Were there any indications that Japan was going to surrender before the atomic bombs were dropped during WWII?

by Master_Vicen

I've heard that many American officials knew that Japan would likely surrender without an invasion or atomic bombs after Hitler died. Does this claim hold any merit?

Note: This is not a "What if the bombs weren't dropped in WWII?" question. This is, what information did American officials have regarding whether or not Japan was ready to surrender before they decided to drop the atomic bombs.

restricteddata

There are several posts on here about this very question, see here for one of them. The TLDR is that the Japanese were not ready to surrender according to the terms that the US desired (unconditional surrender), but there were factions within the Japanese leadership that were seeking a way towards some other kind of diplomatic end of the war. The US knew about this, because it had cracked their diplomatic codes.