UNCONDITIONAL

The tortuous history behind America’s decision to insist on Japan’s unconditional surrender.

In this tightly focused narrative, history professor Gallicchio writes that when Franklin Roosevelt announced in 1943 that the war would end when Germany and Japan surrendered unconditionally, few objected. It became a controversy in 1945 when Japan’s defeat seemed inevitable to everyone except Japanese leaders, who maintained that all their countrymen would die before surrendering. Two administration camps existed. Secretary of War Henry Stimson led those convinced that Japanese leaders were more likely to surrender if assured that the emperor would keep his throne. Dean Acheson, who would become secretary of state in 1949, led those who argued that this would prolong the war by convincing the enemy that America was weakening. Harry Truman listened but did nothing, and the Navy was lukewarm to any assurance. Having annihilated enemy naval and air defenses, Navy leaders were certain that a blockade would starve Japan into submission. Army leaders, led by Gen. George Marshall, argued that this would take years and that war-weary Americans would lose heart. In any case, public opinion supported unconditional surrender. The Army argued for an invasion of the home island, an immense project. In the end, a second atomic bomb and the Soviet invasion persuaded Japan to give in. Its offer to surrender included a clause protecting the emperor, which the U.S. rejected, returning a softened version that Japanese leaders, after heated debate, accepted. But as the author points out, the controversy persisted. During the war and until the 1960s, advocates of modifying unconditional surrender were conservatives who proclaimed this would save American lives while liberals protested that “the real aim of the ‘emperor worshippers’…was to maintain Japan as a bulwark against Russia and revolution.” After the ’60s, matters reversed when liberal “revisionist” histories claimed that Japan was on the verge of surrendering and that Truman brushed off the evidence and insisted on dropping the bombs to intimidate Russia.

A definitive account of complex political maneuvering that accomplished little.