Presenting evidence that the US had no military need to use nuclear weapons against Japan, because it already knew that Japan was looking for a way to surrender while saving face.

President Truman later said that he did believe, when he made the decision, that the only choices were bomb or invade.

I wonder whether he was aware that most high-ranking US generals said that Japan would surrender soon anyway. Were those views transmitted to him? Perhaps his advisors kept him away from that idea.

One argument in the first article is that the use of nuclear weapons made little difference to Japan's willingness to surrender, because non-nuclear bombing had done far more damage. If we accept that as valid, what are its full consequences? There were US generals at the time who said conventional (non-nuclear) bombing of cities was an atrocity.