Negotiated surrender defeat and the destruction of

negotiated surrender, defeat - and the destruction of the Emperor system - became an
imminent threat (Butow, pg. 193).
The doves had run out of time; their religious devotion to the Emperor forced them to risk their
lives to save his or, at the minimum, to save the position of the Emperor (Pacific War Research
Society, DML , pg. 200). The only chance to save the Emperor was to surrender.

On August 8 - before the Soviets announced their declaration of war and before the Nagasaki a-
bomb was detonated - Foreign Minister Togo met with the Emperor to tell him what he knew of
the Hiroshima bombing. They agreed that the time had come to end the war at once (Pacific
War Research Society, DML , pg. 300; Pacific War Research Society, JLD , pg. 21-22).
The problem of Unconditional Surrender
But unconditional surrender would still leave the doves' central issue unanswered: would
surrender allow Japan to retain the Emperor? Japan's Prime Minister Suzuki spelled out the
problem of "unconditional surrender" well for doves and hawks alike when he publicly
announced on June 9, 1945, "Should the Emperor system be abolished, they [the Japanese
people] would lose all reason for existence. 'Unconditional surrender', therefore, means death
to the hundred million: it leaves us no choice but to go on fighting to the last man." (Pacific War
Research Society, DML , pg. 127; Butow, pg. 69(44n)). From this time on, if not earlier, the Allies
knew that the throne was the primary issue for Japan. While some of Japan's military leaders
preferred additional conditions for ending the war, ultimately their control proved to be
secondary to the desire of the Emperor - and Japan's doves - for surrender.
Much has been written about the vagueness of the Allies' call for "unconditional surrender".
This vagueness, combined with many hostile references to Japan's leaders (Henry Stimson &
McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service In Peace and War, pg. 626; Butow, pg. 136), contributed
heavily to the conclusion by many in Japan that unconditional surrender could mean the end of
their Emperor. Even Foreign Minister Togo, one of the leaders of Japan's doves, noted in a July
12, 1945 message to Sato, Japan's Ambassador to Moscow, "as long as America and England
insist on unconditional surrender, our country has no alternative but to see it [the war] through
in an all-out effort". The telegram was intercepted by the U.S., decoded, and sent to President
Truman (U.S. Dept. of State, Potsdam 1, pg. 873, 875-876).
Robert Butow has aptly portrayed the feelings the Japanese had for the Emperor, in noting, "The
one thing they could not do was sign a death warrant for the imperial house", and if it appeared
that the Allies would take steps against the Emperor, "then even the most ardent advocates of
peace would fall into step behind the [pro-war] fanatics" (Butow, pg. 141).
To demand unconditional surrender, without comment as to the Emperor's fate, meant a
choice, Truman thought, between an invasion of the Japanese mainland or the use of atomic
bombs on Japan, or possibly both. Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall thought that
even after using A-bombs on Japan the invasion would still