Myth and Reality on the Droppings of the Bombs

     In the seventieth year of the droppings of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Peter Kuznick, historian from the American University, spoke to the Asahi, a Japanese daily. Here are some excerpts from the original(ajw.asahi.com).

     '...many Americans would have been killed(without the bombs).  That's what they were told at the time.  The American people believed it at the time.  Still, a lot of people believe it, especially the elder generation.  And so, they still believe that Harry Truman(the President who ordered the bombings) was a hero, and that he saved their lives.'

     'I think Truman was hoping that it would speed up the Japanese surrender.  He wanted to get the war over with, if he could, before the Russians got in and got what the U.S. promised them at Yalta, the concessions.'

     '...the Soviet leaders understood the situation better than anybody...they knew that the atomic bombings were not necessary to end the war.  So the reaction among the Soviet leaders, when the U.S. bombed Hiroshima, was that the real target was the Soviet Union.  It wasn't Japan.'

     'He(Truman) said he was going to Potsdam(in July 1945) for one reason:to make sure that Russia was coming into the war...He said that the Japanese would be finished when the Soviets entered the war.'

     This writer is also of the opinion that the Soviet participation was crucial in bringing the war to the end, and not the bombs.  If so, however, why was Truman so keen in bringing in the Russian troops into the war, which would and did enormously strengthen their position in the East?  As to the American casualties he could have delayed the planned landings in the main Japanese islands and prevented bloodshed of his forces.  That way he could also have taken the pride in the role of the atomic bombs in ending the war.