JFK "Peace Speech" contemporary context

[Ron Bulman]

3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

What changed this, according to Ike, was Truman's dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan.  He said afterwards that this was a needless mistake since he knew from intel reports that Japan was already defeated and was trying to negotiate a peace.  He said that once Truman did that horrific act, all bets were now off about any kind of peaceful co existence with Russia.  This was clinched the next year when Truman allowed Churchill to make his Iron Curtain speech in America.

Was Truman railroaded into dropping the A-Bomb's by the military and or OSS?

[James DiEugenio]

In May 1945, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson established the secret Interim Committee to advise the President and offer recommendations on the use of the bomb. He selected Byrnes as Truman’s personal representative. For Byrnes the decision to use the bomb on Japan had political implications beyond ending the war. Byrnes believed in “atomic diplomacy,” whereby the US could leverage the bomb in post-war negotiations and make Russia “more manageable.”

Ultimately, at a June 1, 1945 Interim Committee meeting, Byrnes recommended the use of the atomic bomb. Martin Sherwin writes in A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and the Origins if the Arms Race, “Byrnes suggested, and the members of the Interim Committee agreed, that the Secretary of War should be advised ‘the present view of the Committee was that the bomb should be used against Japan as soon as possible; that it be used on a war plant surrounded by workers’ homes without prior warning.’”

For Byrnes, the decision to use the bomb not only promised to end the war sooner but also in his words “might put us in a position to dictate our own terms at the end of the war.”

[James DiEugenio]

Not only was it a big step down from FDR to Truman, but also a big one from Hull to Byrnes.