ary 1945, Germany was practically defeated. Roosevelt wanted to determine the USSR's participation in the war against Japan. Roosevelt did not have the support of the atomic bombs and was not sure exactly when he would. Stalin agreed to fight against the Japanese under certain conditions. Stalin said that he wanted the territories that the Japanese had taken from the USSR during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. Roosevelt and Churchill surprisingly agreed to give Stalin some rights over China without reporting this to China. Robert Sherwood said, "If China had refused to agree to any of the Soviet claims, presumably the U.S. and Britain would have been compelled to join in enforcing them."(Leckie 847) Once the bomb was completed, the German army had capitulated, therefore, it was decided to use the bomb on Japan. Roosevelt decided, first, to invite the Japanese to attend an explosion of the bomb to convince them to surrender. This never happened because President Roosevelt died and the new president, Harry Truman had different plans.(Pirenne 432) President Truman had no clue the atomic bombs existed until he became president. He realized that with the bombs the Russian participation in the war against the Japanese was unnecessary. While Truman attended the Postdam Conference in July , 1945, he learned about the successful test of the first atomic bomb. When Truman told Churcill about the bomb, Churchill said, "The end of the Japanese War no longer depended upon the pouring in of their (the Russians' armies)...We had no need to ask favours of them."(Churchill 553) He then wrote to the British Foreign Secretary, "It is quite clear that the United States do not at the present time desire Russian partcipation in the war against Japan."(Howarth 217) When Truman told Stalin about the bomb, he was very vague and he "casually mentioned to Stalin that we had a new weapon of unusual destructive force."(Truman 416) Did this mean that ...
