es evident that dropping the bomb was not worth a quick end to the war. Much of why Japanese surrender took so long to come through reverts back to the Samurai Tradition in Japan. First, the Emperor didn’t not intervene in political affairs as he was considered to be above such petty human politics, and second, the Japanese code of honor which puts death before dishonor. The Americans had intercepted messages from the Foreign Minister Togo, to Ambassador Sato expressing the desires of the Emperor for a peaceful end to the war, “[h]is Majesty the Emperor, mindful of the fact that the present war daily brings greaterevil and sacrifice upon the peoples of all belligerent powers, desires from his heart thatit may be quickly terminated” (Alperovitz 23). The desire of the Emperor for an end to the war never came true until both atomic bombs had been dropped on two of Japan’s key industrial cities, as the Emperor never formally expressed this desire. In the samurai tradition, the Emperor is held at a God-like status and therefore, is considered above politics, so therefore he never intervenes, and was never expected to intervene in political issues, his role was to sanction decisions made by the Cabinet, whether he personally approved of them or not. For this reason, the Emperor never expressed his desire for peace to the Cabinet; it was an unprecedented act (Long). The retention of the Emperor was crucial to the surrender, as the Japanese believed their Emperor was a god, the heart of the people and the culture (Long). This Japanese belief is a part of a tradition that dates back to 660 B.C. when the first Japanese Emperor, Jimmu, who according to legend was a descendant of the sun god, Amaterasu. So there fore, according to the tradition, the emperor during this time, Hirohito, was said to be a divine being. It is for this reason that the Japanese sued for peace based on the “Atlantic Charter of 1941” that was drafted up by Roosevelt and Churchill on August 4th, 1941. According to the “Atlantic Charter,” every nation could choose its own form of government, thus, if Japan were to surrender based on these terms, they would be able to retain the emperor, their God (Alperovitz). However, when the United States offered a peace agreement based on “Unconditional Surrender,” the Japanese refused this offer as no provisions had been made for their Emperor. As Leon V. Sigal states, “…one point was clear to senior [United States] officials, regardless of where they stood on war termination… the critical condition for Japanese surrender was the assurance that the throne would be preserved” (Alperovitz 31). It turns out that the unconditional surrender clause of the peace agreement was the major factor that hindered Japanese surrender at this point in the war. According to the surrender agreement, “the authority that deceived the people into embarking on world conquest must be eliminated from Japan” (Long). To the Japanese this sounded like a threat being made to their Emperor. This to the Japanese would almost be like the crucifixion of Jesus in the Christian faith. The Japanese feared that if they surrendered based on these terms, first of all, they would loose their Emperor, and second, it sounds as if the Emperor would be treated as a war criminal. The Japanese officials and people were not willing to take such a risk. According to British Major General Sir Hastings Ismay in his memoirs, “…[I]f they [Japanese] were given to think that a rigid interpretation would be placed on the term ‘unconditional surrender,’ and that their Emperor would be treated as a war criminal, every man, woman, and child would fight until doomsday. If on the other hand, the terms of surrender were phrased in such a way as to appear to preserve the right of their Emperor to order them to lay down their arms, they would have done so without a moment’s hesitation” (Alperovitz 370). The Japanese people had such a passion for

Some topics in this essay:
Hiroshima Nagasaki, Ages Apart, According Lemay, Germany Japanese, Majesty Emperor, Air Forces, Hastings Ismay, Leon Sigal, District In-fact, Intelligence Division, atomic bomb, hiroshima nagasaki, bomb dropped, dropping atomic bomb, american lives, japanese lives, dropping atomic, peaceful war, samurai tradition, japanese surrender, war criminal, thousand people killed, thousands japanese lives, atomic bomb probably, manhattan engineer district,