![]() ![]() Conservatives believed the left in the United States was more determined to use unconditional surrender to destroy Japanese feudalism than to confront Soviet ambitions - future manna from heaven for postwar redbaiters like Senator Joseph McCarthy. Republicans fought Truman on two fronts: First, they sought to undo New Deal social and economic reforms second, they argued that giving Japan a respectable way out of the conflict would save lives and, at the same time, block Soviet ambitions in Asia. Only by refusing to deal with dictators could Germany and Japan be redesigned root to branch.īut Truman faced powerful opposition from the Republican establishment, including the former president Herbert Hoover and Henry Luce, whose Time/Life media empire presaged Fox News today. Disarming enemy militaries was the start consolidating democracy abroad was the goal. President Harry Truman believed unconditional surrender would keep the Soviet Union involved while reassuring American voters and soldiers that their sacrifices in a total war would be compensated by total victory. It also traces ideological battle lines that remained visible well into the atomic age as the enemy shifted from Tokyo to Moscow. “Unconditional” offers a fresh perspective on how the decision to insist on “unconditional surrender” was not simply a choice between pressing the Japanese into submission or negotiating an end to the conflict. What is left to learn 75 years (and with so much spilled ink) later? For Mark Gallicchio, the answer is in the domestic politics of the United States and Japan, which drive a narrative that unwinds less like a debate than a geopolitical thriller. Every August, newspapers are dotted with stories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, accompanied by a well-picked-over - but never resolved - debate over whether atomic bombs were needed to end the Asia-Pacific war on American terms. ![]()
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