Department of the Army
Files
No. 592
The Secretary of War
(Stimson) to the
President
1
top secret
[Washington,] July 2,
1945.
Dear Mr. President: I am enclosing
herewith a memorandum to you on the matter of the proposed
warning to Japan, a subject
which I have heretofore discussed with you. I have tried to
state as succinctly as possible how the matter lies in my mind,
and in the course of preparing the memorandum, I have consulted
with the Secretary of the Navy and the Acting Secretary of
State, each of whom has approved the tenor of the memorandum and
has subscribed to the recommendations contained in it.
I have also had prepared a proposed form of proclamation which
has been discussed with representatives of the State Department
and the Navy Department, as well as with officers of the General
Staff but which has not been placed in final form or in any
sense approved as a
[Page 889]
final document by the Secretary of State or the Secretary of
Navy or the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It has been drafted merely to
put on paper something which would give us some idea of how a
warning of the character we have in mind might appear. You will
note that it is written without specific relation to the
employment of any new weapon. Of course it would have to be
revamped to conform to the efficacy of such a weapon if the
warning were to be delivered, as would almost certainly be the
case, in conjunction with its use.2
As these papers were primarily prepared as a possible background
for some of your discussions at the forthcoming conference, this
added element was not included, but a suitable provision could
be readily added at the appropriate time.
I shall continue to discuss this matter with the Secretary of
State, and the Secretary of Navy, as well as with the
representatives of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and will of course
keep you currently informed of any further suggestions we may
have.
Faithfully yours,
[Enclosure 1]
The Secretary of War (Stimson) to the
President
top secret
[Washington,]
July 2,
1945.
Memorandum for the President
Proposed Program for Japan
- 1.
- The plans of operation up to and including the first
landing have been authorized and the preparations for
the operation are now actually
[Page 890]
going on. This situation was
accepted by all members of your conference on Monday,
June 18th.3
- 2.
- There is reason to believe that the operation for the
occupation of Japan
following the landing may be a very long, costly and
arduous struggle on our part. The terrain, much of which
I have visited several times, has left the impression on
my memory of being one which would be susceptible to a
last ditch defense such as has been made on Iwo Jima and
Okinawa and which of course is very much larger than
either of those two areas. According to my recollection
it will be much more unfavorable with regard to tank
maneuvering than either the Philippines or
Germany.
- 3.
- If we once land on one of the main islands and begin a
forceful occupation of Japan, we shall probably have cast the
die of last ditch resistance. The Japanese are highly
patriotic and certainly susceptible to calls for
fanatical resistance to repel an invasion. Once started
in actual invasion, we shall in my opinion have to go
through with an even more bitter finish fight than in
Germany. We shall incur the losses incident to such a
war and we shall have to leave the Japanese islands even
more thoroughly destroyed than was the case with
Germany. This would be due both to the difference in the
Japanese and German personal character and the
differences in the size and character of the terrain
through which the operations will take place.
- 4.
- A question then comes: Is there any alternative to
such a forceful occupation of Japan which will secure for us the
equivalent of an unconditional surrender of her forces
and a permanent destruction of her power again to strike
an aggressive blow at the “peace of the Pacific”? I am
inclined to think that there is enough such chance to
make it well worthwhile our giving them a warning of
what is to come and a definite opportunity to
capitulate. As above suggested, it should be tried
before the actual forceful occupation of the homeland
islands is begun and furthermore the warning should be
given in ample time to permit a national reaction to set
in.
We have the following enormously favorable factors on our
side—factors much weightier than those we had against
Germany:
-
Japan has no
allies.
- Her navy is nearly destroyed and she is vulnerable
to a surface and underwater blockade which can
deprive her of sufficient food and supplies for her
population.
- She is terribly vulnerable to our concentrated air
attack upon her crowded cities, industrial and food
resources.
- She has against her not only the Anglo-American
forces but the rising forces of China and the
ominous threat of Russia.
- We have inexhaustible and untouched industrial
resources to bring to bear against her diminishing
potential.
[Page 891]
We have great moral superiority through being the victim of
her first sneak attack.
The problem is to translate these advantages into prompt and
economical achievement of our objectives. I believe
Japan
is susceptible to reason in such a
crisis to a much greater extent than is indicated by our
current press and other current comment. Japan is not a nation
composed wholly of mad fanatics of an entirely different
mentality from ours. On the contrary, she has within the
past century shown herself to possess extremely intelligent
people, capable in an unprecedentedly short time of adopting
not only the complicated technique of Occidental
civilization but to a substantial extent their culture and
their political and social ideas. Her advance in all these
respects during the short period of sixty or seventy years
has been one of the most astounding feats of national
progress in history—a leap from the isolated feudalism of
centuries into the position of one of the six or seven great
powers of the world. She has not only built up powerful
armies and navies. She has maintained an honest and
effective national finance and respected position in many of
the sciences in which we pride ourselves. Prior to the
forcible seizure of power over her government by the
fanatical military group in 1931, she had for ten years
lived a reasonably responsible and respectable international
life.
My own opinion is in her favor on the two points involved in
this question.
-
a.
- I think the Japanese nation has the mental
intelligence and versatile capacity in such a crisis to
recognize the folly of a fight to the finish and to
accept the proffer of what will amount to an
unconditional surrender; and
-
b.
- I think she has within her population enough liberal
leaders (although now submerged by the terrorists) to be
depended upon for her reconstruction as a responsible
member of the family of nations. I think she is better
in this last respect than Germany was. Her liberals
yielded only at the point of the pistol and, so far as I
am aware, their liberal attitude has not been personally
subverted in the way which was so general in
Germany.
On the other hand, I think that the attempt to exterminate
her armies and her population by gunfire or other means will
tend to produce a fusion of race solidity and antipathy
which had no analogy in the case of Germany. We have a
national interest in creating, if possible, a condition
wherein the Japanese nation may live as a peaceful and
useful member of the future Pacific community.
5. It is therefore my conclusion that a carefully timed
warning be given to Japan by the chief representatives of the
United States, Great Britain, China and, if then a
belligerent, Russia,
calling upon
[Page 892]
Japan to surrender and
permit the occupation of her country in order to insure its
complete demilitarization for the sake of the future
peace.
This warning should contain the following elements:
- The varied and overwhelming character of the force
we are about to bring to bear on the islands.
- The inevitability and completeness of the
destruction which the full application of this force
will entail.
- The determination of the allies to destroy
permanently all authority and influence of those who
have deceived and misled the country into embarking
on world conquest.
- The determination of the allies to limit Japanese
sovereignty to her main islands and to render them
powerless to mount and support another war.
- The disavowal of any attempt to extirpate the
Japanese as a race or to destroy them as a
nation.
A statement of our readiness, once her economy is purged of
its militaristic influences, to permit the Japanese to
maintain such industries, particularly of a light consumer
character, as offer no threat of aggression against their
neighbors, but which can produce a sustaining economy, and
provide a reasonable standard of living. The statement
should indicate our willingness, for this purpose, to give
Japan trade access
to external raw materials, but no longer any control over,
the sources of supply outside her main islands. It should
also indicate our willingness, in accordance with our now
established foreign trade policy, in due course to enter
into mutually advantageous trade relations with her.
The withdrawal from their country as soon as the above
objectives of the allies are accomplished, and as soon as
there has been established a peacefully inclined government,
of a character representative of the masses of the Japanese
people. I personally think that if in saying this we should
add that we do not exclude a constitutional monarchy under
her present dynasty, it would substantially add to the
chances of acceptance.
6. Success of course will depend on the potency of the
warning which we give her. She has an extremely sensitive
national pride and, as we are now seeing every day, when
actually locked with the enemy will fight to the very death.
For that reason the warning must be tendered before the
actual invasion has occurred and while the impending
destruction, though clear beyond peradventure, has not yet
reduced her to fanatical despair. If Russia is a part of the
threat, the Russian attack, if actual, must not have
progressed too far. Our own bombing should be confined to
military objectives as far as possible.
[Page 893]
top secret
Proclamation by the Heads of State
U. S.—U. K—[U. S. S. R.]5—China
[Delete matters inside brackets if U. S. S. R.
not in war]
- (1)
- We,—the President of the United States, the Prime
Minister of Great Britain, [the Generalissimo of the
Soviet Union] and the President of the Republic of
China, representing the hundreds of millions of our
countrymen, have conferred and agree that Japan shall be given an
opportunity to surrender on the terms we state
herein.
- (2)
- The prodigious land, sea and air forces of the United
States, the British Empire and of China, many times
reinforced by their armies and air fleets from the west
[have now been joined by the vast military might of the
Soviet Union and] are poised to strike the final blows
upon Japan. This
military power is sustained and inspired by the
determination of all the Allied nations to prosecute the
war against Japan
until her unconditional capitulation.
- (3)
- The result of the futile and senseless German
resistance to the might of the aroused free peoples of
the world stands forth in awful clarity as an example
before Japan. The
might that now converges on Japan is immeasurably greater than that
which, when applied to the resisting Nazis, necessarily
laid waste to the lands, the industry and the method of
life of the whole German people. The full application of
our military power backed by our resolve means the
inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese
armed forces and just as inevitably the utter
devastation of the Japanese homeland.
- (4)
- Is Japan so
lacking in reason that it will continue blindly to
follow the leadership of those ridiculous militaristic
advisers whose unintelligent calculations have brought
the Empire of Japan
to the threshold of annihilation? The time has come to
decide whether to continue on to destruction or to
follow the path of reason.
- (5)
- Following are our terms. We will not deviate from
them. They may be accepted or not. There are no
alternatives. We shall not tarry on our way.
- (6)
- There must be eliminated for all time the authority
and influence of those who have deceived and misled the
country into embarking
[Page 894]
on world conquest, for we insist
that a new order of peace, security and justice will be
impossible until irresponsible militarism is driven from
the world.
- (7)
- Until such a new order is established Japanese lands
must be occupied and the exercise of our authority shall
continue until there is convincing proof that Japan’s war-making power
is destroyed.
- (8)
- The terms of the Cairo Declaration6
shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be
limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu,
Shikoku and such adjacent minor islands as we
determine.
- (9)
- The Japanese military forces shall be completely
disarmed and returned to their homes and peaceful and
productive lives.
- (10)
- The Japanese shall not be enslaved as a race or
destroyed as a nation, but stern justice will be meted
out to all war criminals including those who have
visited cruelties upon our prisoners. Democratic
tendencies found among the Japanese peoples [sic] shall be supported and
strengthened. Freedom of speech, of religion and of
thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human
rights shall be established.
- (11)
-
Japan shall be
permitted to maintain only such industries as will not
enable her to rearm herself for war but which can
produce a sustaining economy. To this end, access to, as
distinguished from control of, raw materials shall be
permitted. Eventual Japanese participation in world
trade relations shall be permitted.
- (12)
- The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn
from Japan as soon
as our objectives are accomplished and there has been
established beyond doubt a peacefully inclined,
responsible government of a character representative of
the Japanese people. This may include a constitutional
monarchy under the present dynasty if it be shown to the
complete satisfaction of the world that such a
government will never again aspire to aggression.
- (13)
- We call upon those in authority in Japan to proclaim now the
unconditional surrender of all the Japanese armed forces
under the authority of the Japanese Government and High
Command, and to provide proper and adequate assurances
of their good faith in such action.