Potsdam
On July 26, 1945, the United States, Great Britain, and China issued the Potsdam Declaration defining acceptable surrender terms with Japan. It was somewhat brutal in its directness and threatened Japan’s “prompt and utter destruction” if not accepted. However, it also proposed a road to recovery and reconciliation. The following are excerpts:
We do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as a nation, but stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners. The Japanese Government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech and religion and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights, shall be established.
The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people a peacefully inclined and responsible Government.531
Within days this declaration was rejected forcefully by the Japanese prime minister and was followed by days of continued conflict and devastation. It nevertheless eventually formed the basis of American policy toward postwar Japan and provided the structure for one of the most successful reconstructions in history. It was a reflection of America’s oft-reiterated war aims to defeat tyranny and restore freedom. Neither conquest nor revenge was part of this agenda.
I was witness to the final restoration of occupied territory, when, in 1972, sovereignty over Okinawa was returned to the government of Japan. The postwar occupation of Japan was not without problems or flaws, but history shows that ultimately these benign policies, based on an elevated view of human nature, indeed did bring recovery and reconciliation to a devastated nation.
“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.
—Isaiah 54:10