he wanted the atomic bomb to be as much as a surprise to the Russians as to the Japanese? According to Blackett, the author of "Fear, War, and the Bomb", President Truman wanted the bomb dropped before Stalin entered the war. Blackett states that US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes wrote in his diary that the Americans were "most anxious to get the Japanese affair over with before the Russians got in."(Yew Teng 2) Blackett also mentions the diary entry of Walter Brown, an assistant to Byrnes, that suggests that Truman and Byrne considered the bomb as "a way to reduce Soviet political influence in Asia." Brown noted that Truman was hoping for a quick surrender of Japan in order to stop the Russians from "pressing any claims in China."(Yew Teng 2) A militarian historian, Basil Liddell Hart, wrote, "President Truman and most of his chief advisers...were now as intent on using the atomic bomb to accelerate Japan's collapse as Stalin was on entering the war against Japan before it ended, in order to gain an advantegeous position in the Far East."(Howarth 218) After Germany's defeat, Stalin took as much as he could in Eastern Europe. Stalin wanted to take part in the war against Japan to take parts of China and "share in the occupation of Japan as the price of his participation".(Howarth 216) The decision to use the atomic bomb on the Japanese was simply spurred by the fact that the bombs were available. Initially, the bomb was built to use against the Germans. The Americans had reasons to fear that the Germans were building a bomb of their own. The bombs were completed after Germany was defeated. The attention of the Americans was focused on ending the war in Japan. The Manhattan Project, the project in charge of building the bombs, had already cost the United States over 1 billion dollars. "It is estimated to have cost as much as all the scientific research previously conducted by mankind from the beginning of recorded tim...
