>However, the battle of Okinawa took over 40,000 American
>soldiers' lives. On top of that, the intercepted "Magic
>Summaries" intelligence stated Japan still had an estimated
>2 million troops and still had a fairly strong Navy. Add
>that to potential hostility by the citizenry in the form of
>militias, and the U.S. would have lost hundreds of thousands
>of soldiers.

The "Magic Summaries" intelligence
finding, while accurate, also left
out the irrefutable fact that after
the fall of the Mariana Islands, in-
cluding Saipan, to the U.S. in July
of 1944, the impending defeat of Japan
became increasingly apparent to many
Allied and Japanese leaders.

While Japan was being bombarded from
the sky, a Naval blockade was strangl-
ing Japan's ability to import oil and
other vital materials and its ability
to produce war materials (Barton Bern-
stein, ed., The Atomic Bomb, pg. 54).
Admiral William Leahy, the Chief of
Staff to President Roosevelt and then
to President Truman, wrote, "By the
beginning of September, Japan was al-
most completely defeated through a
practically complete sea and air bloc-
kade." (William Leahy, I Was There, pg.
259).

Those are the words of the Chief of Staff,
not some flower child, pothead from the
Bay Area.

>>>Regardless, going into Japan would have led to too many
>>>people dying on our side. Hence, the bomb.

General Eisenhower, briefed by Secretary
of War Henry Stimson on the imminent use
of the bomb, told him that "Japan was al-
ready defeated and that dropping the bomb
was completely unnecessary."After the bomb-
ing, Admiral William D. Leary, Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the atomic
bomb "a barbarous weapon," also noting that:
"The Japanese were already defeated and ready
to surrender."

Again, no left wing revisionism, just the
facts presented by Truman's Sec. of War,
as well as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff.