Cold War era propaganda revisionism and Western Bias.
You hit the nail on the head in my opinion.
Of course the Cold War revisionism (denialism?) starts with never actually prosecuting Hirohito, Shiro Ishii (!), and the like.
Of course the myth is that the Japanese surrender had everything to with the US nukes and nothing to do with the Soviet Union invasion and that the Emperor was a figurehead who had nothing to do with the war. It worked out well for the emperor and the US. The irony is that the deadliest one day bombing of a city in world history was Japan in 1945, but Tokyo with conventional weapons. The nukes just didn't have the impact we like to imagine.
Uhh. Not that I would wish this, but I can guarantee if that Tokyo were nuked instead of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the effects would have been far more devastating for Japan, even such that their ascent post-WW2 would've been greatly hindered. Whether or not dropping nukes was the right call, declining to nuke Tokyo absolutely was and war doesn't need to be a contest of who killed more and when. The sheer capability demonstrated by nuclear weapons at the time was enough to have the necessary impact, and had the US dropped nukes on Nazi Germany is an interesting theory play for history buffs to consider.
