In its reasoning for bombing Japan, did the US consider prevention of an expanding sphere of Soviet influence and justification of the costs of developing the technology to be major motivators?

by bobobo1618

I visited the Hiroshima Peace Museum today and came across these two displays, which both mention the titular reasons as the US' reasons for choosing the nuclear bomb over other options.

How much did the US consider these things when making its decision? Were allies aware of these motivations and if so, how did they react?

restricteddata

The answer is "this was part of some of the reasoning late in the game" but "not the only reason." See the discussions on here of the Alperovitz thesis (e.g. this one). There were multiple motivations for those who dropped the bombs; they saw many good reasons to do it and few bad reasons. This was one of them, but not the only one.