Reply #21: Maybe.

[SidneyCarton]

Consider though that racism ran far deeper in 1945 than today. We did not accept unconditional surrender from european Germans, would we do so from the Japanese?

I'm not saying that our reason for rejecting this out of hand was honorable, it was informed by deep-seated prejudice, but those prejudices defined the possible, and the unthinkable at that time. We may condemn such behavior as bigoted and short-sighted today, with the knowledge that our own grandchildren will likely do the same to us in their own due time.