Declassified 1941 Memo hinted of Pearl Harbor attack.

It wouldn't surprise me at all, Roosevelt wanted to enter the war and he couldn't convince the American people unless such attack happens.
the 3 major carriers were far from Pearl Harbor at the time of the strike, so he knew about the attack.

Kinan said:

It wouldn't surprise me at all, Roosevelt wanted to enter the war and he couldn't convince the American people unless such attack happens.
the 3 major carriers were far from Pearl Harbor at the time of the strike, so he knew about the attack.

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How many times.....

No. Roosevelt did NOT know about the attack beforehand. There isn't a single primary source that indicates that Roosevelt knew in advance that the Kido Butai was going to bomb Pearl Harbor. It's simply a myth. What we do have is very hard proof that both Short AND Kimmel made mistakes that cost America dearly.

The Roosevelt-wanted-us-in-the-war hypothesis just doesn't work. By all accounts, Roosevelt DID believe that America would be at war with Germany and perhaps Italy. But the evidence strongly suggests that he was trying to avoid war with Japan. So.....What kind of fool would provoke war with Japan so that he can fight Germany? Germany had no obligation to Japan under the Tripartite pact. He very easily could have gotten war with Germany with continued aggressive Atlantic Fleet action-not unlike the events which led to WWI for America. The article in question also notes that the administration debated war with Germany as well on the night of the attack, but the they chose not to. Why not?

The 3 carriers in question WERE far away from PH. But not because Roosevelt sent them. The CNO, through Kimmel, ordered reinforcements sent to Wake Island. Carriers were the means of getting them there. Again, there is absolutely no evidence of any kind of tampering from the White House.

What EVERYBODY in both Tokyo and Washington knew was that war in the Pacific was going to happen. Where they were tragically mistaken was in ignoring the possibility that PH was the target. In fact, Washington issued a war warning to all commands a week before PH. A commander in chief shouldn't have to instruct every command what to do under those circumstances.

Mistakes were made at every level. But there is simply no justification for the revisionists here.



PS. Thank you for the article. I'll be looking for the book.

Revisionism sells books. Conspiracy theories sell books. It is 70 years almost to the day of the P.H. attack. Marketing scheme - that is all.

Kinan said:

It wouldn't surprise me at all, Roosevelt wanted to enter the war and he couldn't convince the American people unless such attack happens.
the 3 major carriers were far from Pearl Harbor at the time of the strike, so he knew about the attack.

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Ok so Roosevelt wanted the USA in the war, which would have entailed naval battles so he let the enemy bomb the hell out of his naval assets... That is worrisome.

I agree with diddyrick. Roosevelt entered the war against Japan with great reluctance under intense provocation. Pearl Harbour forced his hand, but he knew nothing about it before the event.

"similar to ....... and Bush and 9-11"

That sounds right. Stuff gets missed all the time. It's human nature.

Who knew...

On December 2, 1941, Hawaii received a message from Washington that began, "This is a war warning." From deciphering the Japanese code, the U.S. knew Admiral Yamamoto was planning a Pacific attack, but not when or where. No one believed it would be Pearl Harbor.

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The Perilous Fight . Pearl Harbor | PBS

Kinan said:

It wouldn't surprise me at all, Roosevelt wanted to enter the war and he couldn't convince the American people unless such attack happens.
the 3 major carriers were far from Pearl Harbor at the time of the strike, so he knew about the attack.

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You should know to even think a thought that FDR was bad or allowed
Pearl Harbor to be attacked to awaken dormant US factories and millions
of workers, will get you attacked. Obviously there will never be any evidence or
paper trail convicting FDR of any culpability. This new book will sell a few
copies then disappear.

Once again tj puts his unique spin on history, this time by use of the old 'straw man smear' ploy.

Sankari said:

Once again tj puts his unique spin on history, this time by use of the old 'straw man smear' ploy.

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Glad to be of service.

Pearl was the HQ of the US Pacific Fleet.

West Coast ports ,along with having several military and ship building facilities, were used to ship men and material to US bases around the Pacific and Asia.

The Panama Canal was the route used to move ships from the Atlantic to the Pacific and vice versus. The US had carriers in the Atlantic fleet also which the Japanese would of wanted to know about if the moved into the Pacific.

Spying on all 3 would give the Japanese an idea of the overall readiness of the US Naval forces and the areas that resupply and reinforcements would come from.

So all 3 areas were prime targets for espionage by the Japanese even if they never planned to attack Pearl Harbor. Increased espionage activity near Wake and Midway would definitely indicate something unusual planned for those places but the other 3 could be viewed as common targets of "routine" espionage.

I can see how the intel would of raised red flags w/o directing it at a certain area.

Hindsight is always 20/20. This memo was one of thousands that would of been issued in the weeks prior to Dec. 7th, it would be interesting to see how many other areas had warnings of increased espionage activity around the same time.

In the newly revealed 20-page memo from FDR's declassified FBI file, the Office of Naval Intelligence on December 4 warned, "In anticipation of open conflict with this country, Japan is vigorously utilizing every available agency to secure military, naval and commercial information, paying particular attention to the West Coast, the Panama Canal and the Territory of Hawaii."

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A twenty page report from Naval Intel to the President makes it problematic to suggest that the President got any more than a summary. If it wasn't, then the report should have been sent to Pearl and the three services there put on high alert.

The notion that FDR did not want war with Japan is less convincing, however and I am not entirely on board with Diddy when he says here...

Roosevelt DID believe that America would be at war with Germany and perhaps Italy. But the evidence strongly suggests that he was trying to avoid war with Japan. So.....What kind of fool would provoke war with Japan so that he can fight Germany? Germany had no obligation to Japan under the Tripartite pact. He very easily could have gotten war with Germany with continued aggressive Atlantic Fleet action-not unlike the events which led to WWI for America. The article in question also notes that the administration debated war with Germany as well on the night of the attack, but the they chose not to. Why not?

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Well some evidence does not suggest FDR was avoiding war with Japan. Particularly the embargo on fuel to Japan and an ultimatum for the Japanese to cease and desist colonial ambitions and return her armies to Japan. While I agree wholeheartedly with those demands, they could be hardly be said to be avoiding war. Sure the Japanese could have agreed and suffered a crushing economic depression, what with an exploding population and no real resources of their own...

So.....What kind of fool would provoke war with Japan so that he can fight Germany? Germany had no obligation to Japan under the Tripartite pact.

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The kind of fool that does not want to be seen to be war mongering nor a Communist sympathizer to boot. Remember during his previous re-election campaign FDR's opponent forced a pledge from FDR not to send the boys over to another European war. One of FDR's advisers Harold Ickes (remember him the Sec.of Interior and the one single voice in cabinet opposing the sale of Helium to Germany) posed just such a scenario in a memo to the President. The memo may give us an indication of the tone of cabinet discussions at the time...

“...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.”

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The fact that Hitler declared war on the US directly after suggests that the Germans were in fact staunch supporters of Japan.

While Ickes wasn't the only one talking like that, he was certainly the most highly placed and with the most access to FDR.

rehabnonono said:

A twenty page report from Naval Intel to the President makes it problematic to suggest that the President got any more than a summary. If it wasn't, then the report should have been sent to Pearl and the three services there put on high alert.

The notion that FDR did not want war with Japan is less convincing, however and I am not entirely on board with Diddy when he says here...

Well some evidence does not suggest FDR was avoiding war with Japan. Particularly the embargo on fuel to Japan and an ultimatum for the Japanese to cease and desist colonial ambitions and return her armies to Japan. While I agree wholeheartedly with those demands, they could be hardly be said to be avoiding war. Sure the Japanese could have agreed and suffered a crushing economic depression, what with an exploding population and no real resources of their own...



The kind of fool that does not want to be seen to be war mongering nor a Communist sympathizer to boot. Remember during his previous re-election campaign FDR's opponent forced a pledge from FDR not to send the boys over to another European war. One of FDR's advisers Harold Ickes (remember him the Sec.of Interior and the one single voice in cabinet opposing the sale of Helium to Germany) posed just such a scenario in a memo to the President. The memo may give us an indication of the tone of cabinet discussions at the time...

The fact that Hitler declared war on the US directly after suggests that the Germans were in fact staunch supporters of Japan.

While Ickes wasn't the only one talking like that, he was certainly the most highly placed and with the most access to FDR.

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You're missing my point, R. To date the revisionist position has always been some variation of "Roosevelt manipulated Japan into attacking PH so that America could go to war with Germany." From everything I've read this back door method would have been both unnecessary and counterproductive.

American public opinion polls of the time clearly show that the American body politic was moving away from the historically isolationist stance toward a more interventionist position in Europe. American ships had been in contact with the kriegsmarine, and indeed one had been sunk by German U-Boats. American "neutrality" patrols ensured that further contact was inevitable. While we know that Hitler had ordered that the wolfpacks not attack American ships, it would have been impossible to realistically enforce such a ban. Eventually there would have been a Lusitania-like event that would have galvanized American public opinion. And if there wasn't, it could have been manufactured. Put a ship in the wrong place at the wrong time with escorts being elsewhere, and it would have pushed the American electorate over the edge.

Moreover, It's important to remember that there was no guarantee that Germany would support Japan by declaring war against the US. The terms of the Tripartite pact only called for the signatories coming to each others aid IF one was attacked-not if they were the attacking party. The fact that Germany did, in fact, declare war is secondary. There was simply no way to ensure it via a Pacific War. It seems to me like going around your elbow to get to your......Well, never mind.

Moreover, there was part of the article cited in the OP that was illuminating for me. According to the book, Roosevelt and his war council debated including Germany and Italy in their DoW request to Congress following PH but declined. To that time, Germany had always been perceived as the greater threat by the American people. Germany was allied with our enemy. It wouldn't have been too much of a stretch to include Germany in the "Date of Infamy" speech. So if your MO is to get America into war with Germany via the back door with Japan, why not then? Why not include Germany in your Dow on December 8?

You characterize pre-war American foreign policy as an "ultimatum." You're not the first, either. I respectfully disagree. Sanctions are just one of the many tools that are available to diplomats SHORT of war. In my lifetime, America has applied economic sanctions to the USSR, Cuba, China, Libya, Haiti, the former Yugoslavia, and Venezuela just to name a few. None of those led to war. The bottom line is that Tokyo played hardball first-American foreign policy was a reaction to aggression. Japan didn't have to invade Manchuria, China, or Indochina. They didn't have to .... and kill hundreds of thousands in Nanjing and elsewhere. They didn't have to attack and sink the Panay. They chose to. All Roosevelt and Hull were seeking was a return to the status quo ante ca. 1930.

I can't speak to the Ickes memorandum that you cited. This is the first that I've seen of it and would like to see it in its entirety. Perhaps you would be so kind as to provide a source.

If you claim FDR did not want war with Japan, how do you explain Sec of
War Stimson's diary entery:

"Ten days before the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Stimson entered in his diary the following statement: [Roosevelt] brought up the event that we are
likely to be attacked perhaps next Monday … and the question was what
we should do. The question was how we should maneuver them into the
position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves".

Besides this from Stimson, there is the Naval Court of Inquiry's discussion
of the Nov 5, 1941 memo from Adm Stark and Gen Marshall to FDR.

"On 5 November, 1941, the Chief of Naval Operations and the Chief of
Staff, U. S. Army, submitted a joint memorandum to the President,
recommending that no ultimatum be delivered to Japan at that time and
giving, as one of the basic reasons the existing numerical superiority
of the Japanese Fleet over the U. S. Pacific Fleet".

Source: http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/pha/navy/navy_0.html page 301

This memo was put in writting, so there would be a record, that FDR had
been warned, by his top two military men, not to provoke a war with Japan because the US was not ready. US ambassador to Japan Joe Grew,
had told FDR and his admin, that giving Japan an ultimatum would mean
war. Sec of State Hull knew this as well. The ultimatum was given anyway. If FDR wanted to avoid war with Japan, he would not have done
this. It's true the Japanese task force had already started heading for
the Pearl Harbor Attack, but could have been called back. Tojo used
this ultimatum, to get Emperor Hirohito, to give the final go ahead with
the attack.

Source: [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_note"]Hull note - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

Cat Daddy said:

If you claim FDR did not want war with Japan, how do you explain Sec of
War Stimson's diary entery:

"Ten days before the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Stimson entered in his diary the following statement: [Roosevelt] brought up the event that we are
likely to be attacked perhaps next Monday … and the question was what
we should do. The question was how we should maneuver them into the
position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves".

Besides this from Stimson, there is the Naval Court of Inquiry's discussion
of the Nov 5, 1941 memo from Adm Stark and Gen Marshall to FDR.

"On 5 November, 1941, the Chief of Naval Operations and the Chief of
Staff, U. S. Army, submitted a joint memorandum to the President,
recommending that no ultimatum be delivered to Japan at that time and
giving, as one of the basic reasons the existing numerical superiority
of the Japanese Fleet over the U. S. Pacific Fleet".

Source: http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/pha/navy/navy_0.html page 301

This memo was put in writting, so there would be a record, that FDR had
been warned, by his top two military men, not to provoke a war with Japan because the US was not ready. US ambassador to Japan Joe Grew,
had told FDR and his admin, that giving Japan an ultimatum would mean
war. Sec of State Hull knew this as well. The ultimatum was given anyway. If FDR wanted to avoid war with Japan, he would not have done
this. It's true the Japanese task force had already started heading for
the Pearl Harbor Attack, but could have been called back. Tojo used
this ultimatum, to get Emperor Hirohito, to give the final go ahead with
the attack.

Source: Hull note - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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As you well know, I've already answered your question, Catdaddy.

http://www.historum.com/american-history/28243-critical-diplomatic-change-leading-pacific-war.html

diddyriddick said:

As you well know, I've already answered your question, Catdaddy.

http://www.historum.com/american-history/28243-critical-diplomatic-change-leading-pacific-war.html

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What you have done is talk around my point. Were is your source, that says Tojo did not persent the Hull Note, to his cabinet as an ultimatum?
Along with this being part of the reason Emperor Hirohito approved the
plan? Why would Stark and Marshall write such a memo, if there was no
issue like this?

Cat Daddy said:

What you have done is talk around my point. Were is your source, that says Tojo did not persent the Hull Note, to his cabinet as an ultimatum?

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I don't have such a source because I never claimed anything of the sort. Tojo did, in fact, present the terms of Hull's memorandum to the cabinet at 1000 hours on November 27th. And it was characterized (at least after the war) as an ultimatum. The problem isn't whether Tojo called it an ultimatum. The problem is that calling it that is fiction. Some Major obstacles to believing Hull gave an ultimatum:

1. The time frame. According to the "ultimatum" thesis, the Japanese launched the attack on Pearl Harbor as a reaction to the Hull Memorandum. But the Kido Butai sortied from Hitokappu Bay before Hull had even delivered his memo to Ambassador Nomura, much less Tokyo getting it. Under your scenario, the Japanese were reacting to a memo that they had not received. This version is more dubious when we consider that the 1st air fleet began training for Operation Z in September. Moreover, we know that Tojo tried to move the operation up by a week, but Yamamoto demurred needing the extra time for training. And all of this before the delivery of the "ultimatum." Likewise, other Japanese offensive forces were in motion toward their southern objectives.

2. If you read the text of the "ultimatum" in comparison with prior correspondence from Washington to Tokyo, there is NO significant difference. The terms were very simple. If Japan wanted to return to the status quo ante, all they had to do was give up the territory they had gained through aggression. This had been the American position all along. And there was no "or else."

3. Finally, Tokyo submitted their final proposal on November 20th. In itself, this isn't important. What IS important is that they knew it was their last one and they told Washington so. If you are trying to maintain peace through negotiations, why would you set an arbitrary date as a cutoff for those negotiations? Who was giving whom an ultimatum?

The Japanese had already decided on war when Hull delivered his memorandum. There was no ultimatum. It is a myth.

Cat Daddy said:

Along with this being part of the reason Emperor Hirohito approved the
plan? Why would Stark and Marshall write such a memo, if there was no
issue like this?

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They did write such a memo, but you haven't provided a shred of evidence proving that they were talking about the Hull memorandum specifically. Again-read the memorandum. It was not an ultimatum.

http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/monos/150/150app03.html

DIPLOMATIC BACKGROUND OF THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK

XVI. THE STATE DEPARTMENT NOTE OF NOVEMBER 26th

HyperWar: Pearl Harbor: Why, How, Fleet Salvage and Final Appraisal (Chapter 2)

How wars are MADE | Hull's Ultimatum to Japan

What We Knew before the Attack on Pearl Harbor