ORIGINAL: Ike99
A new government came in during April 1945 headed by Kantaro Suzuki with the sole mission of putting an end to the war. Germany had surrendered and they knew the war was lost and wanted out. During this month through reading the Japanese diplomatic codes US intelligence concluded and the US State Department agreed Japan, including the Emporer, was attempting to end the war.
Dear god, where -- and please cite ANY source- are you getting any of this. Suzuki was not brought in with the "sole mission" of ending the war. He was brought in in the wake Koiso's horrible showing. Suzuki wasn't a peacenik. Here, and I'll quote Suzuki directly, from his testimony in December 1945:
"The Supreme War Council, up to the time [that] the atomic bomb was dropped, did not believe that Japan could be beaten by air attack alone. They also believed that the United States would land and not attempt to bomb Japan out of the war. On the other hand there were many prominent people who did believe that the United States could win the war just by bombing alone. However, the Supreme War Council, not believing that, had proceeded with the one plan of fighting a decisive battle at the landing point and was making every possible preparation to meet such a landing. They proceeded with that plan unit the Atomic Bomb was dropped, after which they believed the United States...need not land when it had such a weapon; so at that point they decided it would be best to sue for peace.
Now, note the date, this is when Suzuki is in American hands. If anything, he's gonna put the best spin on his testimony so when he says they were willing to fight and intended to until the bomb drop there's no reason to doubt that statement since it runs against his interests to claim fighting intent.
His statements when he first met senior officers after his elevation to his post gave no hint of surrender and he told Army Minister Sugiyama that he agreeed with a 3 point plan to fight to the bitter end. Suzuki moved to consolidate more power in the hands of the Army over the navy in the ongoing inter-service struggles in Japan (and the Army was the home of most of the worst hardliners) so that wasn't a peace move. He selected Shigenori Togo to serve on his cabinet, and he was a peace proponent, but in his post-war interrogations he explicitly rejects the view that Suzuki wanted peace and he recalled a conversation where Suzuki detailed a 2-3 year plan to fight on. Again, if when talking to a know proponent of peace he wouldn't open up and instead talked more war where is Suzuki looking for peace?
When a final war plan called "The Fundamental Policy to be Followed Henceforth in the Conduct of the War" was presented to the Emperor only Togo, of the "Big 6" in the Suzuki cabnent offered any call for peace. Suzuki argued quiet strenuously for war to extinction to the extent that it shocked Kido (one of Hirohito's assistants). This plan was approved on June 8 so very late in the game for there to have been a change of heart and well after your "peace feelers" in April and May.
As for your Shigemitsu and peace theory is also bunk. On May 5 the Swedish ambassador in Tokyo wired his government that he saw "no perceptable difference between the present government and it's predecessor." Apparently they missed the peace overtures from April you discussed? There were contacts made, as I said in my first post, with various governments ranging from the Vatican, Switzerland and Portugal but none of them carried the stamp of approval of the Big 6 so those overtures reflected individual efforts and not official policy and none were ever carried through.
I'd also like a source cite on the MacArthur "peace proposal" and who it came from since the terms are not shared by any "peace" proposal even discussed among the ruling members of Japan. It is more odd in view of the fact that as late as August 7th MacArthur declared, "In my opinion there should not be the slightest thought of changing the Olympic operation" and he consistently dismissed estimates of increased Japanese strength against the invasion as deception. Once more, I'm not sure why if he thought peace was in the offing.
Most your your comments are more or less directly lifted from this site:
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html and the use of works by Hoyt, Alperovitz and
Barnes show how out of date this material is. Wainwright, BTW, makes the comments in the last section of his book and reflect his personal thoughts/biases but even the main chunk of his book supports the thesis that the Japanese were not close to surrender.
A good sum of the current state of research:
http://www.anzasa.arts.usyd.edu.au/ahas ... raphy.html and sums up: "On the issue of Japanese surrender, various studies suggest that in July 1945 the government had not decided to surrender and that Hirohito and the militarists had not been prepared to reach such a decision until the entry of the Russians into the war and the dropping of the atomic bombs finally forced the Emperor’s hand. In that sense the traditional view is supported.....Overall, the recent studies, have, in various ways, modified but not displaced the traditional views on why the bombs were dropped. Much of the revisionist case is based on the ahistorical assumption that Truman and US policymakers understood Japanese intentions with the same clarity as historians have been able to achieve decades after the event. In any case, the Japanese showed no serious signs of being willing to surrender in July and early August 1945."
Happy reading.
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