phaedrus

"Unconditional surrender" was rhetoric intended for domestic political consumption. The Allied offer was surrender offer was conditional and limited. Togo, Suzuki, Kase, and Sato all understood the declaration's plain language, but the Japanese military willfully misunderstood it as you do today.

They did? Go read the telegrams and you will know what they understood. With regard to Kase’s cable, will require.

In other words, Japanese diplomats knew perfectly well what was going on and exactly what "unconditional surrender" really meant.

One man, kase’s interpretation is now (thought would be nice if one could see the actual cable) equivalent to the understanding of ALL Japanese diplomats??

Phaed, we're not even a third into this discussion and you've already fallen for three different propaganda campaigns.

Talk normal.

it is basic knowledge of the war. The cable I cited above is known word for word because MAGIC intercepted it as cable H-199392. The fact that you do not know this extremely basic fact speaks volumes, Phaed.

Whats wrong with you? Read what I wrote… And again I would like links for your interpretations that “Washington [k]new perfectly well that Kase was acting on his own, and against Tokyo's wishes? Now you say there is a cable which is the source for this exact statement. How can a cable that magic intercepted have these words????? ““Washington [k]new perfectly well that Kase was acting on his own, and against Tokyo's wishes” That is a frikkin interpretation and not the cable message itself, which I am sure you will be able to provide, instead of giving me a link to bruce’s excerpts.

There was no peace group. There were some lower-ranking types who attempted to get organized, but the peaceniks in the Japanese government operated as a loose collection of individuals. The "peace group" is an invention of postwar propaganda. See any good book on the war, I commend you to Weintraub.

yawn, again this is nothing but, I-am-saying-this-is-true-so-its-true. Weintraub was a nice chap, but one doesn’t have to agree with everything he writes, when there are enough other authors who beg to differ.

Leahy was one man among many making policy, and his opinion in his opinion. Do you know how many people I could find with the opposite opinion.

You haven’t answered the question, why is it out of context? And there were enough people looking for a peaceful solution

Because, unlike you, I understand the political context of the Survey's claim. And unlike you, I actually have read all the relevant cables, since I have read both Lee and Weintraub.

Err, then give the content of those cables. Political context, bull, what do you understand? Just what you want to believe is true?

You do realize what this quote testifies to? First, that most people were against Leahy's position. Second, that Leahy was too clueless to understand ¡V as Japanese diplomats did ¡V that ¡§unconditional surrender¡¨ was typical US propaganda designed strictly for home front consumption. In reality the terms were conditional.

Err….don’t you comprehend what I posted? And why is he “clueless” ? Coz he was right? Seriously don’t understand your approach to history. How can you sit here today and judge what a person was They are minutes of a meeting not some public speech. You read too many conspiracy theories

Not one word here address any points I made. (1) the Japanese cut off US offers (2) the Japanese and US maintained 24-7 relations in Switzerland, so no feelers necessary, they had direct communication.

1. They did? Which ones? I remember reading an article where Shigemitsu, met up with Swedish ambassador bagge in Tokyo and asked him to find out the terms (without unconditional surrender clause), but they didn’t get any response. Let me try to find it ……and then wasn’t there a peace feeler through a Japanese diplomat in Portugal that was reported by OSS? 2. have you forgotten kase and William Donovan?

Wainstock¡¦s book is fraught with silly errors, such as getting the number a-bombs we possessed on Tinian Island wrong, so it is not surprising that he gets this wrong too.

In The last great victory, weintraub also made some errors like “mistaking Kuriles for the Ryukyu chain of islands; Hiroshima is not "close to the southern tip of Honshu" but 100 miles away; Thailand was not occupied by Japan but was an ally “. So you are willing to dismiss his work also in the same vein? If one takes a look at this review of his other book where its points out the numerous errors, should the book be thrown in the garbage can?

As we saw above, the unconditional surrender formula was well-understood in Tokyo by experienced hands like Kase, Sato, Togo, and even Suzuki.

Another mistake Wainstock makes, you know. The Emperor did want to fight to the end.

That’s what you think, the cables between sato and togo, don’t indicate that. Go “read” them. No one has an issue with the emperor’s character, the issue is “did he want to fight till the end?” or was he trying to send out peace feelers? I wonder when Americans knew what the Japanese concerns were, why didn’t they say, the emperor can stay on ? (which is what happened in the end)

On August 8, my friend, Soviet units crossed into Manchuria. The news reached Tokyo on the 9th.

They declared the war on 8th

To end the war, scare the shit out of the Soviets, annihilate valuable military targets, and test them on a city.

I thought all this while your argument was that Truman ordered the nuking only to “avoid American causalities since Japanese were not willing to surrender”? Why the change of heart? All the other objectives don’t exactly justify the killing of civilians rights?

Hiroshima, definitely.

Then why Nagasaki? Am sure you have a perfectly valid reason for that?

I've already explained why you've fallen for emotive propaganda, but it is worth highlighting this: ¡§the unconditional surrender of all the Japanese armed forces.¡¨ Apparently the Japanese are capable of reading plain English, but you are not.

Sigh and as I can see you have fallen for you own propaganda. If you read all those cables you will be able to understand better the concerns Japanese had which were evident in their cables. Hasn’t there been enough indications that the Japanese were worried about what it all meant?

I feel sorry for them. Because they don't like the surrender, they get to kill another 50,000 Chinese in that week.

Yeah, by being stubborn and adamant, the US was able to push the Japanese into a corner so that they could test their new toys and kill civilans.

Hoyt makes this claim, without any support. Provide the support. You keep making this claim, but I see no evidence. Meanwhile I can offer you twenty kilometers of tunnels under 3 mountains in Nagano prefecture, and 4,000 known facilities throughout Japan for a similar purpose as one small piece of evidence among thousands for fighting to the bitter end.

Don’t you see your problem here? The truth is what you like and the remaining is propaganda or some wild conspiracy to do this or that. Regarding the existence of facilities and fighting till the end and that being the evidence I have already commented.

A typical example of Japanese propaganda at work, admirably dissected in numerous articles on the story. Harwit, as he himself inadvertently confesses in his book, was almost completely controlled by the Japanese during this.

Sigh being sensitive to other’s emotions is not propaganda. You have to be a raving fundie to think like that. In the same article, this is what it says about “American sensitivity” and why he was sacked

And who can forget the open letter written by the historians?

Hiroshima had to be destroyed, it was a major military HQ whose population was one-third soldiers and which was the major transshipment point for the defense of Kyushu, whose invasion was scheduled for the fall.

Oh, so the American establishment had thought that if the Japanese don’t surrender after we kill all those civilians, we will invade later. All those civilian deaths are acceptable. Wasn’t the invasion of Kyushu and coronet later, an alternative to dropping the bomb?

I agree. But unlike you, I understand that this event has been the subject of an intense propaganda campaign on both sides. Japan has been hard at work on this event, a plan that goes back to the instructions wired out to japan¡¦s diplomats on September 15, 1945, that urges them to use humanists and leftists to make the west think the bomb was an unnecessary atrocity. This was intercepted by MAGIC, of course.

That is GREAT. They surrendered but still were able to send out the message and Americans who intercepted this message decided not to do anything, because they wanted the whole world to think that they were inhuman and barbarians to be dropping nukes on civilians? That makes sense alright.

By doing what you have not done, and studying the issue from every angle. I started out where you are, in that delightful combination of moral indignation that goes with complete ignorance. Then I had to teach the Bomb decision for a class on the WWII I was teaching...and being conscientious, researched everything. And then I realized that I had been, like you, the victim of a relentless propaganda campaign by the Japanese.

You poor thing, what ordeal you went through. And don’t the Americans have to be idiots to let Japanese spread their propaganda after they had apparently surrendered? What happened to the American propaganda machinery?

BTW, still no sign of the legendary Japanese peace plan. I know I'll never see it, because there wasn't one. The Japanese would not have ended the war without the Bombs, because only the Emperor could end the war (he was, after all, the one who ordered it).

Saw that line almost like a kid’s rant after each paragraph. Where did I ever say there was a “peace plan” ? I gave you the facts about the peace feelers and if the American leaders of those days had given some serious thought and time to the peace feelers, they could have averted the disaster.

And the Emperor did not change his mind until after Hiroshima. See the August 7th meeting with Togo, where the Emperor, referencing Hiroshima, told Togo the war had to end and to convene a meeting the next day. The military refused to show, and the meeting was postponed until the 9th, when Nagasaki and the Soviet invasion had occurred. If the military had not "had more important things to do" the war would have ended a day early and Nagasaki would have been spared.

Yup, and maybe if Americans pursued the peace route both Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been spared. The last ditch coup attempt by some of military leaders does point out as to why the doves couldn’t have won earlier and the Americans didn’t make their task easier, by not giving some leeway with regard to the surrender terms.

phaedrus

Point taken regd IHR...guess i was being lazy, was trying to get the full text of the old article. Anyhow the main issue is not IHR, its Walter Trohan's article in Chicago Tribune. What say you on that?

Ignored Japanese Peace Bids Plague U.S., West with What Might Have Been, Chicago Tribune, 8/14/65

Bare Peace Bid U.S. Rebuffed 7 Months Ago, Chicago Tribune, 8/19/45, pg. 1

Phaed, you have taken a severe thumping on this thread. Most people simply leave or do not bother to reply after a thumping like this. I hope you do neither.

The fact of the matter is that you simply do not know enough to swim in these waters, and what you are crucially lacking is knowledge of the Japanese side. Like you, I read all the A-bomb revisionist stuff and sucked it up in my younger, dumber days. But you will note that it is relentlessly focused on the American side. That is a deliberate propaganda move on the part of the Japanese. By taking themselves out of the equation, they make themselves into passive victims of American aggression. The reality is that again and again the Japanese nixed peace feelers started out by people on their own side, in which the Americans had shown interest. Most telling of all, they nixed the Fujimura peace feeler to Dulles because Fujimura lied and said that Dulles had approached him. In other words, the Japanese killed it because the Americans had initiated it. A clue there about what is really going on.

My My, again lingo. will refrain here and just point out that i wonder why american adminstration let the propaganda perpetuate when they have such a good propaganda machine in place. And regarding dulles, here is something i found
http://www.webster.sk.ca/GREENWICH/DULLES.HTM

Edited to add....start of the month...too many things on the plate...so responses will be late.

Vorkosigan

• Vork:"Unconditional surrender" was rhetoric intended for domestic political consumption. The Allied offer was surrender offer was conditional and limited. Togo, Suzuki, Kase, and Sato all understood the declaration's plain language, but the Japanese military willfully misunderstood it as you do today.
  
  Phaed: They did? Go read the telegrams and you will know what they understood. With regard to Kase’s cable, will require.

Phaed, that was Kase's analysis I included, a line by line decomposition of the Potsdam Declaration. Kase knew perfectly well what it said. In addition to the text of the telegram itself, there were also the famous Zacharias broadcasts which also explained that unconditional surrender was...well...conditional.

Vork: In other words, Japanese diplomats knew perfectly well what was going on and exactly what "unconditional surrender" really meant.

Phaed: One man, kase’s interpretation is now (thought would be nice if one could see the actual cable) equivalent to the understanding of ALL Japanese diplomats??

Phaed, I included several other diplomats in the list -- all of the top men from among the "peace faction" understood this, and they made their understandings clear. Do you think I am making this up? From Weintraub The Last Great Victory (p.265, emphasis in original):

...the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War met a Premier Suzuki's request. To his "inner cabinet" he explained the very positive shift he saw from the unconditional surrender of Japan called for earlier to the unconditional surender of the armed forces. The imperial structure, as Suzuki saw it, had been rescued, and it would be "extremely impolitic" to reject what amounted to an offer to preserve the key political institution of the Empire.

That's the Premier, Suzuki. Obviously he understood. Weintraub then relates that Togo took the floor, then Anami, the leader of the war faction and the leader of the military, then Togo again. Togo explained Suzuki's understanding, and added some observations of his own.

That's Kase, Togo, Suzuki, Sato -- see the cable I included in the last post. Others also knew and understood, but they were small fry. In the meetings at this time, the military also understood. How do I know? Because when they agreed to a release of the text to the public, they deleted the Allied guarantees of Japan's preservation and economic survival. If the military did not understand what these meant, why did they censor them in the release for the Japanese public? In other words, the military wanted to continue the war, and actively sought to discourage public support for peace.

I know this is difficult for you to handle, as you have been raised on the Japanese propaganda campaign and its leftist allies and dupes around the world. It was one of the left's great errors that it fell for the lies of Japanese facism.

Talk normal.

• Vork: it is basic knowledge of the war. The cable I cited above is known word for word because MAGIC intercepted it as cable H-199392. The fact that you do not know this extremely basic fact speaks volumes, Phaed.
  
  Whats wrong with you? Read what I wrote… And again I would like links for your interpretations that “Washington [k]new perfectly well that Kase was acting on his own, and against Tokyo's wishes? Now you say there is a cable which is the source for this exact statement. How can a cable that magic intercepted have these words????? ?Washington [k]new perfectly well that Kase was acting on his own, and against Tokyo's wishes?That is a frikkin interpretation and not the cable message itself, which I am sure you will be able to provide, instead of giving me a link to bruce’s excerpts.

Washington knew that because it was reading ALL the diplomatic and almost all the military traffic. Thus, it had a pretty good picture of what was going on. It knew from the orders and inquiries that Kase was getting that his effort was entirely his own and not his government's. He had no orders. Also -- small problem -- Kase's peace urgings never reached the Americans. Can you tell me which American officials Kase contacted?

As Weintraub writes, on US analysis of the diplomatic cables (usually on Truman's desk within 48-72 hours)...."Reading the intercepts, Secretary of the Navy Forrestal was coldly amused 'that Russia would be impressed by Japanese willingness to give up territory which she had already lost" (p. 66) "Because of Magic, Truman was well aware of Japan's predicament."

Phaedrus, every single time Japan's ambassadors pleaded with the central government to surrender, Washington knew, sometimes before Tokyo did. That's how Washington knew that Japan would not surrender. It knew because it had cables like the July 16 cable, which said "Unconditional Surrender will only mean that our national structure and people will be destroyed...we must...fight to the last." That day the War Council authorized a resolution calling for the death of The Hundred Million -- all the people in Japan. These are people you claim are giving out "peace feelers."

• Vork: There was no peace group. There were some lower-ranking types who attempted to get organized, but the peaceniks in the Japanese government operated as a loose collection of individuals. The "peace group" is an invention of postwar propaganda. See any good book on the war, I commend you to Weintraub.
  
  yawn, again this is nothing but, I-am-saying-this-is-true-so-its-true. Weintraub was a nice chap, but one doesn’t have to agree with everything he writes, when there are enough other authors who beg to differ.

From your position of lofty ignorance, having read none of the standard histories, and completely and totally unfamiliar with the most basic aspects of the war and the Japanese side of it, nevertheless, you are sure I am wrong.

Fine, no problem. Supply me with the names of men in this hardworking, organized group that had a positive policy for which all worked together as a team.

You haven¡¦t answered the question, why is it out of context?

LOL. It¡¦s one passage. Did you see a context supplied? I didn¡¦t. That¡¦s how I know it is out of context.

And there were enough people looking for a peaceful solution

Quite true. And guess what. Not a single one had the power to make a decision. The war was Hirohito¡¦s, and only he could stop it.

Err, then give the content of those cables. Political context, bull, what do you understand? Just what you want to believe is true?

<sigh> All you keep doing is saying ¡§You¡¦re wrong! Nyah! Nyah! Have you bothered to read up on the debates on Strategic Air Power after WWII and the procurement issues in a military being demobilized? The Air Force was trying to position itself to keep the Strategic Bomber alive in the nuclear age. Hence the conclusion that it Japan would have surrendered without invasion, A-bombs, or Russian invasion. BTW, did you find their rationale for that? Guess what! That¡¦s cuz they never gave one.

Phaed: Err?don’t you comprehend what I posted? And why is he “clueless?? Coz he was right? Seriously don’t understand your approach to history. How can you sit here today and judge what a person was They are minutes of a meeting not some public speech. You read too many conspiracy theories

Phaed, Leahy did not understand what all the major Japanese diplomats ¡V Sato, Togo, Kase and Suzuki, the Premier, understood: that Unconditional Surrender was conditional. That is why he was clueless. And regardless of whether they are meeting minutes or not, Leahy¡¦s state of mind is not relevant.. What¡¦s relevant is what the Japanese did. And they rejected every peace initiative started by their own underlings and the US.

• Not one word here address any points I made. (1) the Japanese cut off US offers (2) the Japanese and US maintained 24-7 relations in Switzerland, so no feelers necessary, they had direct communication.

Phaed:They did? Which ones? I remember reading an article where Shigemitsu, met up with Swedish ambassador bagge in Tokyo and asked him to find out the terms (without unconditional surrender clause), but they didn¡¦t get any response. Let me try to find it ?and then wasn¡¦t there a peace feeler through a Japanese diplomat in Portugal that was reported by OSS? Have you forgotten kase and William Donovan?

Phaed, all of them were cut off by the Japanese. The Portugal thing, I believe you¡¦ve confused Fujimura¡¦s attempt through Dulles in Berne. That was killed in July, when he was told by his Navy superior, Yonai, to ¡§take, at least outwardly, no further part in the matter.¡¨ Shigemitsu¡¦s position on the Unconditional Surrender is absolutely irrelevant; as I have already demonstrated, the decision makers all knew perfectly well. In any case, as I have said several times, what Unconditional Surrender meant was carefully explained to Japan in a series of broadcasts, articles and letters to the editor in the Washington Post (forwarded by Kase to Tokyo). See Weintraub¡¦s discussion of July 22, 1945. That the Japanese understood was illustrated by a broadcast made in response. That initiative too was killed by Tokyo.

Note: Shigemitsu¡¦s initiative to Bagge was shut down by Togo, his successor in the Suzuki government, not the Americans. Togo was convinced that Sweden was too small to intercede effectively. Shigemitsu was Foreign Minister under Koiso and before Togo.

In The last great victory, weintraub also made some errors like istaking Kuriles for the Ryukyu chain of islands: Hiroshima is not "close to the southern tip of Honshu" but 100 miles away;

So long a distance! 100 miles! On an island arc 1500 miles long¡K.

Thailand was not occupied by Japan but was an ally ?

Thailand was occupied by Japanese troops who made sure that it was an ¡§ally.¡¨

• Vork: Another mistake Wainstock makes, you know. The Emperor did want to fight to the end.
  
  Phaed: That is what you think, the cables between sato and togo, don¡¦t indicate that. Go “read?them. No one has an issue with the emperor¡¦s character, the issue is did he want to fight till the end??or was he trying to send out peace feelers?

LOL. What makes you think that Sato and Togo knew anything about the Emperor¡¦s mind? The Emperor was in the war faction and planned the war from the beginning. Many of the initial targets in the Japanese onslaught were places he visited in his one major overseas trip ¡V not ¡§cities¡¨ but sites within them, waterworks, etc. Bergamini points this out in Japan¡¦s Imperial Conspiracy. See also Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. Here are some indicators of the Emperor¡¦s mind: in addition to following the war closely, he visited the biowarfare labs and signed off on the research. He had ten miles of tunnels constructed under mountains near Tokyo by slave labor so he could stash himself there and continue the war (but later appears to have had second thoughts on this point). He was in close contact with the war faction. He rebuffed all Peace suggestions. And he NEVER sent out a single peace feeler. NOT ONE. Find one for me, Phaed.

I wonder when Americans knew what the Japanese concerns were, why didn¡¦t they say, the emperor can stay on ? (which is what happened in the end)[/list]
Phaed! Are we talking about the same war! The Americans repeatedly assured Japan that the Emperor could stay on. Again, for the umpteenth time, see the whole saga of the Zacharias broadcasts and the accompanying print material. See also the Potsdam Declaration which was carefully worded.

I thought all this while your argument was that Truman ordered the nuking only to “avoid American causalities since Japanese were not willing to surrender? Why the change of heart? All the other objectives don¡¦t exactly justify the killing of civilians rights?

No, they don¡¦t. But they were happy fallout from the first and most important reason, which was to end the war. Like I said, the Bomb had to satisfy several demands.

Hiroshima, definitely.

Then why Nagasaki? Am sure you have a perfectly valid reason for that?

It was a major industrial city. And was originally slated for destruction a couple of weeks later, but the drop was moved up due to the weather. But Nagasaki should not have happened, as I said above. I have no quarrel with the selection of it as a target.

Sigh and as I can see you have fallen for you own propaganda. If you read all those cables you will be able to understand better the concerns Japanese had which were evident in their cables. Hasn’t there been enough indications that the Japanese were worried about what it all meant?

All irrelevant because as I have pointed out again and again, both the Peace and the War faction understood what Potsdam meant. Period. As their words and actions all indicate. By July 27, 1945, the entire high level of the Japanese government knew perfectly well everything the Allies meant. Not only did the leadership know, but the Allies dropped millions of leaflets explaining it carefully to the Japanese people, with the complete text, not the censored one the military handed out. Japanese ¡§worry¡¨ about Unconditional Surrender was a smokescreen designed to obscure the military¡¦s desire to continue the war even to the destruction of the people of Japan. You can accept, as I do, that the military was dancing to Hirohito¡¦s tune, or that they were acting independently as was assumed until Bergamini and Bix published. Either way, the outcome is the same.

Yeahh, by being stubborn and adamant, the US was able to push the Japanese into a corner so that they could test their new toys and kill civilans.
Evidence. Can you cite the peace feelers rejected by the United States?

Don’t you see your problem here? The truth is what you like and the remaining is propaganda or some wild conspiracy to do this or that. Regarding the existence of facilities and fighting till the end and that being the evidence I have already commented.

Yes, I see my problem. It is that, no matter what facts I put up regarding the Japanese rejection of numerous peace initiatives by their own people, the clear understanding of Potsdam possessed at the highest levels, the thousands of tunnels, aircraft, in-depth defenses, kamikaze boats and troops sequestered for the defense, the existence of a national militia made up of women and old men for suicide attacks, the Emperor¡¦s refusal to order an end to the war until the Bomb was dropped, and other pieces of information too numerous to collect here, you are going to ignore it all, in favor of the long postwar Japanese propaganda campaign, whose existence is affirmed by all serious writers on the topic ¡V see Fallows, Van Wolferen, McCormack, Hall, etc.

Sigh being sensitive to other’s emotions is not propaganda. You have to be a raving fundie to think like that. In the same article, this is what it says about “American sensitivity?and why he was sacked

Right¡K.and in his ¡§sensitivity¡¨ to the Japanese, he gave them total control of the exhibit. You don¡¦t get it, do you? This ¡§sensitivity¡¨ is something that the Japanese have cultivated as a way of gaining control over well-meaning people. Why do you think people who write and think critically on Japan in the West are constantly attacked as racists and Japan bashers. The Japanese spend millions annually tracking and shaping public opinion in the West, just as we do in the East ¡V I know this because the company I used to work for was part of this effort. You acknowledge one campaign, but not the other. In fact, you simply reject the possibility that the Japanese could ever have such a thing as a ¡§conspiracy.¡¨ Just look at the cynical stalling of the POWs, the slave laborers, the comfort women, the debates over the textbooks in Japan, the Japanese Right¡¦s (whose position is the same as yours) attacks on those who dare speak out, the Japanese government¡¦s failure to acknowledge the biowarfare experiments, the whole debate over the Nanjing (and many other massacres) and so on. Japan carefully controls and frames this issue, and it is not surprising that many in the West on the Left have adopted the Japanese Right¡¦s position on the A-bomb.


nd who can forget the [URL=http://www.historians.org/directory/committees/heymanletter.html]open letter written by the historians?

Who can? It is full of unsubstantiated nonsense. Let¡¦s go over it:

• The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki "destroyed much of the two cities and caused many tens of thousands of deaths." This substantially understates the widely accepted figure that at least 200,000 men, women and children were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

How is ¡§Many ten thousands of deaths¡¨ an underestimate of 200,000?

[I]

• (Official Japanese records calculate a figure of more than 200,000 deaths the vast majority of victims being women, children and elderly men.)

ROFL. Actually, a third the population of Hiroshima was soldiers; it was an Army HQ. The aiming point was Hiroshima Castle, 4,000 fighting men inside. The A-Bomb dome was close by. The Japanese preserved it because to rebuild Hiroshima castle, the true aiming point, would remind everyone that actually Hiroshima was damned warlike. Since ¡§official¡¨ Japanese records are inflated, and official US ones undercounting, nobody really knows how many died.

But let¡¦s go on ¡V I have to skip the next set of points because I have dealt with them all above. The Japanese government was perfectly well aware of what Unconditional Surrender meant.

• In yet another label, the Smithsonian asserts as fact that "Special leaflets were then dropped on Japanese cities three days before a bombing raid to warn civilians to evacuate." The very next sentence refers to the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, implying that the civilian inhabitants of Hiroshima were given a warning. In fact, no evidence has ever been uncovered that leaflets warning atomic attack were dropped on Hiroshima. Indeed, the decision of the Interim Committee was "that we could not give the Japanese any warning."

This one is downright disingenuous. It is quite true that the leaflets did not warn specifically of an atomic weapon. Nevertheless, the Japanese were warned many times, including several days prior to the Bomb, that their cities would be destroyed. The paragraph leaves the impression that no leaflets were dropped. That is quite false. This is what is vulgarly known as a ¡§lie.¡¨

Also, Potsdam warned of ¡§prompt and utter destruction.¡¨

• Defining Hiroshima as a "military" target is analogous to calling San Francisco a "military" target because it has a port and contains the Presidio. James Conant, a member of the Interim Committee that advised President Truman, defined the target for the bomb as a "vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers' houses."[12] There were indeed military factories in Hiroshima, but they lay on the outskirts of the city. Nevertheless, the Enola Gay bombardier's instructions were to target the bomb on the center of this civilian city.

This is also a lie. As an real historian could tell you, Hiroshima was about one-third soldiers, and was the major military HQ responsible for the defense of Kyushu, which most definitely made it a military target. The reason the Bomb was dropped in the city center, is that that¡¦s where the Headquarters was. In fact, it was the aiming point. Phaed, when are you going to learn that the Left lies as often as the Right?

• Vork: Hiroshima had to be destroyed, it was a major military HQ whose population was one-third soldiers and which was the major transshipment point for the defense of Kyushu, whose invasion was scheduled for the fall.
  
  Phaed:Oh, so the American establishment had thought that if the Japanese don’t surrender after we kill all those civilians, we will invade later. All those civilian deaths are acceptable. Wasn’t the invasion of Kyushu and coronet later, an alternative to dropping the bomb?[/b]

That¡¦s right. Phaedrus, we have the luxury of 20-20 hindsight. We know the Bomb ended the war. But the planners in July of 1945 could not have known that. They had to plan for the contingency of failure. So yes, that¡¦s right, if the Bombs failed, they would have had to invade. So the Bomb had to address that possibility. The historian¡¦s letter also lies; Hiroshima was ¡§pristine¡¨ precisely because it had been saved for the Bomb (which those signatories know full well), not because it was an uninteresting target. The invasion was not an ¡¥alternative¡¦ ¡V the Bomb was the alternative to the invasion.

That is GREAT. They surrendered but still were able to send out the message and Americans who intercepted this message decided not to do anything, because they wanted the whole world to think that they were inhuman and barbarians to be dropping nukes on civilians? That makes sense alright.

The cable instructing Japanese diplomats to use all means to persuade humanitarians and other left-types like you and me that the Bomb was unnecessary was sent out on September 15, 1945. The US did DO something, it launched into its own propaganda campaign. Disentangling the claims and counterclaims is between the two sides is a full-time job.

You poor thing, what ordeal you went through. And don’t the Americans have to be idiots to let Japanese spread their propaganda after they had apparently surrendered? What happened to the American propaganda machinery?

It¡¦s in full blast. Both sides are. And I still don¡¦t see any argument at all from your side.

Saw that line almost like a kid’s rant after each paragraph. Where did I ever say there was a “peace plan?? I gave you the facts about the peace feelers and if the American leaders of those days had given some serious thought and time to the peace feelers, they could have averted the disaster.

They did. Unfortunately, the Japanese were not interested in ending the war. As any book on Japan could tell you. Read the Vol II of Toland¡¦s The Rising Sun.

Yup, and maybe if Americans pursued the peace route both Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been spared. The last ditch coup attempt by some of military leaders does point out as to why the doves couldn’t have won earlier and the Americans didn’t make their task easier, by not giving some leeway with regard to the surrender terms.

Bergamini interprets the coup as political theatre by Hirohito, BTW. There were no real ¡§doves¡¨ until July, Phaed. The government was too wrapped up in getting the Soviets to negotiate a cease-fire ¡V it is another brilliant move of Japanese propaganda that the cease fire the Japanese were shooting for is presented in the postwar propaganda as a ¡§peace move.¡¨
Let¡¦s cut to the chase. Please supply me with examples of actual peace feelers, originating from high up in the Japanese government, that were shut down by the Americans. You could save a lot of time. Of course, there was no such thing, so I am not really worried that you¡¦ll find one.

What you will find instead is highly westernized diplomats like Sato and Kase bombarding their silent government with pleas to end the war on any terms, and begging it not to indulge in the fantasy that Russia was the answer, and complete silence from Tokyo, when it did not kill the plans outright. Which Washington knew, since it was reading each and every diplomatic telegram.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Point taken regd IHR...guess i was being lazy, was trying to get the full text of the old article. Anyhow the main issue is not IHR, its Walter Trohan's article in Chicago Tribune. What say you on that?

Ignored Japanese Peace Bids Plague U.S., West with What Might Have Been, Chicago Tribune, 8/14/65

Bare Peace Bid U.S. Rebuffed 7 Months Ago, Chicago Tribune, 8/19/45, pg. 1

There was no peace bid in January. Konoye did memorialized the Throne to request the war be ended, but the Emperor rebuffed him. The Koiso government was incapable of doing anything, it was a rump government that had little power and would fall in three months. This is the only mention of this I have ever heard. I think the writer of the article simply garbled up several different events, or more likely, the IHR simply made it up. Did you run some searches? it only shows up on right-wing sites.

My My, again lingo. will refrain here and just point out that i wonder why american adminstration let the propaganda perpetuate when they have such a good propaganda machine in place.

Because the Japanese also have a good one!

That link on Dulles you provided refers to the Fujimura talks. Which ended when killed by Fujimura's superior, Yonai, in July. As I have said three times now. As I already said, not only did the Americans encourage these talks, but they asked the Japanese to send someone high-ranking to carry out negotiations and offered to provide transportation. This went on, with Tokyo demanding assurances that it wasn't a plot, and Fujimura writing back (after being ignored the first two weeks) that the Americans were sincere (he knew this because he had been naval attache in Germany and knew of German officers who had surrendered safely to the Americans) and generally was aghast at his superiors' stupidity. Finally, after many one-way telegrams from Fujimura imploring Tokyo to come to its senses -- all read by the US -- Yonai wrote him and told him to give no outward encouragement to the idea, and that was that. Fujimura, BTW, was a truly wonderful human being who saved several Jews from the clutches of the SS.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

I missed this, but thought I'd address it.

Veterans groups had been assured by the Smithsonian that Dr. Harwit would not be allowed to make unilateral changes to the exhibition script. He says he was unaware of that promise. On the basis of academic advice, he marked down from 250,000 to 63,000 the number of US casualties expected had an invasion of the Japanese homeland been necessary in 1945.

The 63,000 figure is from Barton Bernstein and is widely considered a joke. No serious historian thinks that invading Japan would have cost only 63,000 casualties.

Vorkosigan

The Other Michael

Hi folks,

I think it would be nice if the discussion could skew a little more toward MF&P content. I realize that there will be a certain amount of historical references that need to be made, but this is starting to sound a lot more like a PD discussion than MF&P.

thanks,
Michael
MF&P Moderator (Maximus)

Arbogast

Why should anyone care how many Japanese died in the bombing raids??? The Japanese had a hellish vision of the future for those who were not Japanese.

The Japanese started the war, the Japanese behaved as horribly as the Nazis. I see no reason to sympathize when the Japanese were too weak to win the war they started. One of the reasons they declared war on the US was because the Japanese government was full of stupid racists. If they had ever sent spies to the factories of Ohio, Penn, Mich, Illinois, NY etc, they would have known that America would annihilate them. But they were stupid racists, and disaster visited their homeland.

The Japanese were stupid not to surrender unconditionally before Leyte Gulf.

The Japanese paid the price for their racism, ignorance and savagery towards their fellow man.

It is a shame how many people died, the Japanese, like the Germans, need look no further than a mirror and their own capital to find who to blame for the rain of ruin on their cities.

America has many great faults, America as aggressor and Japan and Nazi Germany as victims is sick, twisted and perverted.



The performance of Japanese Industry vs American Industry in WW2, and the performance of the Japanese Military vs the American Military was pathetic. Except for few small victories, they were beaten over and over. Even Pearl Harbor was a failure, when you consider all the advantages the Japanese had, and yet were unable to wreck the port and sink American Carriers.

The Japanese were stupid to fight as long as they did. If Japan did not surrender, Truman should have made Japan a smoking crater. Japan started the war, Japan lost the war, it was Japans responcability to end the war.

Japan is now amongst the greatest nations on Earth, and the modern Japanese are a great people, perhaps the modern German and Japanese peoples are now more decent than the modern Americans.

There is no need to sympathize with the plight of the Japanese people until 1 minute after they surrendered.


To please the moderator, my moral stance here is that on the nation state scale, there is alot of grey. Sometimes there is black and white. Some nations and people behave so badly at times that their behavior needs to be changed by force, if they do not comply, they should be demolished.

It is fortunate that in times like WW2, the powers of human decency prevailed over evil and darkness.

Vorkosigan

The whole issue boils down to the question that ?Did they consider all means (peaceful and military) before dropping the bombs? Can we say with certainty this was done?
Yes.

If the sole objective was to just to limit American casualties, one could look back and say, maybe it was justified from an American point of view, who cared about Japanese savages, the civilians most probably were like their military counterparts?total psychos.

The sole objective was to limit US casualties. Despite postwar US propaganda, nobody appears to have considered the civilian death toll from the conituation of the war by other means until after the war.

This shifts the discussion to a very personal, moral sentiment: do we agree with how Truman valued Japanese civilians vs. American soldiers?

No, you have mis-framed the ethical imperative here. The real question is: which approach saved the most lives? The Bomb. No question.

If you want to talk about lives, is it do we agree with how Truman valued Japanese citizens versus US POWs, Southeast Asian laborers, the people of China, Taiwan, the Philippines, etc, etc. You've fallen into the propaganda trap of framing it as US vs Japan, so naturally Japan looks like the passive victim of American aggression. Your whole way of constructing this is wrong.

But you current position seems to boil down to “what I don’t like is propaganda and what I like it the truth? Guess generally what sort of people adopt that approach?
No because as I said (1) I used to adopt your position. And (2) I changed. BTW, the tone of my post was based on your posting Chomsky as though I were the dupe in this case. In reality, you are the one who has sucked down Japanese fascist propaganda.
Just curious, what exactly was McCormack’s book was all about (economics and politics?) and what was his line of expertise?

He¡¦s a major Japan scholar, leftist, progressive and extremely knowledgeable. His book is about the failure of Japanese society to provide progressive solutions for its problems, and covers economics and politics. The final section is on the inability to deal with WWII. The Tunnels exist, Phaedrus.


Argued but proven? Now lets see…if there is a country which is being invaded, realizes its beaten and wants to end the war in a peaceful manner but is “suspicious or unsure ?of the opposition’s intentions, what will they do? They will try to bolster their defenses to the best they can. Isnt that obvious? Or you think all countries will give up their sovereignty in face of certain defeat? (just like these chaps thought Iraq will capitulate. )

You¡¦re trying so hard, Phaedrus, and not saying anything. The tunnel system was there so that the war could be continued, as were the aircraft, and the suicide militias, and other things.

Why do I see a blatant attempt to do selective reading from a book? Skates…lets see?You like his work right? The maybe you should “read?it. Here is a review, which should give you an overall feel about what the book actually says?that bombing might not have been necessary).

LOL. Skates was right in my hand, and here you are lecturing me on a book you have never read. Yeah, Skates thought it was unnecessary. But the issue was whether they were going to defend the islands. That was the only point I was addressing. You¡¦re so eager to leap in and twist every word I say hoping to find that I am disingenuous. Otherwise you¡¦d have to admit that you don¡¦t know anything and you are just scattershooting from internet sites.

And how at the Potsdam conference itself Truman approved the public statement?that smacks of a person looking for ‘peaceful?solutions?

Which public statement? Be aware that by Potsdam we knew Japan had no intention of surrendering and no surrender plan¡K

Could both the dropping of the atomic bombs or an invasion of Japan have been prevented through a loosening of the surrender terms? Professor Skates does not discuss this in any great detail, but in July 1945, the Japanese had attempted to use both the Swedish and Soviet governments as intermediaries to end the war with the United States. Both President Truman and Secretary Stimson were aware of these Japanese feelers, but Truman still refused to approve of any private or public modification of the unconditional surrender terms. Instead, on July 25, while at the Potsdam Conference with Churchill and Stalin, Truman issued orders that the first atomic bomb was to be dropped any time after August 3. On July 26, the Potsdam Declaration was issued, stating: "We call upon the Government of Japan to proclaim unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces. . . . The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction."

This is what we call a lie, Phaedrus. The Japanese did not use the Swedes, the Swedish initiative was started in Sweden and killed by the Japanese. The Soviet initiative was to get an alliance in return for territory which Stalin was going to take anyway in support of a cease-fire. This is propaganda. Tell me, do you know what terms Konoye was carrying to the Soviets?

Thus, the last avenue to end the war before the dropping of the atomic bombs was closed. Eight months after the end of the war, U.S. intelligence officers on the army general staff undertook a "what if" study of an invasion of Japan."They concluded," Professor Skates tells us, "that the failure of these [Japanese peace] efforts [through their embassy in Moscow] and the sudden Soviet declaration of war on 9 August would have been sufficient, even without the atomic bombs, to end the war. However, in the unlikely event that the Japanese continued in the war after the entry of the USSR, and OLYMPIC had been launched, 'The island of Kyushu would have been occupied in not over two months at a cost of 75,000 to 100,000 casualties.' In that case, concluded the analysts, the war would have ended no later than 15 February, 1946, and Coronet would not have been necessary. This author's study of the record," concludes Professor Skates, "leads to similar conclusions."

I know quite well what his conclusions are. Unfortunately, they are not supported. He is speculating based on a study conducted in 1946. Ironically, fighting would continue on Okinawa past the end of the war, with small unit actions going on until 1947. That should put the conclusions into perspective.

"An entry of the Soviet Union into the war would finally convince the Japanese of the inevitability of complete defeat. Although individual Japanese willingly sacrifice themselves in the service of the nation, we doubt that the nation as a whole is predisposed toward national suicide. Rather, the Japanese as a nation have a strong concept of national survival, regardless of the fate of individuals. They would probably prefer national survival, even through surrender, to virtual extinction.
The ideas of foreign occupation of the Japanese homeland, foreign custody of the person of the Emperor, and the loss of prestige entailed by the acceptance of `unconditional surrender?are most revolting to the Japanese. To avoid these conditions, IF POSSIBLE, and, IN ANY EVENT, to insure the survival of the institution of the Emperor, the Japanese might well be willing to withdraw from all the territory they have seized on the Asiatic continent and in the southern Pacific, and even to agree to the independence of Korea and to the practical disarmament of their military forces. A conditional surrender by the Japanese government along the lines stated above might be offered by them at any time from now until the time of the complete destruction of all Japanese power of resistance." [Emphasis added. 8 July 1945, "Estimate of the Enemy Situation (as of 6 July 1945). Reported by the Combined Intelligence Committee." C.C.S. 643/3]

Phaedrus, look at the DATE! July, 8, 1945. A month before the invasion. Also, these guys had no idea about the Bomb. Also, the Japanese did not surrender when the Soviets entered. End of discussion.
The failure of the Soviet mission was ongoing throughout the spring and summer. It was a fantasy ¡V the exact words of Weintraub and Toland, whose politics are very far apart. The Japanese government was out of touch it thought Stalin would intervene on its behalf!


Ahh the ignorance is so appalling. Very convenient to label it as propaganda, right? You have some evidence that this survey was doctored or as usual just your words?
Didn¡¦t say the Survey was doctored. I said they spun the conclusions to play up their role. You didn¡¦t even know about the Survey until you read it on a website that selectively quoted it, so don¡¦t spout this nonsense at me. The fact is there is no justification in the Survey for its conclusion. It is there simply to get funding in the postwar environment. BTW, I suggest you read Skates on the Survey¡¦s conclusions.

…convincing scenario for the end of the war was, seriously consider peaceful means, instead of trying to ward off Russia or test the new toy. The survey clearly indicates the problems the peace group had in Japan. The survey had interviewed the survivors and not you !!
No kidding. Unfortunately, the Survey gave no justification for its claims. As Skates notes.
Zacharias was mentioned in a telegram sent by togo (on july 25th) you can find the same link provided earlier. ?i> For instance, on the 19th [21st] Captain Zacharias --although a member of the United States Office of War Information he broadcasts to Japan as a spokesman for the United States Government-
Yes. If you knew anything about this situation, you¡¦d know why Zacharias had such a far reaching position. But alas, you¡¦re just fishing on the internet without understanding what you are seeing.
tes referred to the Atlantic Charter. As for Japan, it is impossible to accept unconditional surrender under any circumstances, but we should like to communicate to the other party through appropriate channels that we have no objection to a peace based on the Atlantic Charter. The difficult point is the attitude of the enemy, who continues to insist on the formality of unconditional surrender emphasis mine

July 25¡K.the day before the meetings on the 27th, where Togo is clearly understanding the whole Unconditional Surrender thing. BTW, this is an outgoing telegram to a subordinate. Why is it you think Togo would reveal himself in such a thing?
onditional surrender is, after all, out of the question for the Japanese Government. Our view remains the same as was stated on the 13th, at our meeting before that last. If is is possible to avoid such a formula, however, Japan desires to end the war, with an extremely conciliatory attitude, so long as Japan is guaranteed the nation's honor and existence. For this purpose we asked the Soviet Government for assistance.

Again, Togo and the others met on the 27th and it was clear that they understood exactly what is going on.


…maybe instead of just relying on the book or your ‘notions?you should read the telegrams instead. And don’t know how you interpreted the cable amounting to sato knowing that the soviet venture was a failure and “intelligent Japanese diplomats thinking that that visit was a fantasy. You are a psychic or something?
Er, no. I¡¦ve read the telegrams. And the analysis by actual historians.
if you still don’t get it …here is what Zacharias himself wrote ?a href="http://sandysq.gcinet.net/uss_salt_lake_city_ca25/zach12.htm" target="_blank">How We Bungled the Japanese Surrender?This could give some insight into how the same man looked at the efforts and about US’s knowledge of the peace feelers.

Again, what peace feelers. Can you detail them? Names, dates, and places? Zacharias claims there was a peace feeler through the Vatican at the behest of the Emperor himself. This was in January of 1945. In July of 1944 the Koiso government was put in power and it was paralyzed and unable to do much of anything, let alone surrender, until it fell in April of 1945. Koiso did want to end the war, but thought a good way to start was by making peace with China. With Japanese troops still in place, of course. We had numerous contacts with individual Japanese hoping to feel us out, but no surrender offers. As Skates says ¡V which, if you had actually read his book, you would know ¡V ¡§The Japanese officers routinely reported their contacts with the OSS to their navy superiors in Tokyo but received no encouragement. All this information was routinely forward to President Truman and officials in Washington, who correctly assessed these contacts as neither authorized nor sanctioned by the Japanese government.¡¨ (p247) There was never any high-level peace feeler. Sad, ain¡¦t it?

What is missing here is this. At the top, the cables were all being read. So whatever the OSS or the State Department or MacArthur or Zacharias or anyone else thinks, the people at the top knew perfectly well that Japan had no intention and no plan to surrender. That is the missing item of information you need to assess all these ¡§peace feelers.¡¨ That is why the President and the top circles were so cold to all these people below them. They knew perfectly well what was going on in Tokyo.

One other thing. I have no idea why you condemn that the Americans for extending the war, but not the Japanese. It takes two to make war, Phaedrus. All they had to do was surrender. Period. And it would have been over. Or make a concrete, clear, and serious surrender offer, from the top, asking for terms. But none ever came. And all this time you claim that the Japanese are putting out Peace feelers, they are carrying out offensives in China (the last broken off in May of 1945 due to expected US invasion of Japan, not inability to prosecute it).

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

I should add that Skates, if you get hold of the book, has a discussion of the Air Force's propaganda campaign to convince the public it had won the war on p. 250. He says "The Strategic Bombing Survey, written ostebsibly to evaluate the effectiveness of the strategic bombing, also pressed the air force's claim to credit for winning the war against Japan. Elsewhere he notes that this campaign to get credit actually began prior to the end of the war(!) and that the Air Force even objected to the highly effective tactic of air-dropped mines because they didn't highlight the AF's role enough.

So, let's recapitulate:

For the Japanese "desire for peace"

*There was no Japanese peace feeler
*There were no high-level peace feelers
*There were no queries about the meaning of unconditional surrender from a high level
*All low-level initation of peace feelers (fujimura in Bern, Inoue in Portugal) were killed or ignored
*The Zacharias broadcasts were never responded to.
*Initiatives by private individuals in Sweden were also killed.
*Despite the existence of a 24-7 channel between the two governments, no offer ever came down this channel.
*Despite numerous modern communications facilities, the Japanese broadcasted neither surrender nor requests for clarifications of terms.
*The "peace negotiations" with Russia were a fantasy that Russia rejected.
*The "peace offer" for Russia was actually an offer of an alliance to back a ceasefire with Japan's forces in place around the Pacific and in China.
*Postwar claims to the contrary are all propaganda. There was never any peace offer. The Survey's claim that strategic bombing won the war is a bit of self-serving propaganda.
*Japanese and Left sources blame unconditional surrender demand for extending the war. While Japanese supposedly dithered about moaning about how unconditional surrender was forcing them to continue the war, they actually conducted offensives in a number of sectors later in the war, including China (Ichi-go) as late as May 1945. What Japan actually hoped was that at the eleventh hour some deus ex machina would rescue them from their fate.

So can we move on to:

Q: Was A-bombing Japan's cities the correct choice, ethically speaking?

A: Given the other choices, Japan's refusal to surrender, and the inability of other options to force Japanese surrender, yes, this was the correct choice.

Vorkosigan

Arbogast

Considering how America and Japan got to the point it was in 1945, wasn't it the responsability of the Japanese to make it crystal clear they wished to surrender, if they wanted to surrender???

What was Truman supposed to do except smash the Japanese until they would surrender???

The Japanese government was delusional, since Leyte Gulf there was NO hope of a Japanese victory, yet continued on with the death and destruction.

It shows the level of insanity in Tokyo, that it took 2 atom bombs to wake up the lunatics.

With the actions of the previous 15 years of the Japanese governement, how can Truman be held accountable in any way for the disaster the Japanese brought upon themselves???