Cross-Examination Questions: Evidence for truman Truman: 1. What was the need for unconditional surrender? It worked before.

So you didnt even consider other options? Because we ended up NOT doing unconditional surrender, we did what the Japanese wanted (keep the emperor)because it was ultimately of no importance. They would have surrendered BEFORE the bombing with these terms, so why didnt that happen? In f 2. You said the bombing wasnt aimed at civiliansthen why did it kill 95% civilians? Did you know that this was going to happen? no Then why did you tell the Senate NOT to drop a third bomb because insert quote about having too much blood on hands. oh 3. Why drop the bomb when your most experiences advisors, such as colonel , and Eisenhower told you not to? saved most lives Not true, they said that the tactics (firebombing, BLOCKADE) were already working. Why didnt you listen to them? 4. What was your motivation to drop the bomb? to save lives weve shown that it didnt save a net amount of livesso did you care about American lives more? yeah So you were DEVALUING Japanese lives. yes (if no ask why you hit a virgin non strategic target) Devaluing of life is a crime against humanity correct? yeah Could it possibly be another reason you bombed was to scare the soviets? no Look at this evidence. crap 5. U.S.S.R. entered the war the same daywhyd you decide to bomb? That seems like a rash decision. double attack Wasnt this kinda just playing with human life? It seems you didnt give the issue enough thought. Didnt give it the attention it deserved. Lets say you WERENT lying about not knowing you were going to hit civilians. How could you not know that? The level of ignorance is astounding.

Survivor of the Rape of Nanking: 1. I sympathize with your plight, a crime against humanity as well as President Trumans. 2. Do you want even more people to die. More people to suffer the horrors you suffered? if they are the scumbag Japanese. 3. But see the people youre villifing arent the ones who died in this attack. The ones who died were like you. Innocent. In the line of fire. Can you honestly justify that in your heart of hearts? no 4. The ones who hurt you got awaytheir horrible crimes will not be avenged by more innocent deaths. Isnt it true that an eye for an would leave the world blind? yes 5. I think we can agree that what happened to you was a crime against humanity correct? yes 6. And if youve agreed that what happened to the innocent civilians was similar to you, then wouldnt the instigators of the attack on Hiroshima be guilty of crimes against humanity? yes:

MacArthur: MacArthur biographer William Manchester has described MacArthur's reaction to the issuance by the Allies of the Potsdam Proclamation to Japan: "...the Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed] that Japan surrender unconditionally or face 'prompt and utter destruction.' MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General's advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary." William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964, pg. 512. Norman Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan. Cousins writes of his conversations with MacArthur, "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed." He continues, "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor." Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71.

1. You have a solid knowledge of Japanese culture, correct General? yes 2.Then you must know how the Japanese considered their emperor be a god correct? yes. 3. So then, what were your feelings on the Potsdam declaration asking for complete surrender, including the dethroning of the emperor? it was really dumb if not use quotes 4. Were you EVER consulted over whether to drop the bomb? no (he wasnt) Isnt that interesting considering you were the general in charge of the entire Far East? yeah Would you agree it leads to an assumption that the decision to drop the bomb wasnt very well thought through. 5. Do you think there was any military justification for dropping the bomb? No Isnt it pretty funny that our ridiculous request for unconditional surrender was upheld until AFTER the bombing that killed 200,000, then was dropped? Isnt that insane? 6. 7. Outline: Motivations, Flawed:

Bombed to scare Russia. Devalued the life of Japanese Citizens in doing so Wanted unconditional surrender, no need for this

Execution, Flawed: Didnt warn Japan about the bomb beforehand. Could have saved a lot of lives Hit a target that wasnt strategically valuable. Selected in fact because it was virgin Did it on the same day as the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. This was the real reason they surrendered.

Results: Defense has the burden of proofthey must show reasonable justification of the killing of 200,000 civilians. There were other options, we at least had the moral imperative to consider them more then we did.

Closing Speech: Gentlemen of the jury.on the surface this case seems pretty simple. Prove that President Truman was justified in his killing of 200,000 people and he goes scot free. We can say that his actions constitute a crime against humanity under two conditions. When the necessity of the dropping of the bombs is outweighed by the negative moral and utilitarian implications, then he is guilty of the crime. Our goal as the prosecution was to prove that the dropping of the bomb was wholly unnecessary, and that its ramifications were both dire and inhumane. Lets recap. Remember first that Truman has stated MULTIPLE times that the entire responsibility for the bombings lays solely on his shoulders. No argument there. The motivations behind the bombing were flawed. We have shown through Paul Nitz and the strategic bombing survey that one of the principal motivations behind the bombing was to scare the Soviet Union. This shows a fundamental devaluation of the Japanese life; as we essentially sacrificed their lives as part of a sick power play. If you put the incident in a vacumn, and said one country bombed another, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, just to show another country that we had the ABILITY to do that, wed be horrified. Why not just do something like.tell them? More importantly, we used the bomb to inspire an unconditional surrender. This is insane for multiple reasons. President Trumans need for unconditional surrender was not only completely unjustified, but it was also irrational. He went against the advice (or at points didnt even ASK for the advice) of those who knew the Japanese culture best. He didnt even realize that we could have avoided the bomb by allowing the Japanese emperor to remain on the throne. This was definitely a plausible solution, as Emperor Hirohitos testimony showed

he had no real power. The irony of this is that we allowed the emperor to remain on the throne even when they DID surrender. It was all for nothing. The execution of the bombing was flawed. We didnt warn Japan specifically about the bomb beforehand, if we had we could have saved countless lives. And since the bomb served NO strategic purpose, what was the point then? It was a show of force. And that show of force didnt need to have civilians in the way to be just as effective. You could have just dropped it on an unpopulated area like Lewis Strauss suggested. To not do so is just immoral. Choose your virgin target, do what you want. But dont put innocent people in harms way for NO militarily objectifiable reason. We also decided to attack the DAY the Soviet Union also attacked Japan. Did it ever cross Trumans mind to maybe wait a few days, see how the Japanese would react And the results? The results were 200,000 dead, a nation scarred. And for what? For a victory that could have been had earlier, a victory that could have been obtained by other means, a victory that was ultimately assured. We have effectively showed that the war could have been ended far sooner. We have proved that the conventional methods of war we had been using would have ended the war shortly anyway. What is there left to prove? Truman committed a grevious injustice against humanity. He devalued human life, didnt even care enough about the innocent civilians he was killing to try and find ANY other possible way to prevent this. He made a decision that was nave, unnecessary, and HAD devastating consequences. You can argue he didnt know what he was doing. He should have known. And I believe he did anyways. I believe that President Truman honestly just had no regard for the life that he was destroying. He was playing a game with life, and just because that life was with the other side he felt like he could do whatever he wanted with the rules. He didnt just bend the line of morality, he jumped right over it and went straight to I am god. Maybe its a twisted Manifest Destiny, or maybe he just wasnt smart enough to see the scope of the issue, but either way it was a crime. The best way to end this is a quote from colonel Leahy, weve said it before but it goes like this: "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. "The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. 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. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children." This bombing was not necessary. And therefore it is a crime against humanity. A crime against the burning children. A crime against the wives, the daughters, the sons and the fathers who was incinerated, the ones subjected to radiation, who were pierced through the head, through the chest, through the legs with shrapnel. The 200,000 who can never have their lives back. And the countless others who will never see their faces again. You have to answer to them. You, the jury, have the choice to hold their killer accountable. You have a chance to prove that we can condemn our acts, and that we must learn from our ignorance, our mistakes. Or else this will happen again. And maybe, itll happen to you.