It was not necessary to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Japanese had offered to surrender several times before the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. All they asked was that their emperor be allowed to remain in power.
FDR was against this, because he wanted an "unconditional" surrender. When it was all over, and the United States had murdered tens of thousands of Japanese civilians, they allowed the emperor to stay anyway.
Most of the top U.S. military brass were disgusted with FDR's decision:
http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm
Dwight Eisenhower:
...in [July] 1945... Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.
"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."
- Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380
In a Newsweek interview, Eisenhower again recalled the meeting with Stimson:
"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."
- Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63
Admiral Leahy:
"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.
"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."
- William Leahy, I Was There, pg. 441.
Herbert Hoover:
On May 28, 1945, Hoover visited President Truman and suggested a way to end the Pacific war quickly: "I am convinced that if you, as President, will make a shortwave broadcast to the people of Japan - tell them they can have their Emperor if they surrender, that it will not mean unconditional surrender except for the militarists - you'll get a peace in Japan - you'll have both wars over."
Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover, pg. 347.
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Don't always trust what you hear in high school. A lot of it is garbage that is patently false. This is one of those cases.
The Japanese WERE ready to surrender. The bombing WAS unnecessary.
It's also important to note that the United States was mostly responsible for the escalation of World War II. FDR cut off Japanese exports, demanded that the Japanese withdraw from Manchuria, and ordered Japanese assets in U.S. banks frozen.
Secretary of War Stimson wrote in his diaries that FDR wanted to find a way to get Japan to attack us so that we could enter the war against the Axis powers. He was a clever warmonger.
Of course Japan attacked us after being pushed around by the United States.
I'm not saying the Pearl Harbor attack is completely defensible, but we definitely were not pursuing an isolationist policy in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Hey... maybe they hated us for our freedoms. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]