What is a zilch?

Why didn't Truman allow the Japanese to make a conditional surrender with the terms that they could keep their Emperorknowing that this would have allowed the war to end in June 1945?

Who says he wouldn't have? In June 1945 the Japanese were bitterly defending Okinawa, engaging in mass Kamikaze attacks on the American fleet, and showing not the slightest sign of any inclination to surrender on any terms. The Japanese still had millions of undefeated troops in China. The war had been lost to the Japanese since Midway, in June 1942, to all of them who were able to face the facts unemotionally. So why did they wait more than three years, and endure two atomic bombings before they voiced a desire to end it? There is a school of revisionist "historians" that have tried to claim in recent years that Japan WANTED to surrender, had made the decision TO surrender, and, instead of directly informing the US of this decision, were trying to go through the Russians or the Swedes or some other intermediary to get the word through. I do not think the historical evidence supports any of these propositions, but even so, assuming that they are true, if the Japanese wanted to surrender, shouldn't they have let the US know that simple fact? There is no doubt whatsoever that the US had no information at all of any intention to end the war by Japan. The US was actively involved in planning and preparing for the next two invasions, which were to be in the Home Islands, in November 1945 and March 1946. In July 1945, while at the Potsdam Conference, Truman issued the "Potsdam Declaration" to the Japanese, after he had been informed of the successful test of the atomic bomb. Truman called on Japan for immediate surrender, or promised they would face "prompt and utter destruction", "the like of which the world has never seen". The Japanese made no reply at all. None. Zero, Nada, Zip. Zilch.

What is a zilch?

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Why didn't Truman allow the Japanese to make a conditional surrender with the terms that they could keep their Emperorknowing that this would have allowed the war to end in June 1945?

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