Historical Revisionism revised--World War II and the Atomic Bombs

Richard B. Frank, in his article titled "Why Truman Dropped the Bomb," points out that history research is often a process. The revisionist, military-antagonistic history of WWII that began in the 1960s frequently criticized the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan as unnecessary. Frank points out that all historical research is, in fact and substance, revisionist, and points out that it is more correct to term those who argue against the necessity of the bombs as critics rather than revisionists. Frank summarizes the common criticisms as follows:

The critics share three fundamental premises. The first is that Japan's situation in 1945 was catastrophically hopeless. The second is that Japan's leaders recognized that fact and were seeking to surrender in the summer of 1945. The third is that thanks to decoded Japanese diplomatic messages, American leaders knew that Japan was about to surrender when they unleashed needless nuclear devastation.

Frank draws conclusions from de-classified WWII "Magic" radio traffic to point out that most of these anti-bomb arguments are based on incomplete information (often earlier "Magic" record releases that were incomplete). The information that Truman actually had to work with suggests that the atomic bombs did, in fact, save millions of lives at the cost of the over one hundred thousand who died in (and after) those two explosions.
Frank points out that the US command did make some errors, but not the errors that critics accuse them of making.
Austin Bay's Blog has some more commentary on Frank's article. Among the comments is this little bit of information, that I had never known:
Comment #7:

When the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japanese physicists performed analysis.
They determined that there were reaction products of Uranium 235. They knew from their own weapons program that separation of U235 was difficult. They reported that the destruction of Hiroshima was a bad miracle, a catastrophe, but because of the difficulty in separating U235 from U238, it could not practically be accomplished again. Because of that report, the Japanese cabinet decided to fight on. Their strategy was to continue resistance to get the US to negotiate. With the 30 to 1 exchange rate of Okinawa, the Japanese Cabinet estimated that 30 million Japanese would have to die fighting, to inflict 1 million casualties on the US. They were willing to pay that price.
The US read their response because the US was reading Japanese diplomatic codes. The Soviet Union’s invasion of Manchuria began. The addition of Soviet manpower to the equation made their strategy invalid. As that was being digested, the Nagasaki attack occured. It was also analyzed. The Japanese found the reaction products from Plutonium 239. Since Plutonium can be chemically separated, there was now no limit to the bombs that could be produced. The Japanese cabinet reported this to Emperor Hirohito. The Emperor directed that the Japanese government surrender.
He sent members of the Imperial family to remaining centers of resistance.
It should be noted that the Nagasaki bomb was planned for the center of the residential sector, but was actually dropped on the industrial center. Based on German experience at Schweinfurt, the Japanese had move as much of their industry into residential areas. The Nagasaki bomb “only” killed some 25,000 people, compared to the 78,000 some odd at Hiroshima.
Because of the bombs, the Soviet Union did not have an occupation sector in Japan. We know what happened when they had occupation sectors in Germany, China, and Korea. At least Japan was saved that.
Comment by Don Meaker — 7/31/2005 @ 8:52 pm

The process of history continues--information is more trustworthy than ideology.

UPDATED:
Read Plunge Pontificates' whole series of articles on the bomb for a concise overview of the complexity involved.