Why Did Truman Use Nuclear Weapons

With the war now not going well again Truman had to reconsider the use of nuclear weapons. At a press conference he was asked again if the option was on the table to use the weapons, to which he said “that the military commander in the field would have charge of the use of the weapons.” This statement was then made “clearer” by the White House to which they came back and said that the President and only the President could authorize the use of nuclear weapons and no such order has been given. This statement by Truman was one of the most delicate problems between the civilian and military command because a weapon of war was controlled by civilians rather than an acting commander in the military. In December of 1950, MacArthur requested that this control be transferred over to him which would give him the power to deploy these weapons in the conflict as he saw fit.
He even went as far to draft up targets in the case he was given this power. One such thought that had crossed his mind was a plan made by someone else that called for a complete bombing of the North to make it a waste land that no army could cross but he never went as far to submit this plan to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It would be in April of 1951 that Truman finally signed over the power to military command of four nuclear bombs but not to MacArthur who was leading the war efforts. This was done due to the fear the Joint Chiefs of Staff had of MacArthur impulsively carrying out his orders to use such weapons before the allotted timetable. MacArthur throughout the war has done exactly that and seemed to always be carrying out his order before they were “officially” sent