An invasion of Manchuria by the Red Army offered the most obvious means of deflecting such a redeployment. Stalin’s masses could reprise what they were so spectacularly doing in Europe—saving the lives of Western Allied soldiers by expending those of Russians. As late as 6 August 1945, MacArthur told an off-the-record press briefing in Manila of his eagerness for the Soviets to invade Manchuria: “Every Russian killed is one less American who has to be.”
