RELATION TO THE CASE
I am Andreas Louskos and I am a defense lawyer for Harry S. Truman who is being charged for crimes against humanity. President Truman was not fighting fascism just like his predecessor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Truman's actions reduced Japans military control and capacity which prevented Japan's expansion. In addition, the atomic bomb was the medium that made Japan's unconditional surrender seem realistic. A country under the ideological and military grip of Emperor Hirohito, was willing to fight to the bitter end to prevent the dismantling of the government system, and Truman aimed to end the second World War as quickly as possible.
MY BACKGROUND
I was born in Astoria, New York on June 30th 1930. I was the son of two Greek immigrants. I grew up in Astoria and worked hard in school. As a son of Greek immigrants and living in the Astoria, I learned the traditions of my home country and grew a strong love for my home country. At the age of 18, I got accepted into Columbia University. I chose to study law because I wanted to defend the innocent people of the world. At the age of 22 I graduated from Columbia University with the highest grade in my class and with a degree in law. Ever since then, I have taken different jobs as an attorney and slowly started to create a reputation of a strong and reliable attorney. I have a wife, Debbie Johnson, and two kids, Jimmy and Peter. I live in Astoria because I want my children to learn the traditions of their home country and what it means to be Greek.
WITNESSES
Defense
Widow from Pearl Harbor (Wife of US Navy Officer)
Leslie R. Groves (General in Charge of the Manhattan Project)
General Curtis LeMay (General in Charge of Bomb Raids in Tokyo)
Winston Churchill (Prime Minister of the United Kingdom)
Prosecution
Mao Zedong (Chairman of the People's Republic of China)
Citizen of Nagasaki (Survivor from the Nagasaki Bombing)
Kantaro Suzuki (Japanese Prime Minister)
William L. Laurence (Eyewitness of Nagasaki Bombing)
Otto Frisch (Author of the Frisch-Peierls Memorandum)
Langston Hughes (Civil Rights Advocate)
MY MAIN POINTS
-The Japanese committed atrocities during their occupation of different regions of China. Those atrocities included experimentation on Chinese civilians (Unit 731) and slaughtering of Chinese people (Nanking Massacre).
-With the July 26th, 1945 Potsdam Declaration, the Japanese government was offered a way out of the war. The government did not choose that option because it meant that it would dismantle their government system, and the government was willing to fight to the last man rather than give up their imperial system.
-The Japanese were given preliminary warnings prior to the attacks on the cities which warned Japanese civilians to evacuate their cities.
-President Truman aimed to save as many American and Japanese lives with his decision to drop the bomb. In addition, he made such decision because the cities destroyed by the two atom bombs were of military importance to the Japanese military.
IMPORTANT SOURCES
Translation of leaflet dropped on the Japanese, August 6, 1945. Miscellaneous Historical
Foreign Relations of the United States: The Conference of Berlin, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1960), II, 147~1476.
"Pictures of Unit 731." War Pardons. N.p., 22 May 2014. Web. 18 Apr. 2015. <https://warpardons.wordpress.com/pictures-of-unit-731/>.
"The Evaluation of the Atomic Bomb as a Military Weapon", June 30, 1947. President's Secretary's File, Truman Papers.
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