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   XPost: alt.alien.visitors, alt.alien.research, sci.skeptic   
   XPost: alt.conspiracy   
   From: garymatalucci@gmail.com   
      
   Atomic Weapons Were Not Needed to End the War or Save Lives   
      
   Like all Americans, I was taught that the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs   
   on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to end WWII and save both American   
   and Japanese lives. But most of the top American military officials at   
   the time said otherwise.   
      
   The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey group, assigned by President Truman   
   to study the air attacks on Japan, produced a report in July of 1946   
   that concluded (52-56): Based on a detailed investigation of all the   
   facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders   
   involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31   
   December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan   
   would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped,   
   even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had   
   been planned or contemplated. General (and later president) Dwight   
   Eisenhower – then Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces, and the   
   officer who created most of America’s WWII military plans for Europe   
   and Japan – said: The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t   
   necessary to hit them with that awful thing.   
      
   Newsweek, 11/11/63, Ike on Ike Eisenhower also noted (pg. 380): In   
   [July] 1945… Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in   
   Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an   
   atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a   
   number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. …the   
   Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New   
   Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction,   
   apparently expecting a vigorous assent.   
      
   During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a   
   feeling of depression and so I voiced to him 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’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my   
   attitude….   
      
   Admiral William Leahy – the highest ranking member of the U.S.   
   military from 1942 until retiring in 1949, who was the first de facto   
   Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and who was at the center of   
   all major American military decisions in World War II – wrote (pg.   
   441):   
      
   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.   
      
   The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are   
   frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we   
   had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark   
   Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be   
   won by destroying women and children.   
      
   General Douglas MacArthur agreed (pg. 65, 70-71): MacArthur’s views   
   about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki   
   were starkly different from what the general public supposed …. 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.   
      
   Moreover (pg. 512): The Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed] that   
   Japan surrender unconditionally or face ‘prompt and utter   
   destruction.’ MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would   
   never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly   
   transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people   
   would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it.   
   Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the   
   condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General’s   
   advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and   
   Nagasaki might have been unnecessary.   
      
   Similarly, Assistant Secretary of War John McLoy noted (pg. 500): I   
   have always felt that if, in our ultimatum to the Japanese government   
   issued from Potsdam [in July 1945], we had referred to the retention   
   of the emperor as a constitutional monarch and had made some reference   
   to the reasonable accessibility of raw materials to the future   
   Japanese government, it would have been accepted. Indeed, I believe   
   that even in the form it was delivered, there was some disposition on   
   the part of the Japanese to give it favorable consideration. When the   
   war was over I arrived at this conclusion after talking with a number   
   of Japanese officials who had been closely associated with the   
   decision of the then Japanese government, to reject the ultimatum, as   
   it was presented. I believe we missed the opportunity of effecting a   
   Japanese surrender, completely satisfactory to us, without the   
   necessity of dropping the bombs.   
      
   Under Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bird said: I think that the Japanese   
   were ready for peace, and they already had approached the Russians   
   and, I think, the Swiss. And that suggestion of [giving] a warning [of   
   the atomic bomb] was a face-saving proposition for them, and one that   
   they could have readily accepted.   
   ***   
   In my opinion, the Japanese war was really won before we ever used the   
   atom bomb. Thus, it wouldn’t have been necessary for us to disclose   
   our nuclear position and stimulate the Russians to develop the same   
   thing much more rapidly than they would have if we had not dropped the   
   bomb.   
   War Was Really Won Before We Used A-Bomb, U.S. News and World Report,   
   8/15/60, pg. 73-75.   
      
   He also noted (pg. 144-145, 324): It definitely seemed to me that the   
   Japanese were becoming weaker and weaker. They were surrounded by the   
   Navy. They couldn’t get any imports and they couldn’t export anything.   
   Naturally, as time went on and the war developed in our favor it was   
   quite logical to hope and expect that with the proper kind of a   
      
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