Truman had just two atom bombs, and he bet correctly that their use would end the war quickly. Shortly befroe Hiroshima, he promised publicly that Japan's failure to surrender would result in "a rain of ruin the like of which the world has never seen."

Even though Tokyo and sixty other Japanese cities had already been leveled by firebombing, Japan refused even to discuss surrender. As a "god" and the "father" of all Japanese, Emperor Hirohito could have ended the war at any time with just one decree. In fact, the war couldn't have started without his acquiescence and approval. A quiet, introverted man himself, Hirohito was strongly sympathetic to the militarists from the beginning. He also seemed to believe that as the direct divine descendant of the Rising Sun, crude meddling in "mere politics" was beneath him. After everything else, it still took two atom bombs to change his mind.

Compare and contrast. The Italian military threw in the towel in 1943 because they were sick of losing an aggressive war that meant nothing to them. Mussolini's Fascists were kicked out of southern Italy, and the new government joined with the Allies in fighting Hitler. If Hirohito had taken responsibility sooner as the ultimate leader of the Japanese nation, the bombs could not have been dropped.