Day of days for America and her allies.

Crowds before the White House await the announcement from the President that the Japs have surrendered unconditionally.

I have received this afternoon a message from the Japanese government

in reply to the message forward to that government by the Secretary of State on August 11th. I deem this reply a full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration

which specifies the unconditional surrender of Japan.

In the reply, there is no qualification.

Reporters rush out to relay the news to an anxious world

and touch off celebrations throughout the country.

Washington is jubilant.

And in Chicago, more than a million sing and dance in the streets

in the biggest celebration the windy city has ever seen.

Joy is unconfined.

The moment.

The moment. We're all right. President Trump has been relatively optimistic on the prospects of this summit actually being a success, saying he said there was just a 25% chance of it being a failure, implying 75% odds that this would work out well. But there's very

little on the ground in terms of what the Russians have said to indicate they're prepared to

offer any kind of compromise. I spoke to Western diplomats over the course of the past few hours,

and they said, look, their belief is that their expectations for a successful outcome of these talks in terms of

trying to find a solution to the Ukraine war are very low because of that reason, because

Putin hasn't showed any sign of making any compromises as he comes to the table here in Anchorage

in Alaska.

But there was also optimism expressed by European diplomats that I spoke to,

saying that, look, you know, if this does not go as well as President Trump anticipates,

...