If Truman refused to use the atomic bomb on Japan, what should he have done instead?

[Tagurrit]

119. Well Written and Factual Account

In the last days of WWII the Japanese were offered terms prior to the decision to use the bomb several times, the last being made through the Swiss. The sticking point was that the Japanese objected to the term "unconditional surrender" on the belief that the Emperor would be arrested or worse. They left the door open to "terms" and those terms concerned only the Emperor. In the end the surrender signed on the battleship Missouri were exactly the terms the Japanese agreed to in principal weeks before in secret negotiations with the United States. The term "Mokusatsu" was used by the prime minister in the Japanese press and taken as a reply to the US offers. The term means to “kill by silence”, which can and was taken as a contemptuous response when in fact the term can mean "we don't know what the hell to do", which is what was most likely meant. So the "real" reason the bomb was dropped had little to do with strategic necessity and was more along the lines of miscommunication and misunderstanding. As you point out the Japanese military continued to wage war wherever the armies were and in retrospect the last Japanese soldier didn't surrender until March 19, 1972 so there was no question the military would fight to the last man (as they did) atomic bomb or not. However Truman was operating without all the information he needed to make a decision about using a nuclear bomb so the decision was made in haste. I understand in war time time is compressed but I truly believe President Roosevelt would have taken the time to make sure he know exactly what the Japanese meant. In fairness to President Truman Roosevelt kept him in the dark about the bomb and kept him at arms length while Roosevelt was living about the discussions going on high in the military about the moral issues in using the bomb. In the end the Japanese were demoralized, fragmented between the military and the government and through they knew they weren't going to “win” the war thought they could negotiate terms other than complete “unconditional” surrender. In the end the terms were exactly as they had been weeks before. Truman did not insist on “unconditional” surrender and therefor the bombs were unnecessary. General Eisenhower himself said, “The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” I concur.