David Dionisi – James Perloff

Books are periodically sent to me, or recommended by readers—more, unfortunately, than I’ve been able to keep up with. I just finished one, however, that cried “book review”: The U.S. government long claimed it dropped A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because only this would convince Japan to end the Second World War, and that it “spared millions of lives” which allegedly would have been lost had America been forced to invade the islands. I’ve known this was a lie ever since reading Dr. Anthony Kubek’s 1963 classic How the Far East Was Lost. Japan had, in fact, already offered to surrender on virtually the same terms we approved at war’s end.1 America demanded “unconditional surrender.” The Japanese were willing to accept this, but wanted to salvage one condition—to retain their emperor. Since we wound up granting that condition anyway, the dropping of A-bombs does not square with the public justification at all. Establishment historians have tried offering an alternative explanation …