than we were willing to go at Potsdam when we had no atomic bomb, and Russia was not in the war.” He was thinking as usual of domestic politics; accepting Japan's condition, he warned, might mean the “crucifixion of the President.” Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal proposed a compromise: the President should communicate to the Japanese his “willingness to accept [their offer], yet define the terms of surrender in such a manner that the intents and purposes of the Potsdam Declaration would be clearly accomplished.”
Truman bought the compromise but Byrnes drafted the reply. It was deliberately ambiguous in its key provisions:
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…
The Emperor and the Japanese High Command will be required to sign the surrender terms…
The ultimate form of government shall, in accordance with the Potsdam Declaration, be established by the freely expressed will of the Japanese people.
Nor did Byrnes hurry the message along; he kept it in hand overnight and only released it for broadcast by radio and delivery through Switzerland the following morning.
Stimson, still trying to bring his Air Force under control, had argued at the Friday morning meeting that the United States should suspend bombing, including atomic bombing. Truman thought otherwise, but when he met with the cabinet that afternoon he had partly reconsidered. “We would keep up the war at its present intensity,” Forrestal paraphrases the President, “until the Japanese agreed to these terms, with the limitation however that there will be no further dropping of the atomic bomb.” Henry Wallace, the former Vice President who was now Secretary of Commerce, recorded in his diary the reason for the President's change of mind:
Truman said he had given orders to stop the atomic bombing. He said the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible. He didn't like the idea of killing, as he said, “all those kids.”
The restriction came none too soon. Groves had reported to Marshall that morning that he had gained four days in manufacture and expected to ship a second Fat Man plutonium core and initiator from New Mexico to Tinian on August 12 or 13. “Provided there are no unforeseen difficulties in manufacture, in transportation to the theatre or after arrival in the theatre,” he concluded cautiously, “the bomb should be ready for delivery on the first suitable weather after 17 or 18 August.” Marshall told Groves the President wanted no further atomic bombing except by his express order and Groves decided to hold up shipment, a decision in which Marshall concurred.
The Japanese government learned of Byrnes' reply to its offer of conditional surrender not long after midnight on Sunday, August 12, but civilian and military leaders continued to struggle in deadlocked debate. Hirohito resisted efforts to persuade him to reverse his earlier commitment to surrender and called a council of the imperial family to collect pledges of support from the princes of the blood. The Japanese people were not yet told of the Byrnes reply but knew of the peace negotiations and waited in suspense. The young writer Yukio Mishima found the suspense surreal:
It was our last chance. People were saying that Tokyo would be [atomic-bombed] next. Wearing white shirts and shorts, I walked about the streets. The people had reached the limits of desperation and were now going about their affairs with cheerful faces. From one moment to the next, nothing happened. Everywhere there was an air of cheerful excitement. It was just as though one was continuing to blow up an already bulging toy balloon, wondering: “Will it burst now? Will it burst now?”
Strategic Air Forces commander Carl Spaatz cabled Lauris Norstad on August 10 proposing “placing [the] third atomic bomb… on Tokyo,” where he thought it would have a salutary “psychological effect on government officials.” On the other hand, continuing area incendiary bombing disturbed him; “I have never favored the destruction of cities as such with all inhabitants being killed,” he confided to his diary on August 11. He had sent off 114 B-29's on August 10; because of bad weather and misgivings he canceled a mission scheduled for August 11 and restricted operations thereafter to “attacks on military targets visually or under very favorable blind bombing conditions.” American weather planes over Tokyo were no longer drawing anti-aircraft fire; Spaatz thought that fact “unusual.”
The vice chief of the Japanese Navy's general staff, the man who had conceived and promoted the kamikaze attacks of the past year that had added to American bewilderment and embitterment at Japanese ways, crashed a meeting of government leaders on the evening of August 13 with tears in his eyes to offer “a plan for certain victory”: “sacrifice 20,000,000 Japanese lives in a special [kamikaze] attack.” Whether he meant the 20 million to attack the assembled might of the Allies with rocks or bamboo spears the record does not reveal.
A B-29 leaflet barrage forced the issue the next morning. Leaflet bombs showered what remained of Tokyo's streets with a translation of Byrnes' reply. The Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal knew such public revelation would harden the military against surrender. He carried the leaflet immediately to the Emperor and just before eleven that morning, August 14, Hirohito assembled his ministers and counselors in the imperial air raid shelter. He told them he found the Allied reply “evidence of the peaceful and friendly intentions of the enemy” and considered it “acceptable.” He did not specifically mention the atomic bomb; even that terrific leviathan submerged in the general misery:
I cannot endure the thought of letting my people suffer any longer. A continuation of the war would bring death to tens, perhaps even hundreds, of thousands of persons. The whole nation would be reduced to ashes. How then could I carry on the wishes of my imperial ancestors?
He asked his ministers to prepare an imperial rescript — a formal edict — that he might broadcast personally to the nation. The officials were not legally bound to do so — the Emperor's authority lay outside the legal structure of the government — but by older and deeper bonds than law they were bound, and they set to work.
In the meantime Washington had grown impatient. Groves was asked on August 13 about “the availability of your patients together with the time estimate that they could be moved and placed.” Stimson recommended proceeding to ship the nuclear materials for the third bomb to Tinian. Marshall and Groves decided to wait another day or two. Truman ordered Arnold to resume area incendiary attacks. Arnold still hoped to prove that his Air Force could win the war; he called for an all-out attack with every available B-29 and any other bombers in the Pacific theater and mustered more than a thousand aircraft. Twelve million pounds of high-explosive and incendiary bombs destroyed half of Kumagaya and a sixth of Isezaki, killing several thousand more Japanese, even as word of the Japanese surrender passed through Switzerland to Washington.
The first hint of surrender reached American bases in the Pacific by radio in the form of a news bulletin from the Japanese news agency Domei at 2:49 p.m. on August 14 — 1:49 a.m. in Washington:
Flash! Flash! Tokyo, Aug. 14 — It is learned an imperial message accepting the Potsdam Proclamation is forthcoming soon.
The bombers droned on even after that, but eventually that day the bombs stopped falling. Truman announced the Japanese acceptance in the afternoon. There were last-minute acts of military rebellion in Tokyo — a high officer assassinated, an unsuccessful attempt to steal the phonograph recording of the imperial rescript, a brief takeover of a division of Imperial Guards, wild plans for a coup. But loyalty prevailed. The Emperor broadcast to a weeping nation on August 15; his 100 million subjects had never heard the high, antique Voice of the Crane before:
Despite the best that has been done by everyone… the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest. Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives… This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint declaration of the Powers…
