He was determined that the Axis powers should recognize that they had been utterly and permanently defeated. No doubts or ambivalence on this score could be permitted to intrude into the proceedings, either at the time of surrender or in the long lens of history. Therefore, it was necessary to insist upon the formality of an unconditional surrender. Behind that formality, however, lay the implied promise of a magnanimous peace. It might even be said that the lesson of FDR’s parable was that if the Germans and Japanese would first agree to surrender unconditionally, they could anticipate that
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