"BTW, no one knew if the Japanese would capitulate after only two atom bombs were used. The Russians were an insurance policy. Then, too, we only had two atom bombs ~ and we ended up dropping all of them. What would have done if that hadn't been convincing?
We actually had three Atomic weapons ready near the end of WWII, two of which were dropped on Japan, the third was being readied for a mission by Col. Tibbets' unit, the 509th Composite Group when Japan surrendered. The USA had two "Fat Man" plutonium Atomic weapons in the inventory at the end of calendar year 1945.
In an August 2002 interview with Studs Terkel published in the British Guardian newspaper, Paul Tibbetts recalled something similar: "Unknown to anybody else--I knew it, but nobody else knew--there was a third one. See, the first bomb went off and they didn't hear anything out of the Japanese for two or three days. The second bomb was dropped and again they were silent for another couple of days. Then I got a phone call from General Curtis LeMay. He said, 'You got another one of those damn things?' I said, 'Yessir.' He said, 'Where is it?' I said, 'Over in Utah.' He said, 'Get it out here. You and your crew are going to fly it.' I said, 'Yessir.' I sent word back and the crew loaded it on an airplane and we headed back to bring it right on out to Trinian and when they got it to California debarkation point, the war was over."
Source: Warbird Forum: The third bomb
"So, if Stalin's spymaster knew about the Japanese spy, he knew about the Atom Bomb ~ and, in fact, he had his own spies in the program. The Russians weren't all that far behind us in developing nuclear weapons it turned out."
I think that you will find that the Soviets were four years behind the United States in A-bomb tech, even with the information gained by their spies which bought them 7 years...
Hope this helps,
dvwjr
I saw something on the Discovery Channel sometime back about the end of the war with Japan about a military coup to keep Horohito(sp) from surrendering.If it would have succeded Tokyo would have been next on the A bomb hit parade.