[Jamie79SC]

What is new here? Regardless of the presence or absence of any diplomatic initiatives, the Japanese Army and Navy were verging on collapse and were, in fact, much weaker than US intelligence thought. In any event, the bombs were dropped because:

1) Before the end of the war, the US insisted (rightly so in my opinion) on total surrender of Japan. One way to assure this was the use of these new weapons.
2) The US did not want to risk the many lives involved in an actual invasion of Japan if it was necessary to do so.
3) Of course there was an element of wanting to intimidate the Russians.

I really don’t understand what breakthrough evidence or analysis was presented in this article. Any comparisons between Truman’s decision making process and tools to those of Bush’s are fatuous to say the least.