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This is false. There has never been any historical record at that time that shows that “warning the soviets” was any part of it. In fact, the USA disclosed the

This is false. There has never been any historical record at that time that shows that “warning the soviets” was any part of it. In fact, the USA disclosed the bomb to stalin beforehand hand. Anyone who postulated that was not in the chain of command. The Americans still very much believed at this point that the best post wore outcome was an ongoing alliance between the United States and the USSR. It was only after the scale of Stalin‘s ambitions in Eastern Europe became apparent and the aftermath of the Nuremberg trials that it was becoming obvious that there would be an ongoing confrontation. I strongly suggest the recent book on operation downfall, as well as the recent popular works on the last months of the war from the Japanese point of view.

mannykannot 1y ago
Prior to the Hiroshima bombing, all that the US had told the USSR about the atom bomb was that they had developed a "new weapon of unusual destructive force" (Truman to Stalin at the Potsdam conference.) As it happens, Stalin knew all about it through espionage, but as the US government was unaware of this, we cannot deduce, from what Stalin had been told by the US government, that the US government's position was that using atom bombs against Japan would have no influence on Stalin's thinking. Furthermore, we have evidence, from the diaries and correspondence of Truman, Stimson and others, that they were concerned about Stalin's territorial intentions, and expressed the hope that the US's demonstration of the atom bomb would curb them. Whether that led to at least a tacit secondary goal, of checking the USSR by leaving no doubt about the US's willingness to use atomic weapons in circumstances it deemed necessary, is an open question debated by historians to this day.

3 ms·

This is false. There has never been any historical record at that time that shows that “warning the soviets” was any part of it. In fact, the USA disclosed the

by InTheArena 1y ago

mannykannot 1y ago
Prior to the Hiroshima bombing, all that the US had told the USSR about the atom bomb was that they had developed a "new weapon of unusual destructive force" (Truman to Stalin at the Potsdam conference.) As it happens, Stalin knew all about it through espionage, but as the US government was unaware of this, we cannot deduce, from what Stalin had been told by the US government, that the US government's position was that using atom bombs against Japan would have no influence on Stalin's thinking. Furthermore, we have evidence, from the diaries and correspondence of Truman, Stimson and others, that they were concerned about Stalin's territorial intentions, and expressed the hope that the US's demonstration of the atom bomb would curb them. Whether that led to at least a tacit secondary goal, of checking the USSR by leaving no doubt about the US's willingness to use atomic weapons in circumstances it deemed necessary, is an open question debated by historians to this day.