This quote from the article struck me:
“One of the most compelling was transmitted by General MacArthur to President Roosevelt in January 1945, prior to the Yalta conference. MacArthur's communique stated that the Japanese were willing to surrender under terms which included.”
If Douglas MacArthur said the Japanese were ready to surrender in this communique. I'd believe him.
The main point of the article as I read it was that the Roosevelt Administration was rife with Communist influence. A influence that mirrored the aims of the Soviets. This is a historical fact knowing the affection Roosevelt held towards leftists.
When have American leftists ever been concerned with anything other that establishing a Communist dictatorship in the USA? Wouldn't they sacrifice American lives at Iwo Jima and Okinawa if it would suit there cause and in this case help the Soviet Union.
The American people have been betrayed by leftists in our government, self seeking political leaders and even top military leaders for one hundred years now.
If General Marshall was hell bent with other American top brass to utterly destroy the Imperial Japanese Army and Monarchy while at the same time being cheered on by the American left.(Whose allegiance was with the Soviet Union.) Then the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was inevitable.
The American pilots,soldiers, and sailors have been courageous and noble with few exceptions. It is their leaders have been found wanting and corrupt with regularity.
My father was in the China-Burma theater and would have been sent to Japan when the war ended.
If the destruction of Japan was to be accomplished by invasion or nuclear bombs, for the sake my family and others, the bomb was the better means.
” ... If Douglas MacArthur said the Japanese were ready to surrender in this communique. I’d believe him. ...”
pleasenotcalifornia might summon a larger dose of skepticism in pondering Gen MacArthur’s claim.
The use of atomic bombs in combat did not merely set off controversies among American citizenry and moral leadership.
It ignited several controversies among senior military leaders. A number quickly made public pronouncements after VJ Day, claiming to have been against the use of the bombs, on moral grounds, all along. As time wore on, additional high rankers claimed to have been hit by moral qualms, at least. Doubts were aired, as the worldwide geopolitical situation refused to remain quiet, but became unstable and threatening with frightening velocity as the USSR challenged the rest of the Allies in Europe, the Communists took mainland China, and conflicts flared around the globe.
All of those leaders had very large egoes - no one reaches flag/star rank without a big share - and many harbored political ambitions. Whether they really did have doubts based on morals is imponderable, but we cannot discount the possibility they were saying they did, to boost their political viability.
On a more pedestrian plane of existence, the US Army Air Forces (who delivered the bombs in action) became a separate armed service just two years after the war ended. This ignited a firestorm of rivalries and controversies, and bureaucraic/political dustups the like of which civilians don’t really grasp.
Most of those disagreements continue today, at a level of intensity that sometimes beggars belief. The senior armed services, US Army and US Navy, accustomed to their status as the sole arbiters of the nation’s military capabilities, seemed offended beyond measure: USAAF, conjured from nothing by a gaggle of college swells and maverick staffers less than a generation before, struck decisive blows in ending WWII, and was bidding fair to dominate major areas of policy.
Sordid? Yes. Petty? Assuredly. Unpraiseworthy? Without a doubt. Avoidable? Not as yet.