In the summer of 1945 the United States was entering the final stages of World War II. One could assume that ending the war quickly was a priority. President Truman was demanding “unconditional surrender” from Japan. In a statement he released on May 8th, he described unconditional surrender as “Our blows will not cease until the Japanese military and naval forces lay down their arms in unconditional surrender. Just what does the unconditional surrender of the armed forces mean for the Japanese people? It means the end of the war. It means the termination of the influence of the military leaders who have brought Japan to the present brink of disaster.… Unconditional surrender does not mean the extermination or enslavement of the Japanese people. (Alperovitz, Gar (2010-12-29). The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (p. 39).)” So if the war were to end the Japanese would have to unconditionally surrender, secretary of state James Byrnes said as much, “For instance, in his 1947 book Speaking Frankly, James F. Byrnes declared without qualification: “Had the Japanese Government listened to [Ambassador to Soviet Union] Sato and surrendered unconditionally, it would not have been necessary to drop the atomic bomb. (Alperovitz, p. 34)” The Japanese refused to surrender because of the terms they would be conceding to. They wanted a guarantee that their emperor would be protected and they felt unconditional surrender would put him in jeopardy. “The reality is that as the summer of 1945 progressed, most U.S. leaders fully realized that the only serious condition Japan’s leaders sought was an assurance that the Emperor would not be eliminated. (Alperovitz, p.34)” One could conclude that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because of Japan’s refusal to unconditionally surrender. There is also belief that the atomic bomb was dropped to intimidate the Soviet Union. As historian Barton Berstein put it, “The combat use…