Mr. Truman's Nuclear Option

August 2005 marks the 60th anniversary of one of most important milestones in the history of warfare: the detonation of two atomic bombs in Japan during the last days of World War II.

Franklin Roosevelt's commitment to develop the world's first nuclear weapon in advance of Nazi Germany and Harry Truman's decision to use two of them against the last remaining Axis power has been a point of controversy that has ludicrously overshadowed the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and a litany of other atrocities committed by Japan against American POWs and the civilian populations of the territories conquered by the Imperial Army.

Yet the Japanese people and the American Left still obsess and second-guess what turned out to be one of the wisest decisions ever made by a war-time president.

There is no denying the awesome power and destructiveness of the atomic bomb. The combined casualties in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in excess of 100,000 and many of those who were not killed by the nuclear explosion were horrendously scarred, physically and mentally.

However, there is little doubt from an objective standpoint that fatalities from both atomic bombings would have been a pittance compared to the likely fatalities that would have occurred had the United States and Britain been compelled to invade Japan.

The bloody American victories in Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and Saipan attest to such a grim prospect.

The toll of taking Saipan, an island of about 47square miles, cost roughly 3,000 American lives, 30,000 Japanese military forces, and 22,000 civilians, many of whom preferred suicide to capture.

The battle for Iwo Jima, about 8 square miles of island, resulted in the loss of just less than 7,000 American soldiers and 20,000 Japanese fighters. Okinawa, the last battle of the war, paints the most vivid picture of what could have been expected in the invasion of Honshu AKA Operation Downfall, as 463 square miles of real estate was won after the loss nearly 20,000 American lives and well over 100,000 Japanese military personnel and civilians.

American casualties for the invasion of the main island of Japan had been projected as high as 1,000,000 servicemen, twice the amount of US combat deaths that occurred during the entire war. Japanese civilian fatalities would have exceeded that number by at least three-fold, which is a conservative estimate.

Japan would have been totally laid to waste by the invasion making it was necessary to overawe what was a determined enemy into finally forsaking the fanatical samurai mythology that possessed the Japanese people.

Though Japan was being forced back to the main island across the Pacific, the military oligarchy calling the shots in Tokyo was not unanimous in throwing in the towel...even after Nagasaki. Shortly after the second atomic bomb was dropped, a group of officers attempted a coup to prevent the country's capitulation, though the move failed.

While the titular leader, Emperor Hirohito, was allowed to remain as a figurehead, the war party that launched the scourge of military might across the Pacific Ocean had to be removed from their positions of authority and held accountable.

From a political perspective, a quick end to hostilities became imperative when the Soviet Union declared war on Japan shortly after the first atomic bomb was dropped. The greater the involvement by the Soviets in the Japanese theatre, the more of a say Stalin would have had in determining the future of post-war Japan.

Despite the limited Soviet influence in the Far East due to Moscow's tardy participation, it was enough to help turn China Communist and divide the Korean peninsula, thus sowing the seeds for the first major American action in the Cold War.

In light of the Japanese barbarity in Nanking, Bataan, and across their East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, the true source of angst concerning Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that the atomic bombings represent the breaking point of Japan's ability to continue the war effort, forcing a proud country that personified "death before dishonor" into accepting defeat.

Had Truman shrunk from this difficult decision, the ranks of America's Greatest Generation would have been thinned by the blood-letting that would have been the invasion of Japan. When President Truman invoked the nuclear options, he saved perhaps millions of lives on both sides.