An overlooked A-bomb issue: the wait-a-couple-weeks argument

[Bucky]

39. "two bombs, bang bang, and the good guys win"

I'm pretty sure I didn't even come close to making that argument.

I'm relieved to hear you're not a revisionist. Authors that have asserted the "diplomacy by bombing" and "the Japanese were ready to surrender" theses have pretty consistently lost the debate. Here's a nice history of what "revisionism" is in this question:

http://www.theamericanpresident.us/images/truman_bomb.pdf

It's a PDF of a 15 page academic paper, but a relatively quick read. There's flaws on both sides, I think. The one thing the orthodox interpretation consistantly ignores is the ethics per se of dropping bombs on civilians. Truman himself only came to grips with that question after reports flooded in of what Little Boy and Fat Man did, Truman started reprimanding advisors who spoke of further bombing attacks and discussing the atomic attacks in moral terms I think you'd find some comfort from. Before the bombing, he'd been advised that the invasion of Kyushu would cost 250,000 lives and that the population of Hiroshima was 60,000. He did the obvious math. When the death toll proved to be over twice that 60,000, he radically changed his rhetoric about the bomb in internal policy discussions.

Sadly, it's the revisionist view that is more guilty of clinging to myth. Early revisionist books on the issue used out of context, even deliberately misleading quotes and distorting use of ellipses to twist meanings (as you'll see from the paper linked to above). Claims about Japan being about to surrender are simply wrong. Testimony by Japanese officials after the war as well as official war-time documents show they were digging in for a prolonged defense of the homeland. US intel showed Japan had more defenders ready on Kyushu than the Americans had potential attackers. The War Party was winning the debate in internal deliberations, if only by stalemating the debate, the default position for Japan was to keep on fighting. Japanese policy makers, as discussed elsewhere in this thread were bizarrely out of touch with reality. But any softening in the US position, such as demonstration bombs or giving diplomacy more time, would have made the war party stronger. In the end, the Peace Party had to use subterfuge and imperial manipulation to all but trick the ruling war council (the Big Six) into approving surrender.

It's a heartbreaking reality of what war is--first that it's a bloody mess and second that it's been an inevitability rather than an option in world history--but the cumulative data of what the Americans knew then and what history shows now is that the Bombings were justified and saved lives. I hate writing that; it goes against my instincts. But the more I've read, the more that conclusion makes sense.