Minor correction (actually a big one) to a post. I think I was far too simplistic in my Roosevelt vs Stalin piece at Yalta which is HERE. It is a fact that Roosevelt was far too old (and sick) to negotiate with either Stalin or Churchill, and it is also true that two Russian spies—White and Hiss—were on Roosevelt’s staff. It is a near certainty that both leaked all the info they had on the plans for the conference to the KGB (then called the NKVD) prior to the conference. Hiss went to Moscow directly after the conference ostensibly to check out the subway system, but in fact he was there to get a medal from Stalin. Having said all this, there is a parallel set of circumstances concerning Japan.

The Japanese were tough. Our casualties were horrendous as we island hopped across the Pacific; our dead were close to 30% of our forces on each island. The Japanese fought to the death on each island and their losses were 99% (no exaggeration). After the fall of Okinawa—100,000 Japanese dead--- we were faced with the task of invading Japan itself. The Japanese were going to mobilize their entire population and force us to fight for every inch. It is estimated that we would lose a million men winning the war had we fought it by invading Japan. In a couple of John Toland’s books he discussed the fact that the Atomic bomb had almost nothing to do with the Japanese surrender; the Emperor was going to hold onto power no matter what, and the war generals were going to fight the war to the Holy Death. There were very few inside the Japanese high command who differed.

The reality of American public opinion was that we would not accept anything less than unconditional surrender. Even though the Japanese had made many overtures regarding a “cessation of hostilities” all overtures included the stipulation that any surrender would include the retention of all power for the Emperor, including dismantling their military. We were also to trust their word regarding any dis-armament. This was true even after the second A bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Letting their entire population die was somehow glorious to the warrior class that was running Japan. Unless....

.....the Russians could be brought into the war. Our entire general staff, including Marshall, was convinced that without the Russians the casualties on our side would exceed one million men. The main purpose of the Yalta conference was to get Stalin to agree to declare war on Japan once the Germans were defeated. Hence the bargain: Stalin gets Eastern Europe on the condition that he enter the war. This was how the deal actually went down.

Even after the Potsdam Conference when Truman negotiated with Stalin this was the plan. The Japanese did not surrender when the bombs were dropped several weeks later. They surrendered after the Russians tore into Manchuria and routed the Japanese, invaded Sakalin Island, and would undoubtedly invade the Japanese Islands from the west. Even then, after Hirohito surrendered, the Japanese junior officers attempted a coup that only failed because the leading Japanese general didn’t back it.

That was when Japanese Emperor Hirohito took charge from the Holy Death Militarists and surrendered. So the sellout of Eastern Europe has other layers. What would you have done? That’s for you to answer. More reading is here. Keep in mind that Left Wing historians, always eager to make the U.S. look as bad as possible, have rewritten the truth so as to state the Atomic bombing was a war crime. The above link and the books by John Toland will tell you the truth. Anyone who served in Japan after the war will tell you that every hill contained caves for people to fight to the death. Ask any prisoner of war in a prison camp and they will tell you that none of them had any doubt that the Japanese would have murdered them all had it not been for the bomb. The Japanese in S.E. Asia surrendered to the Communist Vietnamese rather than to the racially inferior Americans.