Recall that after the fighting in Europe had ended, the U.S. was still at war with Japan. While there was clearly a new conflict beginning between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the war in the Pacific was the most important issue for the U.S. America could not focus on pushing back the Soviets while it was waging war with Japan. President Truman ended the Potsdam Conference with a message for the Japanese people called the Potsdam Declaration. Read the table to learn more about what the Allies, led by the U.S., demanded from Japan and what it promised Japan.
| What did the Potsdam Declaration demand from Japan? | It demanded that Japan dismantle its government. According to the declaration, Japanese leaders had "deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest." It also demanded that Japan give up control of all the lands it had conquered and send its soldiers home to live out their lives as civilians. War criminals would be punished by the Allies. |
| What did the Potsdam Declaration promise Japan? | It promised that Japan would remain a sovereign nation and that freedom of speech, religion, and thought would be established in Japan. Japan would also be allowed to participate in world trade to get the raw materials it needed for peacetime manufacturing. As soon as Japan established a democratic government and shut down its war machine, occupying Allied forces would leave the nation. |
| What did the Potsdam Declaration warn Japan about? | At the end of the declaration came this warning: "We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction." |
 The Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister signing the declaration of surrender on a U.S. aircraft carrier. |
President Truman and a few other American officials knew that the warning in the Potsdam Declaration was about atomic bombs. If Japan did not surrender after receiving the declaration, the U.S. would drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Potsdam Declaration was released on July 26, 1945. Japan did not surrender, choosing to ignore it. Eleven days later on August 6, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It bombed Nagasaki on August 9. The next day, Japan offered to accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, and it officially surrendered to the U.S. on August 15.
Question
Some historians have argued that Truman used atomic bombs to end the war in Japan quickly before the Soviet Union officially became involved in the war in the Pacific. Why would Truman want to prevent the Soviets from helping fight the war in the Pacific?
He was worried that if the Soviets entered the war in the Pacific, they would permanently occupy and annex Asian lands just as they had done in Europe.
