Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity | Hiroshima

On August 6, 1945, a U.S. bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, a second atomic bomb destroyed the city of Nagasaki. Estimates of the number killed in both cities range as high as 210,000. Thousands more later succumbed to radiation disease. These two acts, authorized by President Harry S. Truman, raised profound ethical and legal issues.

The possibility of an atomic bomb had been revealed by Albert Einstein in a 1939 communication to President Franklin Roosevelt. Under the code name Manhattan Project, three bombs were built, and a test bomb was detonated at Alamogordo, New Mexico on June 16, 1945. Some Manhattan Project scientists urged a demonstration of the new weapon before its military use, but President Truman, advised by a high-level committee, ordered its use against Japan as soon as possible.

Truman's decision came at the end of a war of escalating brutality....