Admiral Ellis Zacharias’s book Secret Missions: The Story of an Intelligence Officer (Naval Institute Press, 1946) contains much valuable information about Japan’s peace efforts and surrender. In 1942, Zacharias began working in the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and headed the Office of War Information, which conducted psyops operations and did Japanese-language broadcasts to Japan.
Admiral Zacharias wrote that in December 1944 or January 1945, ONI received an intelligence report through a neutral country that revealed that peace advocates in the Japanese government, including the emperor, were maneuvering to bring about Japan’s surrender. The document predicted with amazing accuracy the events that unfolded in the Japanese government, such as the resignation of General Koiso and the appointment of Admiral Suzuki to bring about an end to the war (pp. 335-341).
Admiral Zacharias, who had served as a naval attache in Japan before the war, was a genuine Japan expert and spoke fluent Japanese. He argued strongly that the peace faction in Japan’s government could bring about a surrender if Truman would modify the surrender terms to include an assurance that the emperor would not be deposed or molested (pp. 363-375).
Very few books on WWII mention the fact that in May 1945, Radio Tokyo’s English-language broadcast, which operated under government control, stated that if the Americans would drop their demand for unconditional surrender, Japan’s leaders might be willing to enter into negotiations to end the war (Marco Heinrichs and Galliccio, Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944-1945, Oxford University Press, 2017, p. 15). This was an astounding statement to be aired on a radio station monitored by all the Allies and by much of Asia. However, Truman and his Japan-hating Secretary of State, James Byrnes, ignored it.
