Japan was manipulated into attacking the United States to prevent Japan from invading the Soviet Union through Siberia. FDR's Secretary of War
Stimson wrote as much in his diary. With recent archival research presented in the Venona Secrets, we learn that
Harry Hopkins was an agent of the Soviet Union.
Although Roosevelt had campaigned in 1940 on the basis of promising to keep the United States out of war, he quickly reversed his position. In January, 1941, he sent Harry Hopkins to London to confer with Churchill. Hopkins informed the latter that:
The President is determined that we shall win the war together. Make no mistake about it. He has sent me here to tell you that at all costs and by all means he will carry you through, no matter what happens to him--there is nothing that we will not do so far as he has human power.
There is absolutely zero truth to the notion that FDR was trying to keep the United States out of the war, and his administration was doing everything it could to provoke a war with either Japan or Germany. Lots of unlearning...
i am noting the copyright date on this is 2003. it seems to be VERY new information, at least as collected as it is. having not been in a history class since 2001, i must say that im not totally convinced that i was mislead with the information i could gather. (as far as information was available to me)
i will concede that information was unknown to me, and though it does not change my opinion of FDR (largely because it was my feeling of him in the first place) i do see him in a greater light.