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telegram,’ Sato finished, ‘in the belief that [it] is my first responsibility to prevent the harboring of illusions which are at variance with reality.’ Togo replied five days later. After reminding Sato that the Emperor himself sought Soviet mediation, he added: ‘Please bear particularly in mind, however, that we are not seeking the Russians’ mediation for anything like an unconditional surrender,’ which remained unacceptable. Indeed, not even the ‘peace faction’ could agree on what concessions to make. Sato wrote back on the 19th, charging that officials in Tokyo were ‘out of touch with the atmosphere prevailing here’. Nevertheless, Togo responded on the 21st: ‘With regard to unconditional surrender we are unable to consent to it under any circumstances whatever. Even if the war drags on and it becomes clear that it will take much more than bloodshed, the whole country as one man will pit itself against the enemy in accordance with the Imperial Will.’ The Americans read these exchanges. President Truman, meanwhile, was now at Potsdam, and he had learned on 16 July that the atomic bomb had been successfully tested.11

Postwar critics of the US decision to drop the atomic bombs charged, among other things, that Japanese peace feelers were genuine in the summer of 1945, that Hirohito urgently sought to end the war as long as his position was guaranteed, and that he could and would have pulled the cabinet with him to surrender if the Americans had offered him assurances much like those belatedly provided after the a-bombs had fallen and the Russians had entered the war. That is possible—it is difficult, after all, to predict the emotional and psychological impact such a concession would have had on the Emperor and those advising him—but the evidence suggests it is unlikely. For one thing, while the peace faction was riven with disagreement over what conditions should be attached to Japan’s concession, the influential hardliners, including General Anami, Yoshijiro Umezu, and Soemu Toyoda, were united in their determination to prevent capitulation and to fight to the end. (Premier Suzuki waffled between the groups.) The final condition—the guarantee of the emperor—emerged as an option by itself only after the bombs had been dropped; previously it was accompanied by others, including an American promise not to occupy Japan, which was clearly unacceptable to Washington. There remained in Tokyo, despite Sato’s forceful missives from Moscow, fond hope that the Russians might take a hand in negotiations, and might at least refrain from attacking Japan. The Americans listening to the decoded intercepts of Japanese correspondence concerning terms thus heard not a clear, single message but a cacophony of voices, clashing and confusing, insusceptible to careful reading of a sort the Americans were disinclined to do anyway.

2. Preparing to fight the invaders

Above all, and as the Americans also knew, while various Japanese experimented with peace feelers through third countries, the Japanese military moved forward resolutely with plans for a final, all-out battle to defend the home islands. The defence plan was called ‘Ketsu-go’, or ‘Decisive Operation’. Adopted by Imperial General Headquarters in March 1945, Ketsu-go correctly anticipated that the Americans planned to invade the southern island of Kyushu and the Kanto Plain surrounding Tokyo. Military coordinators of the plan decided, first, to allow the Americans a beachhead on Kyushu—there seemed little choice, given US firepower as exhibited elsewhere in the Pacific—then to concentrate forces and lacerate the enemy before they could regroup and move inland. Second, the Japanese would use tokko, suicide attacks by planes, human torpedoes, and other devices manned by those willing to give up their lives to protect the homeland. Finally, planners envisioned full-scale mobilization of the population to attack the Americans with homemade weapons— pitchforks, shovels, improvised explosives, and whatever else came to hand. Over two dozen divisions of Japanese troops would deploy to