In part because this question comes up here a lot, I have written a two-part blog post about whether Japan made an offer to surrender prior to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The answer is "no," but it's an interesting "no." Part 1 is the sort of straight and normal answer to this, part 2 looks at one particular variation of the argument that they did offer to surrender that is based in a probably-fictitious memo that has been the subject of right-wing conspiracy theories since the 1940s, but has since become at times incorporated into more left-wing arguments.

Did the Japanese offer to surrender before Hiroshima? (Part 1)

Did the Japanese offer to surrender before Hiroshima? (Part 2)

Enjoy...?

Some time ago, in the land before Covid-19, I was in the UK National Archives doing some research for a project on Harold Wilson’s peacemaking efforts during the Vietnam War. I found a lot of great material, most of which made it into the final production in some form or another, but one absolutely fascinating source ended up trimmed down to just a tiny reference in one paragraph for a variety of reasons.^(1) I’ve never found an appropriate venue for a description of it since then, so… here goes!

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‘Stay the hands of the United States war criminals’: Ho Chi Minh’s personal appeal to Queen Elizabeth II in January 1966

1965 ended on a high note for Prime Minister Harold Wilson, with Anglo-American relations rising and a growing belief among the politically connected in London and Washington that the Vietnam War could soon be brought to a negotiated end. This atmosphere was bolstered when President Lyndon Johnson announced that Operation Rolling Thunder, the American bombing campaign in Vietnam, would be paused for most of January 1966 to encourage the North Vietnamese to come to the table – a move which pleased both the British government and the anti-war faction in Washington, but encountered opposition in Congress and all branches of the military. Though these initial circumstances were good for Wilson and his peace policy, the situation quickly deteriorated. The end of the bombing pause brought about a serious escalation of the war by both sides, which would eventually lead to an unprecedented public ‘dissociation’ issued by the British government over the bombings of Hanoi and Haiphong in June.

President Johnson justified the increasing deployment of American men and materiel to Vietnam in the first half of 1966 by declaring that the North Vietnamese did not reach out ‘constructively’ during the pause, which is accurate. They did, however, reach out – by delivering a curious letter to the British Embassy in Moscow on 30 January, addressed not to the Prime Minister but to the Queen herself. The missive was signed by Ho Chi Minh alone, and written in a candid manner which gives the impression of a personal appeal, but British diplomats suspected it was drafted collectively by senior figures in Hanoi and merely appended with Ho’s name. Regardless of this uncertainty, it begins in distinctly certain terms:

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‘Your Majesty, I have the honour to call Your Majesty’s attention to the war of aggression waged by the United States imperialists in our country, Viet Nam. Over the past 11 years and more, the United States has been seriously sabotaging the 1954 Geneva Agreements and preventing the peaceful reunification of Viet Nam in an attempt to turn South Viet Nam into a United States new-type colony and military base.’

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That Ho invokes Geneva is significant, and perhaps explains why Britain was the target of the appeal. The 1954 Geneva Conference generated several significant international agreements relating to the territory formerly known as French Indochina, which are today the nations of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Among these agreements was a purported framework for the reunification of Vietnam, with elections scheduled for 1956 and a de-escalation campaign planned for the decade following the withdrawal of the French imperial presence. Britain and the Soviet Union were the designated chairs of this conference, charged with the responsibility of overseeing its outcomes and, in essence, acting as guarantors of peace and progress in Indochina along the agreed lines. Peace in the region was little more than a distant dream in 1954, but both guarantor-nations readily accepted their roles and actively supported one another’s activities there during the following two decades, despite the boundaries of Cold War politics, which ensured that they both maintained a role in Indochinese affairs.

British diplomats in Moscow soon caught wind of an aspect which appears to confirm the link between the North Vietnamese missives and Geneva-granted rights and responsibilities. Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny also received a letter from Ho on the same day, the text of which was later published in Izvestiia, a newspaper which often contained statements of policy from senior officials. Ho’s letter to Podgorny, which extolled North Vietnamese resilience and promised that Hanoi would never consider negotiations until the US had withdrawn its forces and the Viet Cong ruled South Vietnam, effectively declared to the Communist world that Hanoi sought only a military solution.

Though Ho’s appeal to the Queen struck a different tone, at times pleading with America’s ally to restrain its violent excesses, the core message was the same: ‘the Vietnamese people will never submit to the United States imperialists’ threats.’ At length, it openly derided American efforts to open negotiations:

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‘While intensifying and extending the war of aggression in Viet Nam, the United States imperialists are clamouring about their “desire for peace” and their “readiness to engage in unconditional discussions”, in the hope of fooling world public opinion and the American people. Recently, the Johnson administration has initiated a so-called “search for peace”, and put forward a 14-point proposal. As an excuse for its war of aggression in South Viet Nam it claims that it is “keeping its commitments” to the Saigon puppet administration, it slanders the patriotic struggle of the people of South Viet Nam, calling it “an aggression by North Viet Nam.” […] ‘It is crystal-clear that the United States is the aggressor who is trampling underfoot the Vietnamese soil. The people of South Viet Nam are the victim of aggression and are fighting in self-defence. If the United States really wants peace, it must recognise the South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation [the Viet Cong] as the sole genuine representative of the people of South Viet Nam, and engage negotiations with it.’

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With rhetoric of this kind emerging from Hanoi, it should have come as no surprise to Britain (and, indeed, to its ‘barbarous’ ally) that further escalation of the war was inevitable unless the United States performed a total volte-face on Vietnam. Yet Wilson continued to advocate for negotiation and restraint, and in fact became even more spirited and public in his remonstrations. This was partially borne from a genuine personal commitment to diplomacy – his biographer describes him as ‘Britain’s most anti-war PM’ – but this advocacy also performed an important strategic function.^(2) The Vietnam issue necessitated the juggling of a set of conflicting priorities: excessive opposition to US involvement would have imperilled Britain’s economic wellbeing and dashed Wilson’s dreams of becoming a world-renowned peacemaker – but overenthusiastic support would have ignited a civil war in his Labour Party and jeopardised an ongoing rapprochement with the Soviet Union, where the situation in Vietnam was a key point of cooperation. The path between these two positions was the tightrope Wilson walked for much of his first term at No. 10. His balance was often tested by knocks from either side, but anti-war opposition never boiled over into a broader revolt, and Anglo-American and Anglo-Soviet collaboration went on for longer and remained stronger than would otherwise have been the case.

(continued below)

For my fellow FAQ Finders, camas.github.com/reddit-search, the greatest of all intra-reddit search engines, has been taken offline.

Camas.unddit.com is the new mirror if you want to use it.

Pinned reddit thread with more information

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What's the best Napoleon biography?

When people in the US cite that the rich were taxed at a far higher rate in the past and the economy was fine. Can that be taken on its surface value or is there more than was also going on then that is important to keep in mind now?

(FWIW I'm all for higher tax rates, but also don't like to throw around one liners in arguments)

Why did the First Industrial Revolution begin in Great Britain? In your view, what was the most important invention of the First Industrial Revolution and why? How do you explain the positive and negative impacts of the First Industrial Revolution?

Why did most British colonial flags use blue and why were there some exceptions like red (Canada) or light blue (Fiji)?