No one should ever cite Gar Alperovitz as authority, and I am glad that the article you posted included a refutation immediately after citing him. I would not trust him for directions to the nearest Waffle House. Alperovitz’ claims are a selective culling of historical resources at best. At worst, and most likely, he is a blatantly dishonest writer who fancies himself an historian who will twist, or simply create facts as necessary to fit his preconceived notion.
There is nothing in the New York Times, and nothing in our intercepts of Tokyo’s own diplomatic cables to and from its Embassy in Moscow, that indicate they are anywhere close to accepting a surrender.
God I despise Alperovitz; another Alinsky-like leftist, distorting history for their own political ends.
Here are a couple more for you to despise from the book:
Let us sample what Japanese historians have written. A
widely read survey by Toyama Shigeki et al, Showashi [History
of the Showa period] (1959), quotes Blackett approvingly:
“The dropping of the atomic bombs was not so much the last
military act of the Second World War as the first major operation
of the Cold War with Russia.”19 The “atomic diplomacy”
thesis has filtered down even to junior high school history textbooks.
A typical sample reads: “As the Soviet Union’s entry into
the war became imminent, the United States dropped the
atomic bombs to gain supremacy over the Soviet Union after
the war.”20
Among monographs, perhaps the most quoted book is
Nishijima Ariatsu’s Gembaku wa naze toka saretaka? [Why were
the atomic bombs dropped?], originally published in 1968 and
reissued in 1985. Recapitulating the Blackett thesis, Nishijima
argues that “the most important thing” was that Hiroshima-
Nagasaki residents were “killed as human guinea pigs for the
sake of [America’s] anti-Communist, hegemonic policy.”21S imilarly,
Taiheiyo sensoshi [A history of the Pacific War] (1973),
compiled by a group of left-wing historians, states that “500,000
citizens [of Hiroshima and Nagasaki] were utterly meaninglessly
sacrificed for America’s cruel political purposes.”22 Here,
the sense of victimization takes precedence over historical
analysis.
I agree a lot of the mythology around the bombs has been created by lefties pursuing an agenda. I think another aspect of it, however, is cultural misunderstanding, which I think led to Ike, Stimson and others misreading the situation. They're thinking is that Japan is defeated, the Japanese know it, their country is being systematically destroyed, their people are starving and they have sent out peacefeelers. So, of course they would have surrendered without dropping the bombs, right? Wrong. Westerners would have surrendered, but the Big Six are still deadlocked.