Meeting at Potsdam - Charles L. Mee

1975 hardcover with dust jacket and 370 pages in good secondhand condition.

Mee looks at the evidence surrounding the Potsdam conference and the Truman decision to drop the bombs and comes to the very different conclusion that the U.S. and the Russians both knew the Japanese were willing to surrender before the atomic bombs were used. Mee says that Truman, supported only by Marshall, among the top U.S. military brass (Eisenhower, McArthur did not agree they should be used), dropped the bombs because he was afraid the the peace feelers the Japanese had already made through the Russians might result in Japan surrendering to Russia. Dropping the bombs was to ensure that the Japanese surrendered to the U.S. and would therefore become part of the U.S. sphere of influence.