The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [231]
The Potsdam Declaration had been specific and direct, had called for the Japanese to surrender or else face the most dire of consequences. The clauses included assurances that the Allies had every intention of destroying Japan’s ability to make war. In addition there were specifics regarding boundaries of what would remain of Japanese territory, and those foreign lands Japan would no longer occupy. The Japanese would be expected to submit their military leaders for trial as war criminals, to answer for the astonishing variety and volume of barbarism that even now were coming to light. The declaration had been very specific that the Allies had no intention of enslaving or even punishing the Japanese people. There were also clauses allowing for Japanese industry to be supported in efforts to restore a healthy peacetime economy, and that a more democratic Japan, with freedoms of religion and speech, would be welcomed into the greater world community. Once the new Japanese government had taken hold, the declaration had promised that the military occupation of Japan by the Allies would end. But it was the final clause that Truman knew would have been pushed hard by Roosevelt, and thus Truman felt strongly he should press it as well:
We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.
The word of the destruction of Hiroshima was spreading with lightning speed through every world capital, carried on airwaves that sent Truman’s announcement to every world leader. The success of the Enola Gay’s mission was now a dramatic and forceful punctuation mark to the resolution agreed upon at Potsdam, a resolution that Truman and Churchill hoped would convince the Japanese that there was no reason whatsoever for continuing the war. If the Japanese leaders were truly aware of their military situation, they had to know that sending their people into combat was fruitless at best. Now, with the explosion of the atomic bomb, Truman expected that the ultimatum issued at Potsdam would crush Japanese resolve, and that finally, even their most militant generals could be made to see that the war was truly over. Prior to Hiroshima, none of the Allied powers had received any direct communications from the Japanese, nothing to show that the Imperial High Command actually believed the threat the Allies were making. On the contrary, the Japanese response had consisted of the indirect broadcast of an address by the Japanese prime minister, Kantaro Suzuki, which used the word mokusatsu. Those in the West who studied Japanese culture knew the term to mean silent contempt, as though the Japanese hierarchy considered the Potsdam Declaration and the final ultimatum to be beneath the dignity of any response at all. Truman was aware that the declaration had not made specific mention of what should become of the emperor, a technicality that might cause some problems for a culture that the Americans truly couldn’t relate to. But the concept of utter destruction had no hidden meaning in any culture. Now, with that promise fulfilled at Hiroshima, Truman felt confident that