How Accurate Is Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States?

by ThunderMcCloud
Penguinickoo

Related question: does anyone know of a documentary or documentary series, similar in scope, but with a heavily conservative bias?

I just finished watching this series on Netflix too. It seemed extremely thorough and accurate, though the narrator's opinions were obviously coming from a strongly liberal standpoint. I happen to agree with him, but I'm wondering if there's an equally accurate conservative version of history out there, so I could get the counterargument.

Bernardito

It would be easier for our users to answer your question, /u/ThunderMcCloud, if you could point out some claims that you would like us to verify. Not everyone with the expertise required has the time (or will for that matter) to watch 12 episodes of a documentary.

jo_thesiah

Since OP wasn't very specific about what he wanted to know was accurate, I'll piggyback on his post and ask some things I was wondering:

Oliver Stone seems to be making the claim that if Henry Wallace had been president instead of Truman, we might not have engaged in a Cold War with the Soviet Union. Specifically, he states in so many words that Truman was out of his depth when it came to matters of foreign policy, that the Roosevelt administration (and Wallace by extension) had a plan of non-antagonization and partnership with the Soviet Union, and that Truman, who was not included in this plan made a huge course change once he took office. He also claims that Truman used atomic bombs on Japan when he didn't really need to in order to end the war quickly. He claims that the real reason Japan surrendered quickly was that the Soviets declared war on them, not because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He also implies that Truman's motivation for using nuclear weapons was to send a message to the Soviets and to have a better bargaining position for postwar territory negotiations.

How accurate is this? If that is all really true, then it really changes my view of the whole Truman administration and even the Cold War.