Alex WellersteinVerified account

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.

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.