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>I'm very curious now to hear a credible counterargument. Well, Hirohito himself mentioned the bomb and its 'incalculable' destructive potential in his formal
by na85 13y ago
>I'm very curious now to hear a credible counterargument.
Well, Hirohito himself mentioned the bomb and its 'incalculable' destructive potential in his formal announcement of surrender.
So at the very least the bomb played a very substantial role in ending the war in the Pacific.
- gruseom 13y agoThanks. It would be interesting to hear Ward's take on that; he must surely address it in the book the article was taken from. On the other hand, according to [1], Hirohito also cited the Soviet invasion when convening the council to discuss surrender. [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/u6qqo/there_has_been_some_controversy_on_the_true/ http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/u6qqo/there_h...
- crash78 13y agoAt the end of the article the author describes how (assuming his previous arguments are true) Japan's leaders would still have publicly cited the bomb as a strong reason for their surrender as it "served to deflect blame" from themselves.
- gruseom 13y agoYes, and the question is, how can you really separate these things out? But now that I think of it, there may be a way to actually test this. Did the Japanese leaders' private deliberations diverge significantly from their public statements? If we have access to them and they did, that would be evidence in favor of the face-saving interpretation.