This is CBS. I on the World. I'm John Batchel with Evan Thomas. His new book is Road to Surrender.

Three men and the countdown to the end of World War II in the Pacific. It is now the spring of 1945.

We turn to the Japanese point of view with a man by the name of Togo,

Shiniginori Togo. What is most striking about him is that he was twice in the cabinet.

The first time during the raid on Pearl Harbor, he resigned eight months after Pearl Harbor and retreated into his philosophy.

The second time, he was called back by the emperor, and he is in place for these last days of the war before and after the atomic bomb.

Evan, what do we need to know about Togo?

Because we spend a great deal of time

inside his point of view in these last hours. Japan is run by something called the Supreme

War Council, six people, war minister, chief of staff, the Army and Navy, Prime Minister,

they're all military people. The one civilian is Shiginori Toto.

He's the foreign minister.

And significantly, he's the only one who wants to surrender.

His goal, and he remains fixed on it, is to try to figure out how to get the emperor,

who is the nominal head of Japan, divine, but actually under the control,

pretty much of the military, his goal is to get the emperor to surrender. And that's why I focus on

him, because he's singular. He's the only one at the top who wants to do this. He succeeds,

but it is a close-run thing.

He's an unusual Japanese speaker you make the case because he's blunt. He's direct.

He doesn't spend a deal of time presenting what you'd have to say is ambiguous remarks.

And that is a strength or a weakness when he's dealing with the military?

Well, he's different. And it helps to have somebody who is blunt. But of course, the military

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