Day of Infamy ~ Part 5: Moving Forward, Looking Back

Throughout the first century and a half of this nation’s history, Americans from East to West believed that the United States should not be involved in the quarrels of the rest of the world.  Regarding alliances such as the one FDR maintained with Churchill, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to Elbridge Gerry in 1799, “I am not for linking ourselves by new treaties with the quarrels of Europe, [or] entering that field of slaughter to preserve their balance.”  George Washington expressed similar sentiments in his 1796 Farewell Address:

…a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils.  Sympathy for a favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification.  It leads also to concession to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld.

Consider the true narrative of Pearl Harbor through the lens Washington provides.  FDR clearly had a “passionate attachment” for Great Britain in general and Winston Churchill in particular; while the U.S. may have possessed some interests in common with Britain, the U.S. was not touched by the war until FDR united with Churchill.  Additionally, FDR’s “concession…of privileges” to Britain through the Lend-Lease Act was a primary factor in the frustration of Japan, and therefore certainly led to the injury of this nation. 

It is necessary to point out that our Founding Fathers were not advocating strict isolationism—they did not believe the United States could or should operate in a vacuum.  Their ideology is best referred to as “noninterventionism,” and was succinctly explained by Jefferson in the same letter: “I am for free commerce with all nations; political connection with none.”  World War II was not the first time the United States deviated from this noninterventionist path: Jefferson himself waged war against the Barbary Pirates in the Middle East, and the United States was victorious over Britain in the War of 1812, but resolution of both of these conflicts was necessary to avert direct threats against the United States.  Between 1812 and 1917, when the U.S. entered WWI, there was a long period during which the United States retreated to the shadows of the world stage.  In the 1930s, the burden of the Great Depression joined forces with the horrific memory of World War I to push American policy and public opinion back toward noninterventionism; this is why Churchill and FDR found it so difficult to pull the nation out of its shell and into World War II.

From the 2014 release, Fury

Following WWII, noninterventionist advocates hoped the U.S. would follow the same path as it had after WWI, but they were disappointed.  From the late 1940s until 1991, world affairs were dominated by the Cold War—characterized not by global “hot war” as in WWI and WWII, but by a giant stalemate during which the United States and the U.S.S.R. each raced to keep its own nuclear capabilities superior to the other, and by almost perpetual regional wars where forces of democracy and communism faced off around the world.

During and since the Cold War the U.S. embraced the reputation it gained during World War II for being a global police force, completely contrary to noninterventionist ideals.  U.S. attempts to limit Soviet influence, combined with obligations to a multitude of allies, resulted in U.S. involvement in the Korean War in 1950-53, the 1953 Iranian coup d’etat (after which the U.S. handed power to Saddam Hussein), the Six-Day War in the Middle East in 1967, the Vietnam War that racked the 1970s, Operation Cyclone (the program that armed and financed the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan) from 1979 to 1989, the Gulf War to drive Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1990-91, and involvement in Bosnia and Kosovo in the late 1990s.  Whether or not each of these interventions was justified is a separate discussion; the problem lies in the fact that in each case the president followed FDR’s lead and acted without a constitutional, Congressional declaration of war.  In response to FDR’s passionate “Day of Infamy” appeal, Congress formally declared war on Japan, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Rumania in succession, but there has not been a formal declaration of war by the U.S. Congress since WWII.

The Syrian Civil War

By the time the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the United States possessed military and economic interests in every region of the globe.  In March of 1992, the New York Times reported on a 46-page Pentagon circulation that outlined U.S. foreign policy strategy and goals for the future: “The Defense Department asserts that America’s political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia, or the former Soviet Union.”  Today the United States remains entangled in the “War on Terror” in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Iraq, and there is debate within the U.S. as to whether this nation should increase its involvement in the Syrian civil war, the Russian conflict in Ukraine, and the growing tension with Iran.  Every time an armed conflict arises overseas, the United States has an insatiable desire to attempt to quench the fire; the problem lies in the fact that when the U.S. gets involved, it throws fuel on the fire and the blaze burns higher, wider, longer, and hotter.  Such a globalized perspective would never have been perpetuated were it not for the precedent set by FDR’s audacity.  Since 1991, the U.S. has been involved in so many international conflicts that our Founding Fathers would likely roll over in their graves if such things were possible.  Multinational coalitions and multilateral defense treaties such as NATO, the United Nations, the Manila Pact, and the Rio Treaty, along with numerous other treaties and alliances, mandate that the United States be involved in some capacity in virtually every armed conflict that occurs. 

America used to stand tall as a shining city on a hill, with the flame of liberty burning high atop the Statue of Liberty; now the torch is turned against our Asian, European, and Middle Eastern neighbors, lighting fires of crisis and controversy around the world.  The impact is clear: a deadlocked federal government, broken social security and healthcare systems, a struggling economy, a $17 Trillion national debt, and a deeply divided nation.  Faulty international policy is not singlehandedly responsible, but as far as Pearl Harbor is concerned, we can name FDR as a key culprit: he took on devious methods to achieve questionable ends, and thereby gave a definitive push to the rolling ball of international politics that has since increased in size and momentum proportionate to U.S. interventionism.  December 7, 1941 was an infamous day indeed.

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Day of Infamy ~ Part 4: The Perspective From Pearl

It is widely believed that Admiral Kimmel, the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and Lieutenant General Walter Short, the commanding general at Hawaii, were responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor—or at least for the magnitude of the damage incurred.  When Kimmel passed away in 1968, he may have been the most despised man in America: many have listed him alongside Benedict Arnold and John Wilkes Booth.  They should have been prepared, said the executive and the media; the often-repeated and rather crude indictment is that they were “caught with their pants down”—that they didn’t do all they could have to avert the attack.  These accusations ignore the fact that, though Kimmel and Short were given very little accurate information and plenty of misinformation, they recognized the danger and held the navy base at Pearl Harbor on its toes.  They were as ready as they could be to respond to whatever might occur.

The embargo of oil and other materials was reported in the media, so Kimmel and Short knew that FDR was squeezing the Japanese—they could only guess at his reasons.  According to Layton, twenty-five percent of the fleet’s strength was transferred to the Atlantic in May (p. 115).  On June 9, Kimmel met personally with FDR to express his concerns: he knew an attack was imminent, and he had too few planes and anti-aircraft guns to protect either the widely-scattered fleet or the under-equipped and under-manned base at Pearl Harbor.  In typical fashion, FDR did nothing to remedy the problem (Layton, p.115).

More detrimental even than this vulnerability was the sheer lack of information shared with Kimmel and Short.  The federal government possessed the capability to decrypt Japanese intercepts, but James Perloff explains that “the Hawaiian commanders were at the mercy of Washington for feedback.  A request for their own decoding machine was rebuffed on the grounds that diplomatic traffic was of insufficient interest to soldiers.”  As early as December of 1940, FDR, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, and Chief of Naval Operations Harold Stark had access to decrypted “Purple” messages depicting Japanese operations and intentions.  None were shared with Pearl Harbor. 

From all accounts, it appears that someone in the U.S. Government was playing the boy who cried wolf.  On November 27^th, 1941, the famous “War Warning” was issued to Pearl Harbor.  As quoted in John Toland’s book, Infamy: Pearl Harbor and its Aftermath, the warning read in part,

This dispatch is to be considered a war warning.  …an aggressive move by Japan is expected in the next few days.  The number and equipment of Japanese troops and the organization of naval task forces indicates an amphibious expedition against either the Philippines, Thai or Kra Peninsula, or possibly Borneo.” 

(Toland, p.7)

What many Americans don’t know is that this was only the latest in a long string of similar warnings.  In his autobiography, Kimmel lists the multitude of messages he received in 1941: January 21, February 3, April 3, May 14, June 17, two separate messages on July 3, July 24, July 25, July 31, August 21, August 28, September 23, and November 24 (p.32-39).  Kimmel expresses his frustration over the confusion: “In the dispatches I received on and after October 16, 1941, I was not given available information as to the actual status of…Japanese military plans; nor was I given orders for alert against an attack on Hawaii.  These messages had the same tenor as the warnings which had previously been sent” (p.39).  Hawaii was not named even as a suspected target; only the Far East is mentioned—Thailand, the Kra Peninsula (part of Malaysia), the Philippines, and possibly Borneo.  It was also unclear as to whether they should be prepared for an air attack, naval attack, or some sort of espionage or sabotage.  No other warning was sent to Pearl after November 27^th, so Kimmel and Short had no reason to believe that the November 27^th message was the “real thing.” 

The odds were against the commanders at Pearl Harbor: they were pulled in multiple directions and their force was diminished.  FDR had ordered that the ships be kept inside the harbor, so they were sitting ducks, trapped within the bottleneck.  Many would have given up when faced with this dilemma, but Kimmel did his best to cope.  His standing orders required that ammunition be kept ready, that at least one-fourth of the guns be prepared to fire at all times, and that enough men be onboard the ships to man all the guns at a moment’s notice (Kimmel, p.18).  Investigators later learned from eyewitnesses that all the guns in the fleet were firing within seven minutes of the initial attack, a feat usually possible only on a base in an extremely high state of readiness (Kimmel p.18); for a base on modified alert, it was incredible.  The only reason the Japanese were able to inflict as much damage as they did was because FDR had left the base with too few planes and antiaircraft guns, and had refused to provide Kimmel with adequate intelligence prior to the attack.

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Day of Infamy ~ Part 3: Foreknowledge and Planning

There is overwhelming evidence that FDR not only knew about the potential for a Japanese attack before it occurred, but also that he did everything in his power to provoke it while assuring that the commanders at Pearl Harbor would not be able to respond adequately, and certainly that no one would be able to prevent or preempt it.

Provocation of Japan

McCollum Memorandum, page 4

On October 7, 1940, Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum submitted a memorandum to the President in which he proposed eight actions designed to provoke Japan into committing “an overt act of war.”  In the course of his four-page memorandum, McCollum presented a brief snapshot of the status quo of the war and America’s current place in it: while “the United States…remain[ed] coolly aloof from the conflict in Europe,” at the time of his writing the U.S. was “committed to a policy of rendering every support short of war” to the allies, especially Great Britain.  Germany, Italy, and Japan were allied such that, should the United States be placed at odds with one of them, it would be at odds with all of the Axis powers.  Likewise, he notes that, in light of America’s close ties with Great Britain, “after England has been disposed of her enemies will decide whether or not to immediately proceed with an attack on the United States.”  

McCollum’s core argument was that the U.S. could not get involved in the war because intervention was vehemently opposed by the American public; an attack on American soil would be a sure way to change those opinions.  His eight steps included securing the use of British bases in the Pacific and Dutch facilities and supplies in the Dutch East Indies, sending aid to Japan’s enemies in the Chinese government of Chiang-Kai-Shek, sending submarines and long-range heavy cruisers to the Orient, the Philippines, or Singapore, keeping the main strength of the U.S. Pacific fleet in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands, insisting that the Dutch refuse Japanese demands for economic concessions, especially oil, and completely embargoing U.S. and British trade with Japan. His justification: “If by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better.”  In essence, McCollum drew the conclusion that the United States should be involved in the war (the validity of his reasoning is debatable), and then proposed a roundabout way to create a cause to declare war.

As outlandish and unthinkable as it seems, McCollum’s plan worked.  Robert Stinnett, a former American sailor who earned ten battle stars and a Presidential Unit Citation, explains in his book, Day of Deceit, that though the steps were not enacted in the exact order outlined in the memorandum, by December of 1941 each of McCollum’s proposed actions had been carried out by FDR (Stinnett, p.10-17).  In his article, “Pearl Harbor: Hawaii Was Surprised, FDR Was Not,” author and historian James Perloff recounts FDR’s implementation of McCollum’s action plan.  He quotes Secretary of War Henry Stimson as saying in October of 1941, “We face the delicate question of the diplomatic fencing to be done so as to be sure Japan is put in the wrong and makes the first bad move—overt move.”  Admiral Edwin T. Layton records that FDR’s goal was to “maneuver [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot”(p.195-196), because, in Stimson’s words, “in order to have the full support of the American people it was desirable to make sure that the Japanese be the ones so that there should remain no doubt in anyone’s mind as to who were the aggressors.”

It seems that throughout 1941, FDR’s guiding objective concerning U.S. relations with Japan was provoking this overt act of war.  FDR personally took charge of the heavy cruisers in the Orient; Stinnett says he called the provocations “pop-up” cruises: “I just want them to keep popping 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” (Stinnett, p.9).  Layton recalls when the State Department froze all Axis funds in the United States, which effected a total embargo on all Japanese, German, and Italian trade with the U.S., on July 26.  The New York Times reported the freeze as “the most drastic blow short of war” (Layton, p.121)  Further, on the same day, General Douglas MacArthur was called back to active duty as the commander-in-chief of American forces in the Far East, a move which Layton says acted as a strategic barrier between Japan and the oil resources in the Dutch East Indies.

The Japanese Purple Code

According to Perloff’s research, one of the key elements in America’s foreknowledge of Japan’s intentions was the government’s successful cracking of the “Purple Code,” Japan’s diplomatic code.  The code was so complex that it had to be encrypted and decrypted by a machine, and a team of talented cryptographers was needed to crack the code and create a facsimile of the Japanese code machine; Lieutenant Edwin T. Layton recalls that “the enormous mental effort put Friedman [the lead cryptographer] temporarily in the hospital with a breakdown” (Layton, p.81).  During late 1940 and throughout 1941, a lengthy series of messages was intercepted and decoded by U.S. intelligence officials, and at first they seemed akin to fear-mongering, providing little grounds for concern: “Things are going to happen….” “The breaking out of war may come quickly….”  As time progressed, however, “things” became more serious.  A Japanese naval dispatch on November 26 described the exact method that would be used to attack Pearl Harbor—a specific date was the only missing information. (Perloff)

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Day of Infamy ~ Part 2: Lawlessness

FDR had a reputation for vagueness, inconsistency, and self-contradiction, according to historian Robert Shogan in his book Hard Bargain (p.27), but he “cloaked his guile with a personal charm.”  By 1940 a troublesome pattern was well established: FDR tailored his stances on foreign policy to suit his immediate political interest and said whatever his particular audience wanted to hear (Shogan, p.33-34),  Often, though FDR maintained that “ideals do not change but methods [of attaining them] do change,” his words were chosen not to uphold ideals but to attain power; once he was in power it became incredibly difficult to see the connection between his methods and the international ideals that he apparently still upheld (Shogan, p.40-41).  In hindsight, it is clear that the ideals FDR professed were not the same as the ones towards which he actually strove. 

The Lend-Lease Act

Signing Lend-Lease Act

The 1937 Neutrality Act did not last long.  In late 1940, under pressure from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the Battle of Britain, FDR began to formulate plans to side with Britain in an underhanded way.  The Blitz ended in October of 1940; in December FDR announced his intention to begin sending money and supplies to the governments of Britain, China, and later the U.S.S.R.  He pushed the Lend-Lease Act through Congress, which allowed Britain to “borrow” billions of dollars’ worth of American supplies without paying for them.  Lend-Lease voided the Neutrality Act’s requirement for cash payments, although the ban on the travel of U.S. armed ships abroad remained in place (Shogan, p.264).  FDR simplified the appearance of his scheme by using the analogy of lending one’s garden hose to a neighbor to put out a fire, then rather than requiring payment for the hose, simply requesting that it be returned once the fire has been quenched.

FDR’s Illegal Secret Agreement with Churchill

Atlantic Charter Conference

On August 9, 1941, Winston Churchill and FDR met in the Atlantic off the coast of Newfoundland for the so-called Atlantic Charter Conference.  FDR had used a highly-publicized fishing trip as a diversion to ward off curious media coverage, and then transferred from his fishing yacht to the battle cruiser Augusta.  The result was the Atlantic Charter, a preliminary to the North Atlantic Treaty which created NATO in April of 1949.  Admiral Edwin T. Layton, the chief intelligence commander at Pearl Harbor, reports the evidence of the secret agreement in his book, And I Was There.  The minutes of the joint Army-Navy Board meetings after the Atlantic Charter Conference indicate that FDR “put a de facto Anglo-American alliance against Japan into effect by making preparations to commit our forces to war even if it was British rather than our territory that the Japanese struck first.”  Roosevelt provided Churchill with an unconstitutional assurance that “we shall all be in it together.” (Layton, p.134-135)  In Article I of the United States Constitution, the President is made “commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States,” and is permitted to make treaties “by and with the consent of [two-thirds of] the Senate.”  FDR did not receive, or even seek, that consent; had his actions been discovered, he could have been impeached.  As late as December 5, 1941, a message sent from London to the British commander in Malaya referred to assurances of American support if Japan attacked the Dutch East Indies or any other part of Siam.  Layton records that, at the 1945 Pearl Harbor hearings, FDR was charged with making an illegal, unconstitutional secret agreement with Britain, but since the minutes of the Joint Board meetings were not made available, the court decided that no such commitment had been made (Layton, p.258-259).

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Day of Infamy ~ Part 1: The True Story

“Yesterday, December 7^th, 1941—a date that will live in infamy—the United States was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” Thus began President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s appeal to Congress for a declaration of war.  Those words launched this nation into the greatest armed conflict of modern times.  FDR appealed to the people and the Congress to react with vengeance to the premeditated and apparently unprovoked attack on U.S. soil, and the response was colossal.  However, correspondence and other evidence surrounding the months prior to the attack, and first-hand testimonies written years later, tell a more sinister story—they reveal that our president harbored secretive and possibly nefarious ulterior motives for inciting an attack against the United States.  Before you dismiss me as a crazy conspiracy theorist, hear me out; I have done my research.  If you follow the links that you will find throughout these posts and read everything I have read, you will draw the same conclusions.  My purpose in writing is not to contest the fact that Nazi Germany was committing atrocious acts and Japan was indeed their ally, albeit a weak one.  It is not even to question the wisdom of the U.S. entry into the war; it is simply to examine the means which FDR undertook to initiate U.S. involvement, and the changes wrought on America as a result of his actions.  Today—December 7, 2014—finds America in a vastly different situation than before the events of 73 years ago.  This is the first of five posts; we will investigate FDR’s lawlessness and deception (the stark differences between his apparently beneficent intentions and his blatantly unconstitutional actions, particularly in his agreements with Winston Churchill) as well as some of his specific foreknowledge and planning.  We will also consider the situation from Admiral Kimmel’s perspective, and then examine the trajectory set by FDR’s choices.  In his determination to enter the war, FDR deceived the American people, evaded the law, and forever altered America’s role in the international community.

FDR Delivering his "Day of Infamy" Speech

After World War I, the U.S. retreated into its shell and focused on rebuilding itself.  Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, America as a whole was not inclined to fight against either Germany or Japan.  In May of 1937, FDR signed the Neutrality Act, a joint resolution of Congress that prohibited “the export of arms, ammunition, and implements of war to other states as and when they may become involved in such war,” and otherwise closed America’s doors and kept resources from warring nations.  The goal was to avoid being associated with any belligerent parties and becoming more deeply involved in the conflict.  The president elaborated on this sentiment in a foreign policy statement in October of 1937 in which he compared war and international lawnessness to an “epidemic of physical disease” and suggested that, in light of America’s determination to stay out of the war, they should “quarantine” the nations at fault while pursuing “a policy of peace.”  A Gallup poll in June of 1941 recorded that only 21% of Americans believed the U.S. should go to war; the rest resisted involvement in what they viewed as merely another European war.  During his 1940 presidential campaign FDR promised repeatedly that “your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.” 

The facts of history withstand the tests of time and argument, outliving the many faulty theories that are presented across the years; and in this case the facts tell a behind-the-scenes story that is vastly different than the tale FDR was proclaiming to the people.  

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