Решение о применении атомных бомб против Японии

The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Consensus View?

“Traditional” argument [...] in brief:

that Truman made a decision to use the bomb on the basis of ending the war quickly;

the as far as the US was concerned, Japan would not surrender on acceptable terms without either the bomb or invasion;

and that of those two options, the bomb was the option that would cost the least number of American and Japanese lives;

and, as the Japanese Emperor acknowledged in his surrender statement, the bomb did in fact end the war promptly.

“Revisionist” [...] in brief:

that Japan was already defeated at the time the decision to use the bomb was made, and that US intelligence already knew this;

that Japan had been suing for peace and was ready to surrender without an invasion;

that the real reason the bomb was used was so to demonstrate its power to the Soviet Union, in an attempt to exert more influence on them in the postwar;

and that Japanese Emperor’s surrender statement invoked the bomb only as a politically-acceptable “excuse” for his people, when actually he surrendered primarily because of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.

( J. Samuel Walker view: )