In 1944 negotiation would have worked with Japan. It was never tried. The Japanese tried, attempting to send messages through Stalin, but Stalin did not pass those messages on to the British and Americans. He had plans to attack Japan as soon as Germany was disposed of, so he could grab lands in Asia. Nevertheless, the American secret services were aware of the Japanese desire to negotiate, but they also chose to ignore pursuing anything BUT unconditional surrender (which was virtually unthinkable to the Japanese mentality at the time...national death seemed preferable to them).

Why did America insist on unconditional surrender? Was it sheer arrogance and hubris? Was it a habitual pattern ever since Ulysses S. Grant? Was it an assumption of complete moral superiority? Or was it a desire to use their atomic weapons under actual battlefield conditions while the opportunity to do so was still there...without any risk to the user? Or was it all of those?

Had the negotiated surrender occurred, the Japanese military would have been utterly ruined in the eyes of the Japanese public (as happened anyway), and Japan would undoubtedly have embarked on another period of civilian government...and hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved.

But the unanswered question is: would the A-bomb have then been used somewhere else...such as in Korea? Quite possibly. So maybe we got off lucky...in a sense.

- LH