On the one hand, he was extremely dedicated to achieving unconditional surrender. On the other hand, he was more willing to work with Stalin (afaik) than Truman, and Byrnes would never have become Secretary of State. Would FDR living to the end of WW2 have changed the outcome of the war with Japan?

  • Catherine_Steward [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I'd say it was partly that, and partly an ego thing. The Japanese pretty much just wanted assurance that their emperor wouldn't be executed or anything, and the US had no intention of executing their emperor or anything. So any reasonable person would look at the situation and go "looks like there are no problems here, both sides want the same thing, let's see it happen" but the US thought that allowing your enemy to make any request at all makes you a little beta bitch or whatever and so they were literally willing to do anything to get the Japanese to agree that the US could execute the emperor if they wanted to

    Even though they didn't want to

    :amerikkka:

      • catgirlcommunist [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I haven't fully read this yet, but Tsuyoshi Hasegawa makes the point that once the Soviets invaded, suddenly surrender to the US looked a lot more inviting because of the Japanese leadership's fear of communism sweeping away the imperial institution. They thought the Americans would be much more likely to allow them to keep the emperor in place.

    • catgirlcommunist [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Truman and Byrnes were also extremely worried about public opinion. Most Americans at the time wanted the emperor removed from power in some way (executed or imprisoned, etc) and Byrnes thought Truman would be "crucified" if he was seen as going back on unconditional surrender.

        • catgirlcommunist [any]
          ·
          2 years ago

          and they were never going to remove the emperor from power. Most of the military leadership supported leaving the emperor in place. Afaik, there was never any real chance of the emperor being removed from power, at least by the US (could be wrong on that though). Just an insane push for unconditional surrender by Truman and Byrnes. Truly :amerikkka: