Potsdam Declaration

The Potsdam Declaration was a proclamation issued on 26 July 1945 during the Potsdam Conference, calling on the Empire of Japan to surrender unconditionally and end the Second World War in the Pacific. It was issued in the names of United States president Harry Truman, British prime minister Winston Churchill and the president of Nationalist China, Chiang Kai-shek; the Soviet Union, not yet at war with Japan, did not sign it at the time but added its endorsement when it declared war on Japan the following month. The declaration set out the terms Japan would face: the permanent elimination of the authority and influence of those who had misled Japan into a war of conquest, Allied occupation of Japanese territory until its aims were achieved, the limitation of Japanese sovereignty to the home islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku and such minor islands as the Allies determined, complete disarmament, trial of war criminals, and the eventual establishment of a peacefully inclined, responsible government, in exchange for which Japan was promised eventual withdrawal of occupying forces and access to raw materials and world trade. It warned that Japan's alternative was prompt and utter destruction. The Japanese government's initial ambiguous response was read by the United States as a rejection, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki followed in early August 1945 before Japan announced its acceptance of the declaration's terms on 15 August and formally signed the instrument of surrender on 2 September 1945.