Truman and the Bomb

Many myths have grown up around President Harry S. Trumans decision to use nuclear weapons against Imperial Japan. In destroying these myths, Truman and the Bomb will discomfort both Trumans critics and his supporters, and force historians to reexamine what they think they know about the end of the Pacific War. Myth: Truman didnt know of the atomic bombs development before he became president. Fact: Trumans knowledge of the bomb is revealed in his own carefully worded letters to a Senate colleague and specifically discussed in the correspondence between the army officers assigned to his Senate investigating committee. Myth: The huge casualty estimates cited by Truman and Secretary of War Henry Stimson were a postwar creation devised to hide their guilt for killing thousands of defenseless civilians. Fact: The flagrantly misrepresented low numbers are based on narrow slices of highly qualifiedand limitedU.S. Army projections printed in a variety of briefing documents and are not from the actual invasion planning against Japan. Myth: Truman wanted to defeat Japan without any assistance from the Soviet Union and to freeze the USSR out of the postwar settlements. Fact: President Franklin D. Roosevelt and President Truman desperately wanted Stalins involvement in the bloody endgame of World War II and worked diligentlyand successfullytoward that end. Using previously unpublished material, D. M. Giangreco busts these myths and more. An award-winning historian and expert on Truman, Giangreco is perfectly situated to debunk the many deep-rooted falsehoods about the roles played by American, Soviet, and Japanese leaders during the end of the World War II in the Pacific. Truman and the Bomb, a concise yet comprehensive study of Trumans decision to use the atomic bomb, will prove to be a classic for studying presidential politics and influence on atomic warfare and its military and diplomatic components. Making this book particularly valuable for professors and students as well as for military, diplomatic, and presidential historians and history buffs are extensive primary source materials, including the planned U.S. naval and air operations in support of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. These documents support Giangrecos arguments while enabling the reader to enter the mindsets of Truman and his administration as well as the wars key Allied participants.