731high as those reported in Butow and other sources. John
Dower (1986) discovered evidence in Japanese sources that
the Soviet declaration of war, which came in the wake of
Hiroshima, shattered the confidence of the Japanese high
command as much as the atomic bombs. Soviet entry alone
might have ended the war. Dower insisted that Americans
rushed to use atomic weapons against Japan because of
their “sheer visceral hatred” of the Japanese.
The revisionist hypothesis—that Japan might have sur-
rendered without the atomic bombs—is belied by exhaus-
tive last-ditch Japanese preparations for defending the
home islands. Whether this information justifies this first—
and to date, only—use of nuclear weapons will forever
remain a source of debate.
Source: Robert J. C. Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender(1954); Alonzo L. Hamby,
Man of the People(1995); David McCullough, Truman(1992); Gar Alperovitz, Atomic
Diplomacy(1965) and The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of
an American Myth(1995); John W. Dower, War Without Mercy(1986).H
iroshima lies in ruins after it was destroyed by an
atomic bomb.
Robert J. C. Butow’s (1954) analysis of Japanese sources
proved that the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had
led to Japan’s surrender. If there had been no atom bomb,
the United States would probably have been forced to
invade the islands. According to military estimates cited at
the time, an invasion would have resulted in a hundreds of
thousands of American casualties. Biographers such as David
McCullough (1992) and Alonzo L. Hamby (1995) agreed that,
given public and congressional opinion, Truman had little
choice but to end the war as quickly as possible and with the
fewest American casualties.
But historian Gar Alperovitz (1965) proposed that
Truman had been influenced more by a desire to intimidate
Stalin than to force the surrender of Japan. This position was
strengthened by subsequently declassified documents indi-
cating that few U.S. military analysts anticipated losses as
DEBATING THE PAST
Should A-Bombs Have Been
Dropped on Japan?
■ ■ ■ ■ ■harnessed to serve peaceful needs, the scientists
promised, with results that might free humanity for-
ever from poverty and toil. The period of reconstruc-
tion would be prolonged, but with all the great powers
adhering to the new United Nations charter, drafted at
San Francisco in June 1945, international cooperation
could be counted on to ease the burdens of the victims
of war and help the poor and underdeveloped parts of
the world toward economic and political indepen-
dence. Such at least was the hope of millions in the vic-
torious summer of 1945.
Einstein,Letter to President Rooseveltat
http://www.myhistorylab.comWartime Diplomacy
The hope for a new era of international cooperation
was not to be realized, in large part because of a con-
flict that developed between the Soviet Union and the
western Allies. During the course of World War II
every instrument of mass persuasion in the country
had been directed toward convincing the people thatReadtheDocument