A few months ago The Independent (of London) interviewed Tsutomu Yamaguchi a Japanese man with an unusual view of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs - he survived both.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/how-i-survived-hiroshima-nd...

The answer is, of course, unknowable. That said,Truman was a decisive man; Obama has displayed a documented tendency toward on the one hand -on the other hand as far back as his service on the Harvard Law Review. That trait brings to mind Adlai Stevenson, though Obama has much more steel in his backbone than Stevenson ever had, at least where his personal status is concerned.

I think the answer lies not in Eisenhower's views, but perhaps in a conversation Truman had with his then Secretary of State, James Byrnes, one of the small circle of presidential advisors who were informed about the status of the Manhattan Project. Byrnes asked Truman whether he was prepared to face an impeachment proceeding when the American public learned that the president had allowed many thousands of American casualties to win the war by an invasion of the Japanese mainland in lieu of using the few atomic devices available on actual Japanese targets, as opposed to one or two "demonstrations"

It is unclear whether Byrnes' observations were a major influence on Truman's decision. But, if Obama got the same advice from an advisor whom he regarded as commanding political respect, is there any doubt as to what he would have done? Stevenson? My guess is that he would have dithered. And what about George W. Bush? Is there really any question?

I think his position on drone attacks gives evidence of how he would have acted. Innocent people are killed as a result of it, but if it convinces a barbaric and tenacious enemy that they're facing certain destruction then it's worth it.

"It seems likely that, like the overwhelming majority of Americans, Obama thinks the bombs had to be used." -- um, why is that more likely than Obama believing that if there's some other way to win a war it may be better to take more U.S. casualties than incur massive civilian casualties? If Obama could do the same thing today with Al Queda -- say kill 50,000 Afghanis but it would also allow us to pull out of Afghanistan immediately, would he "likely" do it?

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Kyūjō Incident

No, it was Nagasaki which forced 'serious talks' but I'll see your multi-parter counterfactual and raise it:
Would the attempted military coup d'état been successful on the night of August 14-15 if Nagasaki not been bombed?

Hint: It wasn't until after Nagasaki (the Supreme Council for the Direction of War convened on the 9th) when Prime Minister of Japan Kantarō Suzuki, the Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsumasa Yonai, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Shigenori Tōgō suggested the terms of Potsdam be accepted.

So, the recommendations for surrender came after the second bomb and a coup was still attempted on the eve of Hirohito's address.

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NDMack, I saw the story on Tsutomu Yamaguchi and he is a fascinating historical figure now. Amazing that one man survived the only 2 atomic bombs ever dropped and still alive at 93.

Wonder if you have seen the Nagasaki/Hiroshima vs Detroit slides that have been emailing around? Looks like Japan won the war and Detroit was bombed. Not sure of the veracity of the photos, but looks pretty good to me.

Regarding the invasion of Japan vs Atomic Bombs, I have been reading about this and found the current discussion to be lacking.

Japan had invaded China in the late 1930's and had a strong military presence there. China was in the middle of a civil war with the Nationalist fighting the Japanese in the north and the communist taking over the country in the south.

The Chinese Communists were aware that America was planning an attack on Japan, and they believed any attack would require a large presence in China. Mao was struggling to get American recognition of the Communists and would have offered Chinese support for this invasion. But this would have been costly to the Americans.

Japan knew their isolation was a strategic benefit making any invasion almost impossible. They had a strong army and had rolled up some strong gains in Asia. The Japanese were planning a counter attack to an eventual D-Day style invasion.

It was the complete surprise of the Atomic Bombs that finally disrupted the Japanese thinking. The first bomb was more of an experiment for the US Army to see how destructive the bomb was. The Japanese Army saw the 3 planes and thought it was a reconniasince mission. Two hours later a Japanese Pilot reported to Toyko that Hiroshima was destroyed.

America attempted to contact Japan through various channels to get their surrender, but Japan with the Fire Bombings and war deprivations was in turmoil. When the 2nd bomb hit Nagasaki the Japanese still would not surrender.

Lost in the discussion is the Soviet-Sino Non-Agression Pact. Russia kept this pact for 4 years after America was attacked. Our ally only really joined the fight against Japan, after the 2nd atomic bomb was dropped. Russia opportunism was stifled by our new weapon. And Russia's declaration of war on Japan was enough to convince the Japanese to surrender.

I really doubt that the American President would forfeit a major new weapon against a country that attacked us without provocation, would recogonize a Communist China, allow Russia to dither and watch our troops die in Asia, just to be considered morally superior 50 years later.

The President should have answered the question with his question, 'Knowing that Japan would be bpombed with atomic bombs, would Japan still have attacked Pearl Harbor?' I think most Japanes would respect that opinion.

I think that the question -- although I didn't see any film of the press conference -- is a curious one, as I doubt that most U.S. presidents over the last 60 years would have been asked anything like that on such a visit. If anyone knows better, I'd be interested.

There is a Japanese hyper-nationalist and revisionist camp that wants to reinstate the "victim" trope of modern Japanese history, in which Japan was trying to liberate Asia from western imperialism and was misunderstood by other Asian nations and brutally attacked by the West because of that.

Irony,

My sense is that it isn't just the "Japanese hyper-nationalist and revisionist camp" that flogs Japan's status as a victim of the nuclear bombings. Rather, I think is pretty widely accepted in Japanese society that the Japanese people suffered unspeakable horrors and crimes as a result of Western animus against them which culminated in the atomic bombs, and that this must be remembered and memorialized. And, while militarism and aggressive nationalism are disavowed by the government and the vast majority of the public, there is still mostly silence or dissembling about the crimes that the Japanese committed against their Asian neighbors or Western prisoners. It's very constructive to compare the controversy in Germany over conservative historians merely attempting to raise sympathy for the German civilian victims of the Allied firebombing in 1944-45 with the general acceptance of victimhood among the Japanese over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.