The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 (Modern Library War)

by Toland, John

  The two conflicting statements, issued almost simultaneously, baffled the editors and station managers and forced Togo to take precipitous action. Anami’s statement would undoubtedly lead the Allies to believe that Japan was resolved to continue hostilities. The formal notes informing the Allies of Japan’s willingness to surrender were being processed through sluggish diplomatic channels, and a few hours’ delay might mean a third atomic bomb. Why not send out the official note immediately as a news story? There was a good possibility some military censor, if he recognized the contents of the message, might hold it up. To circumvent this it was decided to transmit the Japanese proposal in English in Morse code. By the time the censors translated the message, it would, hopefully, be too late.

  Saiji Hasegawa, foreign news editor of Domei, agreed to accept the hazardous assignment of relaying the message. He put it on the transmitters at 8 P.M. beamed first to the United States, then to Europe. He waited tensely, praying that its contents would not be monitored.

  Almost at that moment the streets of Tokyo were disrupted with a rash of exploding grenades. The Army dissidents, including Colonel Inaba, hoped to create a disturbance that would necessitate the proclamation of martial law throughout the city. With Tokyo under military control, the Emperor might be influenced to change his mind and continue the war. But the city, so inured to bombings, ignored the fitful explosions.

  In Nagasaki leaflets fluttered down on the razed city, tardily warning its citizens to evacuate.

  2.

  On the other side of the world it was still the morning of August 10. At 7:33 A.M. the Morse code message sent out by Hasegawa—providentially the Japanese Army censors hadn’t bothered to check it—was picked up by American monitors. President Truman summoned Leahy, Byrnes, Stimson and Forrestal to his office and read them the message. Since it was from an unofficial source, he asked them each in turn if it could be considered as an acceptance of the Potsdam Proclamation. If so, should they let the Emperor continue to reign? For weeks a number of influential men, including Harry Hopkins, Archibald MacLeish and Dean Acheson, had been urging abolishment of the imperial system.

  But three of his four advisers in the room opposed such drastic counsel. To the ailing Stimson, retention of the Emperor was a practical matter. He pointed out that the Allies would need Hirohito’s help to effect the surrender of the scattered Japanese armies. “Something like this use of the Emperor must be made in order to save us from a score of bloody Iwo Jimas and Okinawas all over China and the New Netherlands.” Leahy had “no feelings about little Hirohito” but supported Stimson.

  Byrnes, however, was against retreating “from our demand for unconditional surrender. That demand was presented to Japan before the use of the bomb and before the Soviet Union was a belligerent. If any conditions are to be accepted, I want the United States and not Japan to state the conditions.” Forrestal countered that the Japanese could be reassured “by an affirmative statement on our part in which we could see to it that the language of surrender accorded fully with our intent and view.”

  Japan’s offer to surrender aggravated Stimson’s concern over the continued loss of life. He proposed that they call a bombing halt—carrier-based planes and B-29’s from the Marianas were still blasting Japanese cities; there were growing misgivings in America over the use of the atomic bomb. “We must remember,” Forrestal added, “that this nation will have to bear the focus of the hatred by the Japanese.”

  Truman remained noncommittal. He decided to wait until the official surrender came through diplomatic channels, but he ordered Byrnes to start drafting an answer at once. The Secretary of State weighed every word, aware that he spoke for Russia, China and Great Britain as well as his own country. Shortly before noon he was informed that the Swiss embassy had just received the official Japanese offer to surrender. As soon as this message arrived he personally brought it, along with his draft to Japan, to the White House. Truman called an emergency meeting of the Cabinet and at 2 P.M. began reading Byrnes’s reply. Stimson was pleased by its conciliatory tone (“… it was a pretty wise and careful statement and stood a better chance of being accepted than a more outspoken one”). It stated that from the moment of surrender, the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese government to rule the state would be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers and that the ultimate form of government of Japan would be established by the freely expressed will of the Japanese people. Everyone agreed that this should reassure the Japanese about the future position of their Emperor without compromising the basic principle of unconditional surrender.

  First, however, the message to Tokyo had to be approved by the Allies, and copies were cabled to the U.S. ambassadors in London, Moscow and Chungking with a request that they secure quick compliance.

  Admiral King sent word of the negotiations to Nimitz at Pearl Harbor, and recalling the first alert dispatched by the Navy ten days before the “day of infamy,” his message began: THIS IS A PEACE WARNING.…

  The more General Anami reviewed the events of the past thirty-six hours, the more resentful he grew toward Suzuki and Togo. As he drove to his office on the morning of August 11, after archery practice in his garden, he grumbled about the Prime Minister to his secretary, Colonel Saburo Hayashi. The appearance in his office of half a dozen disgruntled officers—including his sister’s husband, Colonel Takeshita—elicited more specific complaints: the imperial conference had been so impromptu that Togo alone had been prepared to present his proposal to the Emperor; and why was Baron Hiranuma at the meeting? Anami left the impression that the conferees had been maneuvered into approving surrender.

  These accusations were vaguely expressed but they encouraged the dissidents to commit another act of gekokujo, and a score of them gathered secretly in the War Ministry itself to plan a coup. Takeshita, as senior officer, warned them that what they were doing was punishable by death. First, he suggested, they must isolate the Emperor from those urging him to seek peace. Then they would enlist Anami to advise the Emperor to continue the war. A hard-fought Decisive Battle on the mainland could inflict such losses on the Americans that an honorable peace might be arranged. If not, they would carry on the war as guerrillas in the mountains.

  The conspirators took up the plan enthusiastically. They would use the troops stationed in Tokyo to surround the Palace grounds. They would cut the lines of communication and occupy broadcasting stations, newspapers and key governmental buildings. Then they would arrest the “Badoglios” like Suzuki, Togo and Kido.

  Takeshita was confident that Anami would eventually join them and, in turn, bring Umezu. Then the two local commanders, Lieutenant General Takeshi Mori of the Konoye Division and General Shizuichi Tanaka of Eastern District Army, would have to co-operate. With the Army Chief of Staff and the War Minister supporting the coup, they would not fail—as had the small group of officers who briefly seized Tokyo in 1936. It would, in essence, be an Army operation. They would be acting lawfully under its highest commanders for the good of the nation.

  This concept of legality was a perversion of the teachings of Professor Kiyoshi Hiraizumi, who had incalculable influence over the officer corps. In 1926, at the age of thirty-one, he became an assistant professor at Tokyo Imperial University. His main interest was Japanese history, his main purpose to preserve the spirit of the leaders of the Meiji period. When Communism began sweeping the campus he countered by establishing his Green-Green School.‡ The essence of his teaching was that each nation has its own tradition, history and morality and other nations should respect the differences. He taught that Japanese society was based on complete loyalty and obedience to parents, nation and Emperor, and Green-Green evolved into an ultranationalist school with Shinto as its bone, Confucianism as its flesh and bushido as its blood.

  Hiraizumi was a slender, mild little man who looked what he was, a professor of history, but in his first lecture at the Military Academy he made a dramatic entrance, striding up to the platform with
a sword. He put it aside and spoke softly, never using his hands or contorting his face for effect. Somehow he electrified every young officer in that audience and each succeeding audience with his burning sincerity. What they heard about the Imperial Way and their country so imbued them with the spirit of self-sacrifice to Emperor and country that his sayings were often on the lips of those going off on kamikaze missions.

  High-ranking officers remained his disciples. While he was prime minister, Tojo often sought his advice and Anami still held him in the highest regard. Takeshita and others in the conspiracy had attended the Green-Green School and believed they were now acting out what Hiraizumi preached. Wouldn’t unconditional surrender destroy Yamato damashii and kokutai? Consequently, it was perfectly proper to defy the Emperor’s decision for peace, since it was a mistaken and ill-advised judgment. In fact, true faithfulness to the Throne made temporary disobedience to the Emperor imperative.

  3.

  With one exception the Allies immediately accepted Byrnes’s proposed reply to Japan. The Soviet government was “skeptical” about the Japanese offer: Molotov found it neither unconditional nor concrete. Therefore, the Red Army was continuing its advance into Manchuria.

  Harriman, however, pressed for a quick answer and Molotov complied—with one proviso: “The Soviet Government also considers that, in case of an affirmative reply from the Japanese Government, the Allied Powers should reach an agreement on the candidacy or candidacies for representation of the Allied High Command to which the Japanese Emperor and the Japanese Government are to be subordinated.”

  Harriman “took firm exception” to this stipulation; his government would never agree to it. He was not even exactly sure what it meant. Molotov explained that the High Command in the Far East should consist of two people, an American and a Russian general.

  Harriman’s reaction was sharp and unequivocal. The United States had carried the main burden of the Pacific war for four years and by doing so had kept Japan off Russia’s back. The Soviets had been in the war two days. Therefore it was unthinkable that the Supreme Command should be anyone other than an American. Molotov answered heatedly but Harriman remained firm; he would send the suggestion to Washington but he knew that it would be unacceptable.

  Harriman returned to his office still angry. He was called to the phone. It was M. Pavlov, Molotov’s secretary, who said that the Foreign Commissar had checked with Stalin and that there had been a misunderstanding: “consultation” had been intended, but not necessarily “approval.” Harriman again warned that the words “or candidacies” would not be acceptable in Washington. A few minutes later Pavlov called again to say that Stalin was agreeable to deletion of the offending words and would confirm it in writing.

  With peace so imminent, Forrestal and Stimson once more tried to persuade President Truman to cease all air and naval action against Japan as a humane gesture. Truman would not hear of it. Pressure, he said, should be maintained so the Japanese wouldn’t be encouraged to request further concessions. He did promise to suspend further atomic missions unless Tokyo’s reply was unsatisfactory. Two more atomic bombs were ready on Tinian, and drops were tentatively scheduled for August 13 and 16. General Spaatz acknowledged that battered Tokyo was too poor a target for a conventional bombing, and he was still eager to drop an atomic bomb on the capital.§

  While the Byrnes reply was officially being processed through Switzerland, it was also being broadcast to the Orient by short wave from San Francisco for its propaganda effect on the Japanese civilian population. The man who had clandestinely transmitted Japan’s answer to the Potsdam Proclamation, Saiji Hasegawa of Domei, was informed by a monitoring station of the Allied counterproposal just after midnight of the eleventh. He notified the Foreign Ministry and then phoned his close friend Sakomizu. The sleepy Cabinet Secretary was anxious to know what it said. “We don’t have the complete text yet,” Hasegawa replied, “but it doesn’t look too good.”

  For more than two hours Sakomizu waited impatiently until the full English text was delivered to him:

  With regard to the Japanese Government’s message accepting the terms of the Potsdam proclamation but containing the statement, “with the understanding that the said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler,” our position is as follows:

  From the moment of surrender, the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied powers, who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate the surrender terms.

  The Emperor will be required to authorize and ensure the signature by the Government of Japan and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters of the surrender terms necessary to carry out the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration, and shall issue his commands to all the Japanese military, naval and air authorities and to all the forces under their control wherever located to cease active operations and to surrender their arms, and to issue such other orders as the Supreme Commander may require to give effect to the surrender terms.

  Immediately upon the surrender the Japanese Government shall transport prisoners of war and civilian internees to places of safety, as directed, where they can quickly be placed aboard Allied transports.

  The ultimate form of the Government of Japan shall, in accordance with the Potsdam Declaration, be established by the freely expressed will of the Japanese people.

  The armed forces of the Allied Powers will remain in Japan until the purposes set forth in the Potsdam Declaration are achieved.

  It wasn’t as negative as Hasegawa had indicated. The Allies didn’t reject outright the Japanese demand to retain the Emperor, but his ultimate fate was not indicated and this would give the war party grounds to reject the entire proposal. Sakomizu was joined by Vice Foreign Minister Matsumoto, who had raced through the streets of Tokyo. His face fell as he read the note.

  Its vagueness regarding the national essence was compounded by two typographical errors in the fifth paragraph. Byrnes had written “The ultimate form of government of Japan,” but the monitor had transcribed it to read “The ultimate form of the Government of Japan.” Did the capital G refer exclusively to civilian administration, or did it include the Emperor? And was there any particular connotation to “the”? Matsumoto took the optimistic view that “the Government” excluded His Majesty; the best thing to do was “gulp down” the note as a whole lest the militarists break it into parts that could be disputed interminably. While Matsumoto took his recommendation to Togo, Sakomizu headed for Suzuki’s home. The old Prime Minister listened to the new proposal and the reasoning, then said gravely, “In any case, we must end the war.”

  At the obunko, Kido explained the problems the note presented to the Emperor. “That’s all beside the point,” said His Majesty. “It would be useless if the people didn’t want an emperor. I think it’s perfectly all right to leave the matter up to the people.” His serenity was like “a blow on the head” to Kido. What had concerned the Privy Seal so much had evaporated under the Emperor’s absolute confidence in his subjects.

  Sakomizu’s fears about the reaction of the military were justified. The Army and Navy Chiefs of Staff saw in the Byrnes reply ample excuse to continue the war and were the first—even before Togo—to reach the Emperor with their objections.

  His Majesty indicated their conclusions were premature; no formal Allied answer had yet been received. “We will be sure to study it after it arrives,” he said, putting them off. “We can probably make another inquiry about those points still in doubt.”

  But he himself had already reached a conclusion. He advised Togo, who arrived at the obunko two hours later, that the Allied proposal was satisfactory and should be accepted. His reaction was as welcome to Suzuki as it had been to Togo, but eventual acceptance of Allied terms was far from assured. The phrasing regarding the Emperor disturbed conservatives like Baron Hiranuma, whose anxiety about kokutai brought him to
Suzuki’s home. First he strenuously objected to the statement that “the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied powers.” The words “subject to” he translated as slavery. He also took exception to the paragraph declaring that the ultimate form of government be established by the people. That was unbearable. The Emperor was a deity and could not be subject to the will of the populace.

  That afternoon the full Cabinet met to discuss the Byrnes reply. Togo saw no reason not to accept it. Paragraph 2 left the position of His Majesty unimpaired in principle and paragraph 5 allowed the people of Japan to select their own form of government. “It is impossible,” he argued, “to conceive that the overwhelming loyal majority of our people would not wish to preserve our traditional system.” Moreover, if they demanded revisions in the phraseology it was quite likely that those among the Allies antagonistic to the imperial system might demand the abolition of the imperial house.

  But General Anami (moments before, he had been cornered in his own office by the young dissidents who demanded that the proposal be rejected: “If you cannot bring that about, you should commit hara-kiri!”) stood firm and was supported in his resistance by Hiranuma and two other civilians under the baron’s influence, the Interior and Justice ministers. There were others who sided with Togo, but Admiral Yonai alone spoke out. After more than an hour’s unproductive debate Suzuki—who had remained silent, reluctant perhaps to stand against such formidable opposition—finally said, “If disarmament is forced upon us, we have no alternative but to continue the war.”

  The outspoken Togo, incredulous at Suzuki’s vacillation, managed to control his temper. He had to find some way to postpone the decision. “Inasmuch as the official reply of the Allies has not yet arrived,” he said (as the Emperor had said before him), “we had better continue our discussion after receipt of it.” There was no objection. Togo followed Suzuki into his private office, berating him. What a time to bring up the question of disarmament! he shouted. “Unless we are resigned to rupture of the negotiations for peace, there is no alternative to acceptance of their reply as it stands,” he said. Wasn’t the Prime Minister aware that the Emperor wanted the war ended and that the question at issue involved the very existence of the imperial house? “If you persist in this attitude, I may have to report independently to the Throne!”