The Bible of the Revisionists and People who do not know history. This theory has been disproven so many times already.

Atomic Diplomacy is the mistaken belief that the United States did not need to use the atomic bombs on Japan at the end of WWII. Atomic Diplomacy is the belief the bombs were used to scare the Soviets and not to end the war.

This theory is garbage because it ignores the evidence. The evidence is overwhelming that Truman used the bomb to end the war and prevent further casaulties. Truman's memoirs, Truman biographers, WWII historians, all know this to be true. Documentary evidence shows this to be true. Yet, revisionists still believe otherwise.

I am glad this book raised the questions that it did. I enjoy historical debate. But the debate is over. Do not trust this book. It ignores evidence, facts, and history.

All indications from the secret negotiations between the Americans and the Japanese and, retrospectively, from the complete devastation of Japan point to Dr. Alperovitz's claim: The atomic bombs were unnecessary for the war's conclusion.

Given the fact that more than 200K civilians were specifically targeted and instantaneously incinerated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this book leaves me the following thought: What a dreadful sin we have committed ...

"Atomic Diplomacy" describes how the atomic bomb seduced the United States government in 1945 into the fantasy that it could intimidate the Russians into abandoning their strategic objectives after World War II. To convey this message to the Kremlin, approximately 200,000 Japanese were dispatched in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "Atomic Diplomacy" tells the beginning of a sad story of hubris on a world historical scale. It is a tragic irony that a weapon which in the end we did not need to win the war ended up bewitching our leaders into losing the peace

In an age when Truman has become the everyman's president, this book shines an extremely focussed light on what certainly is his most important decision. This book is not for the feint of heart. The story is told by reconstructing minute sequences of events from May through August of 1945 in order to unravel how the decision was made to deliver atomic weapons Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It uses excerpts from every written form of communication that has been found by historians in the past 50 years.

The book is very interesting on three levels. First, it immerses the reader in the flow of information that actually existed for the president an his closest advisors. Second, it highlights for the reader the two most vexing problems for the president -- how to handle the Japanese surrender AND how to handle the Soviets stanglehold on Eastern Europe. Third, it honestly confronts the myths that have explained why the Americans dropped the bomb and how it has been rationalized as the "right thing to do."

If you are a person that believes that the bomb saved "500,000 to a million American casualties and ended the war" and are willing to learn that this may not be true, read this book. Be warned though, it is very unsettling when one has believed this all ones life. I know I have been somewhat shocked.

All this said, the book could be called pedandic to a fault. There is much repetition because many of the key communications are used over and over to make numerous points. On the other hand, the repetition does keep the key stuff close to the uninitiated reader (me).

Of the many books that are on the subject of the atomic bomb, this one to date is the most insightful i have read. This book will make you think about the american situation at the end of WWII. Not only what is at stake, but the options to Truman at the time are covered. It might surprise you that the last thing that was on the american leaders' mind was an invasion on Japan minor scheduled for spring 1946. Fact is that they were close to surrender already and knew the end was near. The book will take you through hundreds of documents backing up what i just wrote. The actual dropping of the bomb is just history....why did we choose to drop it is the real question. These are the hardest questions to answer but need to be approached if we are to ever apply it in a world I feel is more unstable now than ever. The decision in 1946 affects us even today. Read this book.

Gar Alperovitz builds a strong case that the atomic bomb was not militarily necessary to end the war in the Pacific, but was used to advance American diplomatic and political interests in the post war period, especially with respect to the Soviet Union. In particular, the apparent reluctance of military leaders to use the bomb is most interesting.

Of equal interest is the implicit suggestion that the after-the-fact efforts to justify the bomb's use and mute public criticism began a fifty year pattern of government secrecy, deception, and propaganda which threatens the democratic process even to this day, and that the cold war was arguably triggered by U.S. efforts to make the Soviet Union more "manageable" during the summer of 1945.

Finally, I was impressed that the author was far less judgmental than he could have been. I expected a political diatribe when I started this book. Instead, I encountered a well researched objective analysis of original source material. Where evidence was missing, conflicting, or subject to varying interpretations, the author said so.