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The 18-ft. by 30-ft. room in the imperial air-raid shelter was virtually unventilated and sweltering when the Emperor arrived as the meeting began and took his seat on a small dais. The assembled leaders, headed by the Supreme Council's Big Six, as they were called, listened again to a reading of the Potsdam Declaration and then began debating three possible responses to the terms it imposed. One plan, favored by Suzuki and Togo, called for an acceptance of the Potsdam demands, with the sole condition that Hirohito and the imperial dynasty be retained in Japan.
More than two hours of argument over these alternatives only emphasized the hopeless abyss between the pacifists and the militarists. Then Kiichiro Hiranuma, president of the Privy Council, who had been specially invited to attend by Hirohito, proposed asking for the Emperor's opinion, shocking everyone into silence. Everyone, that is, but Prime Minister Suzuki, who quickly pointed out that it was the right move, given that the government was stymied and unable to act at the moment their people most needed action: "I propose, therefore, to seek the imperial guidance and substitute it for the decision of this conference."
To ask the Emperor, whom the Japanese believed ruled them from "beyond the clouds," to shape the course of earthly policymaking was unprecedented. Hirohito, who no doubt had a role in planning the scene, did not seem at all surprised and began speaking, slowly, so that everyone in the room could hear and understand. He said the time had come to accept the terms set down in Potsdam, that with the forces arrayed against them, "I have given serious thought to the situation prevailing at home and abroad and have concluded that continuing the war means destruction for the nation and a prolongation of bloodshed and cruelty in the world." Some of those present began to weep. "The time has come," Hirohito went on, "when we must bear the unbearable. I swallow my tears and give my sanction to the proposal to accept the Allied proclamation on the basis outlined by the Foreign Minister."
That proposal still insisted on "the supreme power of the Emperor" in postwar Japan. Four more days of fighting and delicate negotiations remained before all sides could agree to stop the killing. Conventional--but not atomic--bombing of Japan continued; by some estimates, more than 15,000 Japanese died in air raids during this final spasm. Finally, at noon Japanese time on Aug. 15, a message recorded by Hirohito was broadcast throughout Japan. Citizens gathered around public loudspeakers, heads bowed in reverence; they had never before heard their Emperor's voice. He told them that "the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interests. Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives." He told them that Japan had been defeated.
--With reporting by Irene M. Kunii in Hiroshima and Nagasaki