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I have already relented in a previous post that the author's premise is far-fetched. However, I gave it credence given the number of articles written that Stimson and FDR knew about Pearl Harbor.

What is amazing to me is that the author NEVER once discusses the validity of the decision to bomb--just the target chosen; and yet everyone reads into the article that invasion is a consideration. Kokura was the intended target. There appears to be three theories on this thread alone regarding why Nagasaki ended up being the target; so you see, there are lots of opinions.

The invasion of Kyushu was very far along in planning by August-see Stark's The Invasion of Japan. It would have gone down if the bombs hadn't worked or hadn't of pushed the Japanese to surrender.

As to why Nagasaki was attacked-it was a fairly large urban and indusrial area that had only been lightly firebombed earlier. It's cold, but we wanted the Japanese to see the effects of the bomb on an intact city. Larger cities like Tokyo, Osaka or Nagoya had already been mostly flattened by conventional firebombing.

I forgot also Kokura and Nagaski are very close, maybe 100 miles or less apart. If the Kokura was the original target, Niigata or even Kyoto are much further away. That could have been a big factor. These guys were probably not keen about the idea of landing back at Tinian with a bomb aboard or jettisoning it in the ocean.