Who opposed the atomic bomb?

Answer 1

The ultimate decision to use the bomb or not lay with the President of the United States. The bomb was originally built to use on Germany. Once it was defeated they had to consider whether or not to use it on Japan to motivate them Japanese leaders to surrender and capitulate to the Potsdam Declaration. Based on all the information provided to President Truman he chose to drop the bombs in the hopes of ending the war and avoid having millions of Japanese and Allied Forces killed in an mainland invasion.

He had to weigh the advantage of murdering hundreds of thousand Japanese over the loss of millions people from Japan, the USA, Australia and other countries. He opted for the lesser of two evils. At the time the bombs were dropped they had no guarantee the bombs would even work or motivate the Japanese to surrender. The Allied Forces did not learn until years later that the Japanese were building the atomic bomb and had planned to use it on the United States. So It is likely the decision to drop the bombs prevented the Japanese from using them on the USA.

Answer 2

There have always been many individuals and groups that oppose the atomic bomb and all nuclear weapons. Some even oppose peace-time used of nuclear energy. These people come from all areas, religious people, philiosophers, activists, even some scientists.

Answer 3

The two main sides during WW2 were:

1. use to attack Japan
2. demonstrated to Japan

Of those advocating for a demonstration there were two main sides:

1. dropping the bomb over the ocean just off Japan's coast within sight of a major city, e.g. Tokyo
2. setting up a tower shot like trinity on an island near Japan and inviting the Japanese leadership and military to come witness it

Both of these were dismissed because it was believed the Japanese would either dismiss the whole thing as some kind of nonreplicable trick or might be able to attack and disable/destroy the device.

Thus the only viable option, regardless of anyone's opinion was actual use in combat.

Another thing to realize is that when the landing and invasion of Japan was to begin a couple months later that the US was already 100% committed to full scale use of chemical weapons; including several types of nerve gas, phosgene, and mustard gas if during that invasion the Japanese fought as they did on many of the last islands (e.g. Okinawa). The effects of such weapons are every bit as horrifying as those of atomic bombs and less predictable/controllable. Also the Japanese had already used such weapons in China and other places, and we had declared these Japanese uses to be war crimes. Use of atomic bombs to force Japan to surrender before we would be forced to use our stocks of chemical weapons was seen as the lesser of two evils.

About the only person during WW2 that would have completely opposed use of the atomic bomb against Japan was Albert Einstein and he did not even know that we possessed it at that time as he had never worked on the project. Einstein was a pacifist and refused all war work of any kind on principles.

Answer 4

the people that were against dropping the atomic bomb were the Japanese and the Soviet Union.

Answer 5

No one knew of its existence until the consequence was visible.

Answer 6

The people of Hiroshima