MAKING PEACE Part Three

Naotake Sato (above) had a distinguised career as diplomat. In 1930 he was appointed Imperial Japanese Ambassador to Belgium, and then in 1933, to France.  During the brief (4 month long) tenure of Prime Minister Senjuro Hayashi, Sato served at the top of his field, as Foreign Minister.  

Then, in December of 1937, as an advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he issued the official Japanese apology for the sinking of the U.S.S. Panay near Nanking by Japanese (above) war planes.

Then, in 1942, Sato (above) was appointed Ambassador to the Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. It was an important post, because after China, Russia was Japan's traditional Asian enemy.  

The Imperial Japanese Army's invasion of Manchuria in 1931 had forced the Soviets to reroute the Trans Siberian Railway north of the Khalknin Go river to secure their supply line to Russia's Pacific Ocean port of Vladivostok. 

Tensions between the two powers escalated until July of 1939, when, again without approval from the civilians 25,000 members of the I.J.A . crossed the Khalknin Go river to attack the 65,000 strong Red Army.  The battle cost the Soviets in excess of 25,000 casualities,  but it cost the Japanese 20,000 dead and wounded, or 2/3rd of their forces engaged.  

The bloodied Japanese (above) accepted an immediate armistice with the Soviets, and two years later, in April of 1941, both signed a nonaggression treaty, which guaranteed 5  years of neutrality if the either signatory if the other were attacked by a third party. This meant that Japan was now free to take on the United States and Stalin was free to concentrate on the threat from Germany.   

“government by assassination”, so often were Prime Ministers, even lower ministers, the targets and victims of terrorist attacks that, instead of waiting for the next elections, chose to change the government in its own way.

Neither parliament nor government, to an extend not even the  Emperor, controlled the military. On the contrary, it was the military that controlled the civilian government. The Japanese constitution, more to the point several later amendments, explicitly required the ministers of the Navy and Army, respectively, to be serving officers of their services. By refusing to nominate a minister, either service could decline to accept an elected government. By removing its minister, either service could topple an existing government. 

the building of the railway network between 1891 and 1916...The railway, which was single track throughout, with the occasional passing loop, had, unsurprisingly, been built to a deficient standard in virtually every way. Even after Japan went to war with the US, despite German complaints, Japan usually allowed Soviet ships to sail between the US and Vladivostok unmolested.^[32] As a result, the Pacific Route – via northern Pacific Ocean and the TSR – became the safest connection between the US and the USSR...

When, in May 1939, Japanese aggression in China increased and it bombed Chinese civilian centers, it shocked and aroused the American public, as a Gallup poll indicated 72% of public support for an embargo on the export of war materials to Japan.

 By early 1945 it had become apparent to the Japanese that the Soviets were preparing to invade Manchuria, though they were unlikely to attack prior to Germany's defeat. In addition to their problems in the Pacific, the Japanese realised they needed to determine when and where a Soviet invasion would occur.

From 1937 to 1941 the Chinese war had cost Japan many billions of dollars and at least a million casualties. In return for this heavy investment, the Japanese expected great gains. Economic resources were at a low ebb; this was the chief weakness. Nonetheless, in the fall of 1941 Japan was at the peak of its military and naval strength. 

Jeffery Record, Doctor 

 In attacking Pearl Harbor, Japan elected to fight a geographically limited war against an enemy capable of waging a total war against the Japanese home islands themselves...how did Tokyo expect to compel the United States to accept Japanese hegemony in East Asia? Did the Japanese have a concept of victory, or at least of avoiding defeat? Or were they simply, as New York congressman Hamilton Fish declared the day after Pearl Harbor, a “stark, raving mad” people who, by attacking the United States, had “committed military, naval, and national suicide”?

How, in mid-1941, could Japan, militarily mired in China and seriously considering an opportunity for war with the Soviet Union, even think about yet another war, this one against a distant country with a 10-fold industrial superiority? The United States was not only stronger; it lay beyond Japan’s military reach. The United States could out-produce Japan in every category of armaments as well as build weapons, such as long-range bombers, that Japan could not; and though Japan could fight a war in East Asia and the Western Pacific, it could not threaten the American homeland. In attacking Pearl Harbor, Japan elected to fight a geographically limited war against an enemy capable of waging a total war against the Japanese home islands themselves...how did Tokyo expect to compel the United States to accept Japanese hegemony in East Asia? Did the Japanese have a concept of victory, or at least of avoiding defeat? Or were they simply, as New York congressman Hamilton Fish declared the day after Pearl Harbor, a “stark, raving mad” people who, by attacking the United States, had “committed military, naval, and national suicide”?

Japan’s imperial ambitions, which included Soviet territory in Northeast Asia as well as China and Western-controlled territory in Southeast Asia, lay beyond Japan’s material capacity. Japan wanted to be a great power of the first rank like the United States, Great Britain, and Germany but lacked the industrial base and military capacity to become one.

...Dean Acheson, who in 1941 was Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, declared before Pearl Harbor that “no rational Japanese could believe that an attack on us could result in anything but disaster for his country.” Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson believed the Japanese, “however wicked their intentions, would have the good sense not to get involved in a war with the United States.” Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto certainly had good sense. In October 1940 he warned that “[t]o fight the United States is like fighting the whole world. . . . Doubtless I shall die aboard the Nagato [his flagship]. Meanwhile, Tokyo will be burnt to the ground three times.”  Barely 2 months before Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto predicted: It is obvious that a Japanese-American war will become a protracted one. As long as the tides of war are in our favor, the United States will never stop fighting. As a consequence, the war will continue for several years, during which [our] material [resources] will be exhausted, vessels and arms will be damaged, and they can be replaced only with great difficulties. Ultimately we will not be able to contend with [the United States]. As a result of war the people’s livelihood will become indigent . . . and it is hard not to imagine [that] the situation will become out of control. We must not start a war with so little chance of success."

 Roberta Wohlstetter, in her path-breaking Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision, denounced the fanciful Japanese thinking behind the decision for war: “Most unreal was their assumption that the United States, with 10 times the military potential and a reputation for waging war until unconditional surrender, would after a short struggle accept the annihilation of a considerable part of its naval and air forces and the whole of its power in the Far East."

s Jean Edward Smith. The army had been bogged down in China for four years; Zhukov had made quick work of the garrison in Manchukuo; and the Japanese Navy had not been engaged in battle on the high seas since 1905. “The Japs,” as FDR called them, might prevail in Southeast Asia, but they were scarcely seen as a threat to American forces in the Pacific, certainly not to Pearl Harbor, which both the Army and the Navy believed to be impregnable

By the beginning of 1941, Japan had conquered much of north and central China, seized all of China’s major ports as well as Hainan Island and the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, and established a military presence in northern French Indochina.

In the critical category of naval tonnage, Japan in late 1941 possessed a competitive 70 percent of total U.S. naval tonnage (including tonnage deployed in the Atlantic), but the Japanese correctly projected, based on existing naval building programs (and excluding estimated losses), that the ratio would drop to 65 percent in 1942, 50 percent in 1943, and 30 percent in 1944.60 The Two-Ocean Navy Act passed by Congress in July 1940 called for a 70 percent increase in U.S. naval tonnage, including construction of 18 aircraft carriers, 6 battleships, 33 cruisers, 115 destroyers, and 43 submarines.

3 Japan’s relative naval strength would never be better than in 1941. Indeed, during the war years the United States built 8,812 naval vessels to Japan’s 589.   A month before Pearl Harbor, Army Chief of Staff Hajime Sugiyama warned that “the ratio of armament between Japan and the United States will become more unfavorable to us as time passes; and particularly, the gap in air armament will enlarge rapidly.”65 In 1941 the United States produced 1,400 combat aircraft to Japan’s 3,200; 3 years later, the United States built 37,500 to Japan’s 8,300 

I am continually amazed that it wasn't until June 22nd, 1945, that the Emperor finally called a meeting of his ‘Big Six’ advisors. He told them openly for the first time , "I desire that concrete plans to end the war, unhampered by existing policy, be speedily studied and that efforts made to implement them." There was no talk of terms, and no effort to "push" the process.
The Japanese were now waiting for the invasion of their most southern island, Kyushu, the next logical target of the U.S. forces. There they would win the "Big Victory" that Okinawa was supposed to have been - to bleed the Americans enough to force them to offer better terms. The leaders of Japan, meeting amongst the wreakage of Tokyo, were certain that a great enough slaughter, mostly of their own people, would drive the Americans to negotiate. And they were certain they could out-negotiate the Americans. Why such a clever people were losing the war was a question never asked by the Big Six.

The Japanese plan was to use the Russians as a conduit to negotiate with the Americans, rather than talking to their chief foe directly. July was spent trying to open that conduit, but the Russians seemed exceedingly dim and obstructionist, and the niceties of diplomacy slowed everything down even more. But there was no worry. In Japan's view, Russia and America were destined to be enemies, and it seems never to have occured to the Japanese leadership that Russia would see a weakened Japan, the nation which had humiliated them in 1905, as an oportunity too good to pass up. But, by the beginning of August, it seemed to Japan that some progress was being made with the Russians.

The plans of Japan's rulers did not begin to unravel until the morning of August 6th. Reports began coming in that something unusual had happened in Hiroshima. First reports were of a “blinding flash and violent blast”. Since no communications were coming out of the city, a staff officer was ordered to fly over and report. One hundred miles from Hiroshima he could see a huge cloud still rising from the blazing port (hours after the attack).
Surrounding villages were being swamped with huge mobs of wounded, burned and simply stunned victims stumbling their way out of Hiroshima.

Relief workers began to press through to the city. Power to some parts of the town was restored the next day, and rail service the day after that. But to all intents and purposes, the core of the city of Hiroshima had been wiped off the map, the port facilities destroyed, and one of Japan's few remaining intact military bases was simply gone. There were at least 80,000 dead. Over the next five years radiation would raise that toll to nearly 200,000.

The Big Six argued about what had happened, with many denying the U.S. could have such a weapon. The debate was settled sixteen hours later when Japanese monitoring posts picked up the broadcast of President Harry Truman announcing to the American people that, "The power of the sun" had been unleashed on Japan, and adding “We are now prepared to obliterate rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have…” It was not a threat. It seemed rather, to be a promise.

It was a powerful threat to the empire of the sun. But Admiral Soemu Toyoda now argued that if the Americans really had such a bomb they could not have many more. What he based that opinion on was unclear. But some of the leaders of Japan took solace from the Admiral and continued to perfect their plans for their Oriental Gotterdamurung. It was pure delusion.
The Americans had already crippled their nation. Hundreds of thousands had been killed. No train was safe in daylight, no city or factory safe at night. The Japanese army in Korea and Manchuria were starving. Troops in Japan were spending as much time tending to rice fields as training. And the harvest that year had been very bad. Come winter, invasion or no, there would be starvation in Japan.

Japan could do nothing to oppose the massive flights of B-29’s, now joined by B-17’s and B-24’s of the mighty 8th Air Force,  freed from the conquest of Germany, which were together pounding Japanese cities and military formations, day and night.

And nothing hindered the mass waves of P-51's, based on Iwo and Okinawa, which were now doing to Japan what they had done to Germany; sweeping across the country at will, striking at "targets of oportunity", destroying and sinking everything that moved, be it a supply or passenger train, a single horse and cart or a poor fishing boat. There was almost nothing left to oppose them. What remained of Japan's air force was being held back to oppose the landings. Japan's navy was scattered across the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Their cities were being reduced, one by one, to wastelands occupied by scarecrows.

And now an atomic bomb had vaporized one of Japan's cities, and there was a threat of more to follow. And yet the supreme council's only plan remained to wait for the American invasion of Kyushu and kill as many Americans as possible in order to force them to negotiate. About 40% of Japan's remaining strength had been transfered to Kyushu to fight that battle. But that was was, to borrow the words of an historian describing the Confederate insistance on defending Fort Donaldson against Union General Grant, "Too little to defend the place, and too much to lose when it fell."

Again, Japan failed to inform the Americans what their intentions now were, e.g. to fight to the death to preserve the Emperor. And without the final clause of that statement, it seemed to the Americans that the Japanese were insane and without logic, an entire nation of kamikazes, in love with death. And since the Japanese were not offering the Americans any alternatives, (nor the refuse) there was no way for the Americans to be certain the preservation of the Emperor alone was what the Japanese were still killing and dieing for, a full year after the Americans had won effectivly won the war.

And then, at about four AM on August ninth the Soviet Union, which the Japanese leadership had counted on to help negotiate a peace, announced they were voiding their non-aggression pact with Japan and joining the Americans in carving up the Imperial Empire. At the same time Soviet air and ground forces had invaded Manchuria in great numbers and strength. And in that moment, all Japanese and American complacency began to finally collapse.

- 30 -

One of the roles of the Cabinet of Admiral Baron Suzuki, which took office in April 1945, was to try to secure any peace terms short of unconditional surrender.^[31] In late June, they approached the Soviets (the Neutrality Pact was still in place), inviting them to negotiate peace with the Allies in support of Japan, providing them with specific proposals and in return, they offered the Soviets very attractive territorial concessions. Stalin expressed interest, and the Japanese awaited the Soviet response. The Soviets continued to avoid providing a response. The Potsdam Conference was held from 16 July to 2 August 1945. On 24 July, the Soviet Union recalled all embassy staff and families from Japan. On 26 July, the conference produced the Potsdam Declaration whereby Churchill, Harry S. Truman and Chiang Kai-shek (the Soviet Union was not officially at war with Japan) demanded the unconditional surrender of Japan. The Japanese continued to wait for the Soviet response and avoided responding to the declaration.^[30]

The Japanese had been monitoring Trans-Siberian Railway traffic and Soviet activity to the east of Manchuria and the Soviet delaying tactics, which suggested to them that the Soviets would not be ready to invade east Manchuria before the end of August. They did not have any real idea and no confirming evidence as to when or where any invasion would occur.^[18] They had estimated that an attack was not likely in August 1945 or before spring 1946, but Stavka had planned for a mid-August 1945 offensive and had concealed the buildup of a force of 90 divisions. Many had crossed Siberia in their vehicles to avoid straining the rail link.

The Generalissimo (Stalin) said that as his party was leaving Moscow...an unaddressed message was received through the Japanese Ambassador Sate...from the Emperor of Japan who stated that "Unconditional Surrender" could not be accepted by Japan, but if it was not insisted upon, Japan might be prepared to compromise in regard to other terms..."

Naotake Sato, a former foreign minister, served as Japan’s ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1945. In Moscow he existed beyond lethal reach by the most fanatical elements of Japan’s armed forces and thus could speak candidly...The sole Japanese diplomatic effort sanctioned by the key Japanese leadership was to secure the Soviet Union as a mediator to negotiate an end to the war. That effort ran through Sato. Decoded Japanese cables made American leaders fully aware that none of the Japanese diplomatic or military representatives in Europe who presented themselves as seeking peace on behalf of Japan carried actual sanction.  Japan’s one authorized diplomatic initiative required two things: 1) concessions that would enlist the Soviets as mediators; and 2) Japanese terms to end the war. Sato relentlessly exposed the fact that Japan never completed either of these two fundamental steps. When Togo presented a pledge not to retain Japan’s conquests as “concessions” to secure Soviet mediation, Sato’s scathing reply was “How much effect do you expect our statements regarding the non-annexation and non-possession of territories which we have already lost or are about to lose will have on the Soviet authorities?” He added that mere “abstract statements” on concessions, which he slammed as  “pretty little phrases devoid of all connection with reality,” would have no impact on “extremely realistic” Soviet authorities.  And he then inserted the knife thrust: “If the Japanese empire is really faced with the necessity of terminating the war, we must first of all make up our minds to terminate the war.”  

Togo affirmed that Japan would not accept anything like unconditional surrender. Konoe represented the will of the emperor and he would have “positive intentions” to “negotiate details” to set up “a cooperative relationship between Japan and Russia.” Again, Togo only offered more of the “pretty little phrases” Sato had condemned. Sato then went for the jugular. He insisted that the crucial proof that Japan seriously sought an end to the war would be a statement of Japan’s peace terms. Togo could not provide terms because even within the tiny inner circle who authorized the Soviet initiative, there was never serious discussion, much less agreement, on actual Japanese terms to end the war...  Sato replied with his most significant message: the best hope for Japan at this point was unconditional surrender, modified only to the extent that the imperial house would be retained. Togo shot back a reply that this was wholly unacceptable. He provided not even a hint that preservation of the imperial system would be a positive step...On July 27, an analysis attached to the daily summary of diplomatic intercepts for top American leaders affirmed that collectively all the intercepts—diplomatic and military read together demonstrated that Japan was nowhere near peace, but placing total faith in the great counter-invasion battle. As late as August 7, the day after Hiroshima, Grew still believed the militarists remained in firm control of Japan and thus peace was not near. Thus, Sato’s withering cross examination by cable, not just hindsight, validates the dismissal by American leaders of Japan’s sole authentic diplomatic initiative in 1945, the totally ineffectual approach to the Soviets.

The loss of Saipan, followed by Tojo's collapse, marked a major turning point of the war and brought forth the Cabinet of Kuniaki Koiso, a retired Army general who was known as a Tojo critic. This government was a disappointment to the more zealous peacemakers and conceivably an inept choice... On 5 August, 1944, 3 weeks after the fall of Tojo, this new Inner Cabinet was formed. Announced purpose of the Council was "to formulate a fundamental policy for directing the war and to adjust the harmonization of the combined strategy for politics and war". It comprised six regular members--the Premier, Foreign Minister, Army Minister, Navy Minister, Army Chief of Staff, and Navy Chief of Staff...September 1944, Yonai, who had become Vice Premier and Navy Minister under Koiso, directed Takagi to resume his secret studies of steps to get out of the war. Working with Yonai and the Navy Vice Minister, Vice Adm. Seibi Inouye, Takagi considered such questions as (1) how to get Army agreement to end the war; (2) issues involved in possible Allied terms such as demands on Japan after the war, reparations, protection of the "national polity"; (3) the problem of public opinion and morale in the event of peace; (4) how to reach the Emperor and work through him to accomplish their purpose. As these studies progressed, private briefing sessions were held with Prince Fumimaro Konoye, Kido, Marquis Tsuneo Matsudaira, the Imperial Household Minister, Okada, and a number of others. Sometime later Admiral Koshiro Oikawa, the chief of naval staff, and Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa, the deputy chief of naval staff, were informed of these maneuvers. Contacts were also established with Army people. Takagi testified that quite a number of them were convinced and some, in fact, brought pressure upon the Army minister. This served, however, only to stiffen the Army's attitude against all peace moves and many on the Army side recanted for reasons of discipline and personal safety...The validity of the peacemakers' estimates was demonstrated by further attrition of air forces and shipping, a declining basic industrial production and a seriously lowered civilian livelihood. In the mean- time, the initial air raids on the Empire coupled with loss of the Philippines had a deepening effect upon these attitudes. The leaders especially feared the threat to production, the decline in public morale, and a break-up of Japan as Germany even then was breaking up.

By December 1944 private conversations among the top ruling factions, including Kido, Konoye, Yonai, Okawa, Baron Kiiehiro Hiranuma, etc., were addressed to problems created by urgent need for peace. The Emperor on his own initiative in February 1945 had a series of interviews with the senior statesmen whose consensus was that Japan faced certain defeat and should seek peace at once.

Discussed at least, during March 1945, was the plan to initiate peace steps through the mediation of China. Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni was the chief advocate of this scheme, and it received some consideration and support among the Jushin and at the foreign office. Choice of China as Allied negotiator was based in part on the ingenuous notion that since "she was a neighbor and fellow member of the co-prosperity sphere", her mediation would be more suitable than direct approaches to the United States. Terms were to be based on Japan returning to her pre-1931 boundaries...(1) It is clear that the Japanese leaders entered the war deeply convinced that they were fighting for their very national existence and life, whereas the United States they believed was merely pressing for economic advantages and a set of principles, but not for vital security. (2) Japan had no specific plan other than negotiation for ending the war she began. A predilection for negotiation--demonstrated in terminating the Russo-Japanese war, efforts to enlist the United States in bringing the China Incident to a close, etc.--maintained a hope that Japan could trade it out with the Allies. (3) The Casablanca statement and the Cairo Declaration setting forth Allied terms for unconditional surrender were still considered by Japan's leaders to be just declarations, not actual final terms to be imposed. (4) The desire to save face, to preserve the Tenno system, and fear of the military and the police at this period helped the factions favoring continued resistance. (5) The information policy of minimizing United States successes and capabilities, while distorting their own losses and exaggerating their ability to con- duct effective operations, had left the people ignorant of the fact of Japan's actual military situation at this time. Some Government factions feared internal chaos, "communistic revolts and disorganization" if the true situation became known.  Thus so nicely balanced were the ruling factions and cliques that their interrelation conditioned the expression of policy as well as its formation, and accounts in part at least for the unusual time-lapse between the top civilian political decision to accept defeat and the final capitulation. The result in the Koiso cabinet at least was a temporary stalemate. The Okinawa landings on 1 April were quickly followed by Koiso's fall on 8 April and the designation of Admiral Baron Kantaro Suzuki as Premier....Kido at least was convinced that so long as Germany remained in the war Japan would be in danger of a military coup in the event firm and positive steps were taken immediately to end the war. In any case the hopes for positive steps under Koiso's aegis were not fulfilled, primarily because he was not strong enough to stand up to the military. When Suzuki was named Premier, Kido stated the question was not whether to end the war, but by what means and how quickly. Suzuki informed the Survey that when he assumed office "it was the Emperor's desire to make every effort to bring the war to a conclusion as quickly as possible, and that was my purpose". This created a position Suzuki described as difficult. On the one hand he had instructions from the. Emperor to arrange an end to the war; on the other hand any of those opposing this policy who learned of such peace moves would be apt to attack or even assassinate him. Thus with the general staffs, Government in general, and the people, he advocated increased war effort and determination to fight, whereas "through diplomacy and any other means available" he had to negotiate with other countries to stop the war.  Almost immediately, Suzuki ordered his chief cabinet secretary, Sakomizu, to make a study of Japan's fighting capabilities and whether they were sufficient to continue the war. Sakomizu concluded in. May that Japan could not continue the war, basing his estimate on Japanese studies as to the inability to produce aircraft, losses and damage to shipping, the precarious food situation and the antiwar sentiments of the people....Con- currently he asked ex-Premier Koki Hirota to sound out the Russian ambassador to Tokyo, Yakov A. Malik, privately as to the Russian attitude toward interceding with America. Early in May (prior to the 18th according to a statement of Navy Chief of Staff, Admiral Soemu Toyoda) the Supreme War Direction Council began to discuss ways and means of ending the war. Concurrently other meetings of the Council were going on with the view of obtaining Russia's services at an opportune time. Foreign Minister Togo was leader of this. While Hirota was talking with Malik, Ambassador Sato had been instructed in Moscow to prepare the way for a Japanese emissary to discuss improvement of Soviet-Japanese relations and Russia's intercession to end the war...Con- currently he asked ex-Premier Koki Hirota to sound out the Russian ambassador to Tokyo, Yakov A. Malik, privately as to the Russian attitude toward interceding with America. Early in May (prior to the 18th according to a statement of Navy Chief of Staff, Admiral Soemu Toyoda) the Supreme War Direction Council began to discuss ways and means of ending the war. Concurrently other meetings of the Council were going on with the view of obtaining Russia's services at an opportune time. Foreign Minister Togo was leader of this. While Hirota was talking with Malik, Ambassador Sato had been instructed in Moscow to prepare the way for a Japanese emissary to discuss improvement of Soviet-Japanese relations and Russia's intercession to end the war.... Sakomizu prepared a statement for that occasion which opened by saying that the war should be "accomplished", and the Emperor's reign and the homeland kept intact. This was followed by the details of Sakomizu's estimate prepared shortly after Suzuki assumed office. On 6 June the six regular members of the Council discussed what steps should be taken to prosecute the war. Also at the meeting were the chief cabinet secretary, the chief of the Navy's military affairs bureau, the chief of the Army bureau of military affairs, the head of the Cabinet Research Bureau and the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. The conclusion was that unless some radical measure could be adopted to arouse the people, the Nation's war power was bound to decline very rapidly. At this session, as Toyoda explained, "No one expressed the view that we should ask for peace--when a large number of people are present it is difficult for any one member to say that we should so entreat..."...On 20 June the Emperor on his own initiative called the six council members to a conference and stated that it was necessary to have a plan to close the war at once, as well as a plan to defend the home islands. He asked what the council thought of that idea. The Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister and the Navy Minister stated that they fully concurred with the Imperial view and that such steps were then being taken to that end. Then the Emperor in turn asked when the ministers expected they would be able to send a special ambassador to Moscow. The reply was that it was uncertain but they hoped he could be sent before the Potsdam conference. Sakomizu testified that after this expression from the Emperor, Suzuki decided he could stop the war; when he returned from the conference he told Sakomizu "Today the Emperor said what everyone has wanted to say but yet was afraid to say."....On 10 July the Emperor called Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo and said, "As it is now early July should not our special ambassador be dispatched to Moscow without delay?" Since Soviet Ambassador Malik was ill in Tokyo and the conversations there were not progressing, Sato was again instructed to put the matter directly to the Vice Commissar for Foreign Affairs in Moscow. Russia asked for more details concerning the mission and Sato was directed to explain the mission as follows: (1) to make an improvement in relations between Russia and Japan (in view of Russia's denunciation of the neutrality pact), and (2) to ask Russia to intercede with the United States in order to stop the war. The Soviets replied on 13 July that since Stalin and Molotov were just leaving for Potsdam no answer could be given until their return to Moscow. On 12 July meanwhile the Emperor had called in Konoye and secretly instructed him to accept any terms he could get and to wire these terms direct to the Emperor. Konoye also testified that when Sato was sounding out the Russians he reported the Russians would not consider a peace role unless the terms were unconditional surrender, and that this reply had a great influence on the Emperor. In the days before the Potsdam Declaration, Suzuki, Togo, and Yonai became pessimistic about the Russian negotiations...On 26 July the Potsdam Declaration was issued. In their deliberations on that statement, which began immediately, no member of the Inner Cabinet had any objections to ending the war. Suzuki, Togo, and Yonai felt that the declaration must be accepted as the final terms of peace at once, whether they liked it or not. The War Minister and the two chiefs of staff on the other hand felt that the terms were "too dishonorable". Discussion centered around first the future position of the Emperor, second the disposition of war criminals, and third the future form of Japan's "national polity".

On 6 August in the midst of these discussions an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Early reports to Tokyo described very great damage, but the military did not think it was an atomic bomb until President Truman's announcement and a mission of Japanese scientists sent to Hiroshima confirmed it. On the morning of 7 August Suzuki and Togo conferred and then reported the news to the Emperor, stating that this was the time to accept the Potsdam Declaration. The military side still however could not make up their minds to accept it.

These differences continued to be examined and hope of favorable word from Russia had been all but abandoned when very early in the morning of 9 August the news arrived that Russia had declared war. Although considerable pessimism had prevailed regarding the outcome of the negotiations, the Government was not prepared for war with the Soviets, nor the military capable of any effective counter-plan. Suzuki calculated that he had a choice of resigning or taking immediate positive action, which could be either declaring war on Russia and continuing until the whole Nation was destroyed or accepting the Potsdam Declaration. He conferred with the Emperor around 0700 and after a couple of hours decided to accept the Potsdam terms, with which decision the Emperor agreed. A meeting of the six regular members of the Supreme War Direction Council was called for .1000. After two gloomy hours it remained deadlocked as before on the two opposing opinions: (1) To accept the Potsdam Declaration outright, with the understanding that it did not alter the Emperor's legal position; (2) to accept the declaration with the following conditions: (a) that the Allied forces would not occupy the homeland; (b) that the Japanese military and naval forces abroad would be withdrawn, disarmed and demobilized by Japan itself; (c) that all war crimes should be prosecuted by the Japanese Government.

Suzuki, Yonai, and Togo favored the first opinion, whereas Anami, Umezu, and Toyoda supported the second. When this three-to-three split could not be resolved, the full. Cabinet was called in, and after an explanation by Togo, nine voted for unconditional acceptance, three voted for the conditional acceptance and three others favored intermediate positions. After a session lasting until 2000 without achieving unity, the cabinet declared an intermission. In this impasse Suzuki decided to request an Imperial conference for the Inner Cabinet at which the conflicting views could be presented and the Emperor's own decision sought. At 2330 on the 9th the conference was held, with chief cabinet secretary Sakomizu and Hiranuma, the Privy Council president, also attending. The Potsdam Declaration was first read to the Emperor, then Togo expressed his opinion, followed by all of the others who stated their views. Around 0300 on the 10th Suzuki announced (as paraphrased by Sakomizu's testimony): "We have discussed this question for a long time and everyone has expressed his own opinion sincerely without any conclusion being reached. The situation is urgent, so any delay in coming to a decision should not be tolerated. I am therefore proposing to ask the Emperor his own wish and to decide the conference's conclusion on that basis. His wish should settle the issue, and the Government should follow it." The Emperor then stated his own view (again paraphrased by Sakomizu), "I agree with the first opinion as expressed by the foreign minister. I think I should tell the reasons why I have decided so. Thinking about the world situation and the internal Japanese situation, to continue the war means nothing but the destruction of the whole nation. My ancestors and I have always wished to put forward the Nation's welfare and international world peace as our prime concern. To continue the war now means that cruelty and bloodshed will still continue in the world and that the Japanese Nation will suffer severe damage. So, to stop the war on this occasion is the only way to save the Nation from destruction and to restore peace in the world."....After the Marianas were lost but before the first attacks were flown in November 1944, Tojo had been unseated and peacemakers introduced into the Government as prominent elements. The war economy had already passed its peak, fleet and air forces had been critically weakened, confidence of the "intelligentsia" in the Government and the military had been deflated, and confidence of the people in eventual victory was weakening. By mid-1944 shortages of food and civilian supplies were reflected in reduced living standards. Therefore the actual physical destruction wrought by strategic bombing assumed the role of an accelerator, to assist and expedite forces already in motion. It added a tremendous quantitative in weight to those forces. Since the means of resisting direct air attacks had already been largely destroyed, it represented the full exploitation of air control by an air weapon. These attacks became definitive in the surrender decision because they broadened the realization of defeat by bringing it home to the people and dramatized to the whole nation what the small peace party already knew. They proved day in and day out, and night after night, that the United States did control the air and could exploit it. They lowered morale by demonstrating the disadvantages of total war directly, added a vital increment of both actual and clearly foreseeable future production loss by both precision and area attacks, and applied pressure on the surrender decision by eliminating the hope of successful final resistance.... The Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs did not defeat Japan, nor by the testimony of the enemy leaders who ended the war did they persuade Japan to accept unconditional surrender. The Emperor, the Lord Privy Seal, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, and the Navy Minister had decided as early as May of 1945 that the war should be ended even if it meant acceptance of defeat on allied terms. The War Minister and the two chiefs of staff opposed unconditional surrender. The impact of the Hiroshima attack was to bring further urgency and lubrication to the machinery of achieving peace, primarily by contributing to a situation which permitted the Prime Minister to bring the Emperor overtly and directly into a position where his decision for immediate acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration could be used to override the remaining objectors. Thus, although the atomic bombs changed no votes of the Supreme War Direction Council concerning the Potsdam terms, they did foreshorten the war and expedite the peace. Events and testimony which support these conclusions are blue-printed from the chronology established in the first sections of this report: (a) The mission of the Suzuki government, appointed 7 April 1945, was to make peace. An appearance of negotiating for terms less onerous than unconditional surrender was maintained in order to contain the military and bureaucratic elements still determined on a final Bushido defense, and perhaps even more importantly to obtain freedom to create peace with a minimum of personal danger and internal obstruction. It seems clear however that in extremis the peacemakers would have peace, and peace on any terms. This was the gist of advice given to Hirohito by the Jushin in February, the declared conclusion of Kido in April, the underlying reason for Koiso's fall in April, the specific injunction of the Emperor to Suzuki on becoming premier which was known to all members of his cabinet...