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The attitudes of those involved in the decision to use the bomb were that one bomb, even two, probably wouldn't end the war. Groves thought it would take around EIGHT bombs. They were actually surprised it ended when it did.
But in general, I tried not to get too deep into internal motivations. It's hard to know those. Even at the time, people don't record them accurately — and may not even know them themselves, really. And most people become unreliable about them after the fact.
My main interest was in talking about the sequence of events, because even that basic knowledge is typically lacking. And if you don't have that, it's easy to fall into myths. In my experience most Americans don't even know the invasion wouldn't have started until November.
Well, I appreciate you engaging (I got into it yesterday with Martin who's not so 'academic' on this topic and it went badly lol!). But I think you're equivocating between "here's some basic factual corrections for people confused about timelines" and curating an anti-bomb case.
Some people think I'm curating an anti-bomb case, some people think I'm curating a pro-bomb case. I don't know; it's no-win territory. (I call myself an "inverse moderate" — I think everybody's a bit wrong.) I would prefer everyone to say, "this is pretty complicated."
I do think that the prevalence of the "orthodox" narrative — with its huge omissions — leads to the perception that anything more "comprehensive" about the decisions starts to look "anti-bomb." But that's an artifact of people's expectations.
To maybe put it another way: I'm certainly, in this Tweet storm, trying to dislodge the firmness of the "obviously pro-bomb" case. I'm not trying to nudge it into the "obviously anti-bomb" case, but rather put it in some kind of center-ground: "lots of stuff to think about."
I try to make very clear I don't think there are easy answers here, though I also state the areas where I do have some views (e.g., the need to think about Hiroshima and Nagasaki separately as questions of propriety, and not lump them).
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