The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) conducted most of its survey from October to December 1945 to evaluate various aspects of the effects inflicted by American air power during World War II. While results of its vast work—a total of 108 reports—are hard to grasp, with most of its reports and supporting documents remaining classified in the U. S. National Archives in Washington until the 1970s, a conclusion in its two most important reports—Summary Report and Japan’s Struggle to End the War—both published in July 1946 from the Chairman’s Office has often been cited and referred to mostly by so-called revisionists who are critical about the decision to drop the atomic bomb in the Summer of 1945.
The statement—“…certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated” (italics author’s)—continues to appear in the controversy over the use of the atomic bomb. Some scholars argue that the opinion is unreliable for it was conceived by Paul H. Nitze—eventual Director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff (PPS) and the principal author of National Security Council Paper 68 (NSC-68)—who wrote the Summary Report but did not properly use interrogations of Japanese officials as evidence.
In the present essay, the author explores the history of preceding studies about the decision to drop the atomic bomb and examines the role the abovementioned conclusion has played in different arguments. She also atlempts to compare the ways it is used and traces the change in the way it is treated in the discourse.