.....A former ambassador to Japan, Grew’s knowledge of Japanese politics and culture informed his critical stance toward the concept of unconditional surrender. He believed it essential that the United States declare its intention to preserve the institution of the emperor. As he argued in this memorandum to President Truman, “failure on our part to clarify our intentions” on the status of the emperor “will insure prolongation of the war and cost a large number of human lives.” Documents like this have played a role in arguments developed by Alperovitz that Truman and his advisers had alternatives to using the bomb such as modifying unconditional surrender and that anti-Soviet considerations weighed most heavily in their thinking. By contrast, Herbert P. Bix has argued that the Japanese leadership would “probably not” have “surrendered if the Truman administration had clarified the status of the emperor” when it demanded unconditional surrender....
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With the devastating battle for Okinawa winding up, Truman and his military advisers stepped back and considered the implications and requirements of the invasion of Japan. In this meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff Truman reviewed plans to land troops on Kyushu on 1 November, heard a range of casualty estimates, and contemplated the possible impact of eventual Soviet entry into the war with Japan. This account hints at discussion of the atomic bomb (“certain other matters”) but no documents disclose that part of the meeting. This document has figured in the highly complex debate over the estimates of casualties stemming from a possible invasion of Japan. While post-war justifications for the bomb suggested that an invasion of Japan could have produced very high levels of casualties (dead, wounded, or missing), from hundreds of thousands to a million, historians have vigorously debated the extent to which the post-war estimates were inflated.
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This meeting has also played a role in the historical discussions of the alternatives to nuclear weapons use in the summer of 1945. According to accounts based on post-war recollections and interviews, McCloy raised the possibility of winding up the war by guaranteeing the preservation of the emperor albeit as a constitutional monarch. If that failed to persuade Tokyo, he proposed that the United States disclose the secret of the atomic bomb to secure Japan’s unconditional surrender. While McCloy later recalled that Truman expressed interest, he said that Secretary of State Byrnes quashed the proposal because of his opposition to any “deals” with Japan. Yet, according to Forrest Pogue’s account, when Truman asked McCloy if he had any comments, the latter opened up a discussion of nuclear weapons use by asking “Why not use the bomb?”....
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/hiroshima-2f.jpg
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Hiroshima, after the first atomic bomb explosion. This view was taken from the Red Cross Hospital Building about one mile from the bomb burst. (Photo from U.S. National Archives, Still Pictures Branch, Subject Files, "Atomic Bomb")
...[/FONT]The prime target for the second atomic attack was Kokura, which had a large army arsenal and ordnance works, but various problems ruled that city out; instead, the crew of the B-29 that carried "Fat Man" flew to an alternate target at Nagasaki. These cables are the earliest reports of the mission; the bombing of Nagasaki killed immediately at least 39,000 people with more dying later. According to Frank, the "actual total of deaths due to the atomic bombs will never be known," but the "huge number" ranges somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people. Barton J. Bernstein and Martin Sherwin have argued that if top Washington policymakers had kept tight control of the delivery of the bomb instead of delegating it to Groves the attack on Nagasaki could have been avoided. The combination of the first bomb and the Soviet declaration of war would have been enough to induce Tokyo's surrender. By contrast, Maddox argues that Nagasaki was necessary so that Japanese "hardliners" could not "minimize the first explosion" or otherwise explain it away...
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