nMay 28
nAssistant
Secretary of War John J. McCloy argues to Secretary of War Stimson that
the term “unconditional surrender” should be dropped: “Unconditional surrender is a phrase which
means loss of face and I wonder whether we cannot accomplish
everything we want to accomplish in regard to Japan without the
use of that term.”
nMay 28
nIn a State
Department Memorandum of Conversation, Acting Secretary of State
Joseph Grew describes a meeting with President Truman that
day. Grew writes: “The greatest obstacle to unconditional
surrender by the Japanese is their belief that this would entail the
destruction or permanent removal of the Emperor and the
institution of the Throne. If some
indication can now be given the Japanese that they themselves, when once
thoroughly defeated and rendered impotent to wage war in the future will be permitted to
determine their own future political structure, they will be afforded a
method of saving face without which surrender will be highly
unlikely.”