@contrex,
contrex wrote:In particular, saying Hiroshima & Nagasaki happened at "the height" of a war, after Germany was defeated and occupied
Just for the record (since you don't know much about history or geography): the bombs were used against Japan, not against Germany.
contrex wrote:and after the surrounded and exhausted Japanese had made attempts to bring about an end to the war without loss of face,
You drastically exaggerate both "attempt" and "loss of face".
Japan was trying to end the war in a draw, without surrendering at all (much like the way the Korean War later ended). That is quite a bit more significant than merely avoiding a "loss of face".
And their "attempt" involved nothing more than going to the Soviets and begging to talk to them about some vague plot they had. As attempts go, it was pretty feeble.
contrex wrote:and in total ignorance of the views of:
Boy, I know more about this subject than you know about everything in the universe.
contrex wrote:Eisenhower: " I voiced to him [Stimson] 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'."
Ike was alone in these views. Stimson just called him an idiot and never bothered to tell anyone else what Ike said.
contrex wrote:Leahy: "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons."
Leahy only said that years after the end of the war. And he only said it as part of a disingenuous argument that the Navy pretty much won the war all by themselves, so they should not have to suffer as many post-war defense cuts as the other branches of the military.
The only thing Leahy had to say about the bombs
during the war was: "I'm an expert in explosives and I can assure you that these things will never work!"
More to the point, if Japan was ready to surrender, they were free to do so. No one was stopping them.
If Japan was truly ready to surrender, but they waited for no reason and let us keep bombing them, that was their own folly.
contrex wrote:Herbert Hoover: ""...the Japanese were prepared to negotiate all the way from February 1945...up to and before the time the atomic bombs were dropped; ...if such leads had been followed up, there would have been no occasion to drop the bombs."
Another post-war claim. Hoover, of course, was not in a position to oppose the bombs before they were used, because he did not know about them.
Hoover's claims are wildly inaccurate. Japan's first offer to start negotiating with us came the day
after Nagasaki.
contrex wrote:MacArthur: "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed." He continues, "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor." (Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pp 65, 70-71.)
Well, one thing in there is accurate. MacArthur wasn't even consulted about whether to use the bombs.
However, his wartime views on the bombs are on record, and are quite different from what is being claimed. What MacArthur thought about the bombs during the war was that they would certainly help, but Japan would still refuse to surrender, requiring a large ground invasion.
The part about "retaining the institution of the emperor" is wrong in so many ways at once it is scary.
First, what Japan was asking was that Hirohito retain
unlimited dictatorial power as Japan's living deity. Unlimited dictatorial power is quite different from merely retaining the Emperor.
Second, Japan was only willing to surrender with this condition after both A-bombs had already been dropped on them. The notion that we could have ended the war earlier if we had only been willing to agree to it, is nonsense.
And third, contrary to the claim, we did not in any way agree to Japan's request. Our reply to Japan told them that Hirohito was going to be subordinate to MacArthur.