Editorial Response: No, It Wasn’t Just to Scare Stalin

By Cliff Potts, WPS.News

I know what the consensus is. I’ve read the books, watched the documentaries, listened to the interviews. The left-leaning intelligentsia has decided the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were, primarily, a geopolitical signal to Stalin. Not just revenge. Not just victory. But a Cold War overture in nuclear fire.

I’m here to tell you I don’t buy it—not fully, not cleanly, not as the main motive. And I say that as someone who has spent 60 years watching this story be retold, reshaped, and—yes—weaponized.

Was this vengeance? Of course it was. The United States had spent four bloody years fighting a Pacific War against an enemy that waged total war without remorse—Pearl Harbor, Bataan, Unit 731, Kamikaze attacks, and a death-before-surrender military culture. The American public and military alike were running on fumes and fury.

Did our leaders know what the bomb would do? Yes. They were cold, calculating, and focused on ending the war before the invasion of Japan—a campaign projected to cost millions of lives, both American and Japanese.

Did they also consider the postwar map? The growing Soviet threat? Absolutely. Only a fool thinks they didn’t. But here’s where I part ways with the academic crowd:

The bombs weren’t dropped primarily to scare Russia. They were dropped to end the war, as quickly and decisively as possible. And yes—to deliver the mother of all paybacks.

I knew men who fought in WWII. Some who helped liberate camps. Some who saw their buddies butchered in the Pacific. Their hatred wasn’t abstract. They didn’t need a grand strategic chessboard to want the war over. And if that meant Tokyo saw what hell looked like from the sky, so be it.

And this needs to be said loud for the crowd in the back:

There was no official peace proposal from Japan on Truman’s desk.
No signed document. No imperial stamp.
No terms of surrender with the Emperor’s name on it.

There were rumors. Feelers. Intermediaries dancing through smoke. But in 1945, with millions already dead and more about to die, “maybe” wasn’t going to cut it. There was no unified Japanese command ready to surrender. There was no formal offer on the table. There was only a fanatical military regime still planning for a final stand, even if it meant sacrificing the entire civilian population.

Noise in wartime is just that—noise. Until it’s signed, sealed, and confirmed, it’s fantasy. Truman didn’t have the luxury of gambling on fantasies.

So yes—remember the victims. Understand the horror. But don’t rewrite history to fit a cleaner theory. The truth is uglier than political convenience:

The bombs were dropped to end the war, punish a brutal enemy, and establish victory.
If Stalin got a message, it wasn’t the letter—it was the P.S.