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Finally, the idea that the bomb wasn't necessary, and the U.S. knew it, was part of Stalin's Cold War propaganda. 'The Japanese were going to surrender soon, the U.S. knew it, the dropped the bombs in an attempt to frighten us.' All lies.
Briefly: a) Historians (and most people) know that speeches by heads of state rarely give full indication of internal thinking and motivation; it's why we look at the meetings, etc., that went into the crafting of said speeches.
b) I don't think I said anything about when the war would have ended. I did note that the US Strategic Bombing Survey concluded, in 1945, that it would have ended without the atomic bombs, or invasion. I just bring that up to suggest that it's not some kind of revisionist idea.
c) I think everyone can agree that an American land invasion would have been bad, even if the details are debatable. Framing it as "two bombs versus invasion" does not, however, incapsulate the options on the table at the time.http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2015/08/03/were-there-alternatives-to-the-atomic-bombings/ …
c2) And that framing — "2 bombs on 2 cities in 3 days OR invasion" — was created by people who wanted, in the postwar, to justify the bombing. They felt the need to do that because several military leaders, like Eisenhower and Leahy, went on the record saying it was unnecessary.
d) You can say it's Cold War propaganda (and hey, what wasn't, at some point?) but again, the people saying it wasn't necessary in the 1940s and 1950s were not Communists. They were Republicans and military leaders. For what it's worth. The politics have shifted, obviously.
e) Lastly, I am not actually saying (in my thread) that the bombs were unnecessary (I think Nagasaki probably was, but Hiroshima is unclear), and I'm not saying they were just used to scare Stalin (for Byrnes in particular, that was explicitly a motivation, but one of several).
e2) I think that interpretation — the "we knew we didn't have to use it, and we used it just to scare the Soviets" — is also incorrect. For whatever it is worth. Again, I think the reality is complicated and doesn't fit into simple political parables.
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