Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (123 page)

Also on July 28, when the allegedly moderate senior statesman Navy Minister Yonai, was asked by his secretary, Rear Admiral Takagi, why the prime minister had been allowed to make such an absurd statement, Yonai replied: “If one is first to issue a statement, he is always at a disadvantage. Churchill has fallen, America is beginning to be isolated. The government therefore will ignore it. There is no need to rush.”
⁴⁶

“No need to rush” directly contravened Article 5 of the Potsdam Declaration (“We shall brook no delay”) and was a position that further supported the contemporary Western idea that, as of July 28, the Japanese, following the leadership of their emperor, had neither reversed their decision nor loosened their will to fight to the finish, while making vague overtures for peace on a separate track.
⁴⁷
Suzuki's intention was not misunderstood.

The Americans now accelerated their preparations for the use of atomic bombs and for an invasion of southern Kyushu—termed Operation Olympic—scheduled to begin on November 1. At 8:15
A.M
. on August 6 a single B-29 destroyed much of the undefended city of Hiroshima, immediately killing an estimated 100,000 to 140,000 people and taking the lives (over the next five years) of
perhaps another 100,000.
⁴⁸
At the center of the explosion a “light appeared 3,000 times brighter than the sun,” and a fireball formed, emitting thermal radiation that “instantly scorched humans, trees, houses. As the air heated and rushed upward, cold air flowed in to ignite a firestorm…. [Hours later] a whirlwind whipped the flames to their peak until more than eight square miles were virtually in cinders. Black, muddy rain, full of radioactive fallout, began to drop.”
⁴⁹

Two days later, citing as a pretext Japan's rejection of the Potsdam Declaration, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan.
⁵⁰
On August 9 the United States dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, immediately killing approximately 35,000 to 40,000 people and injuring more than 60,000.
⁵¹
That same day, in a nationwide radio report on the Potsdam Conference, President Truman gave full expression to the vengeful mood of most Americans:

Meanwhile in Tokyo, during the crucial interval between the Potsdam Declaration and the August 6 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Hirohito himself said and did nothing about accepting the Potsdam terms. Twice, however, on July 25 and 31, he had made clear to Kido that the imperial regalia had to be defended at all costs.
⁵³
The three sacred objects—consisting of a mirror, curved jewel, and sword—symbolized the legitimacy of his rule through the northern court, and were integral to his sense of being the occupant of the throne by divine right. He wanted to protect them by
having them brought to the palace. Fixated on his symbols of office when the big issue was whether to accept immediate capitulation, Hirohito was unprepared to seize the moment and end the war on his own.

Prime Minister Suzuki, after his initial rejection of the Potsdam ultimatum, also saw no need to do anything further. His Cabinet Advisory Council, composed of the president of Asano Cement, the founder of the Nissan consortium, the vice president of the Bank of Japan, and other representatives of the nation's leading business interests who had profited greatly from the war, met on the morning of August 3. They recommended acceptance of the Potsdam terms on the ground that the United States would allow Japan to retain its nonmilitary industries and participate in world trade. Suzuki replied to them at a cabinet meeting that afternoon. According to Minister of Agriculture and Commerce Ishiguro Tadaatsu, Suzuki's friend and defender, Suzuki told the head of the Cabinet Intelligence Bureau and advisory council member Shimomura Kainan:

So for ten days, while Hirohito kept himself relatively secluded, the Potsdam Declaration was “ignored.” The bombs were dropped, and Soviet forces invaded along a wide front from northern Manchuria to Korea. Then Foreign Minister T
g
Shigenori, not a dove by any stretch of the imagination, persuaded the emperor that the declaration in itself really signified
conditional
surrender, not
unconditional, though he probably had his own doubts about that interpretation. With that sticking point out of the way, Hirohito, strongly assisted by Kido, took the gamble and authorized T
g
to notify the world that Japan would accept the Allied terms with only one condition, “that the said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler.” The next day, August 11, Secretary of State Byrnes replied to this first surrender communication by alluding to the subordination of the emperor's authority to the supreme commander of the Allied Powers, thereby leaving intact the vitally important principle of unconditional surrender. However, since Byrnes did not clearly answer the Japanese on the emperor's future status, his reply could also be seen as hinting that the emperor's position might be maintained after surrender.

At that point another dispute erupted among the leaders in Tokyo over the meaning of the Byrnes reply, forcing Hirohito to rule once again, on August 14, in favor of acceptance. Afterward he went before a microphone and recorded his capitulation announcement, which was broadcast to the Japanese nation at noon on August 15. By then victor and vanquished had entered into a noncontractual relationship based on the unconditional surrender principle, and the main concern of the moderates had already shifted to divorcing him from both his actual conduct of the war and the unrealistic thinking and failed policies that had brought Japan to defeat.

Why did Japan's top leaders delay so long before finally telling their people that they had “bow[ed] to the inevitable” and surrendered without negotiation? If Grew and the critics of unconditional surrender had had their way in May, June, or even July and had cut a deal on the issue of guaranteeing the dynasty, would Japan's leaders then have surrendered immediately? Or was there not more to this issue than meets the eye?

II

The conventional treatment of Emperor Hirohito's role in ending the war presents Japan's request for Soviet mediation—the Hir
ta K
ti–Jacob Malik talks—and the secret messages that Foreign Minister T
g
sent to Ambassador Sat
Naotake in Moscow, as serious attempts to surrender. Yet the participants in these peace overtures, which went on through June, July, and early August, perceived them as a tactic that would merely delay the inevitable capitulation. Only Hirohito, anguishing over the prospect of losing sovereignty, and the army high command had inflated expectations about the Soviets.