Did Harry Truman -- “the buck stops here” President -- drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki for political reasons? General Eisenhower insisted: “It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” Did Truman drop the bombs to justify the billions spent and to frighten the Soviet Union into capitulating to his ultimatums over Eastern and Central Europe?

The laws of war prohibit incidental or direct attacks on civilians disproportionate to the anticipated military advantage. World War II Air Force General Curtis Lemay reportedly told Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara: “[I]f we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals”. McNamara added: “And I think he's right – and I'd say – we were behaving as war criminals.” President Truman’s chief of staff Admiral William D. Leahy declared that the atomic bombings betrayed “an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.”

The Committee will honor the research of Gar Alperovitz, author of The Decision To Use The Atomic Bomb and Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam. Gar will receive the Committee’s Defender of Liberty Award in absentia for exposing the lie that Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved the lives of millions of American soldiers. Admiral Leahy and General Eisenhower categorically disputed the propaganda and maintained that the atomic bombings were militarily superfluous and did not save American lives.

We had broken the Japanese code. We knew Japan would surrender as soon as Russia declared war on August 8, 1945 -- as planned at our request -- if Emperor Hirohito was permitted a nominal political role going forward. Japan’s Manchurian army was blockaded from the mainland. The sole spanner in the works was Truman’s demand for unconditional surrender, which he abandoned shortly after dropping the atomic bombs. A ceremonial Japanese Emperor exists to this day. Gar will explore why the myth that the bombings saved millions of American lives endures.

The atomic bombs were also expected to frighten the Soviet Union into softening its controlling role in Eastern and Central Europe to the delight of millions of ethnic American voters. But Stalin didn’t blink and the Cold War was born.