The Truth About Pearl Harbor: A Debate [Did FDR know about Japan's plans in advance?]

The Independent Institute ^ | 30 January 2003 | Robert B. Stinnett, Stephen Budiansky

[oblomov]

Introductory Remarks:

On December 7, 1941, U.S. military installations at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii were attacked by the Imperial Japanese Navy. Could this tragic event that resulted in over 3,000 Americans killed and injured in a single two-hour attack have been averted?

After 16 years of uncovering documents through the Freedom of Information Act, journalist and historian Robert Stinnett charges in his book, Day of Deceit, that U.S. government leaders at the highest level not only knew that a Japanese attack was imminent, but that they had deliberately engaged in policies intended to provoke the attack, in order to draw a reluctant, peace-loving American public into a war in Europe for good or ill. In contrast, historian and author Stephen Budiansky (see his book, Battle of Wits) believes that such charges are entirely unfounded and are based on misinterpretations of the historical record.

It’s been often said that “Truth is the first casualty of war.” Historians and policy experts now know that the official government claims, including those made by U.S. Presidents, that led to the Spanish-American War, World War I, Vietnam War, Gulf War, and other conflicts were deliberate misrepresentations of the facts in order to rally support for wars that the general public would otherwise not support. Was this also the case regarding the tragedy at Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into World War II—or are such charges false? We are very pleased to provide a debate between these two distinguished experts.

[BroJoeK]

from #167: "If it were true that the IJN code was broken in the PI before Pearl, then that makes McArthur’s preparations look even worse. It doesn’t add up."

MacArthur knew more than Kimmel & Short, but he also saw the directives from Washington:

"IF HOSTILITIES CANNOT REPEAT CANNOT BE AVOIDED THE UNITED STATES DESIRES THAT JAPAN COMMIT THE FIRST OVERT ACT."

MacArthur was no fool, and he knew possibly better than anyone the value of a dramatic event.

[tanknetter]

"But his laudable efforts came to naught. When the White House military officials learned Kimmel's warships were in the area of what turned out to be the intended Japanese launch site, they issued directives that caused Kimmel to quickly order the Pacfific Fleet out of the North Pacific and back to its anchorages in Pearl Harbor.

I'm going to take exception to this. SOP at the time was, unless there was a major maneuver going on, to keep 1/2 the fleet at sea and the other half in Pearl.

UNLESS the carriers (Lexington, Saratoga, Enterprise) weren't around to provide air cover. In those cases the entire fleet (less the carriers and their escorts/support ships) was pulled back into Pearl so the Army could provide air cover them.

The entire battle line was in Pearl on 12/7/41 because the carriers weren't around. Lexington and Enterprise were on their way back from their ferry missions to Midway and Wake, and Saratoga was on the West Coast.

As it was, there were reasonable expectations at the time that an attack couldn't be launched from N/NW of Pearl given the sea states in that area of the Pacific in December. Anyone who has seen the Japanese films of the Kido Butai carriers bobbing around and fighting their way through high seas on their way to the attack should be able to recognize this.

The failure at Pearl Harbor, just like the failure on 9-11, was one of imagination. Just about all the pieces were there to indicate what would happen. But between lack of communication and institutional blindness/bias those pieces could really only be assembled in hindsight.

[BroJoeK]

from #176: "One theory that I’m prepared to believe (if further evidence can be provided) is that the US had ‘partially’ cracked JN25... "

From Stinnett, page 70:

"A second tier of foreign Ministry codes -- known in America as the J-series -- played a pivotal role in pre-Pearl Harbor communications intelligence...

"American cryptographers knew the code's techniques by heart, for they had first solved the J series in the 1920's. By 1941 Japan, hoping to outwit the code-breakers, introduced minor variants of the code every three months.

"Each of the three J series put into effect in 1941 was read and translated with a day's time. There was no outwitting America's cryppies."

[BroJoeK]

"The spectre of the holocaust and anti-Hitler propaganda probably did the job. That and the powerful unconscious desire to believe it wasn’t all worthless."

In Roosevelt's mind there was only one enemy really worth troubling over, and that was Nazi Germany. FDR was totally focused on defeating Germany, and everything he did was for that effect. To accomplish this he made close personal friends with Churchill and became a loyal ally of Stalin.

Roosevelt either didn't know, or chose not to see that Stalin had been just as brutal as Hitler.

But brutality was not Roosevelt's standard for making allies. Opposition to Nazi Germany was.

[tanknetter]

But brutality was not Roosevelt's standard for making allies. Opposition to Nazi Germany was.

Yes. I would believe that it would be useful to refer to FDR's Fireside Chat #19 (I think it's 19), which was given after Pearl Harbor but before the Germans declared war on the US.

In it, FDR pretty much laid the blame for Pearl Harbor at the feet of the Germans, accusing them if not of actually orchestrating the attack then at least significant collusion in it.

[nkycincinnatikid]

Think about this . In 1914 what designs did Germany have upon western Europe?
None, nada, zippo.
Yet the french had spent the previous 50 years with their primary foreign policy aim being the re taking of the German speaking provinces previously taken by Louis 14.
The English with their centuries old primary policy of worldwide naval hegemony became panic stricken at the inexorable building of a German navy and their unsustainable effort to match them.
And I’m sorry but I simply cannot accept the entry of German forces into the German Rhineland as countering my contention vis a vis German designs upon western Europe.

[Bellflower]

What he said and did out in the open is just the tip of the ice berg or just the smoke not the raging fire of what lays out of the view of our eyes. To think that someone so despicable and evil doesn't have an even greater evil underbelly is to not understand human nature. If one had delved into the evidence one would have found for oneself that there is much more than meets the eye. This is with an objective point of view.

What we saw was not what most of the country saw. Those that watched certain shows on Fox like Hannity caught a glimpse of what was really going on with this man. Those who were Conservatives adept at searching information on the net could ferret out the information if they could get to it before it was removed.

Most people were given an altogether picture of who he is, one carefully orchestrated by the MSM. We who keep up on these things can forget what it is like for the average person who is not up on the cutting edge of Conservative news.

Those "ordinaries" who did stumble onto more accurate information on the net were bombarded with an avalanche of liberal posts on pertinent blogs that were calculated to leave them feeling like fools if they even considered that they had thought the anti Obama information was true. If you followed these blogs the liberal posts seemed to be at least 10 to 1 over the Conservative posts. I believe they were paid leftist bloggers who were trained in Alinsky tactics. Ordinary people were up against people trained to keep them from accepting truth and left to feel like they were out of the mainstream and foolish if they felt otherwise.

[BroJoeK]

from #222: "The entire battle line was in Pearl on 12/7/41 because the carriers weren't around."

Then you missed my point -- or more likely I didn't quote enough to give a good sense of what was going on.

Kimmel claimed afterward that he had not been told of the coming attack. However he certainly suspected enough TWO WEEKS AHEAD OF TIME, to send the Pacific fleet to the precise area where the Japanese would launch their aircraft:

page 146: "On Sunday, November 23, the Pacific Fleet was at sea north of Hawaii looking for a Japanese carrier force. Officially the sortie into the north Pacific waters was named Exercise 191.

"The object of the exercise called for Force Black (Japan) to conduct an air raid on Force White (USA). Exercise 191 would prove eerily similar to Admiral Isoroku yamamoto's Operation Order No. 1 which set forth japan's naval plans for the Hawaii raid.

"Both Exercise 191 and OPORD 1 called for a Japanese carrier force to advance on Hawaii from the North Pacific in an operational area between 158 degrees and 157 degrees west longitude -- the approach to Oahu and Pearl Harbor.

In a bizarre series of coincidences, Yamamoto and Kimmel selected the identical launch area -- the Prokofiev Seamount, and extinct underwater volcano about 200 miles north of Oahu. Their timing and planning borders on mutual clairvoyance...

Stinnett goes into many curious details about Kimmel's exercise, but the important point is that it was soon canceled by orders from Washington which, as you suggest, ordered the carriers away from Pearl Harbor. Therefore the other ships returned to Pearl.

Very important point: it wasn't JUST the carriers ordered away from Pearl. It was EVERY ONE of the more modern warships stationed there -- more than 20, all told.

In other words, what the Navy sacrificed at Pearl Harbor was it's oldest most obsolete vessels. The good stuff was all sent away to safety.

[BroJoeK]

from 226: "Think about this . In 1914 what designs did Germany have upon western Europe?
None, nada, zippo."

Completely, utterly false -- German propaganda disinformation to the core.

In fact, the German military pushed the Kaiser into starting the First World War for the precise purpose of defeating both France and Russia while Germany still had a window of opportunity to do so.

According to their calculations, Russia especially was growing so fast economically that it would soon be too powerful for Germany to defeat. Therefore war was required by 1914. And preparatitions for this war had begun years earlier.

If you are truly interested in this subject, and not just in German propaganda, then I highly recommend:

Professor Fromkin's c2004 "Europe's Last Summer"

[nkycincinnatikid]

OH Yeah Herr Prof Frompkin, Yeah that’s the ticket. LOL!

[tanknetter]

However he certainly suspected enough TWO WEEKS AHEAD OF TIME, to send the Pacific fleet to the precise area where the Japanese would launch their aircraft:

That area North of the islands was a Navy favorite for holding wargames. Reason: it was off the commercial shipping lanes (especially during Winter, when it was considered borderline suicidal to run ships through the North Pacific), and therefore there was less risk of a liner or cargo ship blundering into the middle of a maneuvering fleet. Which is also the reason why it was chosen as the launching point for the Japanese.

The USN had also been running exercises involving carrier strikes on Pearl all the way back to shortly after Lexington and Saratoga joined the fleet. Analyses of these had been widely published in public-source material, including USNI Proceedings - which was mandatory reading for Japanese officers - and which pretty much provided the blueprints for the attack. The issue wasn't that the US didn't know of that location as a "good spot" for launching an attack, they just didn't think that anyone would haul a carrier strike force into that position in December across the Northern route.

Very important point: it wasn't JUST the carriers ordered away from Pearl. It was EVERY ONE of the more modern warships stationed there -- more than 20, all told.

This is a combination of factually inaccurate and misleading manipulation of statistics.

First, there were plenty of "modern" warships present in Pearl on 12/7/41, as can be seen here and which included the Heavy Cruiser San Francisco, the Light Cruisers Phoenix, Honolulu, St. Louis (which almost ate a torpedo from a Japanese minisub) and Helena ... and a bevy of the newer destroyers.

Second, any overall analysis of the age of the ships would be skewed by the fact that ALL the Pacific Fleet's (with the exception of Colorado which was on the West Coast) WWI-era battleships were in the harbor, as were older cruisers (the two Omaha-class lights) and destroyers (WWI-era four-pipers) that were dedicated to defense of the islands and protection of the shipping lanes back to the US.

Although still a "Battleship Navy", the USN had two high-value assets loose in the Pacific at the time of Pearl: Lexington and Enterprise. Carriers don't run alone, and it would make logical sense that they'd be escorted by newer ships because, at the very least, the older ships (Omahas and four-pipers) would have had a hard time keeping up from either a speed or an endurance perspective.

As it was, Enterprise was due back into Pearl on Saturday December 6th, but got held up due to weather of the kind I've mentioned in this and my previous posts. Some of her planes actually flew, unarmed, INTO the attack as it was occurring. And had she actually made it back into the harbor on the 6th, she would have been parked in the same area as USS Utah was. Utah, you may recall, was an old de-armed battleship that was planked over with wood and used as a mobile target. The Japanese, seeing her wood decks, mistook her for a carrier and went after her with a vengeance. She ended up being a bomb/torpedo magnet that probably saved other ships (much as the Nevada did with her run to Hospital Point). Enterprise, had she been on schedule, would certainly have been destroyed.

I haven't read this book, but with every passage I see posted from it I become increasingly convinced that the author started out with his conclusion and then cherry-picked the facts that would support it.

[Partisan Gunslinger]

Yes and Bush brought down the two towers, LBJ and the CIA killed Kennedy, and Hitler went to Argentina. Oh and the British Royal family had Diana killed.

You're two out of five correct.

[Tublecane]

“In 1914 what designs did Germany have upon western Europe?
None, nada, zippo.”

Let’s not go into too much detail on Germany’s role in the pre-war arms race, not to mention their headlong rush (in plan and action) into empire-building and continental dominance in the era between the Franco-Prussian War and WWI. I simply ask: who invaded who? If France had every reason for revenge and Germany zero motivation, why was Germany so quick on the trigger? Perhaps, maybe, possibly because they actually wanted to go to war?

[Tublecane]

“You’re two out of five correct.”

Might I assume the other is LBJ and JFK? Have you any of that little thing called “evidence” that no one’s ever found concerning his guilt?

[Tublecane]

“Yet the french had spent the previous 50 years with their primary foreign policy aim being the re taking of the German speaking provinces previously taken by Louis 14.”

Harkening back to Louis the 14th, though I don’t doubt people did, is a little like Hitler harkening back to Frederick the Great: anachronistic, neither here nor there, and simply a rhetorical surface cover for deeper motivation. France didn’t want to restore it’s “natural borders”. It wanted revenge for Sedan, if anything. But even that was less on its mind than the spectre of a Germany that absolutely wanted to finish the job.

[Tallguy]

MacArthur knew more than Kimmel & Short, but he also saw the directives from Washington:

"IF HOSTILITIES CANNOT REPEAT CANNOT BE AVOIDED THE UNITED STATES DESIRES THAT JAPAN COMMIT THE FIRST OVERT ACT."

Allowing the Japanese to make the first overt act in the Pacific is not the same thing as allowing your air force at Clark Field to get schwacked on the ground in the opening moments in the defense of the Philippines when you know Pearl has been hit. You're moving too easily from the general to the specific in this case.

[BroJoeK]

"I haven't read this book, but with every passage I see posted from it I become increasingly convinced that the author started out with his conclusion and then cherry-picked the facts that would support it. "

Go check out my post #207. There you will see four books listed -- two making the case that "Roosevelt knew," the other two making the case that "FDR didn't know." As I said there: the case for "Roosevelt knew" seems to me the stronger one.

One reason the "FDR knew" case seems stronger is because those guys actually make a case. Like good prosecutors, they present their evidence and then "connect the dots" in a consistent, credible narrative.

On the other hand, those who argue "Roosevelt didn't know" actually make no case at all. Instead, they do just what you did -- they cherry pick a few minor points here and there that they think can be reinterpreted, and then declare the entire argument invalid.

Of course, neither argument is a "slam dunk" -- if it were, there would have been no debate these past 68 years. And the fact remains, whatever other evidence has been uncovered through Congressional investigations and Freedom of Information actions, no document has been uncovered proving that Franklin Roosevelt was personally informed of an attack on Hawaii before December 7, 1941.

So people can still legitimately chose what they wish to believe.

However, there are still huge volumes of data, according to Stinnett and Victor, which have not been released. So you have to ask yourself: if ANY of this data supported the "FDR didn't know" case, would it still be kept secret after all these years?

[BroJoeK]

"OH Yeah Herr Prof Frompkin, Yeah that’s the ticket. LOL!"

So, I take it you have read this book, and can quote sentences and paragraphs from it which are in error?

I will be most interested to learn which ones those are. ;-)

[BroJoeK]

"Allowing the Japanese to make the first overt act in the Pacific is not the same thing as allowing your air force at Clark Field to get schwacked on the ground in the opening moments in the defense of the Philippines when you know Pearl has been hit.

"You're moving too easily from the general to the specific in this case."

Far be it from me to defend MacArthur against the truth. If you have a better explanation than mine -- Mac was just following explicit orders to let the Japanese strike the first blow -- then I'd be interested to learn of it. ;-)

[jamaksin]

Actually there are many, as that should be with 129 American innocents being put in harm's way knowingly:

A. Wilson's administration knew at the time of her sailing that she had tons of munitions, aka contraband. That made her a legitimate target in a war zone.

Said knowledge was denied until the mid-1970's when a British underseas film crew released some of the photographs of her damage and cargo.

As if by magic the US government then "finds" her original cargo manifest. Seems the files had fallen behind a old file cabinet decades prior.

Imagine that. Imagine how many people knew. Imagine how that "secret" was kept for well over a half-century.

B. FDR was never "in charge" of the US Navy - that is, he was never Secretary of the Navy.

But, your question - think of the SS LUSTANIA as On-The-Job Training for FDR and WSC. And oh, what lessons they learned.

C. To this day the Admiralty has yet to release all of the SS LUSITANIA papers - coming up on a full century. See "Room 40"