i think you posted this earlier so i dont want to repeat anything that has already been said so ber with me.

>The following is a list of
>alternatives proposed by
>Rufus E Miles Jr., a former
>senior fellow of the Woodrow
>Wilson School, Princeton Uni-
>versity, and a former thirty-
>year career official of the U.S.
>government.
>
>Strategy Number One: A Negotiated Peace
>
>Japan's deteriorating military capacity capacity convinced
>Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew that the Japanese
>would be open to a negotiated peace which included the allow
>retention of the Japanese Emperor. Grew sought to persuade
>Truman of his views on May 28, three weeks after V-E Day.
>
>The Grew strategy, which had envisioned a successful
>American diplomatic effort to end the war by an offer and
>acceptance of a "conditional surrender" (the same condition
>that became the accepted basis for surrender in August) by
>the end of July, was subsequently considered by several
>people to have had more than an outside possibility of
>success. Among those who thought so in retrospect, in
>addition to Grew himself, were Hanson Baldwin, military
>analyst for The New York Times, and Robert J.C. Butow,
>author of Japan's Decision to Surrender. Especially
>significant was the view expressed by Secretary of War
>Stimson, as stated in his autobiography, co-authored with
>McGeorge Bundy. "It is possible," said Bundy, "in the light
>of the final surrender, that a clearer and earlier
>exposition of American willingness to retain the Emperor
>would have produced an earlier ending to the war. . . .
>
japan didnt surrender though when askd twice. in the heat of the war, it wouldnt make sense to give japan time to regroup and maybe use a terrible weapon like the a-bomb on the united states. you have to act quick and pound your enemy, in this case the jap aggressor who started the whole thing, into submission with minimul loss of your troops.

>Strategy Number Two: Intensified Bombing and Blockade Until
>November 1, 1945
>
>Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and
>supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders
>involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to
>31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to I November
>1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs
>had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the
>war, and even if no invasion had been planned or
>contemplated.
>
>In the light of General Marshall's and Admiral King's
>assessments of the extremely weak condition of Japan during
>the last months of the war, and in view of the conclusions
>of the Strategic Bombing Survey that Japan would in all
>probability have surrendered before November 1, 1945, and
>considering the shock to Japan of the Soviet declaration of
>war on August 8, this second scenario seems, in retrospect,
>to have been the more probable one in the event the atomic
>bombs had not been available or had deliberately not been
>used.

but it was unknown how many japanese people would die from an intesified bombing because it was unknown when the would surrender. japan could have held out much longer without surrendering. then what? a ground invasion? no way, its not worth losing 250,00 to a million US troops like general marshall estimated. and notice the words the survey uses. such phrases as "in all probability" and "in retrospect." this is all hindsight. its easy to be an armchair quarterback on this. dropping the bomb though was succesful. it ended the war without losing another american life and it ended japanese tyranny in asia.


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