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Pivotal Moments in American History
Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II
A new look at the drama that lay behind the end of the war in the Pacific
Signed on September 2, 1945 aboard the American battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay by Japanese and Allied leaders, the instrument of surrender that formally ended the war in the Pacific brought to a close one of the most cataclysmic engagements in history. Behind it lay a debate that had been raging for some weeks prior among American military and political leaders. The surrender fulfilled the commitment that Franklin Roosevelt had made in 1943 at the Casablanca conference that it be "unconditional." Though readily accepted as policy at the time, after Roosevelt's death in April 1945 support for unconditional surrender wavered, particularly among Republicans in Congress, when the bloody campaigns on Iwo Jima and Okinawa made clear the cost of military victory against Japan. Germany's unconditional surrender in May 1945 had been one thing; the war in the pacific was another. Many conservatives favored a negotiated surrender.
Though this was the last time American forces would impose surrender unconditionally, questions surrounding it continued through the 1950s and 1960s--with the Korean and Vietnam Wars--when liberal and conservative views reversed, including over the definition of "peace with honor." The subject was revived during the ceremonies surrounding the 50th anniversary in 1995, and the Gulf and Iraq Wars, when the subjects of exit strategies and "accomplished missions" were debated. Marc Gallicchio reveals how and why the surrender in Tokyo Bay unfolded as it did and the principle figures behind it, including George C. Marshall and Douglas MacArthur. The latter would effectively become the leader of Japan and his tenure, and indeed the very nature of the American occupation, was shaped by the nature of the surrender. Most importantly, Gallicchio reveals how the policy of unconditional surrender has shaped our memory and our understanding of World War II.
Signed on September 2, 1945 aboard the American battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay by Japanese and Allied leaders, the instrument of surrender that formally ended the war in the Pacific brought to a close one of the most cataclysmic engagements in history. Behind it lay a debate that had been raging for some weeks prior among American military and political leaders. The surrender fulfilled the commitment that Franklin Roosevelt had made in 1943 at the Casablanca conference that it be "unconditional." Though readily accepted as policy at the time, after Roosevelt's death in April 1945 support for unconditional surrender wavered, particularly among Republicans in Congress, when the bloody campaigns on Iwo Jima and Okinawa made clear the cost of military victory against Japan. Germany's unconditional surrender in May 1945 had been one thing; the war in the pacific was another. Many conservatives favored a negotiated surrender.
Though this was the last time American forces would impose surrender unconditionally, questions surrounding it continued through the 1950s and 1960s--with the Korean and Vietnam Wars--when liberal and conservative views reversed, including over the definition of "peace with honor." The subject was revived during the ceremonies surrounding the 50th anniversary in 1995, and the Gulf and Iraq Wars, when the subjects of exit strategies and "accomplished missions" were debated. Marc Gallicchio reveals how and why the surrender in Tokyo Bay unfolded as it did and the principle figures behind it, including George C. Marshall and Douglas MacArthur. The latter would effectively become the leader of Japan and his tenure, and indeed the very nature of the American occupation, was shaped by the nature of the surrender. Most importantly, Gallicchio reveals how the policy of unconditional surrender has shaped our memory and our understanding of World War II.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published August 3, 2020
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413 people want to read
About the author
Marc S. Gallicchio
6 books6 followersMarc Gallicchio is professor of history at Villanova University.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
September 30, 2024
Just finished:
"Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II"
By: Marc Gallucchio
A thought provoking and game changing history of the Japanese surrender. According to documents the author found, the Japanese had considered surrendering as early as April 1945. While very subtle and working through intermediaries. The Japanese wanted to figure out what terms would be acceptable to the allies. Throughout all of it, there was one condition that they insisted upon, the continuation of the imperial line. The Japanese were even willing to appeal to the Soviets to keep it (before the Soviet declaration of war; the Japanese did not expect Soviet troops to begin fighting until 1946)
While FDR wanted nothing less than total surrender, Truman was vague, toting the line FDR stated but ultimately hoping that the use of the bomb would allow him to make that concession.
The biggest irony to me is that Republicans were the ones that wanted concessions. Herbert Hoover being among their number.
While this account can get into minutia that I thought was unnecessary at times, it was a great read.
"Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II"
By: Marc Gallucchio
A thought provoking and game changing history of the Japanese surrender. According to documents the author found, the Japanese had considered surrendering as early as April 1945. While very subtle and working through intermediaries. The Japanese wanted to figure out what terms would be acceptable to the allies. Throughout all of it, there was one condition that they insisted upon, the continuation of the imperial line. The Japanese were even willing to appeal to the Soviets to keep it (before the Soviet declaration of war; the Japanese did not expect Soviet troops to begin fighting until 1946)
While FDR wanted nothing less than total surrender, Truman was vague, toting the line FDR stated but ultimately hoping that the use of the bomb would allow him to make that concession.
The biggest irony to me is that Republicans were the ones that wanted concessions. Herbert Hoover being among their number.
While this account can get into minutia that I thought was unnecessary at times, it was a great read.
June 26, 2021
Fascinating new look at the last months of the Pacific War, told from inside Washington, and how the policy of unconditional surrender was being politicized even before the war was over, and how some of the first politicization of the atomic bomb tied to this.
It was mainly conservative Republicans, some of whom were also “old Japan hands” like Stimson and Grew, who wanted Truman to drop unconditional surrender.
Their reasons were laughable. First, like many Reaganites believing moderates in Iran were ready, willing, able and empowered enough to work around the mullahs, these people believed the same about moderates or liberals in Japan being able to work around the militarists. Second, many of them believed that Hirohito was more sinned against by the militarists than a willing fellow sinner.
Then, there was the geopolitics that some of them wanted ANY end to the war before the Russkies jumped in.
Marc Gallicchio sketches this all out in detail.
Countering this?
New president Truman had a policy he had inherited from FDR and was politically loathe to abandon it. At the same time, before July 16, 1945, he felt very sure — per Marshall — that he needed Stalin to enter the war. At the third time, he rejected Stimson, Grew and Herbert Hoover’s beliefs, not so much about mythical moderates as about Hirohito. (And was right.)
Gallicchio shows a Truman who was not as much a naïf (well, other than about Stalin, but he disabused himself of that to some degree by the end of Potsdam) as someone who kept his own council and held his cards close to his vest.
Behind all of this are Army and Navy wrangling about Olympic vs blockade. (Contra Gar Alpherowitz, and all of his ilk who politicized the bomb in the 1960s and later, IF a blockade had forced Japanese surrender [A VERY BIG IF] the hundreds of thousands that died from starvation, the hundreds of thousands that died from ongoing fighting, the likely hundreds of thousands of POWs that would have died, would have FAR outnumbered bomb deaths. BUT … all of this, outside of what the bomb actually DID achieve, is outside Gallicchio’s remit.)
Behind all of THAT are administrators of the various war economy agencies, and the general public, begging for military demobilization as soon as possible.
And, in Japan? Well, actually in Moscow? One realist. Ambassador Sato, who laughed at the idea that Moscow would be an intermediary, and not for a negotiated, conditional surrender, but for “peace talks.”
I already knew that, up to pre-Okinawa 1945, Hirohito himself was a last-ditcher enough to still have hope of holding on to everything Japan had conquered through the end of World War 1.
But, Gallicchio goes further. First, he notes something that either isn’t in a book like Frank’s “Downfall” or else that I missed seeing there. On meeting with Foreign Minister Togo on Aug. 8 — AFTER Hiroshima — Hirohito accepted the need for surrender, but still believed it could be a negotiated one.
Second?
Some of the militarists were ready to drive loopholes through the “retain the imperial polity” asterisk to unconditional surrender. (It should be noted that keeping Hirohito on the throne DID facilitate Japanese troop surrender immensely.)
More specifically, they were worried that Hirohito would be exiled to China and Akihito taken to America for re-education and being held hostage. They proposed taking a scion of a collateral line to a hideaway in Niigata prefecture until the Americans left Japan.
Third, forward to 1946, a year after the occupation started. Truman told MacArthur it was time to get that new Japanese constitution. And, that it would include definite limits on imperial power. A Japanese committee was given first crack at it, and basically tried to keep Hirohito as MUCH more than a figurehead head of state. Supreme Command Allied Powers then said move over, and wrote Japan’s constitution in a week.
And, Gallicchio notes that Hirohito PERSONALLY resisted. And, his family turned on him! His youngest brother told the Privy Council, indirectly, that Hirohito should abdicate. An uncle by marriage told the AP that many members of the family supported abdication. The same uncle, weeks later, said there were plans to have another brother of Hirohito serve as regent for Akihito.
And, here’s the fantastic way Gallicchio ices the cake.
He turns Hirohito’s imperial rescript of surrender against him. In its exact language.
I quote:
“Seeing that the situation had developed not necessarily to his advantage, Hirohito finally relented.”
AND, lest I be accused of spoiler alerts? Details of the allied occupation of Japanese territory, mainly Korea and the Kuriles, and other items? Not mentioned in this review.
And, this is all in a book of right at 200 pages.
Gallicchio has set the new benchmark for studies here.
It was mainly conservative Republicans, some of whom were also “old Japan hands” like Stimson and Grew, who wanted Truman to drop unconditional surrender.
Their reasons were laughable. First, like many Reaganites believing moderates in Iran were ready, willing, able and empowered enough to work around the mullahs, these people believed the same about moderates or liberals in Japan being able to work around the militarists. Second, many of them believed that Hirohito was more sinned against by the militarists than a willing fellow sinner.
Then, there was the geopolitics that some of them wanted ANY end to the war before the Russkies jumped in.
Marc Gallicchio sketches this all out in detail.
Countering this?
New president Truman had a policy he had inherited from FDR and was politically loathe to abandon it. At the same time, before July 16, 1945, he felt very sure — per Marshall — that he needed Stalin to enter the war. At the third time, he rejected Stimson, Grew and Herbert Hoover’s beliefs, not so much about mythical moderates as about Hirohito. (And was right.)
Gallicchio shows a Truman who was not as much a naïf (well, other than about Stalin, but he disabused himself of that to some degree by the end of Potsdam) as someone who kept his own council and held his cards close to his vest.
Behind all of this are Army and Navy wrangling about Olympic vs blockade. (Contra Gar Alpherowitz, and all of his ilk who politicized the bomb in the 1960s and later, IF a blockade had forced Japanese surrender [A VERY BIG IF] the hundreds of thousands that died from starvation, the hundreds of thousands that died from ongoing fighting, the likely hundreds of thousands of POWs that would have died, would have FAR outnumbered bomb deaths. BUT … all of this, outside of what the bomb actually DID achieve, is outside Gallicchio’s remit.)
Behind all of THAT are administrators of the various war economy agencies, and the general public, begging for military demobilization as soon as possible.
And, in Japan? Well, actually in Moscow? One realist. Ambassador Sato, who laughed at the idea that Moscow would be an intermediary, and not for a negotiated, conditional surrender, but for “peace talks.”
I already knew that, up to pre-Okinawa 1945, Hirohito himself was a last-ditcher enough to still have hope of holding on to everything Japan had conquered through the end of World War 1.
But, Gallicchio goes further. First, he notes something that either isn’t in a book like Frank’s “Downfall” or else that I missed seeing there. On meeting with Foreign Minister Togo on Aug. 8 — AFTER Hiroshima — Hirohito accepted the need for surrender, but still believed it could be a negotiated one.
Second?
Some of the militarists were ready to drive loopholes through the “retain the imperial polity” asterisk to unconditional surrender. (It should be noted that keeping Hirohito on the throne DID facilitate Japanese troop surrender immensely.)
More specifically, they were worried that Hirohito would be exiled to China and Akihito taken to America for re-education and being held hostage. They proposed taking a scion of a collateral line to a hideaway in Niigata prefecture until the Americans left Japan.
Third, forward to 1946, a year after the occupation started. Truman told MacArthur it was time to get that new Japanese constitution. And, that it would include definite limits on imperial power. A Japanese committee was given first crack at it, and basically tried to keep Hirohito as MUCH more than a figurehead head of state. Supreme Command Allied Powers then said move over, and wrote Japan’s constitution in a week.
And, Gallicchio notes that Hirohito PERSONALLY resisted. And, his family turned on him! His youngest brother told the Privy Council, indirectly, that Hirohito should abdicate. An uncle by marriage told the AP that many members of the family supported abdication. The same uncle, weeks later, said there were plans to have another brother of Hirohito serve as regent for Akihito.
And, here’s the fantastic way Gallicchio ices the cake.
He turns Hirohito’s imperial rescript of surrender against him. In its exact language.
I quote:
“Seeing that the situation had developed not necessarily to his advantage, Hirohito finally relented.”
AND, lest I be accused of spoiler alerts? Details of the allied occupation of Japanese territory, mainly Korea and the Kuriles, and other items? Not mentioned in this review.
And, this is all in a book of right at 200 pages.
Gallicchio has set the new benchmark for studies here.
December 14, 2021
The death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in April1945 vaulted the inexperienced Harry S. Truman into the Oval Office. As Vice-President Truman was kept in the dark by Roosevelt on many issues including the Manhattan Project which would later result in dropping two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August 1945. However, before the Enola Gay released its first bomb, American policy to end the war in the Pacific rested upon the phrase “unconditional surrender” a term uttered by Roosevelt at the Casablanca Conference attended by Winston Churchill in January 1943. The policy was employed to avoid any possibility that the defeated powers of Germany and Japan would later question whether they were defeated militarily as occurred following World War I.
The application of “unconditional surrender” to the Pacific Theater is the subject of Villanova Professor Marc Gallicchio’s latest monograph, UNCONDITIONAL: THE JAPANESE SURRENDER IN WORLD WAR II. A major focus in Gallicchio’s narrative is the role of Truman and a cadre of individuals that includes Henry L. Stimson, Joseph C. Grew, James Forrestal, George C. Marshall, Dean Acheson, Herbert Hoover, and numerous others in debating the policy of “unconditional surrender,” with an eye on the role of the Soviet Union, China, and Japan in the post war world. Though Truman was a novice in foreign policy he held a number of strong views concerning uprooting Japan’s military and its ideology and replacing the imperial monarchy with a pro-western democracy.
After the war, the United States would help with the reconstruction of Japan and impose a new constitution on the defeated country. As Japan flourished she would become a staunch ally that stood firmly against the rise of communism in China and a supporter of Washington’s overall all policy for Asia. The end result was that the United States avoided creating a revanchist regime in Tokyo.
A second major emphasis in Gallicchio’s presentation is how policy decisions evolved and the application of his own insightful analysis throughout. He reconstructs events and delves into the arguments of the major personalities that led to the Japanese surrender on the USS Missouri staged in Tokyo Bay in September 1945.
Gallicchio begins by explaining the origins and rationale for “unconditional surrender” as a means to reassure the Soviet Union that there would be no separate peace. Russia would come to an agreement that once Germany was defeated they would shift troops to the Pacific and help end the war against Japan, but as in all cases in dealing with Joseph Stalin, Moscow had its own agenda for northeast China once the Japanese withdrew.
Gallicchio exhibits an excellent command of the secondary and primary materials dealing with his topic and offers a concise application of the documentary evidence in developing his conclusions. In addition, he considers the analysis offered by previous historians who have engaged the late World War II and early Cold War period. For example, he reviews the Yalta and Potsdam Agreements in his treatment of the “Stalin Issue,” and how the World War II alliance of convenience unraveled despite Washington’s need for Soviet troops to help defeat the Japanese military. Truman was very concerned that the US should try and defeat Japan as quickly as possible to avoid creating a vacuum in the region that could easily be filled by Moscow. Aside from the cost of an American invasion of the Japanese home islands this was a major rationale for Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bombs to end the war as quickly as possible.
The author’s analysis includes a deep dive inside the Japanese military hierarchy, cabinet, and bureaucracy and summarizes the views of the different factions that emerged as it was confronted by America’s policies toward surrender and the future role of the Emperor. Gallicchio spends a substantial amount of time discussing the peace faction that surrounded Emperor Hirohito as it tried to fend off the militarists who believed that if the war could be drawn out further, with Germany defeated domestic pressure in the United States would result in Washington’s acquiescence to a lesser policy than offered by complete surrender, military occupation, and retention of the Emperorship. Further, the military believed that the Soviet Union could become a useful tool in pressuring the United States to alter its position, in addition to what they perceived as a weakening of the allied alliance.
A major strength of Gallicchio’s work is his exploration of the American home front as the war was ending. Truman was under a great deal of pressure to end the war since Germany was defeated. Public opinion polls pointed to the desire to bring the troops home and reconversion to a domestic economy and not allowing the Pentagon to dictate economic policy.
Gallicchio emphasizes the role of American code breaking as the United States collected a great deal of information through MAGIC decrypts of Japanese diplomatic messages and analysis of Japanese troop dispositions, which were processed through a military intelligence program code-named ULTRA. These two sources tried to keep Washington one step ahead of Japan throughout most of the war.
Gallicchio is correct when he argues that the Potsdam Conference played a significant role as it became increasingly clear that there was little Washington could do to keep the Russians from seizing large parts of Manchuria, even if Japan was defeated before Soviet troops entered China. However, it is during the conference that Truman learned of the successful test of the atomic bomb providing him with a major tool in dealing with Stalin and ending the war as rapidly as possible. Truman was ill disposed to making any special guarantees to the Emperor who he believed was as much of a war criminal as Hitler and Mussolini. But Truman also realized that he would need Hirohito to facilitate the surrender of Imperial troops. In the end Truman would accept the Emperor as a glorified figurehead, hopefully avoiding a resurgence of Japanese nationalism in the future.
The end of the war did not end the debate over the “unconditional surrender“ policy. Gallicchio dissects the revisionism put forth by those who blamed the policy of “unconditional surrender” for causing the problems in the immediate post war era that led to communist domination of Asia. Gallicchio does an excellent job in his last complete chapter in presenting the arguments pro and con whether the Emperor was a peace candidate. He also extrapolates that if the Truman administration had been willing to alter the policy and state that Washington had no intention to outlaw the monarchy the dropping of the atomic bomb would not have been necessary, the Soviet Union would not have entered China, and by 1949 Maoist forces would not have seized power in Beijing. This revisionism is incorrect and reflects the inability of certain individuals including Herbert Hoover and Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt’s Chief of Staff among others to accept the reality of the military-political situation within the Japanese establishment where the military dominated the government and in the case of Hirohito he did nothing to alter the conduct of Japanese forces throughout the Pacific. Gallicchio continues his presentation by reviewing the historiography of his subject well into the mid-1990s and the cultural politics that ensued.
Gallicchio offers a tightly focused narrative that lays out the pros and cons of America’s policy of “unconditional surrender” in the Pacific at the end of World War II. It is concisely written and stays on target with little or no meandering to other issues. The book is a fresh look at the drama that unfolded at the end of the war and an important synthesis of what has been written before and encapsulates the important debates that led to the dropping of the atomic bombs and America’s occupation of Japan that ensued.
The application of “unconditional surrender” to the Pacific Theater is the subject of Villanova Professor Marc Gallicchio’s latest monograph, UNCONDITIONAL: THE JAPANESE SURRENDER IN WORLD WAR II. A major focus in Gallicchio’s narrative is the role of Truman and a cadre of individuals that includes Henry L. Stimson, Joseph C. Grew, James Forrestal, George C. Marshall, Dean Acheson, Herbert Hoover, and numerous others in debating the policy of “unconditional surrender,” with an eye on the role of the Soviet Union, China, and Japan in the post war world. Though Truman was a novice in foreign policy he held a number of strong views concerning uprooting Japan’s military and its ideology and replacing the imperial monarchy with a pro-western democracy.
After the war, the United States would help with the reconstruction of Japan and impose a new constitution on the defeated country. As Japan flourished she would become a staunch ally that stood firmly against the rise of communism in China and a supporter of Washington’s overall all policy for Asia. The end result was that the United States avoided creating a revanchist regime in Tokyo.
A second major emphasis in Gallicchio’s presentation is how policy decisions evolved and the application of his own insightful analysis throughout. He reconstructs events and delves into the arguments of the major personalities that led to the Japanese surrender on the USS Missouri staged in Tokyo Bay in September 1945.
Gallicchio begins by explaining the origins and rationale for “unconditional surrender” as a means to reassure the Soviet Union that there would be no separate peace. Russia would come to an agreement that once Germany was defeated they would shift troops to the Pacific and help end the war against Japan, but as in all cases in dealing with Joseph Stalin, Moscow had its own agenda for northeast China once the Japanese withdrew.
Gallicchio exhibits an excellent command of the secondary and primary materials dealing with his topic and offers a concise application of the documentary evidence in developing his conclusions. In addition, he considers the analysis offered by previous historians who have engaged the late World War II and early Cold War period. For example, he reviews the Yalta and Potsdam Agreements in his treatment of the “Stalin Issue,” and how the World War II alliance of convenience unraveled despite Washington’s need for Soviet troops to help defeat the Japanese military. Truman was very concerned that the US should try and defeat Japan as quickly as possible to avoid creating a vacuum in the region that could easily be filled by Moscow. Aside from the cost of an American invasion of the Japanese home islands this was a major rationale for Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bombs to end the war as quickly as possible.
The author’s analysis includes a deep dive inside the Japanese military hierarchy, cabinet, and bureaucracy and summarizes the views of the different factions that emerged as it was confronted by America’s policies toward surrender and the future role of the Emperor. Gallicchio spends a substantial amount of time discussing the peace faction that surrounded Emperor Hirohito as it tried to fend off the militarists who believed that if the war could be drawn out further, with Germany defeated domestic pressure in the United States would result in Washington’s acquiescence to a lesser policy than offered by complete surrender, military occupation, and retention of the Emperorship. Further, the military believed that the Soviet Union could become a useful tool in pressuring the United States to alter its position, in addition to what they perceived as a weakening of the allied alliance.
A major strength of Gallicchio’s work is his exploration of the American home front as the war was ending. Truman was under a great deal of pressure to end the war since Germany was defeated. Public opinion polls pointed to the desire to bring the troops home and reconversion to a domestic economy and not allowing the Pentagon to dictate economic policy.
Gallicchio emphasizes the role of American code breaking as the United States collected a great deal of information through MAGIC decrypts of Japanese diplomatic messages and analysis of Japanese troop dispositions, which were processed through a military intelligence program code-named ULTRA. These two sources tried to keep Washington one step ahead of Japan throughout most of the war.
Gallicchio is correct when he argues that the Potsdam Conference played a significant role as it became increasingly clear that there was little Washington could do to keep the Russians from seizing large parts of Manchuria, even if Japan was defeated before Soviet troops entered China. However, it is during the conference that Truman learned of the successful test of the atomic bomb providing him with a major tool in dealing with Stalin and ending the war as rapidly as possible. Truman was ill disposed to making any special guarantees to the Emperor who he believed was as much of a war criminal as Hitler and Mussolini. But Truman also realized that he would need Hirohito to facilitate the surrender of Imperial troops. In the end Truman would accept the Emperor as a glorified figurehead, hopefully avoiding a resurgence of Japanese nationalism in the future.
The end of the war did not end the debate over the “unconditional surrender“ policy. Gallicchio dissects the revisionism put forth by those who blamed the policy of “unconditional surrender” for causing the problems in the immediate post war era that led to communist domination of Asia. Gallicchio does an excellent job in his last complete chapter in presenting the arguments pro and con whether the Emperor was a peace candidate. He also extrapolates that if the Truman administration had been willing to alter the policy and state that Washington had no intention to outlaw the monarchy the dropping of the atomic bomb would not have been necessary, the Soviet Union would not have entered China, and by 1949 Maoist forces would not have seized power in Beijing. This revisionism is incorrect and reflects the inability of certain individuals including Herbert Hoover and Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt’s Chief of Staff among others to accept the reality of the military-political situation within the Japanese establishment where the military dominated the government and in the case of Hirohito he did nothing to alter the conduct of Japanese forces throughout the Pacific. Gallicchio continues his presentation by reviewing the historiography of his subject well into the mid-1990s and the cultural politics that ensued.
Gallicchio offers a tightly focused narrative that lays out the pros and cons of America’s policy of “unconditional surrender” in the Pacific at the end of World War II. It is concisely written and stays on target with little or no meandering to other issues. The book is a fresh look at the drama that unfolded at the end of the war and an important synthesis of what has been written before and encapsulates the important debates that led to the dropping of the atomic bombs and America’s occupation of Japan that ensued.
September 30, 2020
Three-quarters of a century after the end of World War II, FDR’s policy to demand unconditional surrender from Germany and Japan may seem simply logical. After all, in an era of total war, the only guarantee that either nation wouldn’t sufficiently recover to attack again was total Allied control over their system of government following the end of hostilities. That seemed assured in the case of Germany, which ended the war in rubble and ashes and divided between East and West. But unconditional surrender was a far more complex question with respect to Imperial Japan. For US President Harry Truman to pursue the policy to the end in 1945 involved a complex calculus weighing a host of mutually contradictory military, political, diplomatic, and economic factors. Villanova University historian Marc Gallicchio adroitly untangles them in Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II.
A new President assaulted on all sides with contradictory evidence
When FDR died on April 12, 1945, Harry Truman had served as Vice President for just 82 days. Much of what he learned in the months ahead was new to him, as Roosevelt had never taken him into his confidence. And the pressures he faced were monumental:
** Japanese diplomatic and military communications—which the Allies had secretly decoded—made it clear that Tokyo was determined to fight on, regardless of the cost and despite any offers the Allies might make.
** But peace feelers through neutral countries by influential Japanese businessmen encouraged some American officials to believe that a negotiated settlement was possible if only the Americans would allow Emperor Hirohito to remain on the throne. Conservatives seized on the opportunity to press the new President to drop the policy. However, it was clear to most observers that “the authority vested in the monarchy made it a bulwark against reform from below,” thus preventing the thoroughgoing political change needed to prevent a resurgence of imperial ambitions.
** Before mid-July, when Truman learned of Trinity, the successful atomic bomb test in New Mexico, American military commanders were divided about how to end the war with Japan. The internecine warfare between the US Army and Navy was growing more bitter by the day. Admiral Chester Nimitz was certain that a naval blockade would starve the Japanese and force them to accept unconditional surrender. General Douglas MacArthur was determined to invade and, to reduce the burden on the Army, insisted on the importance of drawing the USSR into the war in the Pacific.
** However, the invasion of the Japanese homeland planned for November appeared to be in question because sufficient shipping wasn’t available to move the three million GIs the Army demanded halfway around the world from Europe to the Pacific. One reason for the shortage was MacArthur’s refusal to part with the merchant shipping he controlled in southern waters.
** Military staff studies of the invasion plans suggested that the US might suffer half a million or more casualties. In fact, top-secret code intercepts made it clear that Tokyo was transferring a total of nearly 900,000 soldiers to the island of Kyushu, where the invasion was scheduled to begin. This was a buildup “that exceeded anything the Americans thought possible.” And the Japanese had identified the individual beaches where the troops were destined to land. Wholesale slaughter on Kyushu was a certainty.
** The American public was in a vindictive mood, demanding unconditional surrender of the Japanese and the prosecution of Japanese war criminals, starting with the Emperor.
** Meanwhile, “legislators, business leaders, organized labor, and public commentators all complained that the military, the Army in particular, was devouring the materials and manpower needed to begin the process of reconversion to a peacetime economy.” And Truman’s new Treasury Secretary, Fred Vinson, was “warning of impending economic disaster unless the administration took immediate steps to speed up reconversion.”
Despite these complexities and the mutually exclusive claims that presented themselves to him, President Truman remained resolute in insisting that the Japanese surrender unconditionally.
Wishful thinking hobbled both sides
In the final months of the war in the Pacific, key players on both the Japanese and American sides indulged in what can only be called wishful thinking.
** Emperor Hirohito and the militarists in power in Tokyo were convinced that the US would back down from demanding unconditional surrender and negotiate on terms favorable to Japan—if they could kill enough American soldiers and sailors. They believed the US public was weary of war and would find the mounting casualties unacceptable. While that might well have been the case had the war dragged on into 1946 (as US Army planners assumed would happen following an invasion), public opinion surveys suggested it was not true in the summer of 1945.
** In Washington, powerful figures in the White House, the War and Navy Departments, and the Congress were certain that “moderates” in the Japanese cabinet would seek—and, some thought, were seeking—to surrender, if only the US would permit them to keep the Emperor in place.
In fact, as Gallicchio makes clear, war weariness and a desire to restart the civilian US economy were pronounced in the spring and summer of 1945. But the American public was overwhelmingly in favor of unconditional surrender. In one major poll, fully one-third of respondents wanted Emperor Hirohito to be executed as a war criminal; others insisted he be put on trial for his crimes—which might lead to his execution.
Similarly, the American conservatives who insisted that high-level Japanese “moderates,” including the Emperor himself, were ready to surrender were simply wrong. Intercepted Japanese diplomatic and military communications made it clear that the Emperor was in full agreement with the hardline militarists dominating the cabinet. And the politicians identified by Truman’s critics as “moderate” continued to acquiesce to his wishes. As Gallicchio explains, the so-called moderates “were staunchly conservative, even reactionary, in domestic politics. Like the militarists, they also sought Japanese dominance of East Asia, although they [had] hoped it could be accomplished less violently and without antagonizing the United States.”
An illustrious cast of characters
Gallicchio devotes far more attention to the Americans who weighed in on the debates about unconditional surrender in the spring and summer of 1945 than he does to the key Japanese players. But the contours of the unfolding debate in both capitals are clear enough.
In Washington, most of the leading figures in the US government in the closing months of the Second World War became embroiled in the animated, and at times bitter, debate:
President Harry Truman
Secretary of War Henry Stimson
US Army Chief of Staff George Marshall
Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal
Assistant Secretaries of State Dean Acheson and Archibald MacLeish
Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy
Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew
Secretary of State James Byrnes
General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz also figured prominently in the discussion. And the debate spilled over into the public domain as well, engaging former President Herbert Hoover, Time-Life publisher Henry Luce, New York Times military editor Hanson Baldwin, and radical journalist I. F. Stone, among many others.
The unconditional surrender controversy set the stage for the post-war political stand-off
Differences of opinion about the wisdom of demanding unconditional surrender of Japan hardened in the war’s final months. As the debate unfolded, the two sides solidified into conservative (hard-line anti-Communist) and liberal (pro-New Deal) factions. To view the matter more broadly, as Gallichio puts it, “the debate over the surrender of Japan signaled the end of coalition government in the United States.”
Conservatives criticized Harry Truman for passing up what they viewed as an opportunity to end the war without dropping the atomic bomb or allowing the Soviet Union to enter the conflict in the Pacific. Some even insisted that the New Dealers were pro-Communist and insisted on unconditional surrender in order to prolong the war so that the USSR would gain a chance to take part in dismembering Japan.
In fact, as Gallicchio notes, “Japan’s political class and Hirohito agreed to the restructuring of the monarchy only because the Americans were in control of Japan, a position they had obtained by compelling Japan’s unconditional surrender.” And the key to the emergence of democracy in post-war Japan was clearly relegating the Emperor to a symbol and stripping him of his political role.
The debate about Japan’s unconditional surrender colored political divisions after the war
“Unconditional surrender was destined to be controversial,” Galllicchio writes, “because it was Roosevelt’s policy. It incited the same ideological divisions as his domestic policies and extended those battles to the arenas of foreign policy and military strategy.”
And as the years rolled by, Herbert Hoover, Douglas MacArthur, and other harsh critics offered up increasingly fanciful arguments. A favorite of the hard-liners was that Hirohito had first sought peace in January 1945. Another was that the so-called moderates would have settled in July for any terms that might be called “unconditional surrender” if only Truman had agreed to allow the Emperor to remain on his throne. Both arguments were demonstrably false. But they helped fuel the fury in the anti-Communist wave that swept through Washington in the decade following the war.
Ironically, in the end, once the Japanese signed the documents specifying unconditional surrender, Truman did in fact allow Emperor Hirohito to remain on his throne. At the direction of the White House, MacArthur stripped him of his authority but enlisted him as a spokesman to persuade Japanese military commanders scattered all over South and Southeast Asia and the Pacific to lay down their arms.
A new President assaulted on all sides with contradictory evidence
When FDR died on April 12, 1945, Harry Truman had served as Vice President for just 82 days. Much of what he learned in the months ahead was new to him, as Roosevelt had never taken him into his confidence. And the pressures he faced were monumental:
** Japanese diplomatic and military communications—which the Allies had secretly decoded—made it clear that Tokyo was determined to fight on, regardless of the cost and despite any offers the Allies might make.
** But peace feelers through neutral countries by influential Japanese businessmen encouraged some American officials to believe that a negotiated settlement was possible if only the Americans would allow Emperor Hirohito to remain on the throne. Conservatives seized on the opportunity to press the new President to drop the policy. However, it was clear to most observers that “the authority vested in the monarchy made it a bulwark against reform from below,” thus preventing the thoroughgoing political change needed to prevent a resurgence of imperial ambitions.
** Before mid-July, when Truman learned of Trinity, the successful atomic bomb test in New Mexico, American military commanders were divided about how to end the war with Japan. The internecine warfare between the US Army and Navy was growing more bitter by the day. Admiral Chester Nimitz was certain that a naval blockade would starve the Japanese and force them to accept unconditional surrender. General Douglas MacArthur was determined to invade and, to reduce the burden on the Army, insisted on the importance of drawing the USSR into the war in the Pacific.
** However, the invasion of the Japanese homeland planned for November appeared to be in question because sufficient shipping wasn’t available to move the three million GIs the Army demanded halfway around the world from Europe to the Pacific. One reason for the shortage was MacArthur’s refusal to part with the merchant shipping he controlled in southern waters.
** Military staff studies of the invasion plans suggested that the US might suffer half a million or more casualties. In fact, top-secret code intercepts made it clear that Tokyo was transferring a total of nearly 900,000 soldiers to the island of Kyushu, where the invasion was scheduled to begin. This was a buildup “that exceeded anything the Americans thought possible.” And the Japanese had identified the individual beaches where the troops were destined to land. Wholesale slaughter on Kyushu was a certainty.
** The American public was in a vindictive mood, demanding unconditional surrender of the Japanese and the prosecution of Japanese war criminals, starting with the Emperor.
** Meanwhile, “legislators, business leaders, organized labor, and public commentators all complained that the military, the Army in particular, was devouring the materials and manpower needed to begin the process of reconversion to a peacetime economy.” And Truman’s new Treasury Secretary, Fred Vinson, was “warning of impending economic disaster unless the administration took immediate steps to speed up reconversion.”
Despite these complexities and the mutually exclusive claims that presented themselves to him, President Truman remained resolute in insisting that the Japanese surrender unconditionally.
Wishful thinking hobbled both sides
In the final months of the war in the Pacific, key players on both the Japanese and American sides indulged in what can only be called wishful thinking.
** Emperor Hirohito and the militarists in power in Tokyo were convinced that the US would back down from demanding unconditional surrender and negotiate on terms favorable to Japan—if they could kill enough American soldiers and sailors. They believed the US public was weary of war and would find the mounting casualties unacceptable. While that might well have been the case had the war dragged on into 1946 (as US Army planners assumed would happen following an invasion), public opinion surveys suggested it was not true in the summer of 1945.
** In Washington, powerful figures in the White House, the War and Navy Departments, and the Congress were certain that “moderates” in the Japanese cabinet would seek—and, some thought, were seeking—to surrender, if only the US would permit them to keep the Emperor in place.
In fact, as Gallicchio makes clear, war weariness and a desire to restart the civilian US economy were pronounced in the spring and summer of 1945. But the American public was overwhelmingly in favor of unconditional surrender. In one major poll, fully one-third of respondents wanted Emperor Hirohito to be executed as a war criminal; others insisted he be put on trial for his crimes—which might lead to his execution.
Similarly, the American conservatives who insisted that high-level Japanese “moderates,” including the Emperor himself, were ready to surrender were simply wrong. Intercepted Japanese diplomatic and military communications made it clear that the Emperor was in full agreement with the hardline militarists dominating the cabinet. And the politicians identified by Truman’s critics as “moderate” continued to acquiesce to his wishes. As Gallicchio explains, the so-called moderates “were staunchly conservative, even reactionary, in domestic politics. Like the militarists, they also sought Japanese dominance of East Asia, although they [had] hoped it could be accomplished less violently and without antagonizing the United States.”
An illustrious cast of characters
Gallicchio devotes far more attention to the Americans who weighed in on the debates about unconditional surrender in the spring and summer of 1945 than he does to the key Japanese players. But the contours of the unfolding debate in both capitals are clear enough.
In Washington, most of the leading figures in the US government in the closing months of the Second World War became embroiled in the animated, and at times bitter, debate:
President Harry Truman
Secretary of War Henry Stimson
US Army Chief of Staff George Marshall
Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal
Assistant Secretaries of State Dean Acheson and Archibald MacLeish
Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy
Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew
Secretary of State James Byrnes
General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz also figured prominently in the discussion. And the debate spilled over into the public domain as well, engaging former President Herbert Hoover, Time-Life publisher Henry Luce, New York Times military editor Hanson Baldwin, and radical journalist I. F. Stone, among many others.
The unconditional surrender controversy set the stage for the post-war political stand-off
Differences of opinion about the wisdom of demanding unconditional surrender of Japan hardened in the war’s final months. As the debate unfolded, the two sides solidified into conservative (hard-line anti-Communist) and liberal (pro-New Deal) factions. To view the matter more broadly, as Gallichio puts it, “the debate over the surrender of Japan signaled the end of coalition government in the United States.”
Conservatives criticized Harry Truman for passing up what they viewed as an opportunity to end the war without dropping the atomic bomb or allowing the Soviet Union to enter the conflict in the Pacific. Some even insisted that the New Dealers were pro-Communist and insisted on unconditional surrender in order to prolong the war so that the USSR would gain a chance to take part in dismembering Japan.
In fact, as Gallicchio notes, “Japan’s political class and Hirohito agreed to the restructuring of the monarchy only because the Americans were in control of Japan, a position they had obtained by compelling Japan’s unconditional surrender.” And the key to the emergence of democracy in post-war Japan was clearly relegating the Emperor to a symbol and stripping him of his political role.
The debate about Japan’s unconditional surrender colored political divisions after the war
“Unconditional surrender was destined to be controversial,” Galllicchio writes, “because it was Roosevelt’s policy. It incited the same ideological divisions as his domestic policies and extended those battles to the arenas of foreign policy and military strategy.”
And as the years rolled by, Herbert Hoover, Douglas MacArthur, and other harsh critics offered up increasingly fanciful arguments. A favorite of the hard-liners was that Hirohito had first sought peace in January 1945. Another was that the so-called moderates would have settled in July for any terms that might be called “unconditional surrender” if only Truman had agreed to allow the Emperor to remain on his throne. Both arguments were demonstrably false. But they helped fuel the fury in the anti-Communist wave that swept through Washington in the decade following the war.
Ironically, in the end, once the Japanese signed the documents specifying unconditional surrender, Truman did in fact allow Emperor Hirohito to remain on his throne. At the direction of the White House, MacArthur stripped him of his authority but enlisted him as a spokesman to persuade Japanese military commanders scattered all over South and Southeast Asia and the Pacific to lay down their arms.
January 16, 2025
I want to preface this by saying I was well out of my depth and out of my wheelhouse approaching this text. Usually I'm a sci-fi kind of reader but have always been interested in history.
Given when I started this book you'd think that it was a marathon that I didn't want to finish. The history alone especially around this period is, dense, multifaceted and unlike a fiction story, messy to the point of confusion. Needless to say, I did enjoy the backstory and history to the big decisions that were made and the lead up to the decision of 'unconditional.'
Great read if you're really interested in the history of World War 2, and the political undertones that are usually overshadowed by the war and spy stories that often romanticize the war as a big adventure.
Given when I started this book you'd think that it was a marathon that I didn't want to finish. The history alone especially around this period is, dense, multifaceted and unlike a fiction story, messy to the point of confusion. Needless to say, I did enjoy the backstory and history to the big decisions that were made and the lead up to the decision of 'unconditional.'
Great read if you're really interested in the history of World War 2, and the political undertones that are usually overshadowed by the war and spy stories that often romanticize the war as a big adventure.
February 10, 2025
Listened to on Audible.
October 13, 2024
President Harry Truman is a popular historical figure for presidential historians to write about (Gage 2022). The Historian Marc Gallichio’s book Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II is part of the current trend of books on President Truman. Gallichio’s book is focused on one of the most controversial parts of the administration of President Truman. The unconditional surrender of Japan involves, in retrospect, the dropping of Atomic Bombs, so Gallichio is correct that the administration of President Truman demanded the unconditional surrender of Japan will always be controversial “with good reason” (Gallichio 208). The book was published in 2020. I read the book on my Kindle. The book is part of the Pivotal Moments in American History series. The book contains black-and-white illustrations. The book includes a map of the American invasion plans for the Japanese Island of Okinawa by the Tenth Army (Gallichio 38-39). Marc Gallichio is a professor of History at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. Gallichio specializes in studying the topic of World War II in East Asia. Gallichio believes that the political debate that took place around the unconditional surrender of Japan in both the administration of President Truman and the Japanese government has been obscured by the ideological debate around the atomic bombs. Gallichio tries to explain what was discussed by the American and Japanese governments about the Japanese surrender in 1945. Gallichio’s book includes both a section for notes and an index. The debate about the unconditional surrender of Japan is so complex that the reader should read other books about the unconditional surrender of Japan as well as Gallichio’s book, such as Susan Southard’s Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War. Marc Gallichio’s book Unconditional was a readable addition to the books about Japan's unconditional surrender during Truman's administration.
Works Cited:
Gage, Beverly. 2022, March 7. “Harry Truman Helped Make Our World Order, for Better and for Worse.” The New Yorker. Harry Truman Helped Make Our World Order, for Better and for Worse | The New Yorker.
Southard, Susan. 2015. Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War. New York: Penguins Books.
Works Cited:
Gage, Beverly. 2022, March 7. “Harry Truman Helped Make Our World Order, for Better and for Worse.” The New Yorker. Harry Truman Helped Make Our World Order, for Better and for Worse | The New Yorker.
Southard, Susan. 2015. Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War. New York: Penguins Books.
August 8, 2023
I was motivated to read this because of all the Twitter (or X) discourse on whether the bomb was necessary that emerged with the release of Oppenheimer. Gallicchio doesn't provide a direct answer to this question, but a lot of meaningful evidence that has made me a "lean yes."
This book is primarily focused on the internal American debates on whether to keep the late FDR's commitment to unconditional surrender or to negotiate in order to end the war earlier. Gallicchio demonstrates that the key sticking point in this debate was whether or not to keep the emperor and political structure of monarchy. The author makes the surprising finding that this debate fell along the same battle lines that the New Deal did. Conservative Republicans favored allowing Japan to keep the monarchy while liberal Democrats held firm on keeping unconditional surrender. Hoover even went so far as to suggesting that Japan should be allowed to keep their colonial holdings of Taiwan and Korea. The Republicans were so anxious to end the war early because they were worried that the Soviets would enter the war against Japan, which would entitle them to a cut of the spoils at the end of the war. In addition, they were anxious to return to the peacetime economy - which for them also meant tearing down New Deal programs and institutions like the OPA that inhibited the free market. The Democrats wanted to stick to unconditional surrender because they believed that it was the only long-term solution to ending Japanese militarism, a lesson they took from the revival of German militarism between WWI and WWII.
Therefore, the counterintuitive conclusion is that the Republicans who wanted to end the war earlier were the real hawks because they were motivated by a desire to weaken the Soviets. The Democrats who were willing to prolong the war by sticking to unconditional surrender were the doves for wanting to definitively end Japanese militarism for good. Although we don't know what would've happened had Truman decidedly to be more lenient with Japan, the last several decades has shown that the Democrats got the outcome they wanted.
In the last chapter, Gallicchio addresses the afterlife of the decision for unconditional surrender. With the Chinese Revolution and Korean War, Republicans denounced Truman for his foreign policy failures in Asia. This criticism morphed into a false conservative narrative that the emperor wanted to end the war all along and the commitment to unconditional surrender was a mistake because it allowed the Soviets to expand their influence in Asia. In this tale, the Japanese had already offered to surrender in acceptance of all of the US's terms back in January 1945. They even went so far as to claim that sticking with unconditional surrender was a secret Communist plot by Truman and FDR to strengthen the Soviets.
In the 60's the conservative criticism of unconditional surrender transformed into a left criticism, keeping the basic framework but turning the motivations on its head. The left criticism also put forward that Truman was always aware that the Japanese wanted to surrender. However, he couldn't accept the surrender yet because he had to drop the bombs as a way of sending a message to the Soviets. In the left criticism of unconditional surrender, Truman transforms from a Communist plotter into a Cold Warrior who dropped the bomb as a flex against the Russians.
Gallicchio shows quite definitively that this claim (still circulating today) that Japan was willing to surrender before Hiroshima was a lie. While there were "peace feelers" who contacted US officials about possible paths to peace, none of them were representatives of the Japanese government with any decision-making power. Japan's massive troop buildup on Kyushu and interception of many diplomatic messages that showed a commitment to a bloody defense of the homeland were powerful pieces of evidence to US policymakers that Japan had no intentions of surrendering soon.
The decision to surrender was exclusively in the hands of the emperor and the Big Six of the Supreme War Council. Before Hiroshima, this group was unified in refusing unconditional surrender. Even after the bombing of Nagasaki, the four military members of the Big Six only wanted to accept surrender if the Allied military occupation was small, the Japanese army was allowed to self-disarm, and war crime trials would be handled within Japan. Trusting fanatic war criminals to eliminate their country's own militarism was obviously not a recipe for a lasting peace. Japan only accepted unconditional surrender on August 14th through the unilateral decision of the emperor, who took a lot of persuading.
Gallicchio ends the book explaining that unconditional surrender wasn't an end in itself, but an instrument to ensure that Japan's reconstruction would not be on the militarists' terms. While the Allies ultimately decided to keep the emperor, this doesn't mean that the conservatives who were willing to compromise on the monarchy were right. Truman did not give in to the Japanese offer to keep the emperor as the claimant to Japanese sovereignty, which frustrated the Republicans. Instead, they insisted that the emperor's fate would be subject to the Allies, which Japan ultimately accepted in its unconditional surrender. The US reduced the emperor from a major decision-maker of Japanese policy to a figurehead. Had the US given up unconditional surrender, the emperor likely would've remained the effective monarch of Japan in the post-war years. If this were the case, then it's possible that MacArthur (under Washington's direction) wouldn't have been able to impose a wide swath of progressive reforms including strengthening labor unions, freedom of speech, and democratization. These reforms in Japan's reconstruction were a direct reflection of the New Deal policies that remain the American left's greatest accomplishment. After reading this, it's hard to argue that Truman wasn't correct in sticking with unconditional surrender.
This book is primarily focused on the internal American debates on whether to keep the late FDR's commitment to unconditional surrender or to negotiate in order to end the war earlier. Gallicchio demonstrates that the key sticking point in this debate was whether or not to keep the emperor and political structure of monarchy. The author makes the surprising finding that this debate fell along the same battle lines that the New Deal did. Conservative Republicans favored allowing Japan to keep the monarchy while liberal Democrats held firm on keeping unconditional surrender. Hoover even went so far as to suggesting that Japan should be allowed to keep their colonial holdings of Taiwan and Korea. The Republicans were so anxious to end the war early because they were worried that the Soviets would enter the war against Japan, which would entitle them to a cut of the spoils at the end of the war. In addition, they were anxious to return to the peacetime economy - which for them also meant tearing down New Deal programs and institutions like the OPA that inhibited the free market. The Democrats wanted to stick to unconditional surrender because they believed that it was the only long-term solution to ending Japanese militarism, a lesson they took from the revival of German militarism between WWI and WWII.
Therefore, the counterintuitive conclusion is that the Republicans who wanted to end the war earlier were the real hawks because they were motivated by a desire to weaken the Soviets. The Democrats who were willing to prolong the war by sticking to unconditional surrender were the doves for wanting to definitively end Japanese militarism for good. Although we don't know what would've happened had Truman decidedly to be more lenient with Japan, the last several decades has shown that the Democrats got the outcome they wanted.
In the last chapter, Gallicchio addresses the afterlife of the decision for unconditional surrender. With the Chinese Revolution and Korean War, Republicans denounced Truman for his foreign policy failures in Asia. This criticism morphed into a false conservative narrative that the emperor wanted to end the war all along and the commitment to unconditional surrender was a mistake because it allowed the Soviets to expand their influence in Asia. In this tale, the Japanese had already offered to surrender in acceptance of all of the US's terms back in January 1945. They even went so far as to claim that sticking with unconditional surrender was a secret Communist plot by Truman and FDR to strengthen the Soviets.
In the 60's the conservative criticism of unconditional surrender transformed into a left criticism, keeping the basic framework but turning the motivations on its head. The left criticism also put forward that Truman was always aware that the Japanese wanted to surrender. However, he couldn't accept the surrender yet because he had to drop the bombs as a way of sending a message to the Soviets. In the left criticism of unconditional surrender, Truman transforms from a Communist plotter into a Cold Warrior who dropped the bomb as a flex against the Russians.
Gallicchio shows quite definitively that this claim (still circulating today) that Japan was willing to surrender before Hiroshima was a lie. While there were "peace feelers" who contacted US officials about possible paths to peace, none of them were representatives of the Japanese government with any decision-making power. Japan's massive troop buildup on Kyushu and interception of many diplomatic messages that showed a commitment to a bloody defense of the homeland were powerful pieces of evidence to US policymakers that Japan had no intentions of surrendering soon.
The decision to surrender was exclusively in the hands of the emperor and the Big Six of the Supreme War Council. Before Hiroshima, this group was unified in refusing unconditional surrender. Even after the bombing of Nagasaki, the four military members of the Big Six only wanted to accept surrender if the Allied military occupation was small, the Japanese army was allowed to self-disarm, and war crime trials would be handled within Japan. Trusting fanatic war criminals to eliminate their country's own militarism was obviously not a recipe for a lasting peace. Japan only accepted unconditional surrender on August 14th through the unilateral decision of the emperor, who took a lot of persuading.
Gallicchio ends the book explaining that unconditional surrender wasn't an end in itself, but an instrument to ensure that Japan's reconstruction would not be on the militarists' terms. While the Allies ultimately decided to keep the emperor, this doesn't mean that the conservatives who were willing to compromise on the monarchy were right. Truman did not give in to the Japanese offer to keep the emperor as the claimant to Japanese sovereignty, which frustrated the Republicans. Instead, they insisted that the emperor's fate would be subject to the Allies, which Japan ultimately accepted in its unconditional surrender. The US reduced the emperor from a major decision-maker of Japanese policy to a figurehead. Had the US given up unconditional surrender, the emperor likely would've remained the effective monarch of Japan in the post-war years. If this were the case, then it's possible that MacArthur (under Washington's direction) wouldn't have been able to impose a wide swath of progressive reforms including strengthening labor unions, freedom of speech, and democratization. These reforms in Japan's reconstruction were a direct reflection of the New Deal policies that remain the American left's greatest accomplishment. After reading this, it's hard to argue that Truman wasn't correct in sticking with unconditional surrender.
June 27, 2023
A good concise history of the events and considerations leading up to the end of the Pacific War. A varied cast of characters found themselves scrambling in a disorderly way to close the war on optimal terms. These include, Hirohito, intent on preserving his dynasty, Japanese militarists desiring to fight to the end (or at least preserve the empire), the Soviets who desired a piece of Northeast Asia, US conservatives with a soft-spot of Japanese monarchy and "moderates", New Dealers intent on reforming defeated fascists, and a new president trying to get a grip on everything.
Given the controversy of the topic, I doubt that it is the final word for those interested in this pivotal time in history, but it is a useful introduction to this complicated event.
Given the controversy of the topic, I doubt that it is the final word for those interested in this pivotal time in history, but it is a useful introduction to this complicated event.
January 23, 2021
Marc Gallicchio's book does an excellent job of outlining how the war against Japan ended. He covers the political arguments that began almost from the moment that Roosevelt made 'unconditional surrender' the goal of the allies. He also discusses the afterlife of those arguments, some made in good faith, some in bad.
As he says in his conclusion '...unconditional surrender was destined to be controversial because it was Roosevelt's policy." So, that means it was tied up with domestic political arguments about Roosevelt's politics in general and the Cold War that followed.
The key question is how serious were the Japanese about surrender if the Emperor's position was explicitly protected. I think Gallicchio convincingly demonstrates that they might have wanted peace but they had no intention of surrendering. That would have been the case whether the Emperor's position was protected or not. Those who argue otherwise forget that the US had broken the Japanese MAGIC codes so they could see what the Japanese were trying to achieve.
Gallicchio also does a fine job of showing how the role of Emperor Hirohito was seen in a ridiculous liberal light by some of the critics of unconditional surrender, which allowed him to retain his position after the war, despite even his own close family thought he should abdicate. Hirohito managed to distance himself from the militarists, even though there isn't much evidence to show this. The argument is important because it plays into the separate argument about the use of nuclear weapons.
Those who believe in the Emperor's good intentions see his appointment of Admiral Suzuki Kantaro as Chief Minister as a sign that he wanted peace and if President Roosevelt/Truman had picked up on this there would have been no need to use the Atom bomb. The problem is that doesn't seem to have been the intention. Japan had no intention of surrendering. Indeed, they had reinforced the home islands so that 500,000+ troops were ready to defy any attempt at a landing. They were prepared to defend to the death. Any landing would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives, both Japanese and American.
I used to think that the bomb of Hiroshima was necessary, the one on Nagasaki was more about demonstrating American power to the Russians. Having read this book I think both bombs were necessary. Even after the second the militarist Japanese were not prepared to surrender. It was only here that Hirohito finally acted to end the war, but even that was objected to heavily by some in the military. Indeed, a number of officers tried to stop the Emperor's surrender announcement from going out. Japan would never have surrendered. They would have either committed a kind of national suicide trying to inflict so many casualties on the invading Americans in the hope that huge casualties would force the Americans into some kind of negotiated settlement.
Also, the idea that the US could have starved the Japanese into surrender, whilst true, would have dragged the war on for months with a draining effect on the Americans at home. The Japanese explicitly would not have surrendered without the atomic bombs, and even then they almost didn't.
The other element feeding into this was the Russians. The Russians were preparing to enter the war against Japan by invading Manchuria. Some in the US wanted the Japanese to surrender before the Russians got involved to keep them out of Asia. That made them open to believing that Japan should (and could) be negotiated with.
Gallicchio talks about these people and their actions. One of them was former President Herbert Hoover, who comes out of this book as something of a fool. But a number of Republicans were to retrospectively attempt to re-write history to make FDR look bad and his State Department (and Truman's) look like it was infested with people working on behalf of the Russians. This particularly mattered after the Communists won the Chinese Civil War. Some of these arguments were bad-faith arguments and Gallicchio shows why pretty effectively.
Fundamentally I feel this book does a good case for demonstrating that unconditional surrender was the only way forward. After all the Germans after World War One had not seen themselves as properly defeated. Japan after World War Two knew it was defeated and its political culture was reformed and democratized. Indeed, one of the things that this book reminds you of is how much of a fascist political culture Japan had and the evilness of the crimes it committed. We often forget it.
Even with unconditional surrender though Japan managed to avoid the full 'cleansing' that Germany got. The Emperor remained in place, even if his role was significantly reduced to that of a British monarch. There weren't many large-scale war crimes trials, which is reflected in Japan's refusal to admit its crimes even now.
This is a long way of saying that is a good book worth reading.
As he says in his conclusion '...unconditional surrender was destined to be controversial because it was Roosevelt's policy." So, that means it was tied up with domestic political arguments about Roosevelt's politics in general and the Cold War that followed.
The key question is how serious were the Japanese about surrender if the Emperor's position was explicitly protected. I think Gallicchio convincingly demonstrates that they might have wanted peace but they had no intention of surrendering. That would have been the case whether the Emperor's position was protected or not. Those who argue otherwise forget that the US had broken the Japanese MAGIC codes so they could see what the Japanese were trying to achieve.
Gallicchio also does a fine job of showing how the role of Emperor Hirohito was seen in a ridiculous liberal light by some of the critics of unconditional surrender, which allowed him to retain his position after the war, despite even his own close family thought he should abdicate. Hirohito managed to distance himself from the militarists, even though there isn't much evidence to show this. The argument is important because it plays into the separate argument about the use of nuclear weapons.
Those who believe in the Emperor's good intentions see his appointment of Admiral Suzuki Kantaro as Chief Minister as a sign that he wanted peace and if President Roosevelt/Truman had picked up on this there would have been no need to use the Atom bomb. The problem is that doesn't seem to have been the intention. Japan had no intention of surrendering. Indeed, they had reinforced the home islands so that 500,000+ troops were ready to defy any attempt at a landing. They were prepared to defend to the death. Any landing would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives, both Japanese and American.
I used to think that the bomb of Hiroshima was necessary, the one on Nagasaki was more about demonstrating American power to the Russians. Having read this book I think both bombs were necessary. Even after the second the militarist Japanese were not prepared to surrender. It was only here that Hirohito finally acted to end the war, but even that was objected to heavily by some in the military. Indeed, a number of officers tried to stop the Emperor's surrender announcement from going out. Japan would never have surrendered. They would have either committed a kind of national suicide trying to inflict so many casualties on the invading Americans in the hope that huge casualties would force the Americans into some kind of negotiated settlement.
Also, the idea that the US could have starved the Japanese into surrender, whilst true, would have dragged the war on for months with a draining effect on the Americans at home. The Japanese explicitly would not have surrendered without the atomic bombs, and even then they almost didn't.
The other element feeding into this was the Russians. The Russians were preparing to enter the war against Japan by invading Manchuria. Some in the US wanted the Japanese to surrender before the Russians got involved to keep them out of Asia. That made them open to believing that Japan should (and could) be negotiated with.
Gallicchio talks about these people and their actions. One of them was former President Herbert Hoover, who comes out of this book as something of a fool. But a number of Republicans were to retrospectively attempt to re-write history to make FDR look bad and his State Department (and Truman's) look like it was infested with people working on behalf of the Russians. This particularly mattered after the Communists won the Chinese Civil War. Some of these arguments were bad-faith arguments and Gallicchio shows why pretty effectively.
Fundamentally I feel this book does a good case for demonstrating that unconditional surrender was the only way forward. After all the Germans after World War One had not seen themselves as properly defeated. Japan after World War Two knew it was defeated and its political culture was reformed and democratized. Indeed, one of the things that this book reminds you of is how much of a fascist political culture Japan had and the evilness of the crimes it committed. We often forget it.
Even with unconditional surrender though Japan managed to avoid the full 'cleansing' that Germany got. The Emperor remained in place, even if his role was significantly reduced to that of a British monarch. There weren't many large-scale war crimes trials, which is reflected in Japan's refusal to admit its crimes even now.
This is a long way of saying that is a good book worth reading.
October 5, 2024
This is a detailed examination of how, at the end of WW2, the American policy of “Unconditional Surrender” was debated in government circles and finally applied to Japan. It focuses on the American perspective, with a necessary but relatively cursory examination of events in Japan.
Gallicchio argues that it always was a political matter. In 1945, those who maintained a strict line on Unconditional Surrender did so because they wanted the USA to have the power to reform Japanese society, and this came natural to them because they were mostly on the left of the political spectrum, including president Truman himself. They were liberal democrats associated with the New Deal and attached to FDR’s policy ideas. On the right wing of Washington DC, Republicans and conservatives were much more comfortable with the idea of letting Japanese society be, more willing to compromise on war arms to obtain an earlier peace, and more willing to question FDR's inheritance.
Gallicchio highlights the irony that not only have the perspectives on the war end been reversed since then, but both sides are largely ignorant of their own past. And there has been a lot of myth-making and some outright lies about the events, which he tries to demolish.
He describes in lucid detail a rather messy process of US decision making. In 1945, American insights in Japanese politics were very limited, which is understandable as it was a complex and dysfunctional system. Decisions in Tokyo were generally arrived at by lengthy and fraught negotiations between hostile factions, from which a consensus emerged that was sanctified by debating it in presence of the Emperor. Because this was deeply opaque, US policymakers inevitably read their own prejudices into it. And that included men like Grew, who had been ambassador in Japan and supposedly understood the country better, or so he liked to believe. Thus when American officers, civil servants and politicians gave their opinions on the best policy versus Japan, there was no consensus and very little material evidence to judge the truth of it.
Gallicchio perceives that in those circumstances, Truman kept his own counsel, and that his instinct was to maintain the policy of Unconditional Surrender with minimal modifications. He was certainly willing to listen to those who advocated other approaches, but they failed to convince him to change the policy in any meaningful way. The US Army probably had the most influence on his decision making, and they tended to voice strong skepticism about the wilder ideas and hopes expressed by politicians. There wasn’t a strong enough case for a policy change. When intelligence indicated that the Japanese Army was concentrating strong forces on Kyushu to fight a battle to the bitter end, this prompted a hurried consideration of the alternatives to an invasion of Kyushu, but this was a military not a political change. When the Trinity test proved the devastating potential of nuclear weapons, they were primarily seen as tools that could support the existing policy. When it became known that the Japanese were seeking the assistance of the USSR to negotiate a peace deal, it must have looked as breathtakingly naive to observers in Washington DC as it did to the unfortunate man who had to arrange it, ambassador Sato.
The decision making that lead to the use of nuclear weapons has often been seen as inspired by the emerging Cold War. Gallicchio argues that this was at most a secondary consideration. The reality for both the USA and Japan was, as general Marshall and ambassador Sato independently observed, that there was actually nothing that they could do to prevent Stalin from taking what the latter wanted. Therefore, it was less of a policy consideration than it later appeared to be.
In the end, it is amazing that the decision turned so much on the fate of the Japanese emperor, one man among millions. But for the senior Japanese military leaders more was at stake, as they reported directly to the emperor, which in practice — as Hirohito was an ineffective leader — gave them a degree of independence and power that was only limited by the bitter competition between themselves. It was probably right to insist that, if the emperor was not altogether toppled from his throne, then at least radically redefining his role was essential to eliminate militarism. And the final compromise, using the emperor as a tool to modify the system, was one with a strong precedent, as it was exactly what the samurai of the Chosu and Satsuma domains had done in 1868.
In all, this is a detailed and strong analysis, but as it is one that focuses on just one side, it can’t be the only book that you should read on this topic. Especially as, as Gallicchio reminds us, this debate will probably continue forever.
Gallicchio argues that it always was a political matter. In 1945, those who maintained a strict line on Unconditional Surrender did so because they wanted the USA to have the power to reform Japanese society, and this came natural to them because they were mostly on the left of the political spectrum, including president Truman himself. They were liberal democrats associated with the New Deal and attached to FDR’s policy ideas. On the right wing of Washington DC, Republicans and conservatives were much more comfortable with the idea of letting Japanese society be, more willing to compromise on war arms to obtain an earlier peace, and more willing to question FDR's inheritance.
Gallicchio highlights the irony that not only have the perspectives on the war end been reversed since then, but both sides are largely ignorant of their own past. And there has been a lot of myth-making and some outright lies about the events, which he tries to demolish.
He describes in lucid detail a rather messy process of US decision making. In 1945, American insights in Japanese politics were very limited, which is understandable as it was a complex and dysfunctional system. Decisions in Tokyo were generally arrived at by lengthy and fraught negotiations between hostile factions, from which a consensus emerged that was sanctified by debating it in presence of the Emperor. Because this was deeply opaque, US policymakers inevitably read their own prejudices into it. And that included men like Grew, who had been ambassador in Japan and supposedly understood the country better, or so he liked to believe. Thus when American officers, civil servants and politicians gave their opinions on the best policy versus Japan, there was no consensus and very little material evidence to judge the truth of it.
Gallicchio perceives that in those circumstances, Truman kept his own counsel, and that his instinct was to maintain the policy of Unconditional Surrender with minimal modifications. He was certainly willing to listen to those who advocated other approaches, but they failed to convince him to change the policy in any meaningful way. The US Army probably had the most influence on his decision making, and they tended to voice strong skepticism about the wilder ideas and hopes expressed by politicians. There wasn’t a strong enough case for a policy change. When intelligence indicated that the Japanese Army was concentrating strong forces on Kyushu to fight a battle to the bitter end, this prompted a hurried consideration of the alternatives to an invasion of Kyushu, but this was a military not a political change. When the Trinity test proved the devastating potential of nuclear weapons, they were primarily seen as tools that could support the existing policy. When it became known that the Japanese were seeking the assistance of the USSR to negotiate a peace deal, it must have looked as breathtakingly naive to observers in Washington DC as it did to the unfortunate man who had to arrange it, ambassador Sato.
The decision making that lead to the use of nuclear weapons has often been seen as inspired by the emerging Cold War. Gallicchio argues that this was at most a secondary consideration. The reality for both the USA and Japan was, as general Marshall and ambassador Sato independently observed, that there was actually nothing that they could do to prevent Stalin from taking what the latter wanted. Therefore, it was less of a policy consideration than it later appeared to be.
In the end, it is amazing that the decision turned so much on the fate of the Japanese emperor, one man among millions. But for the senior Japanese military leaders more was at stake, as they reported directly to the emperor, which in practice — as Hirohito was an ineffective leader — gave them a degree of independence and power that was only limited by the bitter competition between themselves. It was probably right to insist that, if the emperor was not altogether toppled from his throne, then at least radically redefining his role was essential to eliminate militarism. And the final compromise, using the emperor as a tool to modify the system, was one with a strong precedent, as it was exactly what the samurai of the Chosu and Satsuma domains had done in 1868.
In all, this is a detailed and strong analysis, but as it is one that focuses on just one side, it can’t be the only book that you should read on this topic. Especially as, as Gallicchio reminds us, this debate will probably continue forever.
November 5, 2020
4.5 stars. I learned a lot about a topic that I really thought I knew more about. Wonders never cease! Unconditional really disabused me of a few lazily heald preconcieved notions I had about the end of the war with Japan. In particular, this book pretty convincingly explodes at least two or three common refrains I often hear about it. I'll get to them shortly. But first, by way of prologue:
If you're interested in the Pacific theatre of WWII, and if, in particular, you're interested in questions like: Why didn't the US make clear to Japan that they could keep the emporer if they ultimately let them keep him anyways? What led the US and Japan to make peace when they did, how they did? Could the Allies have ended the war with Japan earlier? Are there reasons to believe Japan might have surrendered earlier? Then this book is for you!
My point of entry into this book was a number of conversations I've had where I heard something to the effect of: "The Japanese surrounder to the US wasn't REALLY unconditional." and as evidence the continued existence of the Emperor is pointed out to me.
Enter Marc Gallicchio. By and large this book was exactly what I was looking for. It was obvously meticulously researched and really grapples with (and takes a side in) some of the key debates surrounding the subject - which I loved. At 200 some odd pages, it's also quite brief, which is a major relief, because at this level of detail (granular, blow by blow, covering just a few key months) I don't think I could stay engaged much longer. If you're looking for broad strokes, this book is not for you. It really gets into the weeds, yet I rarely found myself skimming and almost every page had something to keep me interested.
So what will you learn? Firstly, the oft-repeated claims that A) Japan was putting out feelers to end the war early, and would have, if only a guarnatee over the Emperor's continued existence was made and B) that Japan's appointment of Suzuki as Prime Minster was intended to serve as a signal to the Allies that Japan wanted to make peace do not survive contact with Gallicchio's book. More to the point, Unconditional introduced me to a whole world of contemporary debates and counter proposals for how to end the war that I was completely unaware of. I had no idea, for instance, that former president Hoover was in favour of letting Japan keep not only it's imperial system entirely intact, with no Allied occupation whatsoever - but also of letting it keep Taiwan and Korea! I also had no idea that originally criticism of the policy of insisting on unconditional surrender came from the political right and the Republican party. But perhaps most interestingly, for me, was the inclusion of Japanese perspectives at the crucial last moments, which pretty convincingly show that the dropping of the plutonium bomb on Nagasaki had a fairly nonexistent impact on the Japanese deliberations.
If I have one quibble, it is this: for all Gallicchio's (very convincing) case for where the concept of unconditional surrunder comes from, and what preceisly it achieved (answer: modern Japan), and for all the trouble Gallicchio goes to to demonstrate that in the final weeks and days the Japanese were unmoved by assurances of non-total-annihilation, I felt like he didn't really take a side on whether dropping the atomic bomb on Japan ended the war or not (this despite having a chapter called: "'The A-Bomb was not needed'") and while we are told that the Emperor finally made the call to end the war, I really would have liked a little more analysis as to WHY he did when he did. If it wasn't the A-bomb, was it the entry of the Soviets into the war? Gallicchio begins to address this point, writing: "Some historians argued that Soviet entry ito the war, not the atomic bombs, was the decisive factor ending the war." (p.205) but then Gallicchio goes on to NOT ADDRESS this proposition head on.
So, all in all, I think this is a fantastic book, and I can guarantee most readers interested in WWII will learn some really interesting stuff.
If you're interested in the Pacific theatre of WWII, and if, in particular, you're interested in questions like: Why didn't the US make clear to Japan that they could keep the emporer if they ultimately let them keep him anyways? What led the US and Japan to make peace when they did, how they did? Could the Allies have ended the war with Japan earlier? Are there reasons to believe Japan might have surrendered earlier? Then this book is for you!
My point of entry into this book was a number of conversations I've had where I heard something to the effect of: "The Japanese surrounder to the US wasn't REALLY unconditional." and as evidence the continued existence of the Emperor is pointed out to me.
Enter Marc Gallicchio. By and large this book was exactly what I was looking for. It was obvously meticulously researched and really grapples with (and takes a side in) some of the key debates surrounding the subject - which I loved. At 200 some odd pages, it's also quite brief, which is a major relief, because at this level of detail (granular, blow by blow, covering just a few key months) I don't think I could stay engaged much longer. If you're looking for broad strokes, this book is not for you. It really gets into the weeds, yet I rarely found myself skimming and almost every page had something to keep me interested.
So what will you learn? Firstly, the oft-repeated claims that A) Japan was putting out feelers to end the war early, and would have, if only a guarnatee over the Emperor's continued existence was made and B) that Japan's appointment of Suzuki as Prime Minster was intended to serve as a signal to the Allies that Japan wanted to make peace do not survive contact with Gallicchio's book. More to the point, Unconditional introduced me to a whole world of contemporary debates and counter proposals for how to end the war that I was completely unaware of. I had no idea, for instance, that former president Hoover was in favour of letting Japan keep not only it's imperial system entirely intact, with no Allied occupation whatsoever - but also of letting it keep Taiwan and Korea! I also had no idea that originally criticism of the policy of insisting on unconditional surrender came from the political right and the Republican party. But perhaps most interestingly, for me, was the inclusion of Japanese perspectives at the crucial last moments, which pretty convincingly show that the dropping of the plutonium bomb on Nagasaki had a fairly nonexistent impact on the Japanese deliberations.
If I have one quibble, it is this: for all Gallicchio's (very convincing) case for where the concept of unconditional surrunder comes from, and what preceisly it achieved (answer: modern Japan), and for all the trouble Gallicchio goes to to demonstrate that in the final weeks and days the Japanese were unmoved by assurances of non-total-annihilation, I felt like he didn't really take a side on whether dropping the atomic bomb on Japan ended the war or not (this despite having a chapter called: "'The A-Bomb was not needed'") and while we are told that the Emperor finally made the call to end the war, I really would have liked a little more analysis as to WHY he did when he did. If it wasn't the A-bomb, was it the entry of the Soviets into the war? Gallicchio begins to address this point, writing: "Some historians argued that Soviet entry ito the war, not the atomic bombs, was the decisive factor ending the war." (p.205) but then Gallicchio goes on to NOT ADDRESS this proposition head on.
So, all in all, I think this is a fantastic book, and I can guarantee most readers interested in WWII will learn some really interesting stuff.
October 25, 2020
Succinct history on the policy of unconditional surrender toward Japan, its development, and its detractors. I had no idea conservatives were the first critics of unconditional surrender- I thought it all started in the 60's. Reminds me of Richard Frank's Downfall, but from the political side of things.
Gallicchio convincingly argues that modifying unconditional surrender to induce the end of the war would have required more concessions to the Japanese than some critics of the policy (and the atomic bombs) are willing to concede. All too often I get the impression that people believe we could have ceased military operations, negotiated peace with Japan, and ended up with the same results, only with 200,000 less dead. That seems extremely unlikely. As Gallicchio argues, Japan's transformation into one of the most peaceful nations on earth was made possible by Japan's unconditional surrender.
Just a warning- some background knowledge on the war in the Pacific would be really helpful- this might not be the best book for a beginner.
Gallicchio convincingly argues that modifying unconditional surrender to induce the end of the war would have required more concessions to the Japanese than some critics of the policy (and the atomic bombs) are willing to concede. All too often I get the impression that people believe we could have ceased military operations, negotiated peace with Japan, and ended up with the same results, only with 200,000 less dead. That seems extremely unlikely. As Gallicchio argues, Japan's transformation into one of the most peaceful nations on earth was made possible by Japan's unconditional surrender.
Just a warning- some background knowledge on the war in the Pacific would be really helpful- this might not be the best book for a beginner.
February 6, 2022
Unconditional follows the policy and military debates of enforcing unconditional surrender on the Japanese at the end of World War II. From the debates on whether the United States should grant an exception to the emperor or to use the atom bombs are all covered here. Marc Gallicchio does a great job of giving you the information you need without getting too bogged down in detail. It is a fitting contribution to the pivotal moments series as this begins the start of the cold war and lays the groundwork for the partitioning of Korea. The continuing degradation of MacArthur continues as his self-serving decision making is once again on full display. Having stood on the deck of the Missouri in Pearl Harbor this book does great justice to capturing that historic moment and adding in new details. For those interested in World War II or have enjoyed the Pivotal Moments series read on because this is a great addition to the historiography.
November 5, 2023
hard to follow, prosaic
im not sure what was wrong with this but it was just hard for me to follow and get much information out of it, i gained the following general idea but most of the details are lost on me
it sounded like japan was prepared to surrender but wanted to preserve the emperor, the US would only accept unconditional surrender, they went back and forth on this, once there was surrender it was an awkward situation of japans own military being the ones to enforce the surrender, also it seemed like we wanted to use the atomic bombs to signal to russia that we had them, and had to use 2 to imply that we had more than one
it seemed like there was relavent information in this but i just didnt enjoy taking it in, very dense book i suppose meant more for research than to read all the way through
im not sure what was wrong with this but it was just hard for me to follow and get much information out of it, i gained the following general idea but most of the details are lost on me
it sounded like japan was prepared to surrender but wanted to preserve the emperor, the US would only accept unconditional surrender, they went back and forth on this, once there was surrender it was an awkward situation of japans own military being the ones to enforce the surrender, also it seemed like we wanted to use the atomic bombs to signal to russia that we had them, and had to use 2 to imply that we had more than one
it seemed like there was relavent information in this but i just didnt enjoy taking it in, very dense book i suppose meant more for research than to read all the way through
August 10, 2020
Excellent history of all the political and human factors that went into the US decree of unconditional surrender by Japan in WWII. The dropping of the atom bombs was seemingly inevitable, and many in Japan's government and military were not willing to surrender for any reasons even after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the tens of thousands of civilians who perished. Veyr interesting to see how one's political leanings influence how this time in history is viewed. Also fascinating for me is how "revisionist" historians reinterpret "the facts." Lastly, the author shwos that many recorded "first person" accounts differ in many ways between what one remembered was said in a meeting, what others remembered was said in a meeting, and the official record of the meeting. May we all learn from the lessons herein.
May 25, 2023
This very detailed and well researched analysis of the factors underlying and influencing maintenance of the Allies' dictate of unconditional surrender in World War II is well worth the read for anyone with a serious interest in the topic. US-internal and the influence of the belated Soviet entry into the conflict get their due. The author addresses the academic post-war debates regarding the use of atomic weapons and advisability of demanding unconditional surrender in his final chapter and a brief conclusion.
March 18, 2025
A concise, complete, balanced, truthful presentation of the facts and analysis of the motivations around the unconditional surrender of Japan at the end of WWII. Importantly, the author returns to the political beliefs and discussions of the time rather than through the distorted lens of the intervening decades. It’s important to assess facts and people within the context of their society rather than hindsight. The direct confrontation of conspiracies from both sides is particularly interesting.
November 12, 2020
The second of two books recently read on the US war with Japan from the death of FDR to the Atomic Bomb. This is a very detailed (some might say dry) account of the efforts by various political and military factions to influence the new President Harry Truman. Among other things we learn that ironically, the leading appeasers of Japan were conservative Republicans, while liberal Democrats held out for unconditional surrender.
January 10, 2021
Thoroughly researched and approached from multiple perspectives this is an excellent book addressing not only the question of Japan's unconditional surrender but many other issues concerning the end of WWII in the Pacific and the postwar revisionist history that has clouded the facts.
The conclusions should be integrated into textbooks covering WWII.
The conclusions should be integrated into textbooks covering WWII.
March 3, 2021
It took me weeks to slog through these 213 pages. While this is a history book, the author’s agenda is to solidify the FDR/Truman legacy via excruciating detail about the internal US government policy squabbles regarding the approach to the impending WWII Japanese surrender. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the book is about putting too fine a point on it.
November 13, 2021
Excellent review of the history of, and debate over, the controverial ending of World War II. The author does an excellent job of reminding the reader that history looks a lot different in hindsight than it does to the participants when they're living it, which is an extremely useful notion to keep in mind when dealing with today's breathless 24/7/365 news cycle and social media.
September 3, 2023
This book is a very well written and well balanced analysis of the US decision to accept only Unconditional Surrender from the Japanese in World War 2, and the related decision to use the atomic bomb two times to force Japan to accept the US surrender demand.
September 5, 2020
A very interesting topic, but the book seemed a bit too unfocused and rambled a bit at times.
February 24, 2021
Accurate history.
February 7, 2025
Good read
July 4, 2022
5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️- Excellent - Highly Recommended
4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - A good, solid read
3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - An okay read
2 ⭐️⭐️ - Meh
1 ⭐️ - Not my cup of tea
4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - A good, solid read
3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - An okay read
2 ⭐️⭐️ - Meh
1 ⭐️ - Not my cup of tea
June 18, 2021
A story I never knew about.
A very well told narrative. It always seemed so cut and dry before. Glad I wasn't the president at the time.
A very well told narrative. It always seemed so cut and dry before. Glad I wasn't the president at the time.
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