Cover letter
My goal in writing this essay is to inform the reader about the important pleas that Szilard and his counterparts made to the president and that were turned down. I would also like the reader to have an insight of the options that the president failed to use in his decision that would have achieved successful conclusions in the war according to these professionals.
Before I worked on this assignment, I was not aware that a petition was presented and turned down by the president before deciding to use atomic bomb on Japan. I read the petition and the president’s decision and failed to understand the reasons that made him reject this petition. After completing this assignment, I have learnt that not all the decisions that people make are right and that people should consider other people’s thoughts while making certain decisions.
I enjoyed the way the authors argued their points out in this essay. Additionally, the other interesting thing in this petition is the way the authors are organized in their thinking in providing a better solution in the war than the atomic bombing.
I chose the essay “A Petition to the President of the United States” because after conducting a library research, I found the article interesting. It was also a new thing that I had never known existed after I had been willing to find out if anybody had advised the president otherwise in the use of atomic bomb in the 1945 war against Japan. The thing that you need to know before reading the essay is that the president never listened to this petition.
Introduction
The petition to the president of the United States was written by Dr. Leo Szilard and cosigned by 69 other professionals, among them chemists, biologists, Physicists, technicians, health professionals and consultants. Despite writing the petition in time, the president declined to listen to the plea of the petitioners and authorized the use of atomic bomb on Japan in the 1945 war. In this paper, I will conduct a critical analysis that provides for successes of the petition in conveying its message to the president. I will consider the points that these professionals used to convince the President of the United States to use his powers as the Commander in Chief of the forces to prevent the country from using atomic bomb at that phase of the war. These authors pleaded that there were several other ways of approaching the war to a successful conclusion.
Body
In the petition, the author also uses appeal to pathos, which relies on the emotions and feeling of the audience. He writes about the things that have been said about the use of atomic bomb against the United States in the past and. He also indicates that the use of this weapon represents the first step in direction and that there is no limit to the destructive power, which will be available in the course of this development (p. 7). He also explains to the president in this petition the American public’s perception of the use of such weapons in warfare.
Additionally, the author appeals to logos in this petition. “Atomic bombs are primarily means of annihilation of cities” (p. 5). “ Our use of atomic bomb in this war would carry the world a long way further on this path of ruthlessness” (p. 6). In using these logos, the author intends to confirm to the president that the use of these weapons in the war against Japan would bring devastating effects to their nation and he considers this move a ruthless act.
Conclusion
Despite the author’s petition, the President of the United States refused to listen and take the advice of these professionals. The government went ahead to use atomic bomb on Japan, which led to devastating effects on the Japanese nation. The decision by the president to endorse the atomic bombing was unnecessary and the president should have tried the option that the professionals provided him with them. For instance, he would have made public announcements warning the Japanese nation of the impeding dangers of continuing with the war and the use of atomic weapon. In my opinion, Japan would have listened to the announcements and surrendered since they did not have weapons of equal magnitude.
However, despite the president’s dismissal of this petition, I find it convincing and the way the author appeals to ethos, pathos and logos is convincing. He successfully catches the attention of the reader and should the president have considered the advice of other professionals in this petition, he would have reversed his decision on the use of atomic bomb on Japan.
Work Cited:
Szilard, Leo and Cosigners. “A Petition to the President of the United States.”Atomicarchive.com. 2011. Web. 11 May 2012.
