Why Truman dropped the Bomb (Long but a very interesting read)

The Weekly Standard ^ | 8/8/2005 | Richard Frank

[Radioactive]

I'm just telling you what Eisenhower and all the other generals were saying.

Your dad may have lived there but the Generals knew what the military leaders of Japan during the war were thinking.

I would agree with you if your dad was Eisenhower or Macarthur.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Ike, etc., net set foot in Japan.

[Radioactive]

Yes but Ike was privy to all information of the war everywhere in the world. You and your father were not. And Ike did talk often to MacArthur, and MacArthur did know a lot about Japan and what they were planning.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Mac spent almost his entire life in the PI. Ike never made it to Japan. We got to know many of the Japanese involved in the plan to resist the invasion. A couple of them worked for my dad at JPA in Tokyo.
Our maid was a 9 year old in '45, forced to work 16 hours/day in a munitions factory. When Curtis LeMay fire bombed their plant, the machinery was salvaged and moved into caves where production continued until the day of the surrender. One of the "products" she made was a crude, one-shot zip gun pistol that was distributed to civilians specifically to kill American invaders, then pick up their weapons. Ask someone that's been there.

[Radioactive]

Yes, BUT......Ike knew of Japans plans to surrender...your father did not.This was not common knowledge. IKe's quotes are the direct opposite of what you are saying. IKE was known to be in line for the presidency and had all knowledge of anything to do with Japan. Being the allied leader in Europe, his intelligence was as good as what Truman had. Maybe better because he had connections with all the branches of the Military.

The Nuking of Japan was a politcal move.....no doubt about it...it was a message to Russia to stand back.

Japan had plans to surrender,no doubt about that.

I almost married a woman from Japan. She told me that some of her family was in Hiroshima....a mostly Christian city the day of the Bombing.

She often told me that The Japanese military was hoping to stop the Emperer from broadcasting the message of surrender. They failed. Yes, some of the Japanese people were going to fight to the end, but only if the Emperer ordered them to.

The Emperer was of the mindset to stop the war....but Truman had other plans.......show the Russians that we had the bomb and was not afraid to use it.

We never married because she wanted me to move to Japan. It was too much of a change for me.

I miss that woman.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Japan would've fought at least until the 1950s (I have a Japanese war bond that pays off in 1959) and even after the first nuke, was prepared to go on fighting indefinitely.
They had more than a million in uniform on the four main islands, several hundred thousand in Korea plus a one million man army in China and SE Asia that had not surrendered and was living well off native supplies.
Ike was commander in Europe and was not fully knowledgeable of the Asian situation and had little to do with our own invasion force was being assembled at Stockton, CA. Many historians have credited various post-war statements to Ike as if he made them during the war and this is an error. Truman used the bombs to bring an end to casualties and didn't weigh the impact on our erstwhile allies.

[Snickersnee]

Wallace was an out and out Communist. I continue to be amazed that he is revered in his home state of Iowa.

If Wallace was president in 1945, Japan would have been divided at the 35th Parallel and there would be a wall around the northern half of Tokyo today.

[Radioactive]

Many historians have credited various post-war statements to Ike as if he made them during the war and this is an error.

Yes......Ike said these things after the war...and hindsight is 20/20.

Ike knew more after becoming president. He has stated that he was and always will be against the idea of dropping the Bombs.

Russia did get the message of the two bombs dropped on Japan.

They stole secrets and began their own nuclear program culminating in their own nuclear tests.

Japan was the warning to Russia....don't mess with the US........and it was Ike who warned us about the military industrial complex...

Here is an excerpt...

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

So there you go..... The Cold war was started by the US dropping bombs on Japan and FDR giving away half of Europe to Stalin.

The Cold War resulted in huge profits for the militaryindustrial complex.

Russia spent trillions on armaments.......The US spends trillions........What a great world we live in.....I only wish I was old enough at that time to invest in the military industrial complex.

[Dont_Tread_On_Me_888]

But in the 1960s . . .

The author need not say more.

That short phrase there makes his line of thinking irrelevant.

[warsaw44]

I wish I had time to get into this but I don't.
However - part of the Japanese plan for peace was to force the Americans onto the shores of Japan. The Japanese had hoped the God awful numbers of US KIAs would force the Americans to negotiate peace rather than have an unconditional surrender forced on them.
If the Japanese had planned to surrender as has been stated they would have done so the moment the first Atomic bomb was dropped. It took two bombs to convince them and not even that convinced everyone. There was even active resistance by the Japanese military to the peace announced by the Emperor
An excellent read is " The Pacific War Companion: From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima " By Daniel Marston.
Marston goes into great detail about recently declassified radio transmissions from the Japanese which convinced the US the A-bomb was the only way. The radio transmissions contain the info I mentioned on the first paragraph.

[atlanta67]

the idea that Japan was preparing to surrender is nonesense.

On Aug 15th 1945, there was a coup attempt, it failed. But its purpose was to kidnap the emperor and stop the surrender

[warsaw44]

oh, and by the way? The Atomic Bombs were not a display for the Russians. The Russians knew all about our Atomic Bomb program and exactly what its progress was. There were so many Communist spies in FDRs cabinet and within the US government at the time it would blow your mind.
If you ever have a chance read up on the Venona project. The Venona project was an ultra secret program even FDR didn't know about and details about it were released to the public in the mid 1990s. Basically we were listening in on the Soviets for some time and learned all sorts of stunning info.
There are thousands of Venona transmissions which still haven't been translated.

[Radioactive]

I did not say they were for display.....

They were used to show that we would USE THEM!

The Russians of course knew we had the bomb.

STalin knew more than Truman did while Truman was VP about the Atomic Bomb.

But Stalin had no idea that we had the will to use them.

The Nuking of Japan was definately a message to Stalin that we would and could.

STalin then went on to steal not only the technology for the nuclear bombs but also the delivery system...the B-29.

[warsaw44]

Are you saying the PRIMARY reason for the use of the Atomic bombs was to convince the Russians that we would use them - ?

[hinckley buzzard]

Russia was the reason for the nuking of those cities.

And you read this in which dimestore paperback?

[oldsalt]

The Soviet Union declared war on Japan in late July...

Better check that again.The USSR declared war against Japan on 9 Aug 1945,which was after Hiroshima was destroyed.

[Radioactive]

Absolutely.

Ike even said so and so did MacArthur and many other military leaders.

They knew that FDR was weak and near death at the Yalta conference. That's why the US gave away Eastern Europe.

Stalin basically over ran FDR and even Churchill made mention of that.

Truman knew that Stalin was crazy and killing millions of Russians.

Truman felt that the US needed to show Stalin that we not only had the technology, but the will to use the Atomic Bomb.

Truman had to make up for the weakness of FDR at Yalta and to show Stalin at Potsdam that he was one tough little SOB.

[Radioactive]

Hey Hinkley Buzzard.... I'm right next to you in Richfield.

I learned that at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic school. From Sister Conchetta. She taught history and held a masters degree in history and english.

One hell of a NUN.

Check out other posts here in this thread to see why I say what I say.

[nonliberal]

Said it before...

Harry Truman saved civilization.

[nonliberal]

2. intimidate the Soviet Union.

Not so sure about that one. The Soviets had the Manhattan Project so infiltrated that Stalin knew exactly what it could do.