President Harry S. Truman's decision to use atomic weapons against the Japanese cities of

Hiroshima and Nagasaki proved to be one of the most controversial decisions in American

history. As the years have passed, the controversy has only intensified. More and more people

both in America and abroad have condemned both President Truman and America for that decision.

But this criticism is based on limited historical knowledge of both the situation Truman

confronted and the basis for his decision. Such flawed analysis has been aided by the

unfortunate influence of some very bad history, such as that written by members of the so-called

atomic diplomacy school. These historians disgracefully alleged that Truman proceeded to drop

two atomic bombs on a Japan which he knew was on the verge of surrender so as to intimidate

the Soviet Union in the already developing Cold War. That species interpretation must be

refuted fully. Truman sought to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki to major military industrial targets

to avoid an invasion of Japan which Truman knew would mean in his words, quote,

and Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other. His assumptions were entirely legitimate.

By July of 1945, the Japanese had been subjected to months of devastating attacks by American B-29s.

Their capital and other major cities had suffered extensive damage and the home islands were

subjected to a naval blockade that made food and fuel increasingly scarce. Japanese

military and civilian losses had reached approximately 3 million and there seemed no end in sight.

Despite all this, however, Japan's leaders and especially its military clung fiercely

to notions of, get-to-go, decisive battle. In fact, the Japanese government had mobilized a

large part of the population into a national militia which would be deployed to defend the home

islands. Confirming the Japanese determination to fight on is the fact that even after the use

of the atomic bombs against both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military still wanted to

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