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Originally posted by jeff house:
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's book "Racing the Enemy" is based upon study of the Japanese, Russian, and US archives.

What he finds is this:

1. Since Stalin had not declared war on Japan, it was hoped that he would be a peacemaker between the US and Japan.

2. When Stalin entered the war a day or so after his non-aggression pact with Japan had lapsed, the Japanese ruling class was profoundly shocked, as they did not wish to see Japan "sovietized".

3. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not break Japan's will to fight. Stalin's invasion did.

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Further, jeff quoted from Gar Alperowitz, the "father" of the "revisionist" historians of the Cold War period, as follows:

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My own view continues to be that although there are very strong suggestions in the available documents both of the deviousness of Byrnes and of the importance of both European and Asian issues related to the Soviet Union in the decision to use the atomic bomb, the truth is we still do not have sufficient information to definitively answer some of the most important questions concerning why the bomb was used.

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What I find fascinating, as I said in the earlier thread (before it was hijacked by feuding vendetta specialists), is that in 2007, the question of why Truman gave the order is still such a political hot potato in Japan and certainly in academia.

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Unionist:
feuding vendetta specialists

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in 2007, the question of why Truman gave the order is still such a political hot potato in Japan and certainly in academia.

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If the two Japanese cities were A-bombed to save US casualties (which is basically the official story) then it is essentially a military decision.

If it was a DIPLOMATIC decision, an attempt to deter Stalin in Eastern Europe, say, then the casualties in Japan are utterly unjustifiable.

The main point of it was that the bombing had virtually nothing to do with Japan, and everything to do with the USSR.

In July, at the Potsdam conference the Brits and French were pushing the Soviets into the war as they knew that the tipping point for Japanese Surrender depended on them. Truman stalled on this and seemingly didn't want the soviets in the war and stalled until the day after the first successful testing of the bomb. His tact changed dramatically and he refused a number of Soviet requests for land grabs, made unilateral decisions that no one else agreed with, and demanded the unconditional surrender of Japan, which Japan had apparently already offered with one exception, the Emperor was to be left as a figurehead, the US refused this condition until after they had surrendered and they left him there.

The bomb was meant not to end the war, as there was already a strong method of doing that (bringing the soviets in), but meant to show the world and specifically the USSR that they were going to be in their back yard and there was little they could do about it.

Of course, we'll never really know, they were probably just trying to bring 'Freedom and Democracy' to the Japanese.

ETA : Thjs Article seems to be what I'm getting at.

[ 03 July 2007: Message edited by: quelar ]

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Originally posted by Fidel:
The U.S. ultimatum included a provision to maintain Japanese imperial rule, if only for the sake of priveleges and token power. And the Soviets would have insisted against Japan continuing on with an emperor.

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Originally posted by unionist:

Not accurate, Fidel - read quelar's post above, which is accurate.

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Okay but remember, someone told me I was in error in the other thread when I said the U.S. desired to make an impression on Stalin more than the Japanese military, which was ultimately defeated at that point and facing U.S. military might as well as the Soviet Union. Japan's defeat was a given at that point before the bombs were dropped.

Whether Japan's surrender to the U.S. was unconditional or not, the emperor remained as a figurehead in Japan. The emperor would have been dethroned by the Soviets at some point, whether by negotiated peace or by military force. The terror of the atomic bombs were apparently not the same concern for the emperor and Japanese military as it was for the Japanese peace negotiators in Moscow at the time. The bombs were as much and more of an act of terror and show of force as were Hitler's V2 rockets and blitzkrieg on London and Stalingrad. Hitler was said to have fantasized that those cities were set ablaze by bombs and fiery infernos.

[ 03 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

ETA: "Feuding vendetta specialists" ha ha

[ 03 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]