Most of what we’ve heard about the decision to drop the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is wrong, writes D.M. Giangreco. The false idea he does the best job of dismantling is the notion that President Harry Truman dropped the bomb in a race to seize Japan before the Soviet Union occupied the island empire. What documents show instead is that the U.S. was arming and encouraging the reluctant Stalin to attack Japan—because American leaders wanted the Soviets to endure the massive casualties that such an invasion would incur.
Given the fierce, to the last man resistance by the Japanese on Saipan, Okinawa and elsewhere, the Pentagon estimated that the U.S. invasion of Japan would cost one million American and 20 million Japanese lives with fighting continuing through 1947. Revisionist historians have underestimated the resolve of the military junta that gained control over Japan during the war. As writes, Giangreco, they were shaken but unmoved after Hiroshima. Only with second bombing, at Nagasaki, did surrender become possible. Even then, Emperor Hirohito forced his decision against the opposition of fanatical militarists.
As for the legend that Truman never heard of the atom bomb or the Manhattan Project until his abrupt ascent to the White House, Giangreco shows that the sly old politician knew more than he let on.
