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"There is no chance whatever of winning the Soviet Union to our side and of obtaining our support [to end the War]."--
-- Ambassador Naotake Sato, Cable response to Foreign-Minister Togo, July 13, 1945. Thanks to Magic, the Americans had been reading the Japanese diplomatic traffic since 1940.
The Japanese military situation by 1945 was perilous. Even the most ardent Imperial militarist had long since given up on winning the Pacific War. Japan's strategy was now only how total defent and occupation could be prevented. The strategy was to cause as many Allied (meaning mostly American) casualties as possible. They sought to bleed the Americans so severely that the United States would not dare invade the Japanese Home Islands. Incredably they still clung to illusion that the Americans were a weak-willed people that could not stomach losses. Many Japanese military commanders were still convinced that they could out last the Americans. [Thomas, p. 139.] Here the Japanese resistance at Iwo Jima and Okinawa along with the Kamikaze attacks had considerable success. There were heavy Amerucan losses, although only a fraction of the Japanese losses. The terrain of the Home Islands was similar to that of Okinawa--very mountenous. There was no doubt where the Americans would strike first -- it had to be the southern-most island of Kyushu where the landings could be covered by air bases on Okinawa. American intelligence assessments reported indications that the Japanese were heavily reinforcing Kyushu. Men and equipment were being brought back from China and Manchuria to stenthen the forces already on Kyushu. Much of these reinforcenents were moving through the port of Nagasaki. The Yellow Sea was one of the few places that Japanese marus could still move with some degree of safety--although that was beginning to change. President Truman began to see a series of Okinawa campaigns and huge casualties up and down the Japanese Home Islands from Kyushu to Tokyo. He requested csaualty estimates from General Marshal, and astronomical figures surfaced. The Japanese prepared the Shosango Victory Plan for the defense of the Home Islands. Prime-minister Kantarô Suzuki took office (April 1945). The government expanded the Shosango plan with Ketsugo. Emperor Hirohito approved the plan. The idea was to defend the Home Islands to the last man, actually the last person. And this did not mean just soldiers but civilians as well—including children. Ketsugo was to prepare the Japanese people psychologically to die as a nation in an effort to defend Imperial Japan. School children, boys and girls, were to be taught to construct makeshift weapons such as sharpened bamboo poles. Soldiers were assigned to schools to show children how to do this. We are unclear at this time as to just what extent the Japanese were actually implementing Ketsugo. A Japanese reader from Tokyo tells me that he was sent into the country and received no such training. Other reports indicate that children were receiving this training. One fact is certain: American planners did expect a suicidal and costly Japanese resistance, and given what happened in Iwo and Okinawa, this is likely what would have occurred. The casualties resulting from the Japanese strategy and the likelihood of even more fierce resistance on the Home Islands are factors that have to be taken into account in the assessment of the subsequent decision to use the atomic bombs.
Naotake Satō (1882-1971) was a career diplomat who briefly served as Minister of Foreign Affairs for a few months, resigning just before Japan invaded China (1937). He served as a senior adviser to Prime Ministers Konoye and Tojo.
At the time of Pearl Harbor (December 1941), the Ostheer was at the gates of Moscow, and Japanese officials believed that the Germans had destroyed the Red Army. Literally, as the bombs were falling on the Pacific Fleet, the Red Army launched a surprise winter offensive that badly damaged the previously invincible German Army (December 1941). This radically changed the military situation. The Japanese believed that with the Red Army destroyed, the Americans would have to devote their war effort on Europe and be unable to devote major resources to the Pacific. Thus the Japanese wanted to maintain correct relations with the Soviets so they could focus on the Americans. This is why they allowed American Lend Lease assistance to flow through Soviet Pacific ports.
Naotake Sato was assigned as ambassador to the Soviet Union (April 1942). We are not sure what his original instructions were. When Naotake Satō was appointed Japanese Ambassador to the Soviet Union (March 1942), replacing the pro-German General Yoshimatsu Tatekawa, the Soviet leadership welcomed his arrival. Soviet officials viewed Satō as a seasoned, pragmatic career diplomat rather than a military hawk, which suited Soviet strategy during this still critical phase of World War II. Thus Soviet officials—including Foreign Commissar Vyacheslav Molotov—treated Satō with formal, correct, and polite diplomacy. Molotov later acknowledged that during Satō’s tenure, despite frequent mutual distrust between Japan and the USSR, bilateral working relations were maintained smoothly on a professional level.Both nations saw it important to preserve the 1941 Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact. 【Dobrinskaya】 The Soviets were locked in the Ostkrieg, a life-and-death struggle against the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. The Japanese who achieved phenomenal victories after Midway (June 1942) and Guadalcanal (August 1942) encountered tougher resistance than they had anticipated. The tide of the Pacific War reversed. Thus, maintaining formal, correct diplomatic decorum suited both governments' strategic interests. Keeping Lend-Lease aid flowing was especially important to the Soviets. It became a major issue with Japan's Axis ally NAZI Germany. The Japanese, who were inspecting the Soviet ships carrying the Lend-Lease aid to Vladivostok, insisted that the American shipments were non-military. While treatment of Satō personally was respectful, the Soviet government maintained strict political detachment and refused any Japanese initiatives that went beyond the basic terms of the 1941 Neutrality Pact.
Thanks to Magic, we have a derailed record of the exchanges between the Foreign Minister Tōgō and Ambassador Sato. American cryptologists had broken into the Japanese diplomatic Purple Code (1940). This did not provide details of the Pearl Harbor attack. This required breaking into JN-25, the Imperial Navys' code. But Purple provided valuable insights on Japanese intentions. U.S. Navy and Army Signals Intelligence had built a worldwide network of intercept radio stations. Because high-frequency shortwave radio transmissions bounced off the ionosphere, American listening posts could tune into the specific broadcast frequencies used by Tokyo and its foreign embassies—including Moscow—to capture raw radio signals.
Following the Soviet victory at Stalingrad (February 1943) and Japan's reverses setbacks in the Pacific. It was now clear that Germany was not going to destroy the Soviet Union and Japan was not going to win the Pacific War. Soviet attitude toward Japanese diplomatic initiatives grew noticeably cooler and more standoffish, though formal diplomatic courtesy toward Satō was strictly preserved. While the Axis onslaught had been stopped, it was not yet clear how the War would end.【Dobrinskaya】
As the War after early victories turned against Japan, his primary duties shifted to pursuing a way out of the War. The Foreign Ministry began pressing Ambassador Sato to approach Soviet officials to ask them to mediate an end to the War. Japan had a neutrality treaty with the Soviets, signed just before the German Barbarossa invasion (1941). A good metric of Japan's delusional thinking is expecting Stalin of all people to intercede with the allies and aid Japan. Sato unlike the Foreign Ministry, had a realistic grasp of Soviet attitudes toward the 1941 Nonaggression Pacts. The increasingly desperate Japanese Foreign Ministry ordered Sato to explore the possibility of the Soviet Union acting as an intermediary with the Allies. Magic intercepts revealed that Japanese Foreign Minister Tōgō (not to be confused with the Japanese dictator who launched the Pacific War) instructed Satō not only to ask the Soviet Union (which was still officially neutral toward Japan) to mediate a peace settlement with the Allies, but increasingly pressed the issue. Unbeknownst to the Japanese, Stalin had already pledged to enter the war against Japan 3 months after the end of the War in Europe, which was May 1945. Sato informed Tokyo in unusually blunt terms that the Soviets had no desire to take Japan's side. Stalin in fact was already thinking about territorial gains. 【Hasegawa】 The Americans were thinking primarily about avoiding the casualties that would result from an invasion of the Home Islands. Stalin was thinking about long-term gains in the Far East. Foreign Minister Tōgō pressed the issue and wanted to send Prince Konoye as a peace envoy. He had a hard time getting to Molotov, but when he did, he was unable to get any commitments. Sato then sent a long message to the Foreign Ministry stating the obvious: that Japan was alone and had lost the war and should make peace as soon as possible to avoid national extinction—not what Tokyo wanted to hear. Satō's was becoming increasingly frustrated with Tokyo. American officials read Satō’s candid replies warning Tokyo that Moscow would not help them and that holding out for conditional peace terms was hopeless. In the intercepted cables, Satō harshly criticized Tokyo's proposals in undiplomatic terms as 'pretty little phrases' that lacked concrete terms, warning that if the Japanese government and military continued to stall, 'all Japan will be reduced to ashes'. Tokyo responded by saying that the Cabinet was aware of the issues but insisted that the War must be fought with 'all the vigor and bitterness of which the nation was capable as long as the only alternative was the unconditional surrender' (July 24, 1945). 【National Security Archive】
While President Truman was fixated on potential American military losses, actually ending the War without an invasion saved multi-million Japanese loses.) The Magic decrypts were compiled into daily Magic Diplomatic Summaries for President Truman and his top advisers. The decrypts were an important factor in convincing President Truman and his advisers that while parts of the Japanese government wanted the war to end, Tokyo was still unwilling to accept unconditional surrender, heavily influencing Allied strategy at the Potsdam Conference and the decisions to drop the atomic bombs.
Finally, the ureal illusions of the Japanese militarists were shattered. Molotov called Sato to the Foreign Ministry to present him with the declaration of war (August 8, 1945). This launched three massive Soviet armies into Japanese-occupied Manchuria as well as smaller forces into Japanese-occupied southern Sakalin. The badly depleted Kawantung Army in Manchuria collapsed. At the same time the Americans dropped the second atomic bomb, this time on Nagasaki. The Japanese militarists who assured the Emperor that the Hiroshima event was not an atomic bomb and then that the Americans could only have one bomb were now unable to explain how in just a few days the Americans had dropped a second atomic bomb. The shock was shattering--just s the Americans had intended. The militants had lost all credibility. For all the Japanses now knew, the Americans could have a stockpile of atomic bombs ready to drop on Japan. The Emperor had been unable to act earlier, fearing the military would arrest or assassinate him. Now he finally had the ability to confront them.
Dobrinskaya, O. A. "Sato Naotake: The way of a diplomat," Russian Japanology Review (2018).
Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. "Soviet policy toward Japan during World War II," Open Edition Journals (2011), pp. 245-71.
National Security Archive. "Japanese Peace Feelers" (George Washington University). You can explore declassified transcripts of these cables through the National Security Archive's Magic Diplomatic Summaries.
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