Nazi Getappo transcript of Churchill warns Roosvelt of Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor

A big "yes" but ... very odd, contradictory, and curious things happen.

E.g., Where was Marshall on Dec 6th evening? To begin with what did he testify to at the hearing? What did his wife say - back from Florida or a dress sale - see her book? What did the newspaper say about a WWI Re-Union at the University Club - 16th Street? What did Stahlman say that Knox told him???

Codes - Which codes? Nave, et. al., shift ... Mortimer and his wife don't on FECB intercepting/reading/ ... Japanese naval codes. How many times does Layton "shift" his sworn testimony? And for Kramer, and of course poor Safford.

The other codes ... e.g., PA-K2 and the "light signals" and "bomb plots" ending ... when Dec 6th evening. Why, oh why, were Kimmel and Short never told. I know ... not broken/read/ ... interpreted until after February 30, 1943. Or, ever better, the Crane Papers are in to bad a condition to release ... "worksheets" - what worksheets??? And "Terrible Turner" and J. Redman + J. Redman ... just got to "get" Rochefort ...

On Ogg ... Stinnett identifies GUPID messages, even through FOIA paperwork ... not released. I know ... "national security" at stake.

...

Radio Silence: Yes - strict - Fishel and Tordello, and off course Genda; No - a myth - Barkin and Meyer. Go figure.

Drip, Drip, Drip, ... the "evidence" keeps building in only one direction ... if FDR's court historians have any more "facts" and pre-suppositions ... I truly would like to see them.

Oh, the "code" methods and practices ... "Red Herring" ... now I really must get back to my Galois groups.

What difference does it make where Marshall was on the evening of 6 Dec. 41? This is another "red herring" to confuse the issue. Five years later who remembers where they were on one evening? Did the U.S. Navy or FECB decrypt any JN-25B messages definitely showing the Japanese plan to attack Pearl Harbor? Absolutely no. No such messages were ever sent by the Japanese and no such decrypts exist. Period .

Mortimer's wife (not Mortimer's) allegations of FECB reading a JN-25B message definitely showing a planned attack on Pearl Harbor have been bebunked as false "rememberances." FECB records in the Kew Public Office show only 3,000 JN-25B basic code group recovered out of over 55,000 code groups and about five percent of Additive Book 7 makes one group out of a 100 group message readable on average. USN and FECB records show no decrypts of JN-25B before 7 Dec. 41. See also "Intelligence and the War Against Japan" by Professor Richard J. Aldrich and "Far Eastern File" by Peter Elphink.

Layton made one mistatement five years later about there not being any messages sent to the Kido Butai because he had no reference to his files. Do you remember everything that happened five years ago? No messages were ever sent by the Kido Butai according to Japanese sources and no messages from the Kido Butai were ever intercepted by USN or British stations. Only a handful were sent to the Kido Butai on the Tokyo broadcast. Please provide your citations for any such messages sent by the Kido Butai or messages sent to the Kido Butai that were decrypted by either the USN or FECB.

A few PA-K2 so called "bomb plot" messages were decrypted in Washington, but Commander Kramer thought they were routine ship reports similar to other reports from Bremerton, San Francisco, Long Beach, San Diego and the Panama Canal. So he did not alert anyone to their possible significance, much less President Roosevelt. Many people have excellent 20/20 hindsight and magnify simple failure into a massive conspiracy. Are you saying that Commander Kramer was also "in" on Stinnett's conspiracy?

There are 1,500 boxes chuck full of folders in the Crane files that cover all aspects of naval cryptology before and during WWII. The absence of a few "worksheets" is another "red herring." FYI, your hero, Ralph Briggs, was the Officer in Charge at the Crane, Indiana depository and was responsible for their proper upkeep. Blame him instead of spreading rumors about dedicated naval personnel doing their best with few resources to keep the Navy and the country alert as to Japanese intentions.

As to "Terrible" Turner, I would agree that he was grossly negligent and should have been court martialled for his usurpation and misuse of naval cryptologic intelligence. But he was an egotistical bumbler not a conspirator. I haven't seen any list compliled by Stinnett as to exactly who is supposed to have been "in" on his massive conspiracy. He seems to shift from time to time as to who is included in that group. First it is 30 mostly unspecified persons. Later, it is 80 again mostly unspecified persons. However, I have never seen him include Turner. Essentially, both Marshall and Turner escaped any condemnation because of their subsequent wartime contributions and the failure of some to contradict their exculpatory testimony. Stimson send his Wall Street attorney friend, Clausen, around the world to get new affidavits countering former testimony that resulted in Marshall's early conviction of negligence before the first Army board of inquiry. But that doesn't make Marshall a conspirator, just negligent in informing Short of timely, important intelligence.

Yes, the Redman brothers got rid of Commander Rochefort because he showed them up at the Battle of Midway, but your hero Stinnett includes Rochefort as one of FDR's conspirators. So by analogy, Stinnett is on the side of the Redman brothers. Who is in on this conspiracy and who is not? The names change according to the circumstances of the alleged conspiracy.

Ogg's Johnny Come Lately story has been completely repudiated. See SRH-255 where my friend, then Commander Newman, interviewed him and caused Ogg to backtrack on his original statements. Ogg didn't know what the signals were that he purportedly plotted. What their call signs were or what frequencies they were heard on. In fact, he couldn't remember where the direction finder stations were located that he plotted. Only that one was in San Francisco and one was about 100 miles south on the coast. Actually, there were no direction finder 100 miles down the coast at that time. Even if there had been a direction finder at such a location, any bearings toward the North Pacific would have been overlapping parallel lines with the purported station in San Francisco toward the Japanese littoral. This is due to the nature of such "Tracking Charts" for that area for bearings toward the North Pacific. Thus, no "fix" could have been made in the North Pacific by Ogg from those two stations. Also, Ogg is related to Admiral Kimmel and he never mentioned his plotting of Kido Butai bearings for quite some time after Pearl Harbor to the Kimmel family although he had many such oportunities. Scratch Ogg.

Back to the Winds Execute message that even Stinnett won't touch. See SRH-177 and SRH-210. Although I would be interested in your response, this is a dead horse also.

I don't understand your reference to Barkin and Meyer. There were only two transmission intercepted from the Akagi on 26 and 30 Nov. 41. No messages were sent. The transmissions were only of the calling type most likely for homing purposes to keep the tankers in company during bad weather. What evidence do you have that the Kido Butai sent messages and what was supposed to be in them?

Drip by drip, Stinnett's so called "evidence" is debunked by those who were there and those who really know and have researched Japanese naval communications and U.S. Navy intercepts to shred his misleading allegations. Stinnett told my contemporaries that he wanted to tell their story. However, when their stories didn't agree with his long held conspiracy theory, Stinnett ignored their "evidence." I really don't think you have anymore "evidence" to support your allegations, but will leave it up to the objective members of this board to evaluate your and Stinnett's "evidence" of a massive revisionist conspiracy theories that encompass untold numbers of high, medium and low level officials and is continuing today by hiding unspecified documents.

My hope is that despite any political distaste one may have for Roosevelt's liberal politics, most people can sift through the documented evidence and reject such an impossible conspiracy. We should honor those few but honest, hard working naval cryptologists who suffered harsh duties and lack of promotion to provide the best information they could for the U.S. Navy and the country and not damn them as lacky conspirators without any evidence other than a blinding hatred of FDR for his liberal politics.

First, it is important to point out that Admiral Layton died before "And I Was There" was published. It was completed by Costello and Pineau. The pages you quote obviously came from the pen of Costello, not Layton nor Pineau. He has voiced some unfounded allegations of this nature in other publications while neither Layton nor Pineau have.

While it is nice to speculate what might have been in the Churchill message on 26 November 41, British records show that there were no JN-25B decrypts prior to 7 Dec. 41. OP-20-GYP-1 records show the same for the U.S. Navy. Actually, no JN-25B message ever spelled out the attack on Pearl Harbor. Thus, if there were a tip-off on Pearl Harbor in the Churchill message, where did it come from? You seem to have avoided that issue. Some conspirator theorists have speculated the Sorge ring obtained such information, but even if true that would have gone to Stalin not Churchill. Thus, I would suggest you hold off speculating what might have been in that message and find such information within the British government at that time.

Where did such tip-off information originate? How did it get to Churchill? If you can provide documentary evidence of such a source of a Pearl Harbor attack tip-off and it's transmission to Churchill, then you might consider voicing your blue sky speculations as to its inclusion in a certain message. Mind you there is no evidence of such information ever being received by Roosevelt either.

The change in the U.S. position re: modus vivendi to my knowledge was related to the obstinate position of the Japanese representatives and the further aggression of the Japanese in French Indo China.

What "further aggression" in French Indo China are you talking about? The Japanese had already moved into the south of Indochina in the summer of 1941 -- that was what provoked the cutoff of oil to Japan. It's true that they moved further troops into Indochina -- they were preparing for the possibility of war -- but it's hard for me to see how such troop movements could be said to constitute "further aggression," any more than our own troop movements in countries where we have the government's consent for their presence (in, say, Pakistan) could be said to constitute aggression. If anything, that sort of thing means you should negotiate harder. Troop movements threatening the possibility of military action are a standard instrument of diplomacy, and hardly "aggression."

As for the Japanese diplomats' "obstinate position," again, I have no idea what you're talking about. Of course they were bargaining, and resisted some changes in their position. That's diplomacy. Until the sudden U.S. change of negotiating position, everything seemed to indicate that a modus vivendi that would at least have postponed war for several months was being successfully negotiated. It was the sudden U.S. change of position, demanding things that we had to know the Japanese would reject, that scuttled any chance of a successful negotiation. It seems to me that it was not the Japanese side that was "obstinate" in the negotiations.

I'd have to reread Stinnett with your criticms in mind to be able to judge your criticisms, and I do not have time to do that now. But, even in the absence of hard evidence, there's far too much circumstantial evidence for the conspiracy theory for me to reject it even if Stinnett has not found the smoking gun, which, when I read him, I thought he had. By the way, I too am a trained military cryptologist -- I was almost four years on active duty in Air Force signals intelligence, and over ten years in the Naval Reserve equivalent.

You know, I have always liked the Charles A. Beard observation had many years ago "Writing history is a dangerous trade." Traducement positions can be seen a "mile" away!

Given those experiences, and that of others (e.g., Tansill, Flynn, Barnes, Martin, ...) I see the FDR "court" is still alive and well ...

I do wonder, however, what became of Rochefort's " ... a cheap price" [... entry into WWII] thought after the dealings of FDR at Tehran and Yalta ... Iron Curtain, Cold War, ... For example, did the 1939 invasion of Poland start WWII for the British ... and what happened to Poland at the end of WWII???

In this thread, why hasn't anyone "jumped" on Willey (Pearl Harbor ... Mother of All ....}? Or Barlett's "Cover-Up: The Politics of Pearl Harbor," ...On SRH-051 - I did point to Linn's SRH, On Barkin, I did point to Fishel, ...

On Marshall ... very dismissive ... How did you feel when former First Lady "could not recall" dozens of times. Did Marshall lie under oath ... [Give pause, take a breathe, and ... think about a certain "little blue dress" ...] It's OK - we Europe the Marshall Plan, he got the Nobel Peace Prize ... But you do realize "closing ranks" is a practiced art form - especially for the US Navy ... USS Iowa, Tailhook, ... or in WWII the USS Indianapolis, ... Pearl Harbor!!!

I did say "contradictory" as in "whom to believe"... but that drip, drip ... still applies - going in only onw direction that I can see. It is fast becoming a "reductio ad impossible" exercise ...

Stinnett has named specific people and specific documents not shown before ( ..., GUPID, TESTM, ...); recall Toland gave "Seamen Z" [who we now know is Ogg]. Costello [Days of Infamy] point to specific Churchill documents, even "BJ" serial numbers ... [Black Jumbos or "blue jacket"] STILL not released.

Care to comment on why so many "identified" documents are STILL classified? I know, national security.

Bye the bye, until those are released, Budiansky "War of Wits" remains a very IN-complete story.

Book-breaking, radio silence, individual radio-fingerprinting, "fists" RDF, ... Drip, drip, drip ...

Finally, December 7, 2001 is one (1) month away today ... for the 60th Anniversary and to continue to remember, cherish, and honor those who gave their lives ... Truth, Justice, and the American Way!!!

As to Rochefort, sometimes you praise him and then condemn him. To me he is all hero. Research his life. He gave up promotional opportunites to do the best he could to keep abreast of the Japanese Navy through cryptology. He was not to blame for being assigned the unproductive Admiral's code and a few very minor IJN codes while Corregidor and Washington tackled Japanese diplomatic codes and ciphers and JN-25B. A few days before Pearl Harbor, he was given some low level Japanese diplomatic messages by RCA and only a few purely administrative messages were decrypted before 7 Dec. 41.

Willey is worse that Stinnett if possible. His allegations of prior JN-25B decrypts have been soundly repudiated by National Archives documents plus the testimony of those involved. He damns the USN cryptologists for lying and being a part of the alleged conspiracy.

I am not familiar with Bartlett's "Cover-up: The Politic of Pearl Harbor." Apparently, it doesn't have much credibility among objective historians. What facts does he rely on???? Same for Barkin or Fishel. Pretty obscure sources in my book. What facts?????

You seem to have missed my agreement as to Marshall's negligence in handling Japanese diplomatic decrypts, but you can't hang any JN-25B or conspiracy charges on him for that.

I have responded to your claims for Toland's Seaman Z/Ogg with specifics. It does no good to answer with book titles and generalities. What did OGG see or do??? Again, facts not fantacies. Ogg's egotistical late "rememberances" have been soundly repudiated by the Commander Newman interview. What else do you have? Why didn't you admit that Ogg is related to Kimmell?

Costello is another revisionist theorist and provides no credible evidence in "Days of Infamy." There have been scores of reams of British records release in the Kew Public Office and I have copies of many of them. They show that FECB did not decrypt JN-25B before 7 Dec 41 and were actually behind the U.S. Navy in this effort. So how could such decrypts be in Churchill's files? You can't close the loop when the capability to decrypt JN-25B was not there!!!

You seem to have missed my expose of Stinnett's interpretation of the TESTM reports. Go back and read my article. Then you will see there is nothing in the TESTM reports to substantiate any Kido Butai messages or HFDF fixes. Again, let's talk facts not fantacy! As to GUPID, Stinnett has not produced any messages in the crypto system that supports his conspiracy theory allegations. The mere fact that the U.S. Navy had three or four cryptographic systems to pass cryptologic information proves nothing. Please cite a specific GUPID or TESTM message and what it says that supports Stinnett's and your allegations.

After all their "evidence" of FDR's alleged conspiracy has been debunked, the last refuge is to maintain there are still classified documents being hidden by the present administration and National Archives personnel who are also in on the massive conspiracy that is continuing to date.

Let's get off the backs of the dedicated naval cryptologic personnel who although few in numbers did keep track of Japanese naval operations through cryptology and provided the great information that won the Battle of Midway helped shoot down Yamamoto. Rochefort and his group at Station H were at Pearl Harbor too. Ten navy cryptologists spent the war as POW's in Japan. Some were killed and injured on the New Mexico etc.

Why can't you just admit the Japanese pulled off a daring surprise attack under extreme secrecy? That secrecy hid the movement of the Kido Butai westward to Pearl Harbor from Rochefort, Corregidor and FECB. In fact, no message outlining the Pearl Harbor attack was ever sent by radio. Stinnett has been proven wrong on that issue also. See Larry Schweikart's book review above.

Why tarnish the good names of dedicated Navy men due to a hate for FDR and his liberal politics. Conservatives like Professor Larry Schweikart and myself can see through Stinnett's tortured logic and misreprentations of cryptologic documents. Why can't you? Honoring those who were killed at Pearl Harbor is not dependent on damning the good names of their Navy shipmates who happen to be cryptologists.

Good question ... "Why can't you?"

Very easy, "Those that make a mess get to clean it up - very publicly.

Pearl Harbor has, as you know, "smelled to high ..." for years. Suppressio veri, suggestio falsi - Suppression of the truth is a suggestion of the false.

Just far too many "loose-ends" for me.

Seems you do not like British sources - Barkin and Fishel. N.B., I gave two pointers, one for each of the two viewpoints. On the "Winds Execute" ... Layton's shows the index with JD #7001 noted as missing. What do the British say ... Ooops, is it in those BJ's Costello lists? [At the 1995 Thurmond/Spence Hearing on "clearing" Kimmel/Short - i.e., left to "twist" in the breeze by the US Navy for fifty + years, Costello was a witness. At the end of his time he asked the Congressmen to help get the UK to release those BJ's. Nothing yet ... must be a reason. On the SS Lurline radio log ... gone missing. Admiral King "orders" Navy personnel not to testify. ... Very funny.

Another "old" reference ... in Admiral Kimmel's Story, Chapter VI "Suppression of Evidence" Section 2 "The White House File" ... you ever see this file. [Hint: No one has, it is like Marshall on the the evening of Dec 6th - a real phanton.] Does it smell in here.

On TESTM ... before Stinnett reproduction ... ever see that message "type" in public before? On GUPID ... please post those Stinnett cites ... all "locked-up" - STILL!!!

This JN-25(a --- z) soup is a same-old, same-old ... its the old MAGIC dodge of yester-year - a great "four corners" stall, stall, ... All hinges on he said/her said ... I'll see your SRH-051 and raise you a SRH-149. At least Villa is honest in saying that it is likely that some documents will never appear in the Archives [It did piss the British off that MAGIC was revealed in the mid-40's testimony - recall ULTRA opened up in 1975. Oh, yes, as you know Churchill denied having access MAGIC ... See Costello.]

So let's agree that the PA-K2 ... light signals, the bomb plots were enough to show Pearl Harbor was the target and that Dec. 7th was the day ... in plenty of time to warn Kimmel/Short. So ...

Why were Kimmel/Short not told of the "light signals" ..?

And, as always ... why is so much "stuff" still classifed??? But then I suspect you know why?

On FDR ... not a fine fellow at at ... along many dimensions. But then, Clinton displayed similar behaviors and the "four estate" obliged [as they did with FDR.]

Finally, the last sentence in Morgenstern Chapter "Who's Guilty" sums it up ...

Why can't you? At least you now admit to damning honorable navy cryptologists like Joe Rochefort, Captain Whitlock, Forrest Biard and a hundred or so more of my contemporaries as liers and conspirators that unnecessarily caused the death of their shipmates! It is strange that conspirator theorist always wait until most of the actors are dead before raising their slanderous allegations.

The loose ends are your conspiratorial allegations. Nothing proven just alleged.

What little information I can find on Barkin is that he claims there were JN-25B decrypts which have proven false from OP-20-GYP-1 documents and the testimony of those involved. The Japanese did not put their Pearl Harbor operational orders in radio messages, so how could JN-25B decrypts with only one group out of 100 being read on average determine that such an attack was iminent? Nothing new here.

Fishel is harder to find but from what I read he and Tordello refuted Barkin. See http://muskingum.edu/intellsite/wwiipearl_folder/wwiipearla-c.html

Again, Winds Execute is a dead horse. The Japanese themselves substantiate they never sent such a message and there was no need to do so as the international communications links were still open.

The Kimmell/Short arena is somewhat different. Even Kimmell didn't allege an FDR conspiracy--just that Washington had information that wasn't passed to him. The latest Congressional review found no reason to raise their ranks and put the major blame on Kimmel/Short. I agree that much better and more war warnings could have and should have been sent but for the negligence of Marshall and Turner, but they were bumblers trying to be their own intelligence officers not conspirators.

Again, if the British didn't have any JN-25B decrypts what could be in those BJ's? As to Japan, the British only had Japanese diplomatic decrypts. So only Japanese diplomatic decrypts not JN-25B in Churchill's BJ's.

So some old Coast Guard records are missing. The San Bruno custodian refutes much of Stinnett's allegations. The U.S. Navy had many intercepts of Japanese commercial ships transmitting in the same commercial bands that the Lurline and Grogan used. FYI, Japanese naval ships did not transmit in those commercial shipping bands. The Japanese confirmed that no message was ever sent by the Kido Butai as is seen by Station H intercepts and logs. Scratch Grogan and his Lurline "logs.

I am still waiting for documentation that King muzzled Navy cryptologists. I personally saw an OP-20-G message saying that anyone called before a Congressional hearing was to fully answer any question posed regardless of classification. Am I lying too?

Apparently, the so-called "White House" file is another "missing" document. What specifically is in it? Since we had no JN-25B decrypts there weren't any of those in it.

TESTM was a simple prewar HFDF codebook. HFDF codes were commonly used by appropriate navy cryptologists like myself. It was not a new system to me. The problem is that Stinnett mislead his readers into believing that it showed Kido Butai messages being sent and HFDF bearings on such messages when the second section only listed call sign recoveries from headings in messages sent on the Tokyo broadcast, not from ship transmissions. Shame on him.

GUPID was the third lowest level of the crypto systems used for naval COMINT after COPEK and one other. It was mostly used for confidential information not Top Secret like COPEK or Secret information. No hot stuff there.

Villa is Stinnett rit small. He has no proof either just fantacizes as to what might have been. He keeps finding new "possibilities" after his old ones have been shot down. Poor Wilford, I would hate to be Villa's grad student. We all felt very sorry for Wilford and his terrible predicament.

PA-K2 "bomb plot" messages are clear when you have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. You should consider that there were relatively few people in Washington decrypting and translating those Japanese diplomatic messages from all over the world. The Army couldn't handle it all so they asked the Navy to help out on odd days of the month. There were no analysts per se reviewing all these decrypts and translations and very little coordination between the Army and Navy--each mainly having only half of the picture unless something big caught someone's attention. I suppose there was a similar conspiracy when the North Korean's invaded South Korea in a surprise move not detected by intelligence with a huge organization and all the WWII experience. I think you should give some credit to our enemy's ability to maintain secrecy and make such surprise attacks.

If GUPID is "not hot stuff" - why does it remain classified?

The point of my comment re: TESTM is that Stinnett is the first to publicly reproduce it. Have others?

As you know, most of the "flak" toward Stinnett was triggered on the release of his hardcover edition. A paperback was later released - with a Afterword section. In that Afterword is an interesting document - also publicly seen for the first time - call signs, radio frequencies, To/Frm, bearings, ... ALBEIT FOR AUGUUST 1941. But again - first time seen.

On Barkin/Fishel ... I'll say again - I gave both references ... a pro and a con on radio silence. Is that being objective or what? Admiral Genda comments are in the NYT - written right after Toland's book appeared.

The avenue of who broke which code when will persist ... Again a delay game! The PA-K2 "Bomb Plots" ... divide the East Loch into a grid, ... light signals ... All agree this avenue is extant. The why's/whenfore's of not telling Kimmel/Short fall on deaf "anti-revisionists" ears ...

And other "loose-ends" will also persist - I've pointed out the vanished "White House File" - what about Sec. Knox question to Kimmel " ... didn't you get the message we sent ..." Where is that message? Was it ever sent? But then the SS Lurline radio logs, ... etc. remain incoveniently missing ... Did Marsall lie under oath???

This must be the third/fourth generation of this debate - but then the Church (after 400 year) admitted the trial on a helio-centric universe was a sham. So for Pearl Harbor, is there still hope?

Loyalty to a person, a service, a company, a team, an idea, a political party, ... in many instances can become a "bad" thing. It gets to an attitudes such, for example, as my service "right or wrong" ... For Pearl Harbor a clear level of loyalty is and has seen for decades in place. Think of the West Point "Duty, Honor, Country" creed ... note country is last. Clausen remarks about the "higher oath" not to reveal anything about MAGIC [See page 270 - Pearl Harbor: Final Judg(e)ment, Da Capo Press edition]. In that vane, think about the oath taken to protect, defend the United States Constitution.

Very likely "deals with the devil" - FDR and his War Cabinet, Marshall and his staff, Stark and who knows, ... were made ... that's the mess. Rochefort's comment about a "cheap price" may have implied entry into WWII was a must and if Pearl Harbor was the sacrifice ... so be it. My earlier comment on Rochefort was a wonderment of his thoughts given post-WWII how the "world view" changed.

So, for me at least, and apparently others ... drip, drip...

It is one thing to put people in harm's way, it is another to deceive them.

Other comments given "off-line."

Paul, get serious. I have been in contact with organizations of U.S. NAVY CRYPTOLOGISTS. You might try the official JOURNAL of U.S. Navy cryptologists, I think it is called, "Cryptologica." At any rate, there have been DEVASTATING reviews of Stinnett's book by people who actually DID the cryptology, including Commander Donaldson, not some half-baked radio assistant who decided to write a book after the fact. Of course, you will likely say that ALL these guys are involved in coverups too, and judging from the e-mails I get from Pearl Harbor Navy veterans, they would rip you apart if they ever heard you say that---even at 80 years old! :) In fact, there is a Pearl Harbor VETERANS' web ring dedicated to countering Stinnett's book---that is how outraged these CRYPTOLOGISTS are.

Let's see if you appreciate this, because you guys keep ducking this central fact about Stinnett's so called "evidence": There are FIVE steps to moving a piece of intel from a foreign radio transmission to the White House---1) interception; 2) translation; 3) decryption; 4) analysis; and 5) forwarding get thist THROUGH CHANNELS. Now, Stinnett ducks and covers, but never once, ever, even proves that #1 happened. He cannot prove that #s2-4 happened, because they didn't. The U.S. cryptologists and analysts themselves have said repeatedly that they did not decipher, nor analyze pre-Dec. 7 messages until . . . now, please get this, 1945! So #5 could not have happened. Interestingly, one of the "gotcha" documents that Stinnett purports to show that "showed" we knew where the fleet was is totally fraudulent for several reasons. Follow along now:

The "HITTOKAPU BAY" message was sent---sent mind you according to Stinnett in ENGLISH!!!! Come on. A moron knows that Japanese don't send any messages to their own fleets in English, let alone the supposedly secret rendezvous point! Second, the "HITTOKAPU BAY" message is all encrypted and in Japanese EXCEPT for the words "HITTOKAPU BAY." Suspicious? Third, there are (and please get this point before you respond with your pre-packaged defense) apparently no standard Navy insider routing codes on this message indicating that even if the Japanese were so stupid as to send a message about the location of their fleet, and do so . . . IN ENGLISH . . . it was never officially intercepted or passed on.

Now even to the most tinfoil person, this HAS to strike you as an indication of Stinnett's fraud. Do some research. Don't just chant the mantra, "He had FOIA documents." If you like, I could send you my seven-page review of his book, which is detailed in its specifics (he has, for ex, at least 23 specific places in which when he supposedly has "evidence," he only offers phrases such as "must have known," "probably knew," or, in other words DOES NOT HAVE EVIDENCE). It's sad that he has fooled so many good people and impugned so many patriots.

If I know of the pending attack on Pearl Harbor.
I setup a net of submarines and search aircraft and secretly track the Japanese carriers to their location North West of Hawaii. I position my carriers to intercept.
I can surprise and sink the Japanese carriers, as soon as the first bomb drops in Pearl Harbor. The minute the first planes are launched by the Japanese all the ships in Pearl are moved, every fighter on Oahu is at altitude waiting to pounce on the incoming planes.

It did not take a disaster, simply an attack, for there to be a declaration of war.
Even with the above scenario some Americans would die, some ships would be sunk enough to photograph and create a sense of outrage.
The additional benefit for FDR, would be much fewer American military resources sent to the Pacific.

Note: I believe that Americans were not informed of the magnitude of the disaster at Pearl Harbor, at the time. I believe the true number of causalities and ship losses were both kept secret for the duration of the war. It was not the magnitude of the loss of life or ships, but the very fact of a surprise attack, which outraged the American people; thus being totally prepared for attack and counterattacking would have served FDR's purposes.

On another point, certainly Pearl Harbor was connected to Hitler declaring war when he did; but given FDR's accelerating violation of neutrality, it was just a matter of time before Germany declared war.
What I read was that it was not really solidarity with the Axis partner (the treaty with Japan only required Germany declare war if Japan was attacked) but the Hitler’s certainty that a US declaration of war was immanent.
The US in the fall of 1941 (and after Dec 7) did nothing to assure the Germans that it would not be declaring war in the near future, despite German requests for assurances.

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