, remarked, This can wipe out everything bad, or good, in this world. It is up to the people to decide which. Nazi war criminals agreed that war had reached a turning point. Von Ribbenthrop, the German foreign minister during World War II, said, No one would be so stupid as to start a war now. It is the opportunity for mankind to end war forever. In the Soviet Union, the media did not rate the atomic bomb worth of headline news. While expressing interest in the new weapon, radio and newspaper reports stressed that Russian scientists were also well advanced in atomic research. In fact, the media proclaimed that the Red Army had forced Japan to submit. In Washington, D.C., senators called on the newly created United Nations to ensure that the peace-loving nations share the benefits of the discovery that led to the bomb. Critical Thinking Question: How do you think Japan felt about the use of the atomic bomb? How do you think the Soviet Union perceived the United States use of it? How do you think he world community perceived the United States?
Student Handout 4 Instructions: Read the following background information about the image you re viewing aloud to your group. Have one member of the group record important information as your read through. You will need this information to support the groups answer to the critical thinking question that follows. The devastating effects of the atomic bombs were shocking. Of the 320,000 civilians and soldiers in Hiroshima, some 80,000, according to American figures, were killed instantly or severely wounded. Moreover, many survivors suffered from short-and long-term radiation poisoning. When the Hiroshima bomb was dropped, the temperature at ground zero (the point of detonation) was several thousand degrees centigrade. At the core of the blast, the temperature was 50 million degrees centigrade. The flash heat started fires a mile away. Stone walls steel doors, and asphalt pavement glowed red hot. The heat burned the black lettering of books and newspapers, and fused clothing to skin. More than a mile from the epicenter, men had their caps etched into their scalps, women their kimono patterns imprinted on their bodies, and children their socks burned to their legs. The Hiroshima blast leveled the city. At Shima Clinic, for example, the stone columns were rammed straight down into the ground. The entire building collapsed, and the occupants were vaporized. 63,000 buildings out of a total of 90,000 were destroyed. All utilities and transportation services were wrecked. Over 70,000 breaks in the water main occurred. The explosion sent a whirlwind of glass through the city. The destruction occurred in a blinding flash. The crew members of the Enola Gay blinked when the bomb exploded. When crew member Bob Caron opened his eyes, the flash was gone. In its place, he said, a peep into hell. After WWII, much controversy surrounded Truman s decision to drop the bomb. Most in the Truman administration defended the decision. They argued that using the bomb saved American lives and ended the war quickly. The American government estimated that if an invasion of Japan had been necessary to end the war, the fighting would have resulted in over a million American casualties. Moreover, they believed that the ferociousness of the Japanese military could only be subdued by something very dramatic. After the war, Henry L. Stimson, Truman s Secretary of War, said, My chief purpose was to end the war in victory with the least possible cost in lives of the men in the armies which I had helped to raise I believe that no man holding in his hands a weapon of such possibilities for accomplishing this purpose and saving those lives, could have failed to use it and afterwards looked his countrymen in the face.
Student Handout 4 Admiral William Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Roosevelt, said in 1950, My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. The Truman administration s stated explanation for dropping the bomb was not accepted by everyone. Critics of the Hiroshima decision say that there are important weaknesses in the government s argument. They suggest that Japan was already prepared to negotiate an end to the war, and so dropping the bomb was not necessary. They cite evidence that Japanese diplomats in Europe let it be known that Japan was interested in ending the war. These critics say the United States should have pursued these efforts. On the other hand, it was learned after the war that the Japanese Cabinet was greatly divided on the question of surrender. Other critics suggest that the bomb could have been exploded on some uninhabited target in full view of the Japanese, so that they could see its terrible, devastating effect. Then they could have been warned that if they did not surrender the bomb would be used on one of their cities. But defenders of the Truman administration say that such a demonstration may not have convinced the Japanese to surrender or, rose, the bomb may not have exploded at all and thus made the United States appear incompetent and weak. Many criticize the United States for so quickly dropping the second bomb on Nagasaki. They argue that there was hardly enough time for the Japanese to evaluate the damage at Hiroshima and decide what to do. Some argue that the United States had a compelling ulterior motive for dropping the bombs on Japan. They point out that it was hoped that the war with Japan could be ended without the aid of the Soviets, who would then have the right to claim some land in the peace settlement. Truman was already concerned with trying to stop Soviet domination in Eastern Europe. Historian Gar Alperovitz argues, therefore, that the bombs were dropped not so much for their effect on Japan, but for their impact on the Soviet Union. They were used, he argues, primarily to demonstrate American military strength to the Soviet Union and to dissuade them from aggressive acts in the postwar world. Critical Thinking Question: Did the United States make the appropriate decision by dropping the atomic bombs on Japan? Explain.