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FDR was in on the ground level of the atomic bomb project. Truman OTOH didn't even know about it until he became president. The target cities may have been different, perhaps, but absent a total surrender FDR certainly would have used them.
He would have been confronted with the same issues Truman dealt with. They were considered BIG BOMBS back then, not the "horror weapons of super science!" we know today. The only difference between the atomic bombs and conventional weapons is the radiation, and we scarcely understood that back then. Oppenheimer and Groves had their picture taken at the Trinity Site's ground zero the day after the first bomb went off. We had men into the Japanese cities days after the peace was signed. The tactical use plan for the NINE bombs give to Marshall was to drop them on "hard points" and send our troops through that area as soon as the fires died down.
And, we have to ask, what if FDR didn't use the bombs? Millions of people could have died, hundreds of thousands surely would have died if the war was continued even a year. And then the American public and the world discover that Roosevelt had a weapon that could have ended the war quicker but failed to use it. I double the Secret Service could have held back the mobs of family members out for his scalp in that scenario.
FDR was in on the ground level of the atomic bomb project. Truman OTOH didn't even know about it until he became president. The target cities may have been different, perhaps, but absent a total surrender FDR certainly would have used them.
All Truman did was approve a list presented to him. Then Stimson had Kyoto removed from that list. Otherwise it was the same list the Interim Committee's subcommittee on targeting drew up.
He would have been confronted with the same issues Truman dealt with. They were considered BIG BOMBS back then, not the "horror weapons of super science!" we know today. The only difference between the atomic bombs and conventional weapons is the radiation, and we scarcely understood that back then. Oppenheimer and Groves had their picture taken at the Trinity Site's ground zero the day after the first bomb went off. We had men into the Japanese cities days after the peace was signed. The tactical use plan for the NINE bombs give to Marshall was to drop them on "hard points" and send our troops through that area as soon as the fires died down.
And, we have to ask, what if FDR didn't use the bombs? Millions of people could have died, hundreds of thousands surely would have died if the war was continued even a year. And then the American public and the world discover that Roosevelt had a weapon that could have ended the war quicker but failed to use it. I double the Secret Service could have held back the mobs of family members out for his scalp in that scenario.
Exactly. There really was not much of an option but to use them. People look at the Japan of today and forget about how Imperial Japan was to fight against - they always fought to the death, period. To the last man. And like most, they fought with maximum ferocity on their home turf. A decent brief discussion is Paul Fussell's "Thank God for the Atom Bomb" (Google will take you right to it.)
Now I will grant you probably in any alternative scenario Nagasaki would not have been bombed, since it was a secondary target of opportunity. (See the mess that starts to unravel when considering alternative scenarios?)
I think FDR could have cut a deal.
Japan would have surrendered, virtually unconditionally, perhaps
with the Emperor's status being preserved.
This deal may or may not have required a display of A-Bomb effects.
Therefore, I will say he would put a display on.
Exactly. There really was not much of an option but to use them. People look at the Japan of today and forget about how Imperial Japan was to fight against - they always fought to the death, period. To the last man. And like most, they fought with maximum ferocity on their home turf. A decent brief discussion is Paul Fussell's "Thank God for the Atom Bomb" (Google will take you right to it.)
Now I will grant you probably in any alternative scenario Nagasaki would not have been bombed, since it was a secondary target of opportunity. (See the mess that starts to unravel when considering alternative scenarios?)
Gen. Anami, the War Minister was the leader of the hard core "no surrender!" factions. The first bomb bothered him, the second bomb convinced him. He swung the votes enough create a deadlock among The Big Six in the Liaison Conference that lead to the Cabinet appearing before Hirohito in the Imperial Conference without, for the first time in history, a consensus and plan ready to rubber stamp. That allowed the Emperor to have a say in the matter and he called for the fighting to stop.
That second bomb had more impact than the first one, it put meat on the "rain of ruin" threat.
I think FDR could have cut a deal.
Japan would have surrendered, virtually unconditionally, perhaps
with the Emperor's status being preserved.
This deal may or may not have required a display of A-Bomb effects.
Therefore, I will say he would put a display on.
FDR commanded a lot more respect than Truman.
How would Japan have surrendered without the bombs. Anami was calling on the people to "chew grass and eat dirt" while telling the world that the Japanese position was "One hundred million dead in the defense of the Empire!" Japan only had seventy million people, so the rest would have had to come from the Allies.
I think FDR could have cut a deal.
Japan would have surrendered, virtually unconditionally, perhaps
with the Emperor's status being preserved.
This deal may or may not have required a display of A-Bomb effects.
Therefore, I will say he would put a display on.
FDR commanded a lot more respect than Truman.
Read Fussell's article (only 14 pages) and get back to us if you still think FDR could have ended the war without either an invasion or dropping the bombs.
I really don't think he could have.
You do have a point about preserving the Emperor as a figurehead, that seemed to be IJ's main desired condition for surrender, and that it turned out that this ended up being part of the deal that was done, but I am not at all sure if offered to keep the Emperor, but otherwise an unconditional surrender, IJ would have taken that deal.
I'm not sure why you think FDR commanded more respect than Truman in IJ. Can you elaborate?
Roosevelt approved the Manhattan Project and the pouring of billions of dollars into it in order to have nuclear weapons to use. While it is true that the motivation was initially to beat Germany to acquiring nuclear weapons, it is also true that Germany was in ruins and would not obtain an atomic weapon - much less the means to deliver one - many months before FDR died. [No, the payload capacity of the V2 was nowhere near sufficient, nor did Germany ever build a big enough bomber] Yet there was no scaling back on the Manhattan Project. Certainly, FDR accepted the firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden.
Roosevelt would have faced the same quandries as Truman. It took two nuclear weapons + the Soviet invasion of Manchuria to bring Japan to its knees (regardless of all the 'But poor Japan really wanted to surrender all along!' historically revisionism).
And as for the idea of a demonstration shot? In June 1945, physicists at the University of Chicago produced the Franck Report, which discussed the manner in which the atomic bomb might be unveiled to the world. They advocated a demonstration test, specifically somewhere in a desert or on an uninhabited island, where officials from various countries could observe the effects. This report made its way to Secretary of War Stimson. He forwarded it to a panel consisting of Robert Oppenheimer, Arthur Compton, Enrico Fermi and Ernest Lawrence, asking for their opinions. They in turn produced a document titled 'Recommendations on the Immediate Use of Nuclear Weapons'. Among their determinations was the conclusion that “we can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.” http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-co...mendations.pdf
So that study lands on the desk of FDR rather than that of Truman.
In the absence of some affirmative evidence that FDR would have acted differently, it seems reasonable to suppose that he would have acted more or less as Truman did.
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