espouse this interpretation, it is stated that it was probably Hasegawa Saiji, a translator for Dōmei Press, who translated this as: "The Japanese ignores this, and we are determined to continue our fight until the end" and the foreign press picked this up, taking "ignore" to mean "reject". The NSA Technical Journal published an article endorsing this view, that the word's meaning was ambiguous, in which readers are warned of the consequences of not making ambiguities clear when translating between languages. It concluded: To this day, the argument, or myth, that mokusatsu was misunderstood, and that the misunderstanding interrupted a negotiation for a peaceful end to the war, still resurfaces from time to time. The consensus of modern historians is that the Allies had understood the word correctly. Chalmers Johnson wrote in 1980: Since the characters for mokusatsu mean 'silent kill,' most informed commentators believe that the Allies did not mistranslate Suzuki. If he really meant 'no comment', that is not what he said – and mokusatsu does not imply it, even obliquely. However, the fact that the Japanese and Emmerson maintain that Suzuki's nuance was misunderstood illustrates the tendency of the Japanese to take refuge in alleged mistranslations. Likewise, Herbert Bix concluded: '"No need to rush" directly contravened Article 5 of the Potsdam Declaration ("We shall brook no delay") and as a position that further strengthened the contemporary Western analysis that, as of 28 July, the Japanese, following the leadership of their emperor, had neither reversed their decision, nor loosened their will to fight to the finish, while making vague overtures for peace on a separate track. Suzuki's intention was not misunderstood.' Notes Footnotes Citations Sources Japanese words and phrases Military terminology Translation