This is CBS I In The World. I'm John Batsy with Professor Craig Simons.

Nimitz at war, command leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay, Ernest King Comench,

who is always present, 16 times they meet. King's messages to Nimitz and Nimitz' messages

to King the professor has quoted throughout the book. Now they're debating in person

and also by wire about what is to be done about the Japanese homelands who will not surrender.

The opinion I take at Professor from Nimitz and King's point of view is blockade will

force them to the peace table. I think that's true. I think naval officers at almost every

level did not believe an invasion of the home islands was worth the risk. We are back

to calculated risk. It would cost so much and we've all heard the line, oh, it would

cost 100,000 American killed. Very likely perhaps more. Fewer considered the fact that

it would have cost possibly millions of Japanese to die because Japanese culture was such

that surrender was so obnoxious that no Japanese soldier, no Japanese participant in the

war at any level could honorably surrender himself. Therefore you must fight to the

death. So if everyone in Japan fights to the death, what are the consequences of that?

There was literally talk within the combined staff in Japan of the honorable death of

100 million. Now the prospect of that was so horrifying that both King and especially

Nimitz believed that avoiding an invasion by depending on a strict naval blockade executed

mostly by submarines, by the way, as well as bombing from the air would create a circumstance

where the Japanese would have to accept the Potstem Agreement and that is to say accept

an end of the war on terms that the United States would dictate to them. Now that did

happen, of course we know there was also an outside influence that we may talk about

subsequent, but in general the Navy wanted to blockade and bomb the army more interested

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