President Harry Truman OKs atomic program, July 24, 1945
He is the one man in the world with the power to stop the bombing of Japan, and Truman chooses not to do so. It was a fairly easy decision, despite the objections of some of the nuclear scientists at Los Alamos and even General Dwight Eisenhower, Truman’s top commander in Europe. In the end, Truman came to the conclusion that an invasion would cost too many American lives. The decision to spare the modern capital of Tokyo and the nearby port at Yokohama has made it almost inevitable that Hiroshima will be attacked first.