WAR RESPONSIBILITY--delving into the past (4) / Were A-bombings avoidable?

The Yomiuri Shimbun

This is the fourth installment of a six-part introductory series on the responsibility of the war era's politicians and military leaders' failure to avoid war.

There were "genro" and "jushin" aides to Emperor Showa, mainly elder statesmen and senior ministers, who were chief advisers during World War II. They played major roles in the war. But did they do anything to help end the war during its final stage?

On April 7, 1945, the administration of Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki took over from the Cabinet of Prime Minister Kuniaki Koiso.

Suzuki, who was 77, had been a grand chamberlain once for eight years. He was seriously wounded in the Feb. 26 Incident in 1936, an attempted military coup in which the center of the capital was briefly held by troops led by young army officers until Feb. 29 and several political figures were killed. Many of the coup leaders were sentenced to death and executed.

Emperor Showa had much confidence in Suzuki. When the jushin council of senior statesmen recommende Suzuki to become prime minister but he declined, Emperor Showa asked him to accept the nomination, telling him he was the only person who could do the job.

After Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945, the Suzuki administration had to consider how to end Japan's involvement in the war. But nobody in the Suzuki Cabinet suggested entering into negotiations with the United States and Britain.

The military asserted that if Japan accepted the unconditional surrender the Allies had demanded in the Cairo Declaration in 1943--the first outline of the Allies' postwar plans for territories occupied by Japan--it would be difficult for Japan to preserve a national polity or retain the emperor system. Therefore, the military called for preparations for an all-out battle in the mainland.

Around the same time, then U.S. Undersecretary of State Joseph Grew, who had been U.S. ambassador to Japan for about 10 years, argued that the only way to get Japan to surrender, thereby avoiding massive U.S. casualties in an invasion of the mainland, would be to allow Japan to keep the emperor system.

There remains an "if" in history for Japan--what if Japan had negotiated surrender with the United States and Britain immediately after Germany surrendered?

But the position taken by Japan was to ask the Soviet Union, which at the time was not formally at war with Japan, to act as an intermediatory during peace negotiations with the United States and Britain, sending former Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe to the Soviet Union as an envoy.

The Soviet Union responded by telling Japan on April 5, shortly before the formation of the Suzuki administration, that it was annulling the 1941 Japan-Soviet Neutrality Pact. But Japanese military leaders did not believe that the Soviet Union would take part in a war on Japan anytime soon.

On July 26, the Potsdam Declaration was issued, near Berlin, in the names of the United States, Britain and China. It called on Japan to surrender unconditionally, rid itself of its militarist leaders and establish a new political order.

But the declaration did not mention the emperor system. The Suzuki administration, which was waiting for a response from the Soviet Union, decided to take a wait-and-see policy.

Could Japan have accepted the Potsdam Declaration earlier than it did?

Japan did not know that Josef Stalin had secretly promised Franklin Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference in Crimea in February 1945 that the Soviet Union would join the war against Japan.

A wire story was transmitted overseas, reporting that Suzuki had commented at a press conference that Japan would "ignore the Potsdam Declaration," although he was meant to say he has no comments on the declaration.

The atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, and the Soviet Union invaded Manchuria on Aug. 9. It is believed the Soviet Union made its last-minute decision to hastily participate in the war against Japan in anticipation that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima would quickly end the war.

A 1951 report on the blunders in Japanese diplomacy, which Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida ordered the Foreign Ministry to compile, stated that from a diplomatic viewpoint it was quite hard to understand why Japan asked the Soviet Union to act as an intermediatory for peace negotiations with the United States and Britain.

The bombing of Hiroshima changed the war situation drastically, and Suzuki proposed at a Supreme War Council meeting on the morning of Aug. 9 that Japan had no choice but to accept the Potsdam Declaration.

While the meeting was taking place, another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. But the nation's military leaders, including War Minister Korechika Anami, continued to insist on an all-out battle in the mainland.

But Suzuki decided to gamble on a breakthrough by asking Emperor Showa to make a "divine decision."

At 11:50 a.m. on Aug. 9, Emperor Showa attended an Imperial Council meeting held in an air-raid shelter at the Imperial Palace at which he expressed his will to end the war--as if he had read Suzuki's mind.

The Allies were informed later on Aug. 14 that Japan would accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.

But the Soviet Union did not stop its battle against Japan until Sept. 2, when Japan signed an instrument of surrender.

As the Japanese government failed to take any effective measures, more than 180,000 civilians among those fleeing Manchuria for Japan died. In addition, about 570,000 Japanese, mainly soldiers, were sent to Siberia and other places for forced labor, and more than 100,000 of them died.