Reply #107: No it wasn't, but the mistrust of the Russians [View All]

[oneshooter]

made it necessary.

After President Harry S. Truman received word of the success of the Trinity test, his need for the help of the Soviet Union in the war against Japan was greatly diminished. The Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, had promised to join the war against Japan by August 15th. Truman and his advisors now were not sure they wanted this help. If use of the atomic bomb made victory possible without an invasion, then accepting Soviet help would only invite them into the discussions regarding the postwar fate of Japan.
The final decision to drop the atomic bomb, when it was made the following day, July 25, was decidedly anticlimactic. How and when it should be used had been the subject of high-level debate for months. A directive (right), written by Leslie Groves, approved by President Truman, and issued by Secretary of War Henry Stimson and General of the Army George Marshall, ordered the Army Air Force's 509th Composite Group to attack Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, or Nagasaki (in that order of preference) as soon after August 3 as weather permitted. No further authorization was needed for subsequent atomic attacks. Additional bombs were to be delivered as soon as they became available, against whatever Japanese cities remained on the target list. Stalin was not told. Targeting now simply depended on which city was not obscured by clouds on the day of attack.

http://www.cfo.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/potsdam_decision.htm


Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas