The Potsdam Conference: July 23rd 1945 – Königsberg & Prussia

Secretary Stimson made his way to the ‘Little White House’ early this morning to meet with President Truman. Manhattan was nearing completion, loose ends were currently being tied, and Stimson wanted to be kept in the loop of what was going on at the plenary sessions since he was not allowed to sit in on the official sessions at Cecilienhof.

In order for him to structure his daily military agenda accordingly and more conveniently, he therefore asked the President if he could drop in early every morning and talk with either him or Byrnes about the events of the preceding day. Truman immediately told Stimson that he would be glad to meet with him on a daily basis to talk these matters over.

Today Stimson informed the President that a warning message to Japan was nearly ready – an ultimatum that would become famously known as the ‘Potsdam Declaration’, providing Japan with one last chance to surrender unconditionally or face immediate annihilation.

Interestingly, Stimson mentioned to Truman that he felt it was unwise to insist on unconditional surrender at this time. Again, this was a term that the Japanese would take to mean that they could not keep their Emperor, and thus making it more difficult to achieve peace. Therefore, Stimson urged a revision of sorts that read somewhere along the lines that the Allies would remain committed to the war against Japan until the country ceased to exist.

Although not present at this meeting, Truman knew right away that Bynres and most of his Cabinet – which were all Roosevelt’s picks – would be vehemently opposed to any sort of change to the unconditional surrender demand this late in the game.

It was a central aim that the Truman administration had inherited from Roosevelt that was too long established and too often proclaimed. It evoked the American spirit of fighting and winning the war against Japan ever since Pearl Harbor had been deliberately and viciously attacked in December 1941. Furthermore, unconditional surrender was what Nazi Germany had been forced to accept, and its renunciation with the Japanese at this late date – after so much bloodshed and with victory now in sight – would have seemed like appeasement and have been politically disastrous.