Unconditional

Abstract Signed on September 2, 1945, by Japanese and Allied leaders, the instrument of surrender formally ended the war in the Pacific and brought to a close one of the most cataclysmic engagements in history. VJ (Victory over Japan) Day had taken place about two weeks earlier, in the wake of atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet Union’s entrance into the war. In the end, the surrender itself fulfilled FDR’s commitment that it be “unconditional.” Though readily accepted as war policy at the time, after Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, popular support for unconditional surrender wavered, particularly when the bloody campaigns on Iwo Jima and Okinawa made clear the cost of military victory against Japan. The war’s end in Europe spurred calls in Congress, particularly among anti-New Deal Republicans, to shift the American economy to peacetime and bring home troops. Even after the atomic bombs had been dropped, Japan continued to seek a negotiated surrender, further complicating the debate. Though this was the last time Americans would impose surrender unconditionally, questions surrounding it continued at home through the 1950s and 1960s, when liberal and conservative views reversed, and particularly in Vietnam and the definition of “peace with honor.” It remained controversial through the ceremonies surrounding the fiftieth anniversary and the Gulf War, when the subject revived. This book describes the surrender in its historical moment, revealing how and why the event unfolded as it did and the principal figures behind it