History Lies. A start at debunking [NRO interviews Larry Schweikart]

Larry Schweikart, previously co-author of A Patriot’s History of the United States, is author of the new (released today) 49 Liberal Lies About American History (That You Probably Learned in School). A professor of history at the University of Dayton, he takes some opening-day questions from NRO editor Kathryn Lopez, in the hopes of undoing some of the lies early in the school year.

Larry Schweikart: You know, publishers do have cost restraints. The original version was the size of The Historical Statistics of the United States. So we allowed for volume 2, 3, 4, . . . .

Schweikart: This one is quirky, and I admit that textbooks stay away from it — but it’s certainly out there. It began with a liberal, Charles Beard, a Marxist historian. For Marxist historians, every war is the fault of the capitalist class in either England or the United States. You know that. Anyway, over the past 20 years, it has morphed into a conspiracy thesis held by radicals of all political stripes, including a lot of Libertarians. Most recently, it was the subject of a couple of books that spend hundreds of pages asserting that Roosevelt “knew” in advance about the attack without producing one single shred of proof. Ultimately, at the critical point when actual evidence is required, they leap to a line such as, “Roosevelt almost certainly would have received this radio transmission,” or something to that effect. Bottom line: The Japanese maintained strict radio silence, the code breakers didn’t break the pre-December 1941 codes until 1944, and Pearl Harbor, like 9/11, was a failure of intelligence, not a conspiracy by patriotic Americans to drag us into a war.

Schweikart: I don’t think “defending” is an accurate description of the entry. It is, pure and simple, revealing that a) Prohibition was not unpopular when passed — it was a Constitutional amendment, after all, and that entails phenomenal agreement among the electorate; b) it was not the work of “fundamentalist, back-woods hicks” who wanted to “impose their morality” on the rest of us — but rather was most heavily supported by the kinds of “Progressive” urban reformers that your colleague Jonah Goldberg called “liberal fascists”; and c) it did have some positive health effects, which I think are undeniable. Certainly a ban on all cigarette smoking also would have such effects, and we shouldn’t deny the benefits in defense of the more important liberties that were at risk.

Lopez: Is everything this generation of teachers knows about JFK coming from Oliver stone?

textbooks — I examined identified Lee Harvey Oswald as a “Marine,” a “deranged Marine,” a “former Marine,” or some such reference to his military service. But that was entirely irrelevant to his motivation for killing JFK, which was his Communism. Yet fewer than half even identified him as a “communist” or “Marxist.” I think it’s clear that they view the assassination as the result of an American “militaristic” character. While few of them take the next step and directly say JFK was assassinated at the orders of Lyndon Johnson, most leave the issue open with phrases such as “no one knows” what really happened.

Lopez: The Mexican and Spanish-American wars weren’t imperialist efforts drummed up by “corporate interests”? Next you are going say that the Iraq war is about more than oil! Where do you get this stuff?

Schweikart: We tend to forget that real issues existed at different times in history. “54, 40, or Fight!” or “Free Silver at 16:1” sound silly now, but entire political movements were affected by these ideas. So, too, with both the Mexican War and the Spanish-American War. In each case, there were real issues at stake (genuine bloodshed in the former, and what was thought to be a Spanish bombing of a U.S. ship in the latter). Neither was a “spur of the moment” war, but rather war had been building, over numerous issues, over many years in each case. It’s true some “business interests” wanted war with Spain — but many others did not, fearing the competition. Nine times out of ten, narrow economic interests are not the cause of a war.

Schweikart: I hope so. Joe’s timing was a little off — the Communists who were definitely in the administration had mostly been purged (but not entirely) — and his methods were heavy handed. But then, like now, the press was substantially against him, and the Democrats (all except Jack Kennedy and his family!) were opposed to him, because he made them look bad. The undeniable point, though, is that almost all those he tabbed as “Communists” or “Communist sympathizers” were at least that, and often outright agents of the U.S.S.R.

Lopez: Will American students ever learn anything good about Christopher Columbus?

Schweikart: Maybe that Columbus, Ohio, was named for him? Poor old Chris has been the subject of entire multidisciplinary symposia. Slowly, but surely, the word is getting out that Native Americans were nowhere near as numerous as historians and anthropologists once thought; that they suffered from most of the diseases once thought to be “introduced” by the Europeans long before Chris ever dipped his toe in the Caribbean, and that they killed each other off far faster than the Spaniards ever could.

Lopez: What’s one lie about women in American history that maybe Sarah Palin can take on?

Schweikart: Women not only had numerous legal rights in early American society (and throughout history) but the U.S. has been light years ahead of most of the rest of the world in elevating the position of women. American women, for example, had the right to vote almost 100 years ago that is still denied females in many parts of the earth today, and which the French didn’t enjoy until after World War II.

Schweikart: Yes. They make it seem like a “gun culture” ginned up a fairy tale. The argument, provided in a book called Arming America, claimed that few early Americans had guns, and that the idea that they did was entirely a concoction of a post-Civil War “gun culture.” This is beyond silly. Other than a Bible, virtually every American home that wasn’t in a “big city” had at least one musket or rifle, and they valued them so much that one reason militias were equipped with state weapons was because individuals didn’t want to bring “Old Betsy” to the war and risk damaging their own weapon!

Lopez: What’s a contemporary liberal lie that you can easily see becoming a new myth of history?

Schweikart: Unfortunately — and the reason I included it — the notion that there were no terrorists or WMDs in Iraq prior to 2003 will likely become a staple of U.S. college textbooks. The good news is that sales of these textbooks is following the same trendline as subscriptions of the New York Times, so perhaps fewer students will read them.

Lopez: What’s the worst lie in your estimation? Schweikart: Certainly the lie that terrorists were not behind the 9/11 attacks is not only incomprehensible, but at its root, it is evil. I don’t see this one taking root in too many of the textbooks . . . but all it takes is a couple.

Schweikart: I don’t “defend” Richard Nixon — I say quite clearly that he engaged in obstruction of justice for ordering the CIA to interfere with the FBI investigation. What I do defend him of is the charge that he originally planned and authorized the DNC Watergate break-in. I side with G. Gordon Liddy in arguing that this came from elsewhere in the White House, and the evidence seems to point to John Dean’s office. We can’t be sure, but Dean has been unable to prove in court that Liddy is lying about this.

Schweikart: You’d be surprised. I quote several textbooks gushing about the tremendous strides against poverty made by the Great Society. When these books mention Charles Murray’s Losing Ground or bother to suggest that people actually criticized the Great Society, they follow up with an extensive apology for its failure to eradicate poverty. It seems, according to them, the motivations were good, the programs were sound, but somehow along the way racist Republicans must have done something to undercut it. The sections in lie #28 dealing with the Contract With America reveal the extent to which the authors almost unanimously seek to discredit the substance of welfare reform — while at the same time praising Bill Clinton for signing it!

Lopez: Do you actually think you’ll get anyone to believe George Bush didn’t steal the 2000 election?

Schweikart: Right now, it’s so recent of an event that textbooks usually show a photo and admit that Muslim terrorists flew the planes into the buildings. But they quickly follow up by noting that the “cause” of their “rage” was likely poverty or oppression by the U.S., and that only “understanding” or “communication” can stop future “misunderstandings.” One of my entries shows unequivocally that terrorists are uniformly well-to-do, educated, and completely clear about their goals, which do not involve “understanding” or “communication,” but murder and death in the name of Allah. To my knowledge, I’m one of the few professors who routinely recognizes 9/11 by showing the excellent HBO special, 9/11: In Memoriam, to my classes. Most students tell me they have not seen these images in their entirety, and almost all say they had never seen the people leaping out of the buildings.

Schweikart: Okay, I’ll give you that while “FDR Knew About Pearl Harbor” started with a liberal, it includes wackos of all stripes now, and that there are a few radical libertarians who still think Thomas Jefferson was a “small-government guy” (who proposed the largest “infrastructure” expenditure in American history, and who engaged in the first foreign war, without a declaration of war). But every one of these at times has been a mainstay of liberal groups. The challenge was to find quotations in textbooks (as opposed to slant, or a broad inference) that stated as much. And I guess that’s what surprised me, was that in so many cases, it wasn’t hard to find liberals flat-out stating their views. We read from one, for example, that the Rosenbergs were “convicted in a controversial trial . . . [and that] the controversy over their guilt has continued to the present day.” We see in another that “McCarthy never uncovered a single Communist agent in government,” and in another that “the state doctored evidence and witnesses changed testimony” in the Sacco-Vanzetti trial. Still another popular text says “the changes [whites produced on the frontier] were nearly as cataclysmic as those that occurred during the Ice Age” [!], or that “transcontinental railroad building was so costly and risky as to require government subsidies.” (So . . . how did James J. Hill do it without government subsidies?) We see of the Reagan tax cuts that they resulted in “slashing rates for the rich . . . [meaning] less money for federal programs,” when revenues for federal programs rose by more than 40 percent. They propagate utter nonsense such as the claim that Ronald Reagan’s election was due to massive “nonvoting,” or that Reagan’s supporters (none of them named Marc Rich) ushered in a “decade of greed.” They continue to perpetuate utter absurdity by claiming that Richard Nixon “escalated” the Vietnam War when he reduced troop levels there by 90 percent before he resigned. In short, I was a little depressed that it was so easy to pin the liberals down.

Schweikart: I’m doing my part. Many other excellent historians — Burton Folsom at Hillsdale, Bill Forstchen at Montreat, for example — are fighting these battles in the trenches every day. People who aren’t historians by training — Victor Davis Hanson and Paul Johnson — have provided more, and better, American history than 90 percent of the textbooks out there. So-called “popular” history — written by guys such as the late Stephen Ambrose — is steadily eroding the “scholarly” ediface. And one of the most reassuring developments is that on the micro level, there are dozens of good studies coming out every year that, taken together, undermine the traditional liberal scaffolding. But it’s a fight, and, like the Spartans, those who enter the Gates of Hell from our side better be prepared!

"If they weren't occupied elsewhere, the conspiracy theories might have held some water (lacking real evidence, of course)."

Please note my post #65 above. It comes from Victor's chapter 3, "Warnings of the Pearl Harbor Attack."

Same chapter, page 45:

"In summary, agents provided sixteen usable warnings of the Pearl Harbor attack. Twenty-five indications of it, ranging from vague to clear, came from intercepted [Japanese] "bomb-plot" messages, of which about twenty were decoded before the attack. And ten percent more of the relevant Japanese naval messages probably were decoded as well.

"And radio direction-finding helped track the fleet moving to Hawaii. Given the U.S. Navy's expectation of thirty years that Japan would start a war against the United States with an attack on the fleet when it was in Hawaii, even one warning from a reliable source should have been taken seriously and alerted high-level officers for signs to come.

"2-12-41. Conference at Navy Department, they show me on the map the location of 2 Japanese carriers departed from Japan on easterly course."

"...Ranneft later said a member of ONI commented, "This is the Japanese task force proceeding east," and that it was half way between Japan and Hawaii on December 2. And on December 6, Ranneft wrote in his diary:

"At 1400 to Navy Dept., the department is closed, except the division O.N.I. where a night watch is kept. Everyone present at O.N.I. confer Director Admiral Wilkinson, Capt. Mac Collum, Lt. Cmdr. Kramer... At my request, they show me the location of the 2 carriers (see 2-12-41) west of Honolulu."

The book includes other similar quotes. Yes, the issue of radio-direction tracking is controversial. Victor argues that Japanese' radio silence was not as silent as has been portrayed, and he offers evidence of that.

See, no offense, but this is the trouble with jumping into stuff about which you simply know little. My comments in bold:

The use of a term like "decode" should immediately alert you to the fact this writer is a boob. It's not a technical intelligence term, at least in the manner in which he uses it. This makes it sound like there were "messages" that some intel officer just "picked up," "ran through a machine," and "sent up the chain." INTEL DOES NOT WORK THIS WAY. First, Japanese messages had to be 1) intercepted. The intercepted message then had to be passed on to a team of 2) translators and 3) "decoders" who analyzed the content. But this is NOT matching up little call signs with symbols on a sheet. Codes were written in codes. So you would have to sit and compare your intercept to dozens of others to find a pattern. At Midway, we thought we had discovered the Japanese code WORD (just one word!!) for "Midway." We ran a clever test by broadcasting in the open that Midway's water processor/condenser was out, then listened for any use of that word again. When it came, we knew that from that point on, "x" word meant "Midway." There was never, ever any such intercept, let alone "decoding" or analysis of ANY Pearl Harbor memos, no matter what this guy says. But we aren't even to #4 in the steps, which is ANALYSIS. Once you actually have intercepted, then translated, then decoded a possible message, it doesn't mean it's worth anything. It is then sent to Intel HQ (in Hawaii, in this case) where Rochefort's guys would have put it alongside HUNDREDS of other pieces of evidence. Of the "twenty five intercepted 'bomb-plot' messages"NOT ONE referred to a strike force at sea. They were all related to guerillas possibly blowing up the airplanes at Hickam!! It was precisely because of these bomb plots that the fighters were bunched together!!!!!

And ten percent more of the relevant Japanese naval messages probably were decoded as well. Here is a typical mush phrase that I found, for example in Stinnett's book, to the tune of almost 100 of these!!! "probably." Sorry, such a word doesn't exist in history. Either it was and you can prove it, or it wasn't. Since you can't prove it, clearly it didn't happen, but the author wants you to think it did. Gotta completely throw out this line.

Absolutely false. I repeat: you cannot find ONE SINGLE AMERICAN RADIO OPERATOR WHO EVER STATED HE EVEN ONCE INTERCEPTED JAPANESE SIGNALS FROM SEA. This really is end game. You're going to take the word of some Dutch guy over ALL the Americans whose job it was to find this fleet. But there's more: The Japanese, to a man, affirm that NO ONE in the Kido Butai---NO ONE---ever transmitted at sea. Yamamoto had ordered the trasmitting keys disabled and held by the captains up until the day before the attack to even prevent an accident.

What we HAVE discovered is that people like Victor, who don't know what they are talking about, failed to understand that the IJN was broadcasting phoney signals on a variety of frequencies FROM JAPAN. Yes, we picked those up, and the very nature of them (i.e., not coming from a fleet at sea) soon led the radio guys to shrug them off as decoys, which they were. Again, the focus was entirely on SINGAPORE and possibly the Philippines, NOT PH.

"The Dutch naval attache in Washington, Captain Johan Ranneft, often visited ONI [Office of Naval Intelligence], where he discussed the expected Japanese attack with ONI officers. He noted in his diary on December 2: "2-12-41. Conference at Navy Department, they show me on the map the location of 2 Japanese carriers departed from Japan on easterly course."

This is utterly meaningless. They DEPARTED on an easterly course. If you were heading south, and wanted to throw off enemy surveillance, would you head straight south? Moreover, this is FEBRUARY. What in the hell does this have to do with December?

"...Ranneft later said a member of ONI commented, "This is the Japanese task force proceeding east,"

Caught him. This is February. It doesn't take 10 months to cross the Pacific, even in a carrier.

and that it was half way between Japan and Hawaii on December 2. And on December 6, Ranneft wrote in his diary: "At 1400 to Navy Dept., the department is closed, except the division O.N.I. where a night watch is kept. Everyone present at O.N.I. confer Director Admiral Wilkinson, Capt. Mac Collum, Lt. Cmdr. Kramer... At my request, they show me the location of the 2 carriers (see 2-12-41) west of Honolulu."

Man, are you falling for this? Do you know where the Kido Butai was? It was not "west" of Honolulu. It did not consist of "two carriers" but SIX (I'm pretty sure two carriers accompanied the forces headed to Singapore, but could be wrong). And it was NORTH of Hawaii.

The book includes other similar quotes. Yes, the issue of radio-direction tracking is controversial.

No, it is not "controversial." Neither AMERICAN nor JAPANESE sources have ever claimed one time that they, respectively, intercepted or transmitted any signals from Kido Butai. Phil Jacobsen has blown this silly radio thing out of the water many times. I suggest you check out his web sites and SCHOLARLY papers. It's a shame that people keep tarring the good name of our radio guys and our intel guys with this garbage.

Victor argues that Japanese' radio silence was not as silent as has been portrayed, and he offers evidence of that.

There is no "evidence to "offer" because the Japanese didn't transmit.

"this writer is a boob."

"this is FEBRUARY. What in the hell does this have to do with December?"

"Caught him. This is February. It doesn't take 10 months to cross the Pacific, even in a carrier."

Oh, my goodness...
In your rush and over-enthusiasm to prove Victor a "boob," you have only proved yourself a "boob." Sorry about that.

Let's first correct one simple thing, that even a total "boob" ought to understand.

For a Dutchman, the date of 2-12-41 is not February 12, it's December 2! So, we are talking about the Tuesday before Sunday, December 7, when IN FACT, the Japanese fleet was heading east, about half way to Hawaii.

So what we are looking at here is the contemporary diary of a Dutch naval officer, WHO HAS NO REASON TO LIE ABOUT IT, reporting he SAW a map in ONI showing two Japanese carriers heading east toward Hawaii.

And how do you respond? You say, in effect: the Dutchman was obviously lying, because there were really six carriers!

And you want me to think you are not a "boob"?

Now, did you read my quote in post #65 above? It's from a British Intelligence chief:

"We knew that they changed course. I remember presiding over a J.I.C. meeting [on December 5, 1941] and being told that a Japanese fleet was sailing in the direction of Hawaii, asking 'Have we informed our transatlantic brethren?' and receiving an affirmative reply... [We had given] the US authorities...ample time to at least send most of the fleet out of Pearl Harbor."

Let me add to that:

"And American intelligence worker (and later chief of the CIA) William Casey wrote (without providing details): 'The British had sent word that a Japanese fleet was steaming east toward Hawaii.'"

On the questions of Japanese radio silence and decoding of messages, Victor goes through a long explanation, which I found informative, not the words of a "boob."

That's why I suggest that before you continue mischaracterizing Victor, and embarrassing yourself, please take the time to study his book carefully.

I promise, it can open your eyes and even change your mind.

Sorry, changing the date doesn't change the fact that he's a boob. As I said, any idiot knows that you don't INITIALLY sail in the direction you may finally intend to go. Of course the British monitored it because (are you even listening to all this?) EVERYONE (get it? Everyone) expected the attack to be aimed at Singapore.

Second, it doesn't matter that Dutchie "had no reason to lie." That doesn't make his observation of "two carriers" correct(Oops. got that wrong. The Japanese NEVER sent just two of the Kido Butai "east"---six went NORTH.)

Again---and you don't seem to grasp this---what he saw were the carriers associated with the Singapore strike force.

Now, unless he was NORTH near ALASKA, and not "east," I don't know what he's watching. Moreover, if he's the Dutch attache, what's he doing "east" of Hawaii? He should be south . . . unless he's on a ship, in which case the fact that he saw anything means that no info about what he saw could have reached anyone.

Are you possibly seeing how convoluted and ridiculous this is? And of course, all the radio "evidence" this boob produces is just silly, as I already showed you.

And I characterized him as a "boob" based on the silly, simplistic, and sophomoric notion that someone "decodes" a message. As I showed you, it is a VERY long, drawn out process. Nothing---absolutely nothing intercepted on Dec. 2 would have made it to Hawaii's brass, let alone Washington, by Dec. 7. They just don't work that fast.

Oh, dear me.
If you have followed this thread, then you know, I'm only trying to make one very serious point.

It's not that FDR, Marshall & all knew PRECISELY what would happen on December 7, 1941, but rather that they knew ENOUGH to have provided a MUCH clearer WAR WARING to Kimmel and Short than they in fact did.

So first, I'd be interested to know if you disagree with that point?

Now, let's look at your comments, one by one:

Sorry, changing the date doesn't change the fact that he's a boob.

It certainly proves that you are not quite as smart as you think you are.

As I said, any idiot knows that you don't INITIALLY sail in the direction you may finally intend to go.

The Dutchman reported on Tuesday, December 2, that ONI was tracking a Japanese task force ("2 carriers") heading east about half-way between Japan and Hawaii. So, whether they initially sailed north, and in the end sailed south, they must mainly head east, which is where the ONI map plotted them on December 2 -- five days from Hawaii.

Of course the British monitored it because (are you even listening to all this?) EVERYONE (get it? Everyone) expected the attack to be aimed at Singapore.

It's simply not true that EVERYONE expected the attack to be aimed at Singapore. There were warnings, even months ahead of time, of an attack on Hawaii. Victor reviews these.

This argument of yours is so curious, I can't even get my arms around it. And yet you keep making it. Why? Why should it matter IN THE LEAST if the Japanese had two carriers, or four, or six headed toward Hawaii? Shouldn't even ONE CARRIER have been enough to have alerted Kimmel and Short?

Again---and you don't seem to grasp this---what he saw were the carriers associated with the Singapore strike force.

If they were "the Singapore strike force," why was our "Dutchie" told they were headed east half-way towards Hawaii?

Sorry pal, but at this point you are just jabbering complete nonsense. So, take a break, relax, clear your head and try it again. We are here talking about a Dutch naval attache in Washington DC, going to the US Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and SEEING there a map showing a Japanese task force HEADING EAST half way to Hawaii. He goes back again on Saturday, December 6, and is again shown that task force on the map, west of Honolulu. Got it?

Are you possibly seeing how convoluted and ridiculous this is?

Yes, I can certainly see "how convoluted and ridiculous" YOU sound!

And of course, all the radio "evidence" this boob produces is just silly, as I already showed you.

Sorry, but you "showed me" nothing, and the subject is just a bit complex to thoroughly review here. I think a reasonable person reading Victor's explanation can easily conclude that at least some messages were read that pointed clearly to Hawaii as the target.

And I argue that if even ONE message was read pointing to Hawaii, then Kimmel and Short should have been clearly warned. Do you disagree?

I strongly suggest you stop calling Victor a "boob", if only because every time you do, it reflects very poorly on YOU.

In this particular case, you have no real clue what Victor actually wrote, but you continue to blast away with ridiculous criticism that simply does not apply here. In fact, Victor's explanation is very detailed and CAREFUL. He does not assert more than the evidence allows, BUT where the evidence points, he does not flinch from looking.

I'm going to try one more time.

The "war warning" (I have read it) was so clear that Kimmel and Short should have been courtmartialed for not being better prepared. And they were. Esp. after a midget sub was sunk in the mouth of Pearl on Dec. 6, Kimmel should have had air patrols up 24/7, all guns manned, and half the ships' engines stoked and ready to go.

There was no map, anywhere, seen by any "attache" of Japanese naval forces east. I don't know how much clearer to make this. There were no Japanese ships "east" (as you and I understand the term) of Japan. They were northeast, emphasis on NORTH. Please stop being so ignorant and look at a damn map of the attack. The task force came from south of ALASKA; it attacked from the NORTH, not the West. This is indisputable, yet you keep acting like the Japanese sailed on a course straight to Pearl. They deliberately avoided the straight line.

The fact that you keep missing this point about the "two" carriers shows your shallow grasp of both the intel and the significance of the supposed "Dutch" observation. No one would have ever seen "two carriers." There were no "two carriers" operating anywhere EAST OR NORTH. There was the Kido Butai, which consisted of SIX carriers and a crapload of other ships including battleships. No one would ever, ever mistake this for "two carriers." Moreover, no one in Washington ever, ever reported seeing "two carriers" . . . except heading SOUTH to Singapore.

So what happened was this: the attache clearly saw the Singapore strike force, which may have initially started east then turned south, but what he saw was definitely NOT Kido Butai. And no, one carrier wouldn't have scared anyone, especially when it was assumed (why do you have trouble with this) that EVERYONE thought ANY attack was heading south toward Singapore. No one thought ANY Japanese force would attack Pearl Harbor, let alone one or two carriers. It was just silly. Until shortly before the attack, we had THREE carriers in base. So 80 planes are going to attack a fleet at anchor which has 200 land-based planes PLUS 200 CARRIER PLANES available?

Do you understand that the odds Yamamoto faced were so staggering that his war games showed him losing 30% of a six-carrier force (i.e., he planned to lose over 100 planes in a total surprise attack that was overwhelming?) Are you understanding why no one would have taken two carriers seriously, especially aimed at Pearl Harbor???

As you put is, "Five days from Hawaii they would have been NORTH. Get it? NORTH.

I already explained why it is common practice NOT to go directly from point a to point b. The two carriers---if he saw them, and I think this is totally bogus, because you are relying on his recollections of reading a map that just "happened" to be lying around for a DUTCH ATTACHE to see (if you had been in the military, you'd know this in itself is beyond silly)---could have sailed north, south, east, or west then changed course for their final destination. But clearly whatever he "saw" isn't the Kido Butai.

And, no, "one message saying something was 'headed' to Pearl Harbor" was not actionable intelligence. In a situation where the intel officers would have been getting thousands of pieces of evidence, and virtually NONE of the other evidence supporting this, it would have been instantly trashcanned.

Victor is clearly a boob. Try reading Roberta Wohlstetter's famous work on pre-war PH intel. It might open your eyes. However, since I have three times suggested that you examine ANYTHING by Phil Jacobsen, a cryptanalyst who has actually broken these codes and can tell you how it's done---and since you clearly don't seem inclined to do so, then we are done. But I can tell you this: the entire community of cryptanalysts and military radio guys see such claims that this kind of intel came in and was ignored as a direct impugning of THEIR patriotism, heroism, and competence. And if I were you, I'd never make such charges to their faces!

1. The controversy isn’t settled: witness nine Congressional hearings.
2. Substantial circumstantial evidence suggests FDR knew Japanese were closing on Hawaii. FDR needed an attack to turn antiwar sentiment polled at 80%.
3. Whether or not FDR knew is irrelevant; like a Mafia don, one only needs to make his wishes know. The underlings do the dirty work; the don stays clean.
4. Secret documents released in 1995 included an Oct. 7, 1940 memo by Lt. Cmdr. A. H. McCollum that posited eight steps the U.S. could take to bait the Japanese to attack us (not necessarily at Pearl Harbor). All eight actions were executed.
5. British intelligence broke the Japanese Naval code JN-25 and shared it with us.
6. The codes were passed by Adm. Burnett to Washington, but denied all.
7. Over 16,000 Japanese naval messages were intercepted—not the last 400 miles.
8. FDR knew Japanese had studied Pearl Harbor defenses and equipment.
9. The Japan Fleet was observed making an easterly departure from Japan.
10. The Navy banned all merchant shipping from the North Pacific on Nov. 25, 1941.
11. Radio vector equipment in the Aleutians plotted it progress across the Pacific.
12. The Navy evacuated two carriers and newer ships from Pearl Harbor to Wake Is.
13. The Navy cancelled plans to send a third carrier from California to Hawaii.
14. Warnings of imminent attack were withheld from our Hawaiian command.
15. The U.S. denied that Japanese broke radio silence, and ordered all intercepted messages destroyed. Orders to destroy were found in New Zealand archives.
16. A naval historian testified in 1991 that US had received the messages.
17. Congress exonerated Kimmel and Short of dereliction of duty in 1995.
18. Clinton, while president, restored Kimmel and Short to their highest rank.
19. FDR, by his actions, may have saved lives by entering WWII earlier.
20. People have a hard time accepting duplicity, but democracies need crises to act.

Only a nation bent on self-destruction would poison their kids with such crapola.

Actually, all civilizations eventually become bent on self-destruction, they just never admit it and aren't aware of it until it's already well-underway. There is always a cadre of intelligent and far-seeing types who spot the trends and the historical inertia bending from glory to ruin, but they're all considered Cassandras and pilloried. In the old days, they'd just be executed, thus being afforded the chance to watch the ruin from the safety of heaven (ot that they would enjoy the spectacle).

This, really, is the kind of warning people should take to heart: if you really have to make scads of money right now, then, fine, go ahead and live among those hell-bent on undermining the pillars of our civilization and bringing it all down around our heads. But, you don't know how close the nation is coming to disaster until it breaks down, so if you want to roll the dice, go ahead. I folded and left the table, moving from CA to NC. Taxes are still awful here and the place has been run by putative Democrats since Reconstruction, but God still is seen as in charge by the vast majority, and that makes a massive amount of difference. We can manage to get taxes lowered, we can't fix stupid, if our teachers implant it.

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