If Mary Astor knew in 1941 that Communist, Stalin, was killing millions, why did US president Roosevelt call him Uncle Joe?

@Thinkerbell The American leadership had no illusions. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was at least in part to send a message to the USSR what was in store for them if they tried anything after the war. It worked - there hasn't been a direct confrontation between the major powers since World War Two ended; the longest stretch since the Peace of Westphalia. Of course, there have been countless proxy wars. It's likely that without Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons would have been used later on in some other venue, probably with far greater destruction.

Of course, it goes without saying that it sucked for the people in those cities. The effect of the bombs on Japanese culture was profound. One thing that impressed me about Genpei Akasegawa's treatise [i]Hyperart: Thomasson[/i] was that effect. His concept of useless structures that are nevertheless lovingly cared for may have been inspired by the shadows of bombing victims left permanently on buildings.

"Thomassons" are structures like staircases that lead to boarded-up doors, or bus stop structures that are inaccessible to buses, that kind of thing. They are named after baseball player Gary Thomasson, a batter for the Yomiuri Giants who continued to collect his salary despite never actually hitting the ball.

Well, that was interesting. It started with American tolerance for the USSR and ended with an overrated American baseball player in Japan.

@LeopoldBloom

[quote]"The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was at least in part to send a message to the USSR what was in store for them if they tried anything after the war."[/quote]

Yes, and before that, the militarily unnecessary firebomings of Dresden and Wuerzburg (among others) in the last two or three months of WW2 were also partially meant as a warning to the Soviets.

Relatively unknown fact: more German civilians than Japanese civilians were killed by Allied military action in WW2.

@Thinkerbell There obviously some of Pics' ancestors advising him. 👎Should have listened to Patton

@sladejr

I don't think the American public would have gone along with that.

There was already grave concern over the American casualties that an invasion of the Japanese home islands would cost.

@Thinkerbell sometimes you have to do what's unpopular during your brief window of time.

According to the AP Kennedy planned to pull us completely out of Vietnam once his reelection was secure

Supposedly his quote to Bobby was "I'll be the most unpopular man in America"

@Thinkerbell The military was planning for a land invasion, but you're probably correct, the American public wouldn't have stood for it. By 1946, everyone was tired of the war and the casualties from a land invasion would have been unacceptable. One can only imagine what the ensuing cease-fire and treaty would have looked like. I'm sure Japan would have been allowed to keep its military. Imagine how Chinese communism and the Korean and Vietnam wars would have gone with an anti-communist Imperial Japan. For all we know, we would have been allies by the 1960s.

@LeopoldBloom

Truman's decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan was really quite straightforward.

If he hadn't, and there had been a million American casualties in a land invasion, and it came out after the war that he hadn't used the atomic bombs, can you imagine the public outcry? "You had a weapon like THAT, but you didn't use it and let a million of our soldiers get killed or wounded instead? Are you CRAZY?!"

Yes, we probably would have been allies with Japan, even if we had not democratized them.

@Thinkerbell Yes, it ended the war, avoided a land invasion, and showed the USSR what the effect of a nuke was. I have no doubt that if Japan had surrendered before the bomb was dropped, nukes would have been used in a subsequent war with a far more devastating effect.