Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa (Professor of History and Director of the Center for Cold War Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara) has made an important contribution to the study of the final months of World War II and sets the stage for the next global conflict, the Cold War. Like S.M. Plokhy in The Price of Peace, Hasegawa draws upon documentation recently released from the archives of the former Soviet Union to examine that nation's relationship with its Allies and, in this case, the USSR's subsequent military activity in the Pacific.

Hasegawa moves deftly among a polyglot of official sources, memoirs, diaries, etc. be their origin Russian, American, Japanese, British and other participant.

The Potsdam Conference met after Germany's uncoditional surrender so the European portion of the war was over but some of the fiercest fighting in the Pacific continued. Japan prepared to fight to the last to prevent an invasion of the Home Islands and/or any change in the relationship between the Emperor and Japanese nation. At Yalta, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had tried to extract a firm commitment from Josef Stalin regarding the Soviet Union's entry into the war against Japan; Stalin said he would wait until after Germany's defeat.

FDR's successor, Harry Truman, was also very interested in the Soviet Union's plans for the Pacific but he attended Potsdam knowing that the U.S. was about to begin testing an unimaginably powerful new weapon, the atomic bomb. He undoubtedly shared some information with Winston Churchill who would have passed it on to Anthony Eden. How much their successors in the new Labour government, Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, knew (or had absorbed) by the time the conference wound down doesn't come up. It's clear Attlee and Bevin had turned their attention to rebuilding their own war-devastated country; they were willing to let Truman, Stalin, Chiang Kai-Shek et al. deal with Japan.

Stalin played the old Neutrality Pact with Japan for all it was worth, buying time to move Soviet forces and equipment to their Far Eastern borders. The Soviets created the appearance of getting Chinese approval for a division of territories in Mongolia, Manchria and Korea. Meanwhile Truman and his advisors debated their options, the possible Russian replies, American public opinion and their desire to demonstrate the new superweapon. The geography of the Kurile Islands and the names of a few key bodies of water proved somewhat baffling to both the Russians and the Americans. Incredulously, the Japanese clung to a belief that the Russians would mediate for them and so the diplomats continued to meet, even as the Soviet troops crossed the borders and ignored white flags of surrender.

Wikipedia has an excellent article, citing numerous authorities on the subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan

While Japan's surrender is not in doubt, the events leading up to it and following it, continue to be a source of debate. Professor Hasegawa use of available archival documents from the three major participants - Japan, Russia and the United States - fleshes out the key individuals involved and creates a dramatic thriller firmly grounded in scholarship. That is quite a feat.