It is now plain that the atom bombs were dropped for political reasons, three months after the first Japanese attempt to negotiate a settlement was ignored. After the bomb, the Japanese capitulated to the Allies before Russia had time to sweep down from the north and occupy territory. The Soviet Union had grabbed territory in Europe, including half Germany and those states which later became the Warsaw Pact countries, and dropping the atom bombs seemed a good idea at the time, to prevent a similar seizure in the East, and to demonstrate Western power to the Soviets. One bomb may have been sufficient, but two were dropped, the second shortly after the first, before the stunned Japanese had time to react to Hiroshima.

There were two types of bomb, one using refined uranium, as dropped on Hiroshima, and the other plutonium, and the shameful possibility exists that the second, plutonium bomb was dropped on Nagasaki mainly to test this type of atom bomb.