Says it best:
The Atomic Bomb as a “Gift from Heaven”
In a postwar interview (in November 1945), Kido explained
the decision to surrender in the following words: “The
feeling that the emperor and I had about the atomic bombing
was that the psychological moment we had long waited for had
finally arrived to resolutely carry out the termination of the
war.... We felt that if we took the occasion and utilized the psychological
shock of the bomb to follow through, we might perhaps
succeed in ending the war” (emphasis mine).71 In the
same interview Kido went so far as to say that the U.S. government,
by using the atomic bomb, actually intended to “assist”
Japan’s peace party:
Whether intended or not, it certainly seems to have worked out that way.
The source of the idea that Japan would have surrendered without the atomic bomb:
After the war Grew maintained that, had his advice been
followed, Japan would have surrendered without the use of
atomic bombs, and Stimson agreed in his memoirs.88 In time
the Grew-Stimson view came to be firmly accepted by some
American and Japanese historians. For example, Sherwin and
Alperovitz argue that the decision to use the bomb “delayedth e
end of war.” They contend that, because of the availability of
the bomb, Washington delayed modification of the unconditional
surrender formula.89 However, as has been noted,
Japan’s military chiefs were intransigent about the “three additional
conditions” even after the two bombs and the Soviet entry
into the war. Most likely there was no missed opportunity for
an earlier peace.