is not the same as surrendering unconditionally (or surrendering with the only condition being the keeping of the emperor as a figurehead). Just because they're looking to negotiate to end the war, doesn't mean they'd be willing to do so on acceptable terms. You have some U.S. military and political figures who think they would've surrendered fairly easily, and you've got some signs from the Japanes of looking for a way out, but nothing conclusive. Ultimately, you've got a lot of hearsay and conjecture. And the fact that they were making their most plaintive overtures to Moscow is not necessarily a good sign, much as I hate to ever agree with Expertise, it could well be that the Japanese were trying to link themselves up with the other great Asian power, in order to gain a more advantageous position, and hang on to countries that they had taken over.

One of your sources said the Japanese would agree to surrender as long as the U.S. put in only a "token occupation force", and I highly doubt that Japan would've allowed all the constitutional/economic reforms that took place under the occupation to happen, in your alternate scenario.

I picked on McGeorge Bundy, because he was one of the chief architects of the disaster that was Vietnam, so I think it's ironic that you cite him as an authority on when a country is about to surrender.

Now as far as it being an atrocity, yes it was one, on a large scale. I'm not denying that. But in terms of total deaths, it's only slightly more than the firebombing of Tokyo, and the firebombing of Dresden. It is a terrible weapon that the U.S. unleashed that day, but tell me, is a death from radiation necessarily worse than a death from firebombing? Is it worse than starving to death because of a blockade? You keep dodging these questions. Plenty of other terrible stuff happened in that war, and while the justification for using the A-Bomb isn't air-tight, in retrospect, I don't see how a "formal apology" solves anything. Is Dresden due for one then? Is Tokyo? Is Nanking?