Word: suzukis
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...been since May, this six-member Supreme Council remained split down the middle on the questions of whether and how to end the war. One faction of three, headed by Prime Minister Suzuki and joined by Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo and Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai, favored negotiating for peace on the most favorable terms still remaining; the other, led by War Minister Anami, argued that defeat and death would be more honorable than surrender and occupation and that Japan had no choice but to fight on. The debate continued in a Cabinet meeting that ran more than eight hours...
...began and took his seat on a small dais. The assembled leaders, headed by the Supreme Council's Big Six, as they were called, listened again to a reading of the Potsdam Declaration and then began debating three possible responses to the terms it imposed. One plan, favored by Suzuki and Togo, called for an acceptance of the Potsdam demands, with the sole condition that Hirohito and the imperial dynasty be retained in Japan...
...argument over these alternatives only emphasized the hopeless abyss between the pacifists and the militarists. Then Kiichiro Hiranuma, president of the Privy Council, who had been specially invited to attend by Hirohito, proposed asking for the Emperor's opinion, shocking everyone into silence. Everyone, that is, but Prime Minister Suzuki, who quickly pointed out that it was the right move, given that the government was stymied and unable to act at the moment their people most needed action: "I propose, therefore, to seek the imperial guidance and substitute it for the decision of this conference...
Consumers, in the meantime, have gained few benefits from the strong yen. While the currency makes vacations in Hawaii and other U.S. destinations cheaper, Japan's creaky retailing system has been slow to pass along lower prices for imports to shoppers. Says Tokyo homemaker Momoko Suzuki: "As long as you live in Japan, there are not many merits to the strong yen. One exception is beer. We now buy Budweiser for 120 yen a can instead of Japanese beer...
...Like Suzuki, many Japanese thirst for attractively priced foreign goods. When the U.S. Commerce Department opened an office in Osaka to distribute mail-order catalogs from firms such as Neiman Marcus and Lands' End last year, more than 2,000 were snapped up the first weekend. But it will take thousands of scenes like that one to begin to deflate...