What Jon has done is to search every period document for every sentence that supports his untenable thesis:
that Truman decided to use nuclear bombs for the joy of it. The archives on just trying to get the Emperor’s surrender speech to the radio station should dispel this foolishness.
That is not my thesis, as I have made very clear. Please address the historical evidence. Remember that you are challenging the scholarly consensus.
You have not quoted any scholarly consensus. If you had, you would not be the one I first heard anyone say it is the scholarly consensus!
Go ahead, @Jonathan_Burke, quote the article that says the position is the consensus.
You just aren’t paying attention to the importance of Okinawa! FDR died just 12 days into the horrible 90 day invasion of Okinawa. Nothing discussed before then really mattered to Truman.
I have done so twice. Here it is again.
“The consensus among scholars is that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan and to end the war within a relatively short time. It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisers knew it”, J. Samuel Walker, “The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update*,” DIPH Diplomatic History 14.1 (1990): 97–114.
If you disagree then you need to present evidence for your claim.
This doesn’t address anything I wrote. I have already showed that the US high command, both before and after Okinawa, agreed that a land invasion of Japan was unnecessary to end the war. and that the atomic bombs were not militarily necessary. You might start by listing all the military commanders who told the president that the atomic bombs were militarily necessary.
Yes, I did notice the incredible irony.
ahhh…@Jonathan_Burke, my apologies for missing this statement. I will now do my due diligence and see “what is what” with this source.
Thank you for the assist, @Jonathan_Burke.
Thank you George.
I think you have lost sight of the terrible horrors inflicted by the Japanese on allied troops because they did the unthinkable: they surrendered instead of dying to the last man. This was not just bad religion and philosophy by the suicidal Zen warriors … but it was also bad tactics! Anything that saved a GI’s life was considered the moral high ground!
@Jonathan_Burke, So, how long w-s I away? Less th-n 60 minutes, right? It took me 60 minutes to conclude that you, Jon, display a tone-deaf approach to analyzing history.
It was certainly a surprise to see that your assertions had even the Slightest of connection to scholarly consensus. But it w-s not surprising to see that you had left out a huge piece of the picture. Namely:
The A-bomb was considered just as crucial to keeping Russia Out of Japan as to defeating Japan!
So, technically I owe you an apology … which I extend to you now … but with the understanding that anyone
who thinks you use evidence in a fair and balanced manner doesn’t really know you.
The key text is in the image below, and comes from pages 664-666 of Gar Alperovitz’s book, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb - - sorry I didn’t have time to type the text:
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I believe that, in hindsight, even the Japanese would have concurred with the decision to use the Bomb!
Side Note: The direction of the modern literature on the decision to drop the bomb is one of those things that few know about. We should know more regarding Truman’s fears. He certainly didn’t use the bomb simply for revenge. See the link below for the Google Book!
It was horrible, And many POWs died in their ghastly prisons. Many didn’t survive.
What you can say, instead of the Bombs not saving any American lives, is that the bombs probably saved Japan from Russia! The bombs were dropped to convince Russia to cooperate with America… and to keep Russia from occupying Japan.
Who can say whether the Russians would have allowed the Emperor to remain on his sacred throne…
You are correct in an important way, @Jonathan_Burke… this sure isn’t the history I was taught … nor anything like the documentaries I’ve seen even just 5 years ago !!!
The bombs certainly must have saved the lives of many POWs.
Three points George.
You didn’t realize that the text quoted was written all the way back in 1981, twenty years before Alperovitz’s book. Nor did you realize that the reason why it is quoted by Alperovitz is to show how scholarly views have changed since Herken’s time. This is a classic case of cherry picking. You didn’t read Herken’s book, you didn’t realise how long ago Herken’s book was published, you didn’t read Alperovitz’s book, and you simply lifted a quotation directly out of context.
I find that sentence to be more than offensive; I find it utterly disgusting.
There simple reasons for each of these 3 points:
I do not have any confidence in your use of evidence. Every time you have provided sources for any discussion, I’ve been stunned at what you do with it.
I have provided the very pages of the book I used to partially corroborate your assertions. What part don’t you think I am reading correctly? Just look at the pages. What do they say?
The Scholarly Consensus, according to the author of the book I cite, is that Truman would have used the A-bomb to compel the Soviet Union to be more cooperative and to stay out of Japan - - whether there would be the Same Casualties, or fewer casualties. Casualties was not what he was worried about. If it did reduce American casualties, so much the better. But he didn’t want someone trying to divert him from his approach if someone came running in the room and said “Japan is ready to surrender to the Russians … we don’t have to do anything!” He would have considered that a disaster.
Apparently you think I used text provided by the author that is ultimately wrong about Truman et al. You protest:
Jon, it wasn’t that I didn’t realize how old the text is. I found the text to be compelling, regardless of the time period. It fits the situation that Truman was in. And, it partly corroborates your otherwise provocative assertions.
The Problem you have, Jon, is what is Your Explanation for why Truman dropped 2 A-Bombs… if it wasn’t going to save a single American’s life? I have provided the alternate motivation! I’m still waiting to hear from you on that!
But you never actually address the evidence at all. You just say you disagree. That’s my point here.
I have already explained this explicitly. What you are failing to realise is that the text you quoted was written all the way back in 1981. That text is no longer representative of the scholarly consensus. I have already quoted from the current literature indicating the current scholarly consensus. You didn’t even check your own source and consequently did not understand what you read.
Here you are really confused. The book you cite was written by Alperovitz, who says the scholarly consensus is that
But now you’re changing your argument. You didn’t say “I read this quotation from a book written in 1981 and I find it compelling”, you claimed that this text was representative of the current scholarly consensus, and claimed that I had misrepresented the current scholarly consensus. You were completely wrong, mainly because you had no idea that the quotation you cited was actually written over 20 years ago.
Do you now agree with me that there was no military justification for the bombs, that the bombs did not save any American lives at all, and that the bombs did not end the war or even hasten the Japanese surrender?
To provide a show of force to the Russians. That’s described in detail in Alperovitz’s book, which you haven’t read.
I think you haven’t read my earlier posting. The .jpg illustration of pages from Alperovitz’s book state exactly that thesis.
And if you had stated the thesis early in the dispute, we would be in total agreement. Instead, you simply stated half of the assertion: that Truman didn’t drop the A-Bomb to save American lives… Period.
Of course I have read your earlier posting, the point is that you didn’t even read properly the excerpt from Alperovitz’s book. That’s precisely why I told you to look at it again. You posted that excerpt in an attempt to show that my description of the scholarly consensus was wrong, but you misapplied it because you hadn’t read the book properly and didn’t understand that you were citing legacy scholarship from over twenty years ago. Then you said you nevertheless agreed with the statement in the book, but at this point you were completely abandoning your original argument and changing the subject.
I didn’t say anything about Truman not dropping the bomb to save American lives. I said this.
There’s plenty of evidence to demonstrate that US high command knew the bombs were not necessary, that Japan was trying to surrender, and that Japan was no longer a military threat. She was completely blockaded, unable to control her own airspace, and was being destroyed relentlessly and with impunity, by US firebomb raids.
I also said this.
The bombs did not save any American lives at all, and did not end the war or even hasten the Japanese surrender.
You directly challenged both these statements, and claimed I was totally wrong.
And the reason I said you were wrong is because you stated half the explanation… leaving the reader to the implied conclusion that Truman dropped the bomb out of revenge.
In fact, dropping the bomb probably Did save American lives … but that was not Truman’s motivation. He would have dropped the bomb with or without less American casualties. He saw the end of the War coming, and the need to keep Russia as compliant as possible.
By half-stating your argument, you created a false explanatoin… a false explanation that denied any American lives were saved. But the probability is high that despite Truman’s motivations, American lives were saved.
Please stick to addressing content and issues and stay away from back and forth about who is the better or worse reader/arguer/citer/researcher. 
That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I was challenging the claim that the bomb was essential to saving American lives and essential to bringing the Japanese to an earlier surrender. I pointed out this is totally untrue. There is no logical way to conclude from this, that Truman dropped the bomb out of revenge.
No it didn’t.
I didn’t half state my argument. I stated my argument in full. Remember my argument was not an explanation for why the bomb was dropped, it was a demonstration that someone else’s explanation was wrong. And no, American lives were not saved by the bomb. As you’ve been shown, this was widely agreed by the US high command, and is the current scholarly consensus. The extent to which you people will attempt to justify this war crime is really incredible.
@Jonathan_Burke, even your defense is a half truth!
You can’t just walk into a forum and declare that “America went ahead and used the bombs when it wasn’t going to save American lives…” - - and leave it at that. Such a behavior is the classic definition of telling a Half Truth … and such a whopper too! Considering the amount of time you’ve had this interpretation in your mind (months? years?) I find it just flabbergasting that you haven’t learned a better way of your position and your interest in it.
The very first thing you need to present is the Point of your Position!:
Truman felt he needed to demonstrate the A-bombs in order to compel Russia to be more cooperative.
Saying that “we used the A-Bomb even thought it wasn’t going to save American lives” is not the equivalent position. The part about American lives figures into the discussion because Truman felt so strongly about containing the Russians that his use of the bomb was not contingent on how many Americans might be saved.
Saying that no American lives were saved is an intentionally provocative “troll” comment. There’s no way to say what would have happened if Americans had to confront Russians on Japanese soil. And the whole point of trying to compel Russia to be more cooperative is certainly a “proxy” policy for keeping Americans out of harms way in some future conflict that was inevitably going to be risked when the two most militarily robust victors of WWII were diametrically opposed on political ideology.
Simply repeating the phrase “the bomb didn’t save American lives” is all bound-up with hubris, Jon. You aren’t a mind reader or a fortune teller. Virtually every day an American died somewhere in the Pacific. Even if the bombs ended the war only one day earlier, your adamant slogan would be made plainly wrong. I would encourage you to back off of it.
Leaving out the real motivation (or co-equal motivations) is tantamount to telling your audience that Truman dropped the bomb because of revenge. You can’t take on an emotionally charged issue like the first use of the A-Bombs and intentionally exclude the candidate explanation for why Truman did drop the bomb. It was your lack of mentioning any replacement motivation that caused me to reject your scenario so utterly and completely.
While I was certainly surprised to read about Truman’s alternate motivations, it didn’t surprise me that you refused to include them in your initial posts. What fun would that be to offer a rational strategic purpose for the A-Bombs, right?
The Russians quickly declared war on Japan after the first bomb was dropped because they were still hoping to occupy some of Japan. Truman’s speedy use of the bomb caught the Soviets by surprise … and pretty well out-maneuvered.
So… just for the pleasure of it … let me repeat the logic that you are trying to refute: Truman’s main interest of suppressing the adventurism of the Soviets cannot be equated with the idea that he didn’t care about American casualties, or that the bomb didn’t save Any Americans. There just isn’t enough true data to make that equivalence stick.
Just because Truman’s motivation was not based on American casualty counts, does not mean you can say Zero Casualties were prevented with 100% assurance. There’s just no way of knowing what ship might have been sunk, or planes might have been shot down. If you want to say that casualties were virtually certain to be low whether the Soviets occupied Japan or America occupied Japan - - well, that would at least be plausible. I will say that I think it would have been unlikely.
Far and away the most important thing about your position in this ugly discussion … is your willingness to portray America (by your repeated avoidance of discussing the alternate motivation(s) ) as a blood thirsty country, dropping nuclear bombs purely out of revenge.
You really need to Begin your discussion with the alternate motivations… and you will most certainly spend less time defending your own rhetorical motivations, and more time dealing with the strategic situation America was in at the close of WWII.
@Jonathan_Burke, you write this:
Firstly, you are wrong about an “earlier surrender”. It was definitely Truman’s desire to push the Japanese to surrender immediately, before the Russians could engage in a plausible occupation scenario. Soo… Bam! you are wrong right there.
Secondly when you take away an audience’s time-honored plausible explanation … without offering one whiff of an alternate explanation … all you are doing is trolling your readers with a terrible, terrible insinuation. Don’t do it any more, Jonathan, no matter what forum you come to. It’s bad scholarship (scholarship is not aided by leaving people hanging on a surprise ending for more than just a few pages), bad psychology and on the verge of contemptible.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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