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The Emperor didn't really have all the power. The military was on the cusp of mutiny after the second bomb, fearing the Emperor would surrender. It is really un

The Emperor didn't really have all the power. The military was on the cusp of mutiny after the second bomb, fearing the Emperor would surrender. It is really unlikely that the emperor would surrender without one nuclear bomb. The generals wouldn't have it. So yes, maybe one bomb might have been enough, and the only reason anything changed after the second bomb was a change in the surrender conditions. Do you know for certain that they didn't discuss allowing the emperor to remain after the first bomb? Do you have any link I could read about this?

jonny_eh 3y ago
The emperor’s power didn’t matter as much as his central importance in their religion. He was like a god, and the Postdam Declaration didn’t make it clear that the emperor would be safe. Hence why it was rejected. https://homework.study.com/explanation/why-did-japan-reject-the-potsdam-declaration.html https://homework.study.com/explanation/why-did-japan-reject-... I may have misremembered reading about this years ago. I don’t think the terms changed, but there’s an argument that if the US was more clear about the emperor’s position post-surrender, the Japanese would have surrendered much sooner.
deleted 3y ago
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