Was it a war crime when US nuked Hiroshima & Nagasaki?

Well if Alperowitz is biased and anti American, I guess the USAAF could be too.

The semantics of "offered" or "asked for" have no bearing on the fact that the Japanese government had been putting out peace feelers since the beginning of 1945.

All they wanted was a guarantee that the Emperor would not be "molested".

So the war continued until after the atomic bombings when the Americans gave a guarantee that the Emperor would not be "molested" and the war ended.

I don't know why I'm having to spell this out again. Its all well documented if you look.

Timber Glad my contention is welcome. Here is some evidence to support it.

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html

Japan Seeks Peace
Months before the end of the war, Japan's leaders recognized that defeat was inevitable. In April 1945 a new government headed by Kantaro Suzuki took office with the mission of ending the war. When Germany capitulated in early May, the Japanese understood that the British and Americans would now direct the full fury of their awesome military power exclusively against them.

American officials, having long since broken Japan's secret codes, knew from intercepted messages that the country's leaders were seeking to end the war on terms as favorable as possible. Details of these efforts were known from decoded secret communications between the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and Japanese diplomats abroad.

In his 1965 study, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam (pp. 107, 108), historian Gar Alperovitz writes:

Quote:

Although Japanese peace feelers had been sent out as early as September 1944 (and [China's] Chiang Kai-shek had been approached regarding surrender possibilities in December 1944), the real effort to end the war began in the spring of 1945. This effort stressed the role of the Soviet Union ...

In mid-April [1945] the [US] Joint Intelligence Committee reported that Japanese leaders were looking for a way to modify the surrender terms to end the war. The State Department was convinced the Emperor was actively seeking a way to stop the fighting.

Peace Overtures
In April and May 1945, Japan made three attempts through neutral Sweden and Portugal to bring the war to a peaceful end. On April 7, acting Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu met with Swedish ambassador Widon Bagge in Tokyo, asking him "to ascertain what peace terms the United States and Britain had in mind." But he emphasized that unconditional surrender was unacceptable, and that "the Emperor must not be touched." Bagge relayed the message to the United States, but Secretary of State Stettinius told the US Ambassador in Sweden to "show no interest or take any initiative in pursuit of the matter." Similar Japanese peace signals through Portugal, on May 7, and again through Sweden, on the 10th, proved similarly fruitless.

By mid-June, six members of Japan's Supreme War Council had secretly charged Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo with the task of approaching Soviet Russia's leaders "with a view to terminating the war if possible by September."

By early July the US had intercepted messages from Togo to the Japanese ambassador in Moscow, Naotake Sato, showing that the Emperor himself was taking a personal hand in the peace effort, and had directed that the Soviet Union be asked to help end the war.

Summarizing the messages between Togo and Sato, US naval intelligence said that Japan's leaders, "though still balking at the term unconditional surrender," recognized that the war was lost, and had reached the point where they have "no objection to the restoration of peace on the basis of the [1941] Atlantic Charter."

Commenting on this draconian either-or proclamation, British historian J.F.C. Fuller wrote: "Not a word was said about the Emperor, because it would be unacceptable to the propaganda-fed American masses." (A Military History of the Western World [1987], p. 675.)

America's leaders understood Japan's desperate position: the Japanese were willing to end the war on any terms, as long as the Emperor was not molested.

President Truman steadfastly defended his use of the atomic bomb, claiming that it "saved millions of lives" by bringing the war to a quick end. Justifying his decision, he went so far as to declare: "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians."
This was a preposterous statement. In fact, almost all of the victims were civilians,

If the atomic bomb was dropped to impress the Japanese leaders with the immense destructive power of a new weapon, this could have been accomplished by deploying it on an isolated military base. It was not necessary to destroy a large city.

When he was informed in mid-July 1945 by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson of the decision to use the atomic bomb, General Dwight Eisenhower was deeply troubled. He disclosed his strong reservations about using the new weapon in his 1963 memoir, The White House Years: Mandate for Change, 1953-1956 (pp. 312-313)

Still not a pretty picture. Granted hindsight is 20/20 but in Truman's position, and other than for the possible fear of the Japanese themselves acquiring an atom bomb, I'd have saved the two A bombs for future needs, told the Russians they'd already done enough dying and their help was not needed with Japan, and told the Japanese to call me when they got hungry.

And what you describe as "no substantive concessionary change" I would describe as acceptance of Japanese requests regarding the treatment of the Emperor.

As for your second point that no official peace overtures were made before the atomic bombings,

"On July 17, another intercepted Japanese message revealed that although Japan's leaders felt that the unconditional surrender formula involved an unacceptable dishonor, they were convinced that "the demands of the times" made Soviet mediation to terminate the war absolutely essential.

Further diplomatic messages indicated that the only condition asked by the Japanese was preservation of "our form of government."

Summarizing the messages between Togo and Sato, US naval intelligence said that Japan's leaders, "though still balking at the term unconditional surrender," recognized that the war was lost, and had reached the point where they have "no objection to the restoration of peace on the basis of the [1941] Atlantic Charter." These messages, said Assistant Secretary of the Navy Lewis Strauss, "indeed stipulated only that the integrity of the Japanese Royal Family be preserved."

Navy Secretary James Forrestal termed the intercepted messages "real evidence of a Japanese desire to get out of the war." "With the interception of these messages," notes historian Alperovitz (p. 177), "there could no longer be any real doubt as to the Japanese intentions; the maneuvers were overt and explicit and, most of all, official acts."

Oralloy

You're floudering man. You're reduced to semantic arguments, accusations of anti americanism and bias

and now "rogue diplomats" shouldn't have done what they in fact did.

Naughty diplomats. They didn't appreciate how they were going to screw up "official" history.

More quotes to support my conjecture

from http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/20/043.html

The entire affair is documented in the Hoover Library volume Japan's Decision to Surrender, by Robert J.C. Butlow (Stanford University, 1954). Butlow quotes the dispatch that was received and decoded in Washington on July 13, 1945:Togo to Sato...Convey His Majesty's strong desire to secure a termination of the war...Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace. These requests continued through July.

Butlow documents that Washington knew the one condition insisted upon by the Japanese government was the continuation of the emperor on his throne and the symbolic recognition this implied of the Japanese home islands as a political entity. As it turned out this was exactly the condition that was granted when the peace was finally signed after the A-bombings August 6 and 9.

Our only warning to a Japan already militarily defeated, and in a hopeless situation, was the Potsdam demand for unconditional surrender issued on July 26, when we knew the Japanese surrender attempt had started. Yet when the Japanese surrender was negotiated about two weeks later, after the bomb was dropped, our unconditional surrender demand was made conditional and we agreed, as [Secretary of War] Stimson had originally proposed we should do, to continuation of the Emperor upon his imperial throne.

We were, therefore, twice guilty. We dropped the bomb at a time when Japan already was negotiating for an end of the war, but before these negotiations could come to fruition.

We demanded unconditional surrender, then dropped the bomb and accepted conditional surrender,

The evidence strongly indicates that one major motivation of the A-bomb decision was precisely to test the bomb on live targets, so as to confront the postwar world with the proven fact of overwhelming U.S. military superiority.

The haste with which the bomb was used indicates that the U.S. purposely ignored the Japanese peace requests (which were known in Washington on July 13) in order to drop the bomb before the war ended.

One of the most thoughtful works on the subject is that by the British nuclear scientist, P.M.S. Blackett, entitled Fear, War and the Bomb (London, 1949). Blackett points out: If the saving of American lives had been the main objective, surely the bombs would have been held back until (a) it was certain that the Japanese peace proposals made through Russia were not acceptable, and (b) the Russian offensive, which had for months been part of the allied strategic plan, and which Americans had previously demanded, had run its course.

Bomb aimed against Soviet Union This last is the final piece in the puzzle. It is Blackett's well-founded thesis that one reason for the haste was to drop the bomb before the Russians entered the war against Japan.

The allies had already agreed at Yalta that the USSR would attack Japan three months after Germany surrendered. Stalin had notified the United States that the Russian armies would be ready for that attack on schedule, that is, August 8. The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima August 6.

The opposition between 1949 and 1951 of so many atomic scientists to the H-bomb program must,

To sum up: That Japan was defeated and suing for peace before the bombs were dropped is a fact established beyond doubt. The motivations of U.S. rulers in dropping the bombs anyway is, of course, a disputed question. But the evidence utterly fails to support the official alibi that it was done to avoid costly battles. On the contrary, the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were murdered, not to end World War II, but to launch what later came to be known as the cold war.

The Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs (Togo) to the
Japanese Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Sato)

[Translation]

[Tokyo,] July 25, 1945--7 p.m.

Secret
Urgent

944. Re my telegram No. 932.

In such times, we continue to maintain our war strength; if only the United States and Great Britain would recognize Japan's honor and existence we would terminate the war and would like to save mankind from the ravages of war, but if the enemy insists on unconditional surrender to the very end, then our country and His Majesty would unanimously resolve to fight a war of resistance to the bitter end. Therefore, inviting the Soviet Union to mediate fairly does not include unconditional surrender; please understand this point in particular....

As for Japan, it is impossible to accept unconditional surrender under any circumstances, but we should like to communicate to the other party through appropriate channels that we have no objection to a peace based on the Atlantic Charter. The difficult point is the attitude of the enemy, who continues to insist on the formality of unconditional surrender. Should the United States and Great Britain remain insistent on formality, there is no solution to this situation other than for us to hold out until complete collapse because of this one point alone....

On the other hand, since it is possible that the Governments of the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the United States may exercise caution and suspect our dispatch of a special envoy may be a peace plot, we have repeatedly advised that what is described above is not a mere "peace feeler" but is in obedience to the Imperial command.

"The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment......It was a mistake ever to drop it......(the scientists) had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it......It killed a lot of Japs, but the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before."
Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, commander of the Third Fleet.

"When the question comes up of whether we use the atomic bomb or not, my view is the the Air Force will not oppose the use of the bomb, and they will deliver it effectively in the Commander in Chief decide to use it. But it is not necessary to use it in order to conquer the Japanese without the necessity of a land invasion."
Arnold, quoted by Eaker.

"I voiced to him (Secretary of War Stimpson) my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was at that very moment seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'........It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing"
General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Interesting what people who were there were saying. I don't blame Truman for cultivating the myth that the A bombs saved lives by ending the war. After all he was a politician, with an eye to his place in history. I think the "official" history of the atom bombings should be viewed in that light.