The first one that is cited states: "Richardson is consequently a main focus of historical fact seekers, who claim pre-war intelligence that heavily suggested Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked by the Imperial Japanese Navy in early December was deliberately withheld from the military commanders at Pearl Harbor by the Roosevelt administration."
Yet nowhere in the source for this statement does it say that the Roosevelt administration withheld the knowledge of an attack at Pearl Harbor, or that they knew Pearl Harbor itself was going to be attacked at all.
What it does say is that FDR was "white as a sheet" since he expected to "get hit, but not hurt." It also make the well established claim that he knew we were going to get hit "somewhere". Yet no where in the article does it state the FDR expected to be hit specifically at Pearl Harbor or that he intentionally withheld information from the military. In fact, the article makes the exact opposite claim. It claims that FDR accused the Army in the Philippines of withholding information from him, not the other way around, when it came to their capability to defend the Philippines.
There are plenty of sources out there that make a better (and properly researched) argument that FDR knew Pearl was going to get hit, so I would look into those sources rather than use the fallacious Wikipedia source.
The second statement on the JN-25 codes being withheld by the CIA has a [citation needed] request so it is actually completely unsubstantiated.
Wikipedia is only good when there is only one possible answer. When it is something that is open to debate there is the risk like what we see here of the source material being misrepresented, or unsupported statements thrown out there as fact.
I agree with Cougar. Gordon Prange, the pre-eminent U.S. historian on Pearl Harbor, completely rejected any inference that FDR “knew” of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. FDR knew that the Japanese would attack, but everyone believed it would be the Philippines, not Pearl Harbor. If FDR is guilty of anything, it is that he held the belief that the fleet was not in imminent danger of Japanese attack while based at Pearl. This complacency spread generally through the US Command, from Harold Stark to Husband Kimmel. Compounding matters, he had an old, incompetent WW1 retread in Walter Short as Army commander in Hawaii. Short was responsible for defense of the islands, which included the fleet base. His performance here was pretty lame.
Basing the fleet at Pearl was only one aspect where Richardson disagreed with FDR. Despite Richardson’s assurances in the Times that naval assets weren’t going to be siphoned off to the Atlantic, he knew full well that it was inevitable. Finally, these disagreements don’t mean they were the reason Richardson was removed from command. Periodic rotation of fleet commanders was a routine peacetime practice.
I’m going to go out on a limb and take a position that’s probably fairly unpopular around here. Let’s just man up; in discussing Pearl Harbor let’s give credit where it is due; to the Japanese. They had the ingenuity to dream up a daring attack plan, a well trained and equipped navy and naval air arm capable of carrying it out in complete secrecy and finally, the balls to go through with it. Pearl Harbor was really the largest and most successful “commando raid” in history against a foe that was essentially asleep at the switch. No “conspiracy” here; we just plain got beat.
I've said here before, my major sources for this subject are:
But I often cite Wikipedia because:
But my point here was not necessarily to reopen the entire Pearl Harbor debate (nothing wrong with that, but I was focused on a much smaller point).
My point is that Admiral Richardson objected to stationing the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, and was soon fired, demoted and retired by President Roosevelt.
This much is well known by all.
But is there more to the story?
Answer: yes a lot more.
Victor goes into great detail (pp 154 to 164) on why Richardson objected to moving the fleet to Pearl Harbor, and what were the results of his objections.
I have summarized it by saying: Richardson did not think the fleet safe at Pearl Harbor, and so wanted it kept on constant high-alert.
Since that was not FDR's plan, it got Richardson fired.
I contend that it's impossible to comprehend what happened on December 7, 1941 without first realizing why Richardson was fired.
Richardson fully understood FDR's plan, and would not accept it.
By contrast, Admiral Kimmel and General Short were clueless, and so did as ordered.