The truth about Pearl Harbor and how FDR provoked the Japanese

On the evening of Dec. 7, 1941, Edward R, Murrow and his wife attended a dinner party at the White House. During the dinner, Murrow was asked to stay afterwards and meet with the president. He was joined by Wild Bill Donovan, Roosevelt's Coordinator of Information and later head of the OSS, precursor to the CIA.
After the meeting, Murrow went home and told his wife,"It's the biggest story of my life, but I don't know if it's my duty to tell it or forget it."
After the war someone asked him about it and he replied,"That story would send Casey Murrow through college but if you think I'm going to give it to you, you're out of your mind."
No one ever knew exactly what was said in that meeting because all three men took it to their graves.
Only Donovan ever hinted at what was said; the conversation was mostly about public reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbor. FDR wanted to know if they thought it sufficient action to get America behind a Declaration of War. He believed Roosevelt welcomed the attack and that it was less of a surprise to him than others.


As warfare raged in Europe and parts of Africa and Japan, Germany and Italy threatened countries in three continents, a memorandum circulated in Washington. Originating in the Office of Naval Intelligence and addressed to two of FDR's most trusted advisors, it suggested a shocking new American foreign policy. It called for provoking Japan into an overt act of war against the US. It was written by Lt.Cmdr. Arthur H McCollum, head of the Far East desk of the ONI.
Lt.Cmdr. McCollums five page memorandum of Oct. 1940 put forward a startling plan-a plan intended to engineer a situation that would mobilize a reluctant America into joining Britains struggle against Germany. It's eight actions called for virtually inciting a Japanese attack on American ground air and naval forces in the Pacific, as well as on Dutch and British colonial outposts.
Due to the Tri-Partite Pact signed in Sept. 1940 by Japan, Germany and Italy, if one were attacked, the others would come to their mutual defense. Since America was Isolationist and FDR had given his promise that "I will not send American boys to fight in any European war", it was obvious that America could not initiate action. However, FDR told biographer Robert Sherwood, "If someone attacks us, then it isn't a foreign war."
McCollums plan was as follows;
A. Make an arrangement with Britain for use of British bases in the Pacific, particularly Singapore.
B.Make an arrangement with Holland for the use of base facilities and acquisition of supplies in the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia.
C. Give all possible aid to the Chinese government of Chiang Kai Shek.
D.Send a division of long range cruisers to the Orient, Phillipines or Singapore.
E. Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient
F. Keep the main strength of the U.S. fleet, now in the Pacific, in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Isands.
G. Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for undue economic concessions, particularly oil.
H. Completely embargo all trade with Japan, in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed by the British Empire.

FDR's "fingerprints" can be found on each of these proposals. One of the most shocking was D, the deliberate deployment of American warships withi or adjacent to the territorial waters of Japan. FDR called them "pop-up" cruises. " I just want them to pop-up here and there and keep the Japs guessing. I don't mind losing one or two cruisers, but do not take a chance on losing five or six."
Admiral Husband Kimmel advised against this saying, "It is ill advised and will result in war if we make this move." Churchill was solidly behind it.

Two days after the memo, the State Department told Americans to evacuate Far East countries as quicky as possible. Then FDR, despite objections from the Pacific Fleet Commander, Adm James O. Richardson, ordered the Pacific Fleet to be based at Pearl Harbor. It had heretofore been based at San Diego. Richardson was subsequently fired and replaced by Husband Kimmel.
Richardson's objections were as follows;
1 Lack of fundamental training facilities.
2.Lack of large-scale ammunition and fuel suppiles.
3.Lack of support craft such as tugs and repair ships.
4. Morale problems of men kept away from their families.
5. Lack of repair facilities such as drydocks and machine shops.
He objected in vain; FDR wanted the fleet kept in Hawaiian waters. Richardson grew increasingly alarmed at using his 69,000 sailors and 217 ships in what he saw as a provocative scheme. He asked, "Are we here as a stepping off place for belligerent activity?" He complained, "The President and Mr. Hull never seem to take it into consideration that Japan is led by military men, who evaluate military moves, largely on a military basis." On the contrary, that is exactly what White House strategy was based on. That Japans militant right wing would push for an act of force against the US.
In a reorganization of the navy, FDR carefully selected officers that would not obstruct his provocation policy.



During the last days of Sept. and the first week of October 1940, a team of Army and Navy cryptographers solved the two principal Japanese gov't. code systems: Purple, the main diplomatic code and the Kaigun Ango, a series of 29 Japanese naval codes for radio contact with warships, merchant vessels, naval bases and personel in overseas posts such as naval attaches. It was through Code book D, one of the Kaigun Ango codes that made the victory at Midway in 1942 possible.


In Sept. 1940, FDR took four steps to move the country toward war;
1 He sent Congress the first Peacetime Draft act.
2. He called up NG units to active duty.
3. He traded 50 old U.S. destroyers to Britain for the lease of bases in the Caribbean, the pre-cursor to Lend-Lease.
4. He authorized $ 5 billion to create a two-ocean Navy that would eventually include 100 aircraft carriers.



I think I have sufficiently whetted your curiosity. All these things come from the book, "Day Of Deceit, The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor", by Robert Stinnett. Another book which I mentioned earlier is "And I was There' By Admiral Edwin T Layton, who was Husband Kimmels CNI at Pearl Harbor. Get these books, read them and then tell me I sound like something from Roswell.



"Many of us who are veterans of WWII Pacific theater have always felt that the japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was deliberatley provoked. Stinnett has come up with most of the smoking guns. "Day of Deceit shows that the most famous "surprise" attack was no surprise to our war minded rulers, and that 3,000 American military men killed and wounded one Sunday morning in Hawaii were, to our rulers and their present avatars, a small price to pay for that 'global empire" over which we now preside.'
Gore Vidal




"Step by step, Stinnett goes through the prelude to war, using new documents to reveal the terrible secrets that have been hidden from the public. It is disturbing that eleven presidents, including those I admired, kept the truth from the public until Stinnett's Freedom Of Information act requests finally persuaded the Navy to release the evidence."
John Toland, Pulitzer Prize winner, author of Day Of Infamy



Read them people and see how our glorious leaders think nothing of sacrificing you, your sons and daughters or our freedoms to attain their political goals.

 

If you want the TRUTH about Pearl Harbor read "At Dawn We Slept" one of the finest books about any aspect of World War II ever written.

Mike, you make sense on other things, but on this you need a battery of shrinks. That book you are quoting is crap. The truth about Pearl Harbor has been told many times.

The commanders at Pearl Harbor were told in no uncertain terms that WAR WAS IMMINENT WITH JAPAN shortly before the attack, and instead of doing their jobs, they sat with their fingers up their asses and did nothing.

Anyone who believes in such stuff as you are quoting is on the edge of the Twilight Zone.

 

Apparently if what you're saying doesn't agree with CB's opinion, whatever, or whoever, you quote is crap. Happened to me and every other republican on the board.

I've quoted Abraham Lincoln about what he thought was the cause of the civil war and i was wrong and my quotes were crap because it disagreed with his ideology, so don't feel bad mike just join the club of people that have been told they were stupid, in one way or another, by that dick CB.

 

Pathetic.

What's more pathetic is that this garbage is going to stay posted.

 

Mike, dude, please tell me you have not fallen into buying conspiracy theories.

FDR was preparing the nation for war because he saw so clearly what many Americans refused to see; that sooner or later, the Axis was gonna be coming for us. But he did not provoke Japan nor was their a conspiracy to drag America into war. The Japanese offensive in Dec. 1941 was in the works for years, and the attack on Pearl Harbor was many months in the making, all during a time when Japan was negotiating with us to try to get us to stay on the sidelines while they conquered Asia.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a sneak attack, completely without provocation. They drew first blood, this is historical fact. Should we have seen it coming? Maybe so, and CB66 is certainly correct that Adm. Kimmel and Gen. Short definitely did not do all they could do to prepare our military installations for war. They were expecting Japan's first move to come against Hong Kong, Guam, or the Phillippines, not at Pearl Harbor.

What you are looking for cannot be found, because it doesn't exist. Anyone who thinks "the fix was in" on Pearl Harbor really is seeing what they what they want to see.

 

Gimp, I just told you idiots to read Professor Prange's masterpiece on the Pearl Harbor attack called "At Dawn We Slept." It is considered the definitive work on the Pearl Harbor attack. If you disagree with what I posted to Mike, then you disagree with Professor Prange's conclusions.

The book is brilliantly written and researched. He tells the story from both sides--the American and the Japanese. If anyone here is interested in a great book on the Pearl Harbor attack, that is the one to read.

As for the Civil War, I told you to go and read either James McPherson's masterpiece on the Civil War called "Battle Hymn of Freedom" or to read Allen Nevins series of books on the Civil War called "Ordeal of the Union."

Both of them leave no doubt that slavery is what brought on the Civil War. So if you disagree with that, then you disagree with two of the best historians of the Civil War ever.

I am sorry if my opinions on these two subjects are based on the definitive works of history on both subjects, but that is the way it is.

What do you have backing you up? Rush Limbaugh?

 

Several days before the Pearl Harbor attack Admiral Kimmel and General Short, the Navy and Army commanders at Pearl Harbor, were told that war with Japan was expected to break out at any moment. It concluded with the words, "This is a war warning."

Does that sound like FDR was purposely trying to get our fleet surprised?

What do you have to do, tell them exactly what time they are coming over the hill?

Admiral Kimmel didn't even change the schedule of the fleet, which was on a 5 days at sea, and 2 days in Pearl Harbor schedule. In other words the fleet continued to be in every weekend so the sailors could spend Sat and Sunday with their families as they had in peacetime.

The very least Kimmel should have done was change that schedule. The Japanese spies in Hawaii were not stupid. They noticed that the fleet was in port every weekend. That is why they thought they could catch them in port.

If Kimmel had changed that, the Japanese may never have attacked. It was a huge risk on their part, and their Navy was stretched very thin. It took a lot of arguing to get the Japanese high command to go along with the attack.

 

By the way, Admiral Kimmel was a brave, energetic, and admirable officer. But he did not respond like he should have and our Navy suffered because of it. He was a good man who made a very bad mistake.

If you want a REAL IDIOT, the one I think should have not only been court martialed and disgraced, but should have faced a firiing squad for dereliction of duty, it is Douglas MacArthur.

On December 10, I believe, three days AFTER the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, MacArthur let his entire air force in the Phillippines be destroyed on the ground, with the P-40 fighter planes and others planes sitting wingtip to wingtip on the airstrips.

The Phillippine campaign should never have been the hopeless struggle it appears to be in hindsight. But after our Air Force there was destroyed, it was.

 

This is the only post I am going to make in reply concerning this issue. I have given you enough information to get you started. If you're not interested in getting the two books and finding out for yourself the truth, then stay ignorant, I don't care.
I read the book, "At Dawn We Slept" and until these books came out, it was the definitive book on the attack. It has since been debunked.
I guess the guy in charge of NI at PH, Adm. Edwin T. Layton is a liar when he lays out the entire program of breaking the Japanese codes from the very begining in the 1920's, had access to every message to come from Washington and says that vital information was witheld from Kimmel and Short.


In a war warning dated 11/28/41, Admiral Betty Stark sent to bases in the Pacific, including PH, a message containing the following: "Negotiations with Japan terminated to all practical purposes with only the barest possibilities that the Japanese gov't. might come back and offer to continue. Japanese action unpredictable but hostile action possible at any moment. If hostilities cannot repeat cannot be avoided, the US desires Japan to fire the first shot."

This was the same message sent out the day before signed by Gen. Marshall but originating from Stimson.


Like I said people, it doesn't matter to me if you want to stay ignorant. If you're content with life the way it is, far be it from me to rustle your little nests!