1945 even the military accepted that it was worth
taking the initiative to explore what kind of peace
terms the Allies might put forward. Approaches
were made to the Soviet Union to act as media-
tors. The Soviets refused brusquely to help
Japan to a negotiated peace. With the prize of
Manchuria promised at Yalta, Stalin had his own
reasons for wishing to prolong the war long
enough to enable the Red Army to advance into
Manchuria. Nevertheless, Stalin did inform
Churchill of Japanese overtures when they assem-
bled with Truman at the Potsdam Conference in
July 1945, urging that the Allies should insist on
‘unconditional’ surrender.
But Churchill pressed moderation on Truman
to save American and British lives. The upshot
was that Truman and Churchill on 26 July issued
an ultimatum to Japan setting out basic condi-
tions of peace. They called for the unconditional
surrender of the Japanese military forces. The
influence of the military and all those who had
guided Japan, into the path of aggression would
be removed. War criminals would be punished
and reparations required. Japan would have to
give up all its imperial conquests. Finally, Japan
would be occupied. But, beyond this, the decla-
ration went out of its way to promise Japan a
future: ‘We do not intend that the Japanese shall
be enslaved as a race nor destroyed as a nation.’
Japan’s industries would be preserved, its soldiers
allowed to return home, and democracy and
justice would be established under the guidance
of the occupation. Once this was securely rooted
in Japan, and a freely elected Japanese govern-
ment could safely be given responsibility, the
occupation forces would withdraw. In short,
imperial Japan with its divine emperor would be
transformed into a Western-type democratic state.
What was not clear, and it was a critical point for
the Japanese, was whether the emperor would be
permitted to remain on the throne.
Japan’s 80-year-old prime minister, Admiral
Suzuki, responded to the ultimatum with a non-
committal statement. He was temporising in the
face of the powerful military opposition; mis-
translation unfortunately made his reply sound
contemptuous. But was it really necessary to drop
the atomic bomb or would a few more days have
given the upper hand to the peace party in any
case? The evidence suggests that only after
Hiroshima – realising what terrible havoc would
result from more such bombs – did Emperor
Hirohito conclude that he could no longer merely
accept the decision of his leading ministers and
the military, but that he would have to assert
himself and overrule the military who still were
inclined to continue the war. Ironically it was the
last act of the emperor’s divine authority, soon to
be destroyed, that saved countless American and
Japanese lives. President Truman was therefore
right in believing that only the atomic bombs
could shock Japan into immediatesurrender.
On 6 August an American plane dropped just
one small bomb on a Japanese city still untouched
by war. ‘Hiroshima’ henceforth has become a
byword for a nuclear holocaust, for a threatened
new world. There was instant recognition that the
nature of war had been transformed. Scientists
had harnessed the innermost forces of nature to
a weapon of destruction that had hitherto been
unimaginable. In one blinding flash the humans
who were instantly vaporised were perhaps the
more fortunate; 66,000 men, women and chil-
dren were killed immediately or succumbed soon
after the atom bomb had struck. Another 69,000
were horribly injured – they were found to suffer
from a new illness, radiation sickness, and many
died later in agony. Even future unborn genera-
tions were affected, deformed by the mutation of
genes in the sick. The suffering has continued for
decades. Four square miles of the city were totally
destroyed on that terrible day. Three days later
Nagasaki was the second and mercifully last city
to suffer the effects of an atomic attack. It was
not the end, however, of the development of even
more destructive nuclear weapons of annihilation.
The single Hiroshima bomb possessed the explo-
sive power of 20,000 tons of TNT. Later hydro-
gen bombs were tested in the 1950s with a power
many times greater than the bomb dropped on
Hiroshima. There was and is no effective system
of defence in existence that can stop the missile
delivery of a destructive power that can wipe out
civilised life on whole continents. The Japanese
were the first victims and the last, if the world is
to survive.