10/10: Eric Bergerud wrote: "On August 11, after a long and tortuous dispute, Hirohito forced his military to accept the Potsdam Declaration with the lone proviso that acceptance did not prejudice the "prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler." If the Alperovitz thesis is correct, Byrnes and Truman should have been popping champagne corks at that very instant. . .Yet Byrnes held out for unconditional surrender. WHY??? The only reasonable conclusion is that Byrnes genuinely feared domestic uproar in the United States and probably despised Hirohito. Neither of these reasons fit the Alperovitz argument. Consequently, the author ignored the incident." Bergerud made a similar charge again on 10/28.
RESPONSE: First: Bergerud is simply dead wrong to say Alperovitz "ignored the incident" of August 10 [NOT August 11]. See pages 417-8 and 556-557. Second: All along American policy makers wanted to hold on to the RHETORIC of unconditional surrender for political purposes at home. On the other hand, all along it was also obvious that this issue could be finessed--by keeping the language but yielding on the key issue. Indeed, just such a posture began to emerge in early May--and then was held up for much of the summer. Furthermore, Alperovitz states quite clearly in a number of places (p.312; p649-50) that some political considerations cannot be ruled out. The central issue is whether they were strong enough to tie the President's hands. The evidence is quite clear: they were not.
In his memoir All in One Lifetime, Byrnes himself made no reference to possible "domestic uproar" in explaining his objection to the Japanese response. Rather, Byrnes argued that any deviation from unconditional surrender would cause further delay in obtaining Allied concurrence while the Soviets penetrated deeper into Manchuria. He wrote:
"timson urged that we agree to [the Japanese] proposal. While equally anxious to bring the war to an end, I had to disagree, pointing out that we had to get the assent of the British and Soviets; that we had their concurrence to the Potsdam Declaration with the words "unconditional surrender," and any retreat from those words now would cause much delay in securing their acquiescence. Since the Japanese were patently anxious to surrender, it was not the time for them to present conditions. The President requested me to draft a reply. I went to my office and wrote a message which met with his approval."
His assistant, Walter Brown, noted earlier in his diary entry of July 24 that "JFB [Byrnes] still hoping for time, believing after atomic bomb Japan will surrender and Russia will not get in so much on the kill, thereby being in a position to press for claims against China. . . ."
While Byrnes thought unconditional surrender was preferable it was certainly not determinative. Indeed, The Decision (p.309) cites a 1952 letter from Byrnes to Gen. Leslie Groves in which he acknowledged the necessity of utilizing the Emperor to obtain a surrender:
"When I became Secretary, I found in the Department a heated controversy, the left-wingers arguing that under no circumstances could we accept a surrender of the Japanese unless they agreed that Japan would no longer have an emperor. Without the emperor we would have found it a more difficult task to secure the surrender . . ."
Time and again Truman indicated that he had little problem with assurances for the emperor. Perhaps Mr. Bergerud had overlooked pages 417-418 of The Decision where Truman's lack of concern over this is spelled out. For the record, let me restate the key passage here:
Truman, on the advice of Leahy (supported by Stimson), favored immediate acceptance of the [Japanese August 10th] offer. However, Byrnes--who joined the White House gathering late--was irked with Leahy. (He [Leahy] still "thought he was Secretary of State, just as he was under Roosevelt, and [Byrnes] had to show him differently . . . ," he told [Walter] Brown.) Byrnes pointed out that "the big-3 [sic] said `unconditional surrender'"--and at Potsdam this was before the bomb and the Russian attack. Truman asked to see the statement. Brown's report continues:
JFB cited page, paragraph and line of Potsdam declaration. Forrestal spoke up for JFB's position. Truman swung over. . . . JFB had lunch with the president and said that the two of them had to decide the question and there could not be so many cooks. Truman agreed and JFB message as written was sent.
That Truman himself did not think this much of a problem is clear from his own response to the Japanese: He was ready to accept their position and had to be talked around and out of it. Indeed, on this matter the evidence is he did not even remember what had been said at Potsdam; he had to be reminded of it. It may also be that for a brief moment Byrnes thought he might get a bit more from the Japanese; but that this did not last very long at all is evidence that it was, if anything at all, a VERY brief moment. Finally, Truman is on record many times during the summer of 1945 indicating that he did not see political problems as critical. [See The Decision, pp. 45-46, 67-72, 74-5, 78, 311, 417, 649-650.]
CORDELL HULL AND UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
12/4: Brian Villa wrote in H-Japan: "Needless to say no one on Alperovitz's long list of office holding surrender modification advocates took up the gauntlet for the reason Hull articulated so precisely, saying that any concession before the surrender would be perceived as "appeasement." Not even General Marshall who probably had the clout with Congress to carry it through took it up. Can anyone doubt that Cordell Hull, in tendering his advice was reflecting this broad background of public, Congressional and editorial opinion which he knew so well, on which-- as regards Congressional opinion on foreign affairs-- he was the Roosevelt administration's top, unchallengable, expert? With Hull opposed the concession was not going to happen anytime before a Japanese acceptance of unconditional surrender or something darn close to it. . . . How Dr. Alperovitz gets to where he wants to go is perfectly obvious. Since Hull advised against a concession on the Emperor and since the advice was given at about the time the Truman administration began to harden its position against a public concession, (the connection is explicit in the sources) Hull is a problem for the plausibility of the counter factual that concessions could easily have been made and thus Hiroshima avoided. To reestablish the counterfactual Hull must be rendered into a political nullity after which his removal from the historical stage, like so much rubble, comes easily. Alperovitz's demolition job on Hull's political weight occurs on pages 307-8, and they are, I submit, among the most unhistorical pages in that book. Here is how he begins this section: "The fact is, Hull was something of an anachronism who had rarely been taken seriously even during the Roosevelt era." Fact is ? The "fact is" that the last half of that sentence is one of Alperovitz's "howlers", to use a term familiar to any Cambridge University fellow. It is about as far off the mark as you can get. True, there was some personal animosity between FDR and Hull which grew over years. True, Hull was kept out of many issues by Roosevelt for the simple fact that once you asked Hull's advice there was nothing left to do but surrender, as FDR knew only too well. "Cwist!" Few in Washington ever dared cross Hull, and the few who did, did so at their mortal peril. If anyone survived unscathed a clash with Hull I do not know who that might be. Roosevelt himself never directly challenged Hull's savvy on Congressional opinion in Hull's area. The dying Roosevelt, nursing no small amount of resentment against Hull, nevertheless had himself dragged out to Bethesda Naval Hospital to pay court on the considerably less ill Hull.(President Truman also made a point of consulting Hull in the hospital on the first major foreign policy initiative of his presidency.) Take any recognized author on Roosevelt, from Sherwood to Dallek to whomever and they all pay tribute to Hull's unchallengable mastery of Congressional opinion and speak of Rooseveltian deference to that power. Hull was out of office of course when Truman took over, but there is no evidence that Truman ever slighted him. (Truman knew congressional realities as well or better than Roosevelt.) The evidence Alperovitz uses to dismiss the weight of Hull's intervention is all ex-post facto, off the point, and not worth a waterlogged tea leaf at the bottom of a cup."
RESPONSE: Brian Villa would have us believe that Hull's influence presented a brick wall for those who wanted to modify unconditional surrender. Note the various page references given in previous discussion on Truman and unconditional surrender; the contemporaneous evidence is very strong that President Truman himself did not believe political problems were critical. Villa fails to point out that Truman himself did not appear worried about such matters. Stimson's diary entries of July 24 and August 10 make it clear that neither Byrnes nor Truman were "obdurate" on the question (see p. 311). Beyond this Villa has single-handedly elevated Cordell Hull--who even Robert Maddox calls "much ignored"--to monumental stature. No major Truman biographer, not even Truman himself in his memoir Year of Decisions, uses Hull to defend the policy of unconditional surrender. Can Prof. Villa demonstrate how the retired and ailing Cordell Hull influenced Truman on this policy or is he merely speculating? Hull certainly communicated with Byrnes, but he had precious little contact with Truman. Yet, Villa has built Hull into a keystone in the unconditional surrender debate.
Moreover, he neglects to point out that Hull on July 16 asked Byrnes the following about offering assurances for the emperor, "Would it be well first to await the climax of allied bombing and Russia's entry into the war?" Clearly Hull's concern here is about timing rather than principle. (See pp. 305-308) That Hull wanted to couple assurances for the Emperor with the military shock of Russian entry or Allied bombardment is further reinforced by Grew's cable to Byrnes on the following day (see pp. 307-308).
Even the little influence on the administration that Hull did possess--through his contact with Byrnes--did not seem to amount to much. Byrnes quipped to John Foster Dulles in August 1945, "Cordell Hull was `My dear friend' but was never Secretary of State..."(p. 307) This was hardly an indication that Hull had any decisive influence over Byrnes. Indeed, Hull apparently made little impression on Byrnes regarding his opposition to modifying unconditional surrender since Byrnes told NBC producer Fred Freed in a 1964 interview that he did not even "remember that Cordell Hull took any active position [on unconditional surrender] after I became secretary. I know, however, that he shared the views of--in great part of Undersecretary Grew who believed firmly . . . that it would be unwise for us to insist upon the ousting of the emperor. . . ." Obviously Byrnes' memory does not square completely with the documentary evidence, but his characterization of Hull's position only makes it clearer that Hull did not make any strong impression upon Byrnes in this area.
Finally, it is useful to recall a passage from The Decision (p.312) that sharpens the consequences of withholding a statement on the Emperor for domestic political reasons:
"Few authors who have urged that "politics" explains why Byrnes and Truman eliminated the critical portion of paragraph twelve have openly confronted the implications of their theory--namely, that for (possibly modest) domestic political gains (not for military reasons or to save lives) 200,000 or more people, mostly civilians, may ultimately have been sacrificed. (And, of course, if saving U.S. lives was the primary objective, the decision, as the Joint Chiefs made clear, only added to the obstacles standing in the way of an end to the fighting.)"
If one makes the case that Truman couldn't offer assurances for the Emperor because of possible domestic political consequences, which the documents show the president did not see as overwhelming, then one is making the unsavory inference that Truman was willing to sacrifice American lives for his own political gain--since withholding assurances meant the Japanese would fight on. Saving lives should have been the weightier factor for the president and was surely his responsibility, even if it came at a political cost.
SUZUKI'S SPEECH
10/10: John Bonnett pointed to the Suzuki statement as a sign of Japanese intransigence: "Consider for example Prime Minister Suzuki's statement made on July 30, 1945, in the wake of the Potsdam declaration:
For the enemy to say something like that [the Potsdam Declaration] means circumstances have risen that force them also to end the war. That is why they are talking about unconditional surrender. Precisely at a time like this, if we hold firm, then they will yield before we do. Just because they broadcast their Declaration, it is not necessary to stop the fighting. You advisors may ask me to reconsider, but I don't think there is any need to stop [the war].
Note the crucial point. Suzuki is not emphasizing the status of the Emperor. His concern is the U.S. will to fight. His inference is that it is about to collapse. His implication is Japan can gain better peace terms."
RESPONSE: Bonnett is overlooking the context in which this statement was made. During the period in which the Japanese were still awaiting the Soviet response to their peace overture, the official position was to "withhold" final comment on the Potsdam Declaration. The hard-liners believed that they could get better terms if: 1) the Soviet Union could be persuaded to remain neutral; and, 2) if the neutral Soviets could act as intermediary with the Allies. Washington, of course, knew the Soviets were about to turn against the Japanese and thus pull the rug out from under the hardliners. Because the overtures to the Soviet Union were top secret (and political dynamite) Suzuki could only tell the press on July 28 that he would "ignore" (mokusatsu) the Declaration. The premier was also warned by the military that morale of the soldiers at the front would be hurt if the government seemed to be debating the terms. Thus Suzuki's public statements seem clearly to have been made, at least in significant part, with a view toward Japanese morale, while privately we know that the hardliners, as well as the peace faction, were eagerly awaiting news from Moscow. To interpret such politically charged statements as definitive evidence of a determined view is simply to ignore the evolving situation, the context, and the political environment of the time (see chapter 32).
HIROHITO'S ROLE IN ENDING THE WAR
11/1: Lou Coatney wrote in H-Japan: "Even though [the atomic bombs] were (so far) no worse than the "conventional" firebombings, they gave Hirohito the *qualitative* difference in weapons he needed to explain/excuse his demand for surrender to General Anami and his cohorts and to the Japanese people. Nothing epitomizes the arrogance of Gar Alperovitz and other Hiroshima revisionists more clearly than their attempt to second-guess even Emperor Hirohito ... who was, after all, the one person most responsible for obtaining Japan's surrender ... and really the *only* person able to obtain it."
RESPONSE: Mr. Coatney is quite right in citing the importance of Hirohito's decision to terminate the war. Unfortunately, he omits the fact that the Emperor told the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War in late June that the war should be ended. At the insistence of the hardliners, however, the war council decided to try to obtain more favorable terms through Soviet assistance. It is this overture (made possible by the Emperor's support) that was reported and tracked in the mid-July MAGIC intercepts. The news that the Emperor--the paramount source of legitimacy in Japan--had decided it was time to end the war gave US leaders great encouragement. Well before the first bomb was dropped the Japanese were still waiting for the Soviet reply to their request for mediation to end the war. It is in this pre-bomb context that Walter Brown noted in his August 3 diary entry: "Aboard Augusta/President, Leahy, JFB [Byrnes] agrred [sic] Japas [sic] looking for peace. (Leahy had another report from Pacific) President afraid they will sue for peace through Russia instead of some country like Sweden."
Moreover, it was the Soviet declaration of war that was cited in the "Japanese Army General Staff statement on surrender" intercepted through MAGIC: "As a result of Russia's entrance into the war, the Empire, in the fourth year of its [war] endeavor, is faced with a struggle for the existence of the nation." The atomic bomb was neither mentioned in the Army message nor cited as reason for the surrender negotiations (see pp. 418-419). To recall, the 1946 War Department Military Intelligence Division's study concluded that had the atomic bomb not been available or not been used, it is "almost a certainty that the Japanese would have capitulated upon the entry of Russia into the war" (pp. 84-85).
But the key question is: were the atomic bombings necessary to bring a quick Japanese surrender, thus saving lives on both sides? The Decision does not attempt to argue one way or the other whether the bombings or the Russians were what finally tipped the balance (see the Afterword in The Decision). What is important is whether it was understood that a change of terms plus the Russian attack would do it without the bombs. This is the critical issue; and on this the evidence now seems clear: the president was advised that the "two-step" strategy of awaiting the Russian attack and clarifying the Emperor's position seemed likely to end the war. And, to repeat, there were three months to go to see if this was so before even stage one of the invasion could begin.
THE IMPACT OF A SOVIET DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST JAPAN
10/10: Eric Bergerud wrote: " The author greatly overstates the "shock effect" of the Soviet declaration of war. Like so many left wing journalists and historians since 1945, Alperovitz stresses the crucial importance of the Soviet entry into the war in August 1945. . . .If Russia attacked, so what? The war party knew that China & Manchuria was lost. As previously noted, they were trying to protect the Showa dictatorship, not a dead empire. When the attack came, it surprised no one in the military. The bomb, however, was utterly different. It was a serious shock and immediately recognized as a new and devastating weapon. The military might have been willing to fight on regardless, but there can be no doubt that the bomb was precious ammunition for Suzuki, Kido and Hirohito. Not only could they get the decision to accept the Potsdam Declaration, but they also were able to force the Army to accept the decision. That was no mean feat."
RESPONSE: Bergerud seems to prefer his speculation to the documents of the time--and, too, to ascribe left-wing motives to ideas which in fact had their origins within the top ranks of the U.S. military. As The Decision shows, the idea that the Russian attack would shock Japan into surrender derives from U.S. intelligence and military advice within the government. Foreign Minister Togo summed up the Japanese situation in an early June MAGIC intercept (pp. 121-122):
"f Russia by some chance should suddenly decide to take advantage of our weakness and intervene against us with force of arms, we would be in a completely hopeless situation. It is clear as day that the Imperial Army in Manchukuo would be completely unable to oppose the Red Army which has just won a great victory and is superior to us on all points."
See also: Herbert Bix, in an important article in Diplomatic History (Spring 1995), discussed the effect of the massive Soviet entry into the war against Japan (see DH, pp. 218 and 224). And, here is how a top secret 1946 study by the War Department's Military Intelligence Division characterized it:
"While the Japanese were awaiting an answer from Russia, there occurred the disastrous event which the Japanese leaders regarded as utter catastrophe and which they had energetically sought to prevent at any cost--Russia declared war upon Japan and began moving her forces into Manchuria."
The study went on to state:
"The Emperor and the advisors immediately surrounding the throne had come to a decision to end the war as early as 20 June 1945 and by 9 August, the date of Russia's entry into the war, were actively attempting to carry out this decision...The Japanese leaders had decided to surrender and were merely looking for sufficient pretext to convince the die-hard Army Group that Japan had lost the war and must capitulate to the Allies. The entry of Russia into the war would almost certainly have furnished this pretext, and would have been sufficient to convince all responsible leaders that surrender was unavoidable....The war would almost certainly have terminated when Russia entered the war against Japan."
Indeed, even a casual reading of pre-August 6 newspapers and periodicals from 1945 (across the political spectrum) shows that if the Soviet Union attacked it would be a devastating blow against Japan. It is important to remember that prior to August 6 the world had no knowledge of the atomic bomb and thus the "conventional wisdom" was that a modification of unconditional surrender and the possible Soviet declaration of war were the best means to end the war prior to an invasion. I would argue that this is precisely the course of action that would have been followed if the bomb had failed to work. See chapters 7-9 for a discussion of Soviet entry as well chapters 32-34 for a discussion of the final weeks of the war. See also "Hiroshima, the American Media, and the Construction of Conventional Wisdom," in The Journal of American-East Asian Relations (Summer 1995) by Uday Mohan and Sanho Tree.
and the military, he officially retained at all times supreme command over all of Japan, and it was to him that the Big Six turned when they could not decide on a course of action regarding surrender, after the nukes had been dropped.
shifty
