Were the Japanese trying to surrender for months before Hiroshima?

Pinging Greg H, and others who have discussed this subject here in the
past...

This article, by William Blum, claims that the Japanese had been
trying to surrender to the US for several months prior to the nuclear
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and therefore that the dropping of
the A bombs was unnecessary to end the war:

http://www.doublestandards.org/blum5.html

Note that my purpose in posting this is to see if Blum's claims will
stand up to some scrutiny. I'm not yet prepared to take them at face
value, though ISTM his argument is reasonably internally consistent
and if he has correctly quoted his sources and hasn't missed out
crucial counter evidence, then he has a case.

Blum's argument rests on the following factual claims (for references
see the original article):

1. `By 1945, Japan's entire military and industrial machine was
grinding to a halt as the resources needed to wage war were all but
eradicated. The navy and air force had been destroyed ship by ship,
plane by plane, with no possibility of replacement. When, in the
spring of 1945, the island nation's lifeline to oil was severed, the
war was over except for the fighting. By June, Gen. Curtis LeMay, in
charge of the air attacks, was complaining that after months of
terrible firebombing, there was nothing left of Japanese cities for
his bombers but "garbage can targets". By July, U.S. planes could fly
over Japan without resistance and bomb as much and as long as they
pleased. Japan could no longer defend itself.[6]'

2. `Japan was militarily defeated long before Hiroshima. It had been
trying for months, if not for years, to surrender; and the U.S. had
consistently rebuffed these overtures. A May 5 cable, intercepted and
decoded by the U.S., dispelled any possible doubt that the Japanese
were eager to sue for peace. Sent to Berlin by the German ambassador
in Tokyo, after he talked to a ranking Japanese naval officer, it
read:

"Since the situation is clearly recognized to be hopeless, large
sections of the Japanese armed forces would not regard with disfavor
an American request for capitulation even if the terms were hard. [7]"

As far as is known, Washington did nothing to pursue this opening.
Later that month, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson almost
capriciously dismissed three separate high-level recommendations from
within the Roosevelt administration to activate peace negotiations.
The proposals advocated signaling Japan that the U.S. was willing to
consider the all-important retention of the emperor system; i.e., the
U.S. would not insist upon "unconditional surrender"[8].'

3. ``In his later memoirs, Stimson admitted that "no effort was made,
and none was seriously considered, to achieve surrender merely in
order not to have to use the bomb". [11]

And that effort could have been minimal. In July, before the leaders
of the U.S., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union met at Potsdam, the
Japanese government sent several radio messages to its ambassador,
Naotake Sato, in Moscow, asking him to request Soviet help in
mediating a peace settlement. "His Majesty is extremely anxious to
terminate the war as soon as possible", said one communication.
"Should, however, the United States and Great Britain insist on
unconditional surrender, Japan would be forced to fight to the bitter
end." [12]''

4. ``On July 25, while the Potsdam meeting was taking place, Japan
instructed Sato to keep meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Molotov
to impress the Russians "with the sincerity of our desire to end the
war [and] have them understand that we are trying to end hostilities
by asking for very reasonable terms in order to secure and maintain
our national existence and honor" (a reference to retention of Emperor
Hirohito). [13]''

5. ``Having broken the Japanese code years earlier, Washington did not
have to wait to be informed by the Soviets of these peace overtures;
it knew immediately, and did nothing. Indeed, the National Archives in
Washington contains U.S. government documents reporting similarly
ill-fated Japanese peace overtures as far back as 1943. [14]''

6. ``Thus, it was with full knowledge that Japan was frantically
trying to end the war, that President Truman and his hardline
secretary of state, James Byrnes, included the term "unconditional
surrender" in the July 26 Potsdam Declaration. This "final warning"
and expression of surrender terms to Japan was in any case a charade.
The day before it was issued, Harry Truman had approved the order to
release a 15 kiloton atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima. [15]''

7. ``Finally, we have Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's account of a
conversation with Stimson in which he told the secretary of war that:

Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was
completely unnecessary. ... I thought our country should avoid
shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I
thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It
was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to
surrender with a minimum loss of "face". The secretary was deeply
perturbed by my attitude, almost angrily refuting the reasons I gave
for my quick conclusions. [17] ''

On the face of it (assuming Blum has correctly quoted/cited his
sources) this looks like a reasonable case that the bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unnecessary to end WWII.

Blum finishes his article by suggesting the bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki was done to signal to the Soviet Union that the US were
willing to use the bomb if need be, by the example of using it when it
was militarily unnecessary.

Is there any evidence to cast doubt on the sincerity or authenticity
of the offers of surrender from the Japanese, or any evidence that the
Japanese war machine was stronger than Blum is claiming here?

Cheers,

James

--
James Hammerton, http://jameshammerton.blogspot.com/
Contributor to Magna Carta Plus: http://www.magnacartaplus.org/
Magna Carta Plus News weblog: http://www.magnacartaplus.org/news/index.php
.

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