In Oliver Stone's The Untold History of the United States, he claims that dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unnecessary as Soviet troops would have invaded Manchuria and forced the Japanese to surrender anyways. To what extent is this claim valid?

by grablader

There are many arguments against the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I had never encountered this one before–and the claim being so bold–I immediately questioned it's validity. So was the A-bombing simply a political move by Truman to keep the Soviets out of the post-war negotiations, or otherwise what information did Mr. Stone misconstrue? Thank you for your responses in advance.

Searocksandtrees

Hi, this is actually a fairly frequent question in this sub. The local expert is /u/restricteddata, who recently recommended these threads:

If you have follow-up questions, since those threads are archived now, just post here & tag the user to notify them.

Jentlemaniac

I would like to add, the nuclear bomb was tested on the eve of the Postdam conference in order for Truman to intimidate Stalin. What better way to intimidate the emerging superpower than by displaying the effects of the nuclear bomb on an active population?