<< Interesting article.One example:The author states,"Japan surrendered because of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria."???? >>
That did have something to do with the surrender. Even after the second A-bomb, there was still a very strong faction in the Japanese war cabinet that wanted to keep fighting, and they were preparing the people to fight to the death. Most of the people probably would have done so out of loyalty to the emperor, too.
Stalin had promised Truman that the USSR would declare war on Japan three months after the defeat of Germany. The planned date of that declaration was Aug. 15. After the dropping of the first bomb, Stalin moved the declaration date up to Aug. 8, because he didn't want to be left without any "spoils" in Asia after the defeat of Japan.
His first move was to invade Manchuria, and he was planning to launch an invasion in northern Honshu while the US invaded Kyushu.
Faced with the certainty of a two-front invasion, and not wanting to have to deal with the Russians, the emperor overruled the war-hawks in his cabinet and decided to end it. Like the Germans who held out in the hope of surrendering to the Americans, the Japanese did not want to be in the hands of the Russians -- or to have their country partitioned like Germany was.
It is probably true that the only thing that could have ended the Japanese fighting was the word of the emperor himself. He made a radio address to the nation, and without using the word "surrender," he made it clear that he was ordering the military to end the fighting and reach a peace with the United States.
It was the first time most Japanese had ever heard his voice -- and it was a shock. They had been conditioned to see him as a god. After his address, he turned to his wife and asked, "Well, do I look like human?"
Forgot to add:
The leadership in Japan had actually been making overtures to the Soviets after the defeat of Germany. Of course, they did not know that the USSR had promised to come into the Asian war. They actually wanted the Russians to act as mediators between them and the Americans -- seeking better surrender terms. Their one overarching concern was the prerogatives of the emperor.
That wasn't "it" by any means. On top of the Soviets' declaration, the promise that the Americans would continue their nuclear bombing campaign (because after each bomb we told them to surrender or we'd hit them again) until they surrendered was what got the Emperor to surrender - because while Japan's forces might have fought bravely, all it took was one plane with one bomb to sneak through, and there went another city. And there was *no* chance to take the enemy with you.
The nuclear bomb was a stand-off weapon that meant that the Japanese had about no chance to take people with them as they died. *That* is what finally convinced the Emperor and Togo's faction at court that following bushido would be pointless and would result in the extermination of the Japanese; therefore, they had to surrender.
By the way, the insistence on unconditional surrender is why we didn't have a rerun of WW1, which segued into WW2 because of the conditional surrenders that the winning side allowed.