http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=815#comment-183289
Misallocated Infamy
by Srdja Trifkovic
For the past 67 years America has commemorated over 2,400 sailors, soldiers
and airmen who were killed in the Japanese attackon Pearl Harbor on December
7, 1941. Every such anniversary reminds us that all history is to some
extent contemporary history: Almost seven decades after the event, the myth
of FDR's goodness and greatness - revivedfor current political purposes
duringand afterthis year's election campaign - makes it less "appropriate"
than ever to ask if he knew about the attack; and, more importantly, whether
he willed it. This date "will live in infamy," for a few more decades at
least, until it succumbs to this country's collective amnesia. We may be
running out of time for its infamy to be allocated more equitably.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was eager to enter the war in Europe. He
wanted this strongly following the fall of France (June 1940) - when he came
to believe that without American intervention the Nazis would conquer the
Old Continent - and desperately after Germany attacked the Soviet Union a
year later. In this desire he was supported by the old East Coast elite
which was traditionally Anglophile, by the increasingly influential Jewish
lobby, and - after June 22, 1941 - by Moscow's sympathizers within his
entourage and in the country at large.
After meeting the President at the Atlantic Conference (August 14, 1941)
Churchill noted the "astonishing depth of Roosevelt's intense desire for
war." But there was a problem: FDR could not overcome the isolationist
resistance to "Europe's war" felt by most Americans and their elected
representatives. The mood of the country was anti-war and, according to the
revisionists' key claim, Roosevelt therefore provoked the Japanese into
attacking the United States - while his real target was Hitler. It is
further claimed that, even though Roosevelt was aware of the impending
attack on Pearl Harbor, he let it happen, and was relieved when it did
happen.
The evidence on FDR maneuvring Japan into war, available for
decades, was semi-definitively presented in Robert Stinnett's "Day of
Deceit"(1999). The evidence of his foreknowledge of the attack itself
appears equally convincing in three respects: denial of intelligence to the
Navy; misleading its commanders, in the final two weeks before the attack,
into thinking negotiations with Japan were continuing; and keeping them
misinformed about the location of the Japanese carrier fleet.
Chronologically the important elements of the scenario proceeded as follows:
On September 27, 1940, the Tripartite Pact- the mutual assistance treaty
between Germany, Italy, and Japan - was signed in Berlin. It implied the
possibility that Germany would declare war on America if America were to get
into war with Japan, which greatly impacted FDR's policy towards Japan from
that moment on.
On October 7, 1940, only a week after the signing of the Tripartite Pact,
Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum, a U.S. Naval officer in the Office of
Naval Intelligence (ONI), suggested a strategyfor provoking Japan into
attacking the U.S., triggering the mutual assistance provisions of the
Tripartite Pact, and bringing America into World War II. Summarized in
McCollum's memo the ONI proposal called for height specific stepsaimed at
provoking Japan. Its centerpiece was keeping the might of the U.S. Fleet
based in Hawaii as a lure for a Japanese attack, and imposing an American
oil embargo against Japan. "If by these means Japan could be led to commit
an overt act of war, so much the better," the memo concluded.
Also in October 1940, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral J.O.
Richardson, protested President Roosevelt's decision to move the fleet from
the protected waters of the West Coast to the vulnerable base at Hawaii.
Richardson was relieved of his command four months after his meeting with
FDR and was replaced by Rear Admiral Kimmel.
On 23 June 1941 - one day after Hitler's attack on Russia - Secretary of the
Interior and FDR's advisor Harold Ickes wrote a memo for the President in
which he pointed out that
there might develop from the embargoing of oil to Japan such a situation as
would make it not only possible but easy to get into this war in an
effective way. And if we should thus indirectly be brought in, we would
avoid the criticism that we had gone in as an ally of communistic Russia.
On July 22, Admiral Richmond Turner stated in a report,
It is generally believed that shutting off the American supply of petroleum
will lead promptly to the invasion of Netherland East Indies. [I]t seems
certain [Japan] would also include military action against the Philippine
Islands, which would immediately involve us in a Pacific war.
On July 24 Roosevelt told the Volunteer Participation Committee, "If we had
cut off the oil, they probably would have gone down to the Dutch East Indies
a year ago, and you would have had war."
On July 25 Roosevelt froze all Japanese assets in the United States and
imposed an oil embargo. From that moment on Japan faced an existential
threat from the United States, a threat that could not be averted by
peaceful means short of abdicating its status as a great power and visibly
losing face - an utter impossibility.
On 24 September 1941 Washington deciphered a message from the Naval
Intelligence Headquarters in Tokyo to Japan's consul-general in Honolulu,
requesting grid of exact locations of U.S. Navy ships in the harbor.
Commanders in Hawaii were not warned. U.S. naval intelligence had cracked
the Japanese naval codes one year earlier, enabling FDR to receive
translations of all key messages.
On 18 October Harold Ickes noted in his diary: "For a long time I have
believed that our best entrance into the war would be by way of Japan." Yet
Japan had to be made to fire first: on October 22 opinion polls revealed
that 74 percent of Americans opposed war with Japan, and only 13 percent
supported it.
On November 25, 1941, Secretary of War Stimson wrote in his diary that FDR
said an attack was likely within days, and wondered"how we should maneuver
them into the position of firing the first shot without too much danger to
ourselves":
In spite of the risk involved, however, in letting the Japanese fire the
first shot, we realized that in order to have the full support of the
American people it was desirable to make sure that the Japanese be the ones
to do this so that there should remain no doubt in anyone's mind as to who
were the aggressors.
On November 26 Secretary of State Hull issued a provocatively worded note -
an ultimatum, really - demanding the complete withdrawal of all Japanese
troops not only from French Indochina but also from China.According to the
Army Investigating Board's Pearl Harbor report (1945), U.S. Ambassador to
Japan Grew called this"The document that touched the button that started the
war." The Japanese reacted on cue: On December 1, final authorization was
given by the emperor, after a majority of Japanese leaders advised him the
Hull Note would "destroy the fruits of the China incident, endanger
Manchukuo and undermine Japanese control of Korea."
Also on November 26 Washington ordered both US aircraft carriers, the
Enterprise and the Lexington, out of Pearl Harbor "as soon as possible."
This order entailed stripping Pearl Harbo of 50 planes, or 40 percent of its
already inadequate fighter protection. On the same day Cordell Hull issued
his ultimatum demanding full Japanese withdrawal from Indochina and all
China.
On December 1, Office of Naval Intelligence, ONI, 12th Naval District in San
Francisco found the Japanese fleet by correlating reports from the four
wireless news services and several shipping companies that they were getting
signals west of Hawaii. As we now know, the ships of the Japanese carrier
fleet engaged in daily radio communication with the high command in Japan,
military commands in the Central Pacific, and with each other - as Robert
Stinnett conclusively establishedby reading U.S. naval intelligence radio
intercepts of the Japanese transmissions. U.S. Navy did not "lose" the
carriers.
On 5 December FDR wrote to the Australian Prime Minister that "the next four
or five days will decide the matters" with Japan. Later that same day, at a
Cabinet meeting, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox said, "Well, you know Mr.
President, we know where the Japanese fleet is?" "Yes, I know . Well, you
tell them what it is Frank," replied Roosevelt. Just as Knox was about to
speak Roosevelt appeared to have second thoughts and interrupted him,
saying: "We haven't got anything like perfect information as to their
apparent destination." (Toland, p. 294)."
On 6 December 1941 at a White House dinner Roosevelt was given the first
thirteen parts of a fifteen part decoded Japanese diplomatic declaration of
war and said, "This means war!" he said to Harry Hopkins, but did not
interrupt the soiree.
No less revealing is Roosevelt's behavior on the day of the attack itself
and in its aftermath.
Harry Hopkins, who was alone with FDR when he received the news, wrote that
the President was unsurprised and expressed "great relief." Later in the
afternoon Hopkins wrote that the war cabinet conference "met in not too
tense an atmosphere because I think that all of us believed that in the last
analysis the enemy was Hitler. and that Japan had given us an opportunity."
That same evening FDR said to his cabinet, "We have reason to believe that
the Germans have told the Japanese that if Japan declares war, they will
too. In other words, a declaration of war by Japan automatically brings." -
at which point he was interrupted, but his expectations were perfectly
clear.
CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow met Roosevelt at midnight and was surprised at
FDR's calm reaction. The following morning Roosevelt stressed to his
speechwriter Rosenman that "Hitler was still the first target, but he feared
that a great many Americans would insist that we make the war in the Pacific
at least equally important with the war against Hitler." Jonathan Daniels,
administrative assistant and press secretary to FDR, later said "the blow
was heavier than he had hoped it would necessarily be. But the risks paid
off; even the loss was worth the price."
Roosevelt confirmed this to Stalin at Tehran on November 30, 1943, by saying
that "if the Japanese had not attacked the US he doubted very much if it
would have been possible to send any American forces to Europe."
Historian John Toland concluded in his book Infamy: Pearl Harbor and its
Aftermath,
Was it possible to imagine a President who remarked, 'This means war,' after
reading the [thirteen-part 6 December] message, not instantly summoning to
the White House his Army and Navy commanders as well as his Secretaries of
War and Navy? . Stimson, Marshall, Stark and Harry Hopkins had spent most of
the night of December 6 at the White House with the President. All were
waiting for what they knew was coming: an attack on Pearl Harbor. The comedy
of errors on the sixth and seventh appears incredible. It only makes sense
if it was a charade, and Roosevelt and the inner circle had known about the
attack.
Churchill later wrote that FDR and his top advisors "knew the full and
immediate purpose of their enemy":
A Japanese attack upon the U.S. was a vast simplification of their problems
and their duty. How can we wonder that they regarded the actual form of the
attack, or even its scale, as incomparably less important than the fact that
the whole American nation would be united?
The real target, Adolf Hitler, declared war on the United States on December
10, 1941, thus ensuring Germany's defeat. The rest, as they say, is history.
The late Murray Rothbard is said to have often arguedthat, far from being
evidence of a "paranoid" strain in the American mind, belief in conspiracies
as a factor in American history was usually not taken far enough. The truth
behind most conspiracies, he alleged, was far more heinous and diabolical
than even the most diehard conspiracy theorist suspected. The events leading
up to the Day of Infamy in 1941 prove him right, no less than those
preceding U.S. wars against Mexico, the Confederacy, Spain (1898), Serbia
(1999), or Iraq (2003). In all of those cases diplomacy did not "fail"
because it was not used to avert war, but to make certain its coming.
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