Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [345]
Truman approved a note drafted by the State Department at Byrnes’s behest, which was sent to London, Moscow and Chongqing on the afternoon of 10 August. This stipulated that “from the moment of surrender the authority of the emperor and the Japanese government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers,” and that “the ultimate form of government of Japan shall be…established by the freely expressed will of the Japanese people.” The British responded immediately, making their only significant intervention. They argued that it was wrong to insist, as the Americans proposed, that the emperor should personally sign the surrender terms. Probably mistakenly, Byrnes accepted this. He ignored Chiang Kai-shek’s dissent.
On the tenth also, Truman told the cabinet he had given orders that no further atomic bombs should be dropped on Japan without his explicit authority. It is reasonable to speculate that, in the days since 6 August, a sense of the enormity of the consequences of Hiroshima had darkened the mood of celebration with which the president greeted the first news. He was not alone in this. “Along with a thrill of power and the instinctive pleasure at the thought of Japan cringing in abject surrender, America’s deep-rooted humanitarianism has begun to assert itself,” the British Embassy in Washington suggested to the Foreign Office in London on 11 August, “and this secondary revulsion910 has been very marked in private conversation, although it has not yet appeared in the press…There is a good deal of heart-searching about the morality of using such a weapon, especially against an enemy already known to be on his last legs.”
Truman, however, was determined to maintain pressure on Japan. He rejected the urgings of Stimson and Forrestal to halt conventional bombing. Between 10 and 14 August, LeMay’s Superfortresses maintained their attacks on Japan’s cities, killing 15,000 people. Technical preparations continued for the release of further atomic bombs, should these prove necessary. A third weapon would be ready for delivery on 19 August. If Tokyo remained obdurate, U.S. assistant chief of staff Gen. John Hull debated with Colonel Seeman of the Manhattan Project the relative merits of dropping more bombs as they became available, or holding back to “pour them all on in a reasonably short time911,” in tactical support of an invasion. Gen. Carl Spaatz, USAAF strategic bombing supremo, opposed continuing firebomb attacks. This was not, however, for humanitarian reasons: he simply preferred to conserve American lives and effort until the nineteenth, then drop a third atomic weapon on Tokyo.
In Moscow, Stalin perceived that peace was very near, and hastened to complete his treaty with the Chinese Nationalists. By its terms, Moscow recognised Chiang Kai-shek as his country’s sole legitimate ruler. However, the Soviet leader sought to introduce a clause whereby Chiang would introduce “national unity and democratisation.” The Nationalist delegation rejected this out of hand. Stalin asked: “Don’t you want to democratise China? If you continue to attack Communists, are we expected to support [the] Chinese government? We have no wish to interfere, but [it would be] hard for us to support [you] morally when you fight Communists.” The Nationalists remained implacable. Stalin shrugged: “Very well. You see how many concessions we make. China’s Communists will curse us.” But agreement on other issues remained elusive. Only at 3 a.m. on 15 August was the “Treaty of Friendship and Alliance” between the USSR and China finally signed.
That night of the tenth in Moscow, Foreign Minister Molotov told Harriman, the U.S. ambassador, that in the