Alex WellersteinVerified account

The US, it is worth emphasizing, knew about these efforts and these concerns. They had cracked Japanese diplomatic codes well before. They incorporated discussions between the head of the foreign minister and the Japanese ambassador to the USSR into their strategy.

This is important when considering the US choices of July 1945, esp. at the Potsdam Conference. Truman was lobbied by both the Department of War and Churchill to give some guarantee as to the Emperor's safety in the Potsdam Declaration, as they saw that this was a sticking point.

Truman, following the advise instead of his Secretary of State, James Byrnes, deliberately decided not to do this. It isn't entirely clear why, but the fact that by then he felt that Japan was likely to surrender without an invasion anyway played into it.

Another fact that plays into it is that he felt that softening the previously expressed "unconditional surrender" demand and cracking the door to negotiations would embolden Japan's militarists to think America was war weary and they could get a better deal by holding out.

Any reason you emphasize the "angry Truman wanted to strike out and punish the Japs" story ("for whatever it's worth") and suppress the "Truman wanted to end the bloodshed as rapidly as possible" one? Hmmm

Hmm, I would disentangle this loaded question. I give emphasis to Truman's attitude towards not relaxing unconditional surrender, because it's important to make clear this was a choice by him (and what we have from him is a "gut" justification for it, not high strategy).

That's not the same thing as saying that's why he wanted to use the bomb. I don't think that's actually the case. But at the same time, the "end the bloodshed" narrative doesn't really capture Truman's motivations at the time either, from what we can tell.

That's an after-the-fact motivation, one that interestingly does not really show up until after he learned that the atomic bombs had killed huge numbers of civilians. And one that doesn't get "cemented" as "the justification" until the war actually ends.