If America’s leaders found difficulty in comprehending the unprecedented force they were about to unleash, the Japanese were unlikely to show themselves more imaginative. More than that, the war party in Tokyo, which had crippled Japan’s feeble diplomatic gropings, was committed to acceptance of national annihilation rather than surrender. If LeMay’s achievement in killing 200,000 Japanese civilians and levelling most of the country’s major cities had not convinced the likes of General Anami that surrender was inevitable, there is no reason to suppose that a mere threat of atomic bombardment
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