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Originally Posted by Enkidu22
Same after the second one. Japanese government first debated capitulation on 22 july so before the A-bombs. They agreed when Truman accepted their demands to leave Hirohito alone and let him keep his throne, and it was all thanks to the Swiss ambasador who negociated with japanese government and convinced Truman that's it's the only way. US politics just didn't care, they would just bomb Japan back to the stone age rather than negociate.
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That's not quite correct. Truman didn't need convincing to leave the Emperor in power, it was the plan all along. General MacArthur, who was put in charge of post-war Japan, and General Marshall both felt it was the right course of action and planned on doing that all along. However, WW1's Treaty of Versailles, and the separate negotiated peace agreements after WW1 led the Allies in WW2 to make an agreement that they would settle for nothing less than unconditional surrender from the Axis this time.
Some Japanese diplomats then sent 3 "feelers" out to see if the US would accept a conditional surrender. There is no evidence that these feelers were serious about the offers, or if they were just trying to gauge US commitment to the war. They were making massive preparations to defend Kyushu, hording bombs, planes, guns, etc, and digging fortifications, training millions of civilians how to commit suicide bombs and fight with sticks and spears, etc. Why do all of that if they were truly on the verge of surrender? That makes no sense.
Also, the notion that the US didn't want Russia to invade Japanese holdings makes little sense considering the US lobbied strongly for Russia to declare war on Japan and join the battle, in order to take care of the massive Japanese army in Korea and Manchuria while the US invaded the main islands. In fact, Sec of War Stimson devised a 1-2-3 plan to greatly demoralize the Japanese and hopefully get them to surrender without having to resort to a bloody invasion...
step 1: Hiroshima
step 2: Soviets declare war on Japan
step 3: Nagasaki (if necessary)
They refused to surrender even after steps 1 and 2... again, if they were so very close to surrendering anyway, why not surrender at that point? But they refused. So step 3 was Nagasaki, and it very nearly wasn't enough either. Many Japanese were shocked when word of the surrender came, and some Japanese even committed suicide over the dishonor. Many feared what life would be like, since the Japanese treated the Chinese and POWs who surrendered very badly.
One more point about the cost of a "short invasion", followed by the A-bombs if it didn't go well. The Japanese constantly threatened to execute all POWs and foreign civilians the day their homeland was invaded. The total number of such people were several hundred thousand, possibly as many as 450,000 according to 1 estimate, but at least 300,000. The Japanese were not known for idle threats, so if they were truthful about that, even 1 day of an invasion would have ended up costing far more lives than were lost in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.