Let it be known: From a study:

" After the war, the world learned what US leaders had known
by early 1945: Japan was militarily defeated long before Hiroshima.
It had been trying for months, if not for years, to surrender; and
the US had consistently ignored these overtures. A May 5 cable,
intercepted and decoded by the US, 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
Truman administration*** (Roosevelt had just died) to activate peace negotiations.
The proposals advocated signaling Japan that the US was willing to consider
the all-important retention of the emperor system; i.e., the US would not insist
upon "unconditional surrender".{8}*****


Stimson, like other high US officials, did not really care
in principle whether or not the emperor was retained. The term
"unconditional surrender" was always a propaganda measure; wars
are always ended with some kind of conditions. To some extent
the insistence was a domestic consideration -- not wanting to
appear to "appease" the Japanese. More important, however, it
reflected a desire that the Japanese not surrender before the
bomb could be used. One of the few people who had been aware of
the Manhattan Project from the beginning, Stimson had come to
think of it as his bomb -- "my secret", as he called it in his
diary.{9} On June 6, he told President Truman he was "fearful"
that before the A-bombs were ready to be delivered, the Air Force
would have Japan so "bombed out" that the new weapon "would not
have a fair background to show its strength".{10} 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}

Thus Obama was not incorrect in saying Truman "through channels" was agreeable to discussing peace terms.

Carter was right in avoiding war with Iran. Read of our involvment there !

We of course should have conversation with any of our enemies before we send someone elses kid to war.