pan should have prior warning if the bomb is used; he did notwant the United States status of a great humanitarian nation to be damaged. He also feltthat Japan was ready to surrender and that there would be no harm in waiting a little whilelonger to see what they would do to end the war. Others suggested dropping the bomb ina place where the Japanese could see its destructive forces and then letting them decide ifit was still worth continuing the war effort. Professor Howard Zinn of Boston Universitywrote A People's History of the United States. In his book, he says that the 'estimates ofinvasion losses were not realistic, and seem to have been pulled out of the air to justifybombing which, as their effects became known, horrified more and more people.' (www.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/History/20th_Century/World_War_II/Atomic_Bomb_The/) Hanson Baldwin, a militaryanalyst for The New York Times wrote shortly after the war that Japan was in desperateshape and ready to surrender by July 26, 1945, at the time the unconditional surrender wasdemanded at Potsdam. The United States had even already broken Japan's code ofmessaging and knew that their ambassador had been sent to Moscow to work out peacenegotiations. Also they had begun talking of surrender a year prior and in June of 1945the emperor of Japan had begun discussing alternatives to fighting to the end. MartinSherwin says that American Intelligence relayed messages to the President about theseevents but they had no effect on his final decision to drop the bomb. Howard Zinn feelsthat the bombing of Nagasaki was surely unnecessary and that it seems the only reason forits use was that it was a plutonium bomb whereas the one dropped on Hiroshima wasfilled with uranium. He posed the question, 'were the victims of Nagasaki part of ascientific experiment?' (www.he.net/~douglong/bard.htm) The Japanese people feltafterwards that while the first bomb may have been necessary, the second w...
