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The original plan was to wait until August 10th (after the August 3rd plan for Hiroshima) before the second bomb — a solid week between them. As it was, it was only 3 days. Nagasaki got moved up because of weather considerations, just as Hiroshima had been moved down.
And it is just worth noting that while the Hiroshima bombing was very carefully planned, considered, etc., Nagasaki was — as I mentioned before — something of an afterthought. Truman was not informed about it happening; I don't think he really knew.https://twitter.com/wellerstein/status/1027546489302798337 …
Anyway. The end of this meeting of the high command was the decision to offer a conditional surrender. The August 10th surrender offer was basically to accept the Potsdam terms so long as they didn't prejudice the position of the Emperor. AKA, a condition.
The US rejected this — unconditional meant unconditional. There are complex reasons for this, but one was that the US hadn't really decided what it would do with Hirohito yet. (They ended up letting him stay on as a figurehead.)
At this point I just want to add: even two atomic bombs AND an invasion by the Soviets was not, by itself, enough to convince the Japanese to embrace unconditional surrender. That's how tough the "unconditional" desire was! They were willing to give up a lot, but not the Emperor.
While the US kept up conventional bombing, within Japan there were deep divisions about what to do next. There was an attempted coup by junior officers opposed to surrender, which was put down. Finally, on August 14, Hirohito personally intervened and agreed to "unconditional."
Different historians give more or less emphasis to different aspects of this, but I think the above is mostly uncontroversial as a timeline. The controversial stuff are the interpretations. Was Hiroshima necessary? What about Nagasaki? Would the war have ended without either?
I don't want to make it sound like I have all the answers — I don't. I do want to emphasize that this has been in debate since 1945. It's not a crazy revisionist thing to question the orthodox narrative; even the US military analysts questioned it in 1945: http://www.anesi.com/ussbs01.htm#jstetw …pic.twitter.com/nDeBoHydaz
I'll note, as an aside, that the US invasion of Kyushu was not to start until November 1945. Some accounts make it sound it was going to happen the next day or something, that it was barely avoided. This is wrong; there were 2 more months there.
Personally, I think the balance of evidence points against Nagasaki playing a big role, but the "mix" of Hiroshima and the Soviet invasion is tough to disentangle. There's evidence that the Soviet invasion mattered a lot. But that's not the same as saying Hiroshima didn't.
What I do think a balanced account of the timeline indicates, though, is how inadequate the simplistic "two bombs and surrender" version of the story is. It's much more complex than that, much less straightforward, and doesn't lean into easy propaganda one way or the other.
Bottom line: if your vision of historical events tends to render your historical conclusions as being very simple (and coincidentally they overlap with your present-day political views), you're probably leaving a lot of important stuff out. Real history is complicated and messy.
Further reading: for timeline issues, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's Racing the Enemy is great, and even if you don't totally go along with his overall argument, it's worth the read for a balanced look at the US, Japanese, and Soviet perspectives at the end of the war.
On the Japanese pre-planning about the invasion by the USSR, the work of Yukiko Koshiro has been eye-opening for me. On the timing of the bombs and etc., see esp. @GordinMichael 's "Five Days in August."
Is this why now only presidents have launch authority? How could Truman not have known about Nagasaki?
1) On use authority, that's a BIG question, one that I'm currently doing new work on. It's completely related to this, yes. Truman's reaction to WWII was to hold nuclear use questions very tightly thereafter.
2) On Nagasaki: almost all focus, rhetorical and strategic, was put on the first use of the bomb. (Which makes a lot of sense.) All discussions were about that. Practically none were about later bombs. There was only one point when Truman asked about the schedule of future bombs—
...and as far as I can tell, this is the telegram he was shown, by Stimson. You'll notice it assumes the reader understands there are two types of bomb — the tested type, and the untested type. I am not sure Truman totally understood this.pic.twitter.com/3e3DSVgBgO
In any case — Truman was not kept abreast of the second bomb. For the first bomb, he was updated as progress went forward. For the second bomb, things moved without his really being part of it. And to be fair, it was a pretty busy time: he had just arrived back in DC on August 7.
The strike order that Truman had seen basically left all future bombing decisions up to the Army. I don't think Truman quite understood the implications of that; on August 10th, he basically rescinded it, and reserved the power for himself.pic.twitter.com/8Pv1kNblZe
Thank you for your reply!
Horrifying.
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