Post-war when the veil of secrecy lifted people would ask questions of the many billions that were wasted on a wonder weapon that was never used when GI Tom, Dick and Harry could have used better equipment.
People would ask why the weapons were never used when it could have saved the lives of so many American and Allied soldiers.
It showed it could make a big, secret, and easily forged explosion. Didn't really show its effect on an enemy city and civilian population. Certainly didn't show that the US now apparently had such weapons as almost standard issue.
Secret? Easily FORGED explosion? You are getting dangerously close to conspiracy theory territory. But if said theories are to serve to show the entire US military and civilian leadership in Washington to be unrelenting and unrepentant war criminals...
It never ceases to amaze me the number of people out there willing to talk out of both sides of their mouths regarding America's relationship to the USSR in WWII. Out of one side, they say FDR was slavishly devoted to Stalin, unquestioning of his motives while sticking it to the British at every opportunity. And out of the other side of their mouths they say Roosevelt was committing billions of US dollars and enormous resources to build an atomic weapon (that may not even work) for the sole purpose of frightening "Uncle Joe".
BTW? If Trinity works, the Bomb HAS to be used. Truman would have been impeached if it wasn't. Just saying. The US is not a military dictatorship. The generals did not have the final say. Otherwise, Kyoto would have been the first target. And portraying the decision makers of the time like "we wanna see what it does to people" is pretty blatant trolling IMVHO.
What was there that the scrap metal drives, Liberty Bonds, and the budgets of the United States Government could not take care of themselves? They might as well just have canceled all the aid to the Soviets during the war since they paid for none of it and claimed they built it all. Would that get enough for the GIs?
Um, the Soviets DID pay for at least SOME of their Lend Lease. They certainly had the gold to spare, after all. As to claims that THEY built it, no. The nature of the American manufacture of Studebbaker locomotives, General Motors trucks, uniforms, P-38s, and such were too obvious too ignore. But as far as the Soviets were concerned (and quite properly, I would say), the blood expended using that aid was still Russian.
But they DID engage in some pretty nasty knavery, by claiming that a lot of the lesser aid (cigarettes, chocalate bars, frex) were gifts raised by the CPUSA.
The Soviets get the former Russian possessions of the Kuril Islands and Karafuto (southern Sakhalin).
The Soviets also got to occupy Manchuria and northern Korea. This allowed them to set up the Communist regime of North Korea; it also allowed them to hand over Manchuria to the Chinese Communists.
It's not clear to me how much Stalin really cared about either of these latter goals; both were gains for Communism, but neither was a gain for the USSR as such.
If scholars had access to the internal papers of the Soviet government 1944-1945... we might find out what internal discussion there was about Soviet participation in the Pacific War. By then it was obvious the Allies would defeat Japan without Soviet assistance. But only the USSR could deploy large ground forces against Japan on the Asian mainland. Roosevelt considered Soviet participation very important, and was correspondingly accommodating to Soviet desires in other areas.
The Soviets almost certainly could have had the Kuriles and Karafuto for free after the Japanese surrender. The Manchurian campaign didn't cost the Soviets much compared to the European war, but it still cost something, and one would think that by 1945, even Stalin would want to avoid further losses if possible.
So what were Stalin and his advisors thinking? Why did he agree to join the Pacific War? Also, by the time the Soviets actually intervened, the Bomb had been dropped, and they could have gracefully backed out. Instead Stalin pushed the planned invasion ahead about 10 days to get in before Japan surrendered.
Why did Stalin go ahead? Inquiring minds wonder...
Because Stalin got bit by the Imperialist bug?

And when they left Manchuria, they didn't leave two sticks nailed together. The Nazis had taught them well on how to loot a country.
I don't believe that the planned invasion would ever have gone forward. It was scheduled for November 1, 1945, which meant that the aircraft, supplies and shipping for the invasion would have been gathering at Okinawa just in time for typhoon Louise to hit on October 9.
The damage from that would certainly have delayed the invasion and probably canceled it until the next window of opportunity with the right combination of tides, moon phase and decent weather. Which wasn't until Spring of 1946.
The end result is that the US would have fallen back on blockade and bombardment to bring the war to an end with mass starvation in the Japanese home islands.
Using the atomic bombs almost certainly saved the lives of 10's of millions of Japanese civilians.
Anyone can speculate on when the Japanese would surrender, and/or face the facts of their economic collapse, which would have co-incided with the invasion date. Once the economy goes, Japanese troops are basically just fighting where they are. No possible offensives, just fighting it out and being destroyed in detail. Also, one is free to speculate about typhoons, but I would think that the Allies would be more resiliant than the Korean Allied fleets of Kublai Khan.
That the atom bombs saved millions of Japanese lives over Downfall or an axtended blockade is obvious to anyone who can see the numbers involved.
There was almost a coup against Hirohito when he was going to surrender; we shouldn't discount the power of honor fuelled crazy in world events.
You can if you want to.
