Eighteen Words That Bagged Japan

The Saturday Evening Post
November 17, 1945

By ball-red-02 Deceased Capt. Ellis M. Zacharias, USN
Available in book form in the Ship's Store

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EIGHTEEN Japanese words broadcast by an American spokesman are, now conceded by the Nipponese to have had a vital perhaps decisive role in ending the war. On July 21, 1945, in one of my regular weekly talks over the Pacific transmitters of the Office of War Information, I said, "Shokun ga go-zonji no tori, Taiseiyo Seiyaku oyobi Cairo Fukoku wa Bei seisaku no kongen to natte orimas." The official English translation read: "As you know, the Atlantic Charter and the Cairo Declaration are the sources of American policy."

What made these words so vitally significant in the psychological tug of war was the fact that they spelled out the message which the Japanese Government was anxiously awaiting. We had definite information from inside Japan that since early 1945 a powerful group of Japanese leaders discussed in almost daily meetings the ways and means by which Japan could best extricate herself from a war which they had all regarded as inevitably lost.

This group included old Admiral Suzuki, a confidant of the Emperor; Navy Minister Yonai, representing the whole Navy clique; General Umezu, chief of the Imperial General Staff and leader of the dissidents within the Army; Shigenori Togo, Japan's Foreign Minister at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack; Baron Hiranuma, president of the Privy Council, and General Hasunurma, chief aide-de-camp of the Emperor. The composition of this group was significant. These men had the support of the throne and also certain foreign contacts which enabled them to put out a series of peace feelers in Bern, Switzerland, and in Rome, Italy. We had no doubt that this group was powerful enough to act at the decisive moment, and to insure the success of its action.

What prevented them from suing for peace or from bringing their plot into the open was their uncertainty on two scores. First, they wanted to know the meaning of unconditional surrender and the fate we planned for Japan after defeat. Second, they tried to obtain from us assurances that the Emperor could remain on the throne after surrender. As long as there was doubt on these issues, they decided to remain in the background and to support Premier Koiso's efforts to prolong the war.

The atmosphere created by the implied ambiguity of the term "unconditional surrender" was skillfully exploited by the Japanese. In their propaganda to their own people they represented unconditional surrender as meaning total destruction. In their propaganda beamed to us, they emphasized the Japanese determination to fight to the bitter end. Of course, their maneuvers were not confined to routine propaganda. You can always find agents and operatives who are willing to face both ways at the same time. Such agents were used by the Japanese extensively, planting with us "unimpeachable" reports, all describing Japan as far stronger and more determined than she really was.

It was a peculiar situation, but characteristic of the last stages of a global war. When we analyzed the Japanese designs, manifested in their frantic diplomatic plants, we recalled similar German efforts in 1918, and discounted them. But we could not fail to recognize that in so far as psychological warfare was concerned, Japan had the initiative and made the best possible use of it. Our own psychological warfare was on the defensive. We ourselves supported the Japanese campaign by conducting a public debate about the meaning of unconditional surrender and describing the Japanese war as a long, hard fight requiring the total mobilization of our strength.

The few among us who regarded Japanese surrender not only as possible but also as imminent had considerable difficulty in making our voices heard. Nevertheless, it was at this stage that we found ourselves in a position to strike a decisive psychological blow. This opportunity was seized and, with the support of a few farsighted American leaders, I was permitted to embark on a surrender campaign which, only three months from my first appearance on the air, and talking directly to the Japanese High Command, ended with the cessation of hostilities.

At this point I would like to emphasize that while psychological warfare did play an outstanding role in bringing about the surrender of Japan, her defeat was the result of the magnificent work of our sea, land and air forces. Psychological warfare by itself cannot win wars, just as the Army by itself, the Navy by itself or the Air Forces by themselves cannot gain full and total victory. The question of "Who won the Japanese war?" can be answered simply. The war was won by the superb Allied team spearheaded by the United States forces in their ultimate victorious advance on Japan proper. This team was personified in the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, a little-known organization of anonymous staff officers. Psychological warfare was a phase of their joint responsibility.

To tell the whole story, I must go back to February, 1941. I happened to be in San Francisco with my ship, the Salt Lake City, when I learned that Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura was passing through the city on his way to Washington for his assignment as Japanese ambassador. Admiral Nomura, whom I had known for many years, inquired of Admiral A. J. Hepburn, then commandant of the 12th Naval District, how he could get in touch with me. I was invited to a luncheon which Admiral Hepburn have in Nomura's honor, and it was there that I arranged for a confidential talk with him. When I arrived in the admiral's suite on the fourth floor of the Fairmont Hotel, Nomura to the obvious surprise of his aides and quite contrary to Japanese custom, sent everybody out of the room to insure absolute privacy for our conversation. We talked for an hour and a half and covered a multitude of subjects, all bearing on the tense political and military situation. Admiral Nomura was amazingly frank, and when I complemented him on his frankness, he indicated that I was one of the two persons in the United States to whom he could open up his heart. The other was Admiral William V. Pratt, USN (Retired).

My report on this conference was sent to Admiral Harold R. Stark, then Chief of Naval Operations, who deemed it of sufficient importance to distribute it on the highest level. My conversation with Nomura bolstered by other observations, had crystallized my opinion that Japan was moving toward war.

Ever since 1932, when I participated in Fleet Problem 13, a maneuver which simulated an attack on United States territory in the Pacific, I somehow visualized the course Japan would take on the eve of such an attack. Even at that time I expected it to begin with a surprise air attack against our Pacific Fleet, wherever it was located, to be followed by the destruction of shore facilities in Hawaii, also from the air. I anticipated that two unmistakable signs would be added to the usual indications of an impending aggressive move by Japan. The withdrawal of noncombatant shipping from all sea lanes and marked increase in radio traffic are the conventional signs. But in the case of Japan, I anticipated the appearance of a Japanese submarine in the Hawaiian area and the congregation of three, high-ranking Japanese diplomatic envoys in Washington, D. C. A single Japanese cannot act by himself. Two of them cannot arrive at a decision. It always takes at least three Japanese to decide upon a bold move.

On November 28, 1941, nine days before Pearl Harbor, I sailed with Admiral Halsey's Task Force 2, in command of the heavy cruiser, Salt Lake City, for Wake Island to deliver fighting planes to Major Devereux. The events of the week greatly alarmed me, chiefly because I saw some of the signs of my earlier estimates materializing one after another. On December second we picked up a news item on our radio, announcing the arrival of the Japanese ambassador to Peru in Washington.

Shortly before that, Admiral Nomur a had been joined by Saburo Kurusu, and the arrival of Tatsuki Sakamoto from Lima now completed the congregation of three envoys from Tokyo. On the morning of Friday, December fifth, we were alerted by Pearl Harbor that an unidentified submarine had been reported in one of our operating areas. I had no doubt in my mind that Japan was ready to strike.

The Die is Cast

From 6:00 P.M., when short-wave radio reception from Tokyo became feasible, I sat at my radio until midnight trying to intercept any conversation which might be on the air. I hoped to pick up information which would have justified a signal to Admiral Halsey, asking him to pass it to CINCUS-Commander in Chief, U. S. Fleet--at Pearl. I did intercept a scrambled conversation, but there was nothing definite I could report.

On Saturday we drew within 500 miles of Hawaii. On Sunday morning at 0800, the communications officer burst into my cabin with the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. My immediate reaction was, "Well, the damned fools!" Yet somehow, even in that exciting moment, I began to wonder if there wasn't some method by which we could bring about the cessation of hostilities without invading the Japanese home islands.

Upon my return to Washington in 1942, as Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, I established a special branch in the Navy Department to study the methods of psychological warfare by which the surrender of Japan could eventually be effected. Among the studies we made was a survey of all Japanese military conflicts. We found that in 98 per cent of all clashes in Japan's numerous civil wars, the conflict ended with the surrender of the vanquished party. This definitely refuted the popular belief that the Japanese never surrender. We further found that two major conflicts ended with the unconditional surrender of Japanese samurai. These investigations clearly suggested the strategy which our psychological warfare was to adopt at the proper moment. This moment seemed to have arrived after the Battle for Leyte Gulf in October, 1944. The crushing defeat of the combined fleet and the loss of Leyte convinced certain Japanese leaders of the inevitability of Japan's collapse.

Several groups working independently in the United States drafted plans to exploit this situation and to intensify our political warfare together with our military and naval offensives. There was, however, no coordinated effort. Voices were loud in the United States that Japan would never surrender. One experienced veteran of the Pacific war said "Japan will have to be defeated in China, but even then the war will continue until 1947, and possibly until 1948." An official release of the Office of War Information in the fall of 1944 estimated that the defeat of Japan would require a minimum of eighteen months after the collapse of Germany.

All these prognostications and judgments were justified, in as much as they were made solely on the basis of military factors. My long association with the Japanese had convinced me, however, that in so far as Japan was concerned, the psychological factors outweighed all other considerations.

I first went to Japan in October, 1920, to study the Japanese language and the people. As a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy, I carried the designation of "Attaché to the United States Embassy," with a diplomatic status which gave me freedom of movement and privileges which furthered my study and research. But it was not until September 1, 1923, that I gained my real insight into Japanese psychology in times of stress. On that day in Yokohama I experienced the great Japanese earthquake. I suddenly realized that their greatest weakness was their inherent psychic inertia in the face of disaster. It also happened that the cabinet had fallen two days previously, the government was not functioning, and without orders from above nothing is undertaken in Japan. There was no authority to take action or issue orders. As I watched this stupor which for ten days held every individual Japanese in its grip, I was convinced that this would be the pattern of Japanese behavior in a supreme crisis of war. I remembered this in 1945.

Information reaching us from various sources inside Japan revealed the existence of a defeatist group within the Imperial Government itself after the fall of Saipan and the loss of Iwo Jima. Observers on the spot predicted the imminent fall of General Koiso's cabinet and his replacement by a premier close to the imperial palace. This prediction was borne out in April, 1945, by the appointment of Admiral Suzuki, a politician of high court rank who was personally close to the Emperor. It was evident the peace party was in ascendance and needed support.

I knew Admiral Suzuki personally from the time he was chief of the naval general staff. His political record seemed to support our estimation of his role. During the last ten years he consistently opposed the military hot-heads in both the navy and army, and had become one of the most influential persons behind the throne.

Forewarned as we were, the cabinet change in Japan did not find us unprepared. We had several specific plans ready to activate Suzuki's mission and to provide him with arguments and guidance. One was a strategic plan containing an estimate of the situation. The Campaign which was born of this estimate was then incorporated in Operational Plan No. 1-45, in which the mission of my assignment was outlined as follows:

To make unnecessary an opposed landing in the Japanese main islands, by weakening the will of the High Command, by effecting cessation of hostilities, and by bringing about unconditional surrender with the least possible lose of life to us consistent with early termination of the war.

This he accomplished by providing valid and powerful arguments for those in high places who are actually or potentially desirous of an early peace, and by canalizing their views, which are divergent only as to means;

(Propaganda objectives)
(a) To convince highly placed leaders of the hopelessness of further resistance,
(b) To convince the High Command that there is an alternative to complete annihilation and enslavement,
(c) To explain the meaning of "unconditional surrender,"
(d) To create dissension, confusion and opposition among those enemy leaders who remain adamant in their opposition to this plan, in order to impose our will upon the enemy,

The plan was submitted to Secretary Forrestal, whose interest in the project and broad understanding made it possible under difficult circumstances. Mr. Forrestal approved the plan on March 19, 1945. Subsequently it was approved by the other competent United States authorities, and the Office of War Information was instructed to provide facilities for the execution of the following decision: "The United States will conduct an intensive psychological campaign against the Japanese High Command through an official spokesman of high rank in order to accelerate and effect the unconditional surrender of Japan without the necessity of an opposed landing in the Japanese main islands."

For the Ears of Nippon

The task of translating this decision into action was entrusted to me. Assisting me in the campaign and working in a restricted area in a converted garage building in Washington, D. C., was a small unit of the United States Navy composed of a few specially qualified and highly imaginative individuals. The identity of this group must remain undisclosed for the time being. It was composed of six experts, each one a specialist in his own field. One of them was a naval officer, another a lieutenant of marines. One was a psychologist; another a sociologist; a third an economist and military historian; the fourth a brilliant linguist; the fifth a student of psychological warfare; the sixth a newspaperman.

As outlined in the operational plan the campaign centered in a series of broadcasts which I was to address to the Japanese Government and High Command. The project was in no sense extemporized. It required only fourteen broadcasts over a period of a little more than three months to accomplish the basic mission. I first went on the air on V-E Day, May 8, 1945, with a broadcast which was built around President Truman's terse definition of our unconditional surrender formula. My talk was addressed to "responsible and thinking Japanese." I recalled to a number of highly placed Japanese officers and statesmen the intimate contacts I had had with them in time of peace. To the Premier himself I said, "Premier Admiral Baron Suzuki may remember our meeting when he was chief of the naval general staff." I also mentioned Prince and Princess Takamatsu and recalled that I accompanied them as their aide-de-camp, during their tour in the United States in 1931.

Just twenty-four hours after my V-E Day address there were several indirect indications of its reception and reaction to it in Japan. A Tokyo news flash stated, "Prince Takamatsu has been designated as a proxy for the Emperor to visit the shrine of the imperial ancestors at Ise." Those who were aware of the Japanese inner situation immediately recognized the significance of Takamatsu's appointment. Prince Takamatsu is the Emperor's younger brother, He had been conspicuous by his absence from the news. This, his first emergence from obscurity since 1931, just a few days after I referred to him in my broadcast, was the Japanese way of informing me that my message was duly received and understood. In other radio flashes from South China and Manchuria, over the Japanese controlled Singapore and Hsinking radios, came inspired feelers, making oblique reference to my talks, seeking clarification or trying to discredit me.

Then, on the nineteenth day of the campaign, the first direct reply from Tokyo was monitored by the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service of the Federal Communications Commission. I may add that everything went according to schedule. The answer came when and as expected. It was an answer to my Broadcast No. 4, in which I discussed certain leaders who had brought Japan to the brink of disaster. I said," Now, for the first time, the Japanese people have the opportunity to evaluate fully for themselves the quality of the political leadership which maneuvered their country into their ill-fated alliance with Germany. Let me recall some of these men to your mind." And I named names.

The answer was delivered by Dr. Isamu Inouye, who had been delegated by the Japanese Government to "discuss" with me, on the air, the question of Japan's unconditional surrender. Inouye was chosen as official spokesman on the Japanese end of the line because be claimed to know me personally from the days when he edited a Japanese-language newspaper in Los Angeles. He was the overseas head of the Domei News Agency, the official government organ, and later vice-chief of the Information Section in the Japanese Home Ministry.

Between the Lines

When both the original and the English translation of Inouye's cagily worded reply were scrutinized, we found that the message abounded in transparent statements. "Japan would be ready to discuss peace terms," he said, "provided there were certain changes in the unconditional surrender formula." Although the changes which the Japanese had in mind were not specified, Inouye said, "We would like to mutually join hands in constructing an international machinery which will strive toward world peace and the good of humanity." This line we interpreted as the message of the whole broadcast.

What made this answer particularly significant was the concluding words. Inouye proposed to start "peace negotiations" on our level, since, in conclusion, he stated, "I would like to know what Zacharias thinks of these words from Japan."

The Japanese text of the Inouye broadcast revealed a significant sidelight which was lost in the English translation. He addressed me as Zacharias Kun. Previous references were to Zacharias Taisa--Captain--and ordinarily, when referring to "Mr. " the word San is used. The word Kun, literally translated, means "my good friend," and is one used by Japanese only between close friends or intimates. Therefore, its injection here was an appeal full of hidden meanings.

Inouye's message proved to us that my broadsides were hitting the target. Other Japanese broadcasters followed Inouye's example and by quoting from my talks provided additional evidence that my words were recorded and disseminated in Japan.

The Power of Words

The original operational plan had anticipated this development. We knew that every important American broadcast was printed in a daily monitoring digest which the Japanese board of information placed at the disposal of about 500 Japanese political, industrial and military leaders, and trusted publicists. It was this audience-the 500 who held the power of decision to whom our talks were primarily directed. Copies of the monitoring report were supplied to the imperial palace, and thus we expected to reach the Emperor's own circle.

Although we never counted on being heard on the 5,000,000 primitive home receivers of Japan, we did not leave the average Japanese entirely out of our calculations, By re-transmitting from Saipan on the regular Radio Tokyo broadcast band, we permitted the Japanese people to eavesdrop on the conversations progressing on a level seemingly far above their heads. We also reprinted arguments of my talks in millions of leaflets which General Le May's 20th Bomber Command. dropped over Japan. My talks were headlined in General MacArthur's own Rakkasan News, a Japanese-language newspaper which his planes "mailed" to Japanese territories. We hoped that public opinion would be aroused and popular pressure would be put on the Susuki government.

By April 6, 1945, when Admiral Suzuki assumed power, the plot revolving around peace or war had thickened within Japan. Admiral Suzuki masterminded the schemes of the peace party, but younger men, like Navy Minister Admiral Yonai, did the actual plotting. The Japanese navy emerged as the driving force behind the peace movement. We recognized the navy's role in the plot and did everything to drive deeper the wedge between the two branches of the armed forces. Opposed to the navy group was a clandestine clique of die-hard officers within the army, led by ex-Premier Hideki Tojo himself from his nominal retirement. In the cabinet, Suzuki seemed to have only one opponent--General Anami, a colorless military bureaucrat whom the Tojoclique designated to represent the army. He proved a fatal choice and was largely responsible for the bad showing of the warmongers. He was too weak to match wits with the shrewd navy group or to muster strength against the palace clique. Tojo himself made a disastrous mistake. He permitted the Suzuki government to come into power and then topped his blunder by tolerating it in power too long. By the time the Tojo clique went into action to eliminate the Suzuki group, and even the Emperor, if necessary, the peace party was too well entrenched and controlled so many key positions in the country and overseas that Tojo's plot was doomed to failure.

All this was known to us in detail. We know that the army clique was plotting a coup d' etat, but we also recognized that conditions within Japan no longer favored such a coup. Even within the war ministry, various cliques, were intriguing against one another. Field Marshal Count Terauchi, whose influence was second only to Tojo's, was too sick and too far away in Malaya to exert his influence. General Okamura, who commanded the armies in China, seemed to side with the peace party. And in so far as the mysterious Kwantung army in Manchuria was concerned, it no longer had any political influence.

When Suzuki accepted the Premier's office, he still hoped to retain at least part of Japan's modern loot, especially Manchuria and Korea. He was encouraged in this hope by reports from his ambassador in Moscow, who fully misunderstood Russian intentions and assured the Premier that the Soviet Union would stay out of the war.

The house of cards which Suzuki was laboriously building collapsed suddenly on the day when Okinawa was declared secured by our forces. The Suzuki cabinet was badly shaken. It could no longer conceal from the people at large that the invasion of the Japanese main islands was the next Allied move. In this situation Suzuki decided to discontinue his unofficial peace feelers on lower echelons. In a last desperate effort he approached the Soviet Government and asked it to mediate in the conflict. The Soviets forwarded Suzuki's plea to us, but did not reply to the Japanese Premier. This last move of the Japanese Government provided us with a final clarification of the situation.

Now our campaign was bearing fruit. It was evident that we were entering the homestretch. The initiative was in our hands. If only we could utilize this initiative in the right manner, we could end the Pacific war within a few weeks. It was at this stage that President Truman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff came into the psychological war to bring it to its climactic conclusion.

It is now generally known that early in June the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the State Department were drafting an elaborate definition of the unconditional surrender formula, to be issued from Potsdam. But Suzuki was still in the fight, chiefly because he was groping the darkness on one supreme issue. He called an extraordinary session of the Japanese Diet for June eighth, to which he delivered a speech addressed to us rather than to the members of the diet, to obtain clarification of this last issue.

Now, it was no longer a material consideration, such as the retention of Manchuria or Korea, which prevented him from saying in so many words that be would accept our terms. The only doubt which still forestalled a decision was the future status of the Emperor." I have served His Imperial Majesty over a period of many years," Suzuki said, "and I am deeply impressed with this honor. As bold as it may seem, I firmly believe there is no one in the entire world who is more deeply concerned with world peace and the welfare of mankind than His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor. I hear that the enemy is boasting of his demand of unconditional surrender by Japan. Unconditional surrender will only mean that our national structure and our people will be destroyed. Against such boastful talk there is only one measure we must take-that is to fight to the last."

Our problem now was how we could reassure Suzuki and indicate that there was no decision to destroy what he ambiguously described as the "national structure of Japan."

This time our answer was not confined to another broadcast. Instead, we decided to answer Premier Suzuki in an anonymous letter written to a reputable American newspaper, and to bring this letter to his attention in the quickest manner possible, The Washington Post was selected as the vehicle, with full co-operation of its editors. The letter, printed on July 21, 1945, contained all the answers to Suzuki's query. Its concluding passages may be worth quoting:

If the Japanese desire to clarify whether or not unconditional surrender goes beyond the conditions contained in the five documents cited above, [the Atlantic Charter, the Cairo Declaration, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's Declaration of 1944, President Truman's Declaration of May 8, 1945, and Justice Jackson's statement on war criminals] they have at their disposed the regular diplomatic channels, the secrecy of which precludes any public admission of weakness. They am aware that we know that Japan has lost the war. Such an inquiry could not possibly be misinterpreted or display any weakness beyond that which now actually exists in Japan.

If, as Admiral Suzuki revealed in the diet, their chief concern is over Japan's future national structure (Kokutai), including the Emperor's status after surrender, the way to find out is to ask. Contrary to a widespread belief, such a question can be answered quickly and satisfactorily to all those who are concerned over the future peace of the Orient and the world.

The letter attracted considerable attention in the United States. The Washington Post was bombarded by callers who wanted to learn the identity of its anonymous author. My telephone also rang. Washington correspondents, accurately ganging the technique, tried to make me confess authorship.

The letter was reprinted in many American dailies from coast to coast. We felt certain that it would be picked up by the listening posts of the Japanese government in Washington, D. C. It was.

Simultaneously another broadside was prepared along more conventional lines. I was now called upon to prepare a radio script on the highest diplomatic level, bordering on but not touching upon matters of policy. We worked on the script day and night for almost a week, drafting and redrafting it, listening to suggestions, submitting it for approval, weighing every single word with the greatest of care. When at last I went to the broadcasting studio of the Department of the Interior where I made my recordings, I had its fourteenth draft in my pocket--the final draft.

I was introduced as "an official spokesman of the United States Government," in line with the stipulation of the operational plan. But the Japanese indicated doubt as to my true authority. Was I "official spokesman" in fact as, well as name? Did my statements carry higher endorsement? The text--it was Broadcast No. 12--was released to the American press, and we hoped this move would dispel their doubts. The news of the broadcast broke on July twenty-first, and the evening papers were the first to feature it. U. S. WARNS JAPAN TO QUIT NOW, ESCAPE VIRTUAL DESTRUCTION headlined the Washington Post, and next morning The New York Times gave it front-page position and reprinted the whole broadcast.

The broadcast reiterated the themes of my letter to the Post. The message it carried was incorporated in four sentences: "The leaders of Japan have been entrusted with the salvation and not the destruction of Japan. As I have said before, the Japanese leaders face two alternatives. One is the virtual destruction of Japan, followed by a dictated peace. The other is unconditional surrender, with its attendant benefits as laid down by the Atlantic Charter."

In the midst of the domestic clamor which was manifested in editorials printed in virtually every American daily, the Japanese kept a significant silence. I visualized the conclaves going on in Tokyo in which strategy and tactics were discussed, to find the most propitious answer. We did not have to wait long. The Japanese answer was delivered at 12:15 A.M. (EWT) on July twenty-fourth, by another Inouye--Dr. Kiyoshi Inouye this time, one of Japan's outstanding authorities on international relations. I remembered him quite well as a former professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and Tokyo University, and as a delegate to various international conferences.

The message entrusted to Dr. Kyoshi Inouye was of momentous importance. In effect, he was to indicate Japan's willingness to surrender unconditionally if and when Japan was assured that the Atlantic Charter would apply to her. He stated, "Should America show any sincerity of putting into practice what she preaches, as, for instance, in the Atlantic Charter, excepting its punitive clause, the Japanese nation, in fact, the Japanese military, would automatically, if not willingly, follow in the stopping of the conflict. Then and then only will sabers cease to rattle both in the East and the West."

This was not the final word of the campaign. But it was the one word before the last. In retrospect, the Inouye broadcast of July twenty-fourth must be accepted as of great historical significance. Here was conclusive evidence of Japanese decision to terminate the war then and there; to terminate it on the basis of the terms outlined in my series of previous broadcasts. The Japanese answer was delivered two days prior to the issuance of the Potsdam Declaration, thirteen days before the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and more than two weeks before the Soviet's entry into the war. Japan was readied for surrender. To reap our harvest, we had only to shake her, like a tree full of ripe apples.

The Potsdam Declaration reiterated the tenets voiced in my talks, and fully endorsed them on the highest Allied level. By the time my last broadcast went on the air, "No. 14," on August 5, 1945, there was no longer any need for persuasion and psychological warfare. The B-29 of Colonel Tibbets, with its precious cargo in the bomb bay, was flying from the Central Pacific straight toward Hiroshima just as the Japanese monitors in Tokyo were taking down my words. The columns of the Red Army were deployed to cross the Manchurian border. The die was cast, Japan's life as a belligerent was counted in days rather than weeks. Our work was finished. The next move was to be made by Japan.

This move came in the form of a dramatic broadcast from Tokyo on August eleventh. It informed the world of the message the Imperial Government of Japan had submitted to the Swiss and Swedish governments, for transmission to the Allies. The message accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, with the significant proviso that the Potsdam Declaration "does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as sovereign ruler."

On July twenty-first, in my letter to the Washington Post, I wrote that the Japanese "have at their disposal the regular diplomatic channels," words adapted to Japanese psychology, and urged them to make the fullest use of them channels. Now, at last, this advice was heeded and diplomacy was called in to settle the final issue. And the proviso about the Emperor's prerogatives was a tacit answer to our advice that the best way to find out about Japan's future national structure and the Emperor's status after surrender was to ask. The disclosure of reasons for the advice about the Emperor is something that must wait for a future date.

The rest is history. Our forces are occupying Japan and not a single shot was fired during the process of occupation. Our fleet anchors in Tokyo Bay, and the powerful coastal guns of the Yokosuka naval base received our ships with white flags on their muzzles, depressed as if bowing to the inevitable. In the great drama of the Pacific war, psychological warfare fulfilled its appointed task. It was successful because it was sincere and because it was based on a careful analysis of the military situation created by our victorious armed forces, and on the accurate information supplied even from inside Japan by our extremely efficient intelligence services.

The success of the campaign opens up new vistas for this type of warfare. Psychological warfare has been called "the war between the wars." The Germans used psychological warfare to the utmost when the Versailles Treaty stripped them of all material means of aggression. I have no doubt that Japan has learned the lessons of German history, and it may be assumed she plans a comeback using psychological warfare where her military might so dismally failed. Obviously, we must be on guard to protect ourselves against this type of attack, which can be as insidious as the opening of hostilities without a declaration of war.


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