One Author believes that was the case:

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ROBERT B. STINNETT  who is the author of Day of Deceit - a book on Pearl Harbor, served in the United States Navy under Lieutenant George Bush from 1942 to 1946, where he earned ten battle stars and a Presidential Unit Citation. He worked as a photographer and a journalist for the Oakland Tribune until 1986, after which he resigned as a full-time employee to devote himself to Day Of Deceit.  




It has now become the most successful of Pearl Harbor revisionist books.

Stinnett is a consultant on the Pacific War for the BBC and Asahi and NHK Television in Japan. He divides his time between Oakland and Hawaii.

His view is that then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt, along with many other key people, conspired to deprive the US military commanders in Oahu (Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, commanding the Pacific Fleet, together with Lieut. General Walter C. Short, commanding the Army ground and air forces in the Hawaiian Islands) of highly specific warnings regarding the Japanese Kido Butai or First Air Fleet and its approach to Hawaii. Specifically, he contends that the Japanese transmitted a number of messages which were intercepted and decrypted by various agencies, who on presidential orders buried the information. He identifies at least eight senior naval officers (most of whom went on to distinguish themselves in World War II) as having betrayed their nation and service in this fashion.

Yet even having found what he calls the "terrible truth," Stinnett is still inclined to forgive. "I sympathize with the agonizing dilemma faced by President Roosevelt," he writes. "He was forced to find circuitous means to persuade an isolationist America to join in a fight for freedom…. It is easier to take a critical view of this policy a half century removed than to understand fully what went on in Roosevelt's mind in the year prior to Pearl Harbor."

He says Pearl Harbor was not an accident, a mere failure of American intelligence, or a brilliant Japanese military coup. It was the result of a carefully orchestrated, design, initiated at the highest levels of our government. He cites a key memorandum to highlight eight steps that were taken to make sure we would enter the war by this means, he writes. Pearl Harbor was the only way, leading officials felt, to galvanize the reluctant American public into action.

Americans were told of U.S. cryptographers' success in cracking pre-Pearl Harbor Japanese diplomatic codes, but not a word has been officially uttered about their success in cracking Japanese military codes, Stinnett observes.

During the 60 years, the truthful answers were secreted in bomb-proof vaults, withheld from two congressional Pearl Harbor investigations and from the American people. As recently as 1995, the Joint Congressional Investigation conducted by Sen. Strom Thurmond and Rep. Floyd Spence, was denied access to a naval storage vault in Crane, Indiana, containing documents that could settle the questions.

"In the mid-1980s I learned that none of the hundreds of thousands of Japanese military messages obtained by the U.S. monitor stations prior to Pearl Harbor were introduced or discussed during the congressional investigation of 1945-46. Determined to penetrate the secrets of Pearl Harbor, I filed Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests with the US Navy. Navy officials in Washington released a few pre-Pearl Harbor documents to me in 1985. Not satisfied by the minuscule release, I continued filing FOIAs.

Finally in 1993, the U.S. Naval Security Group Command, the custodian of the Crane Files, agreed to transfer the records to National Archives in Washington, D.C. In the winter of 1993-94 the files were transported by truck convoy to a new government facility built on the College Park campus of the University of Maryland inside the Washington Beltway, named Archives II. Mr. Clarence Lyons, then head of the Military Reference Branch, released the first batch of Crane Files to me in the Steny Hoyer Research Center at Archives II in January 1995.

Apparently, the pre-Pearl Harbor records had not been seen or reviewed since 1941. Though refiled in pH-safe archival boxes by Lyons' staff, some of the Crane documents were covered with dust, tightly bunched together in the boxes and tied with unusual waxed twine. Lyons confirmed the records were received from the U.S. Navy in that condition.



It took me a year to evaluate the records. The information revealed in the files was astonishing. It disclosed a Pearl Harbor story hidden from the public. I believed the story should be told to the American people. The editors of Simon & Schuster/The Free Press published Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1999."

This great question of Pearl Harbor--what  did we know and when did we know it?--has been argued for years, he writes.

"At first, a panel created by FDR concluded that we had no advance warning and should blame only the local commanders for lack of preparedness. More recently, historians such as John Toland and Edward Beach have concluded that some intelligence was intercepted. Finally, just months ago, the Senate voted to exonerate Hawaii commanders Admiral Kimmel and Lieutenant General Short, after the Pentagon officially declared that blame should be "broadly shared." But no investigator has ever been able to prove that foreknowledge of the attack existed at the highest levels."

Until now. Whereas previous investigators have claimed that the government did not crack Japan's military codes before December 7, 1941, Stinnett offers cable after cable of decryptions. He proves that a Japanese spy on the island transmitted information--including a map of bombing targets--beginning on August 21, and that government intelligence knew all about it. He reveals that Admiral Kimmel was prevented from conducting a routine training exercise at the eleventh hour that would have uncovered the location of the oncoming Japanese fleet. And contrary to previous claims, he shows that the Japanese fleet did not maintain radio silence as it approached Hawaii. Its many coded cables were intercepted and decoded by American cryptographers in Stations on Hawaii and in Seattle.

The evidence is overwhelming. At the highest levels---on FDR's desk--America had ample warning of the pending attack. At those same levels, it was understood that the isolationist American public would not support a declaration of war unless we were attacked first. The result was a plan to anger Japan, to keep the loyal officers responsible for Pearl Harbor in the dark, and thus to drag America into the greatest war of her existence.

Mr. Stinnett offers those who are swayed by the negative reviewers the following:

"Two questions about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor have ignited a controversy that has burned for 60 years: Did U.S. naval cryptographers crack the Japanese naval codes before the attack? Did Japanese warships and their commanding admirals break radio silence at sea before the attack?

If the answer to both is "no," then Pearl Harbor was indeed a surprise attack described by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a "Day of Infamy." The integrity of the U.S. government regarding Pearl Harbor remains solid.

But if the answer is "yes," then hundreds of books, articles, movies, and TV documentaries based on the "no" answer-and the integrity of the federal government-go down the drain. If the Japanese naval codes were intercepted, decoded, and translated into English by U.S. naval cryptographers prior to Pearl Harbor, then the Japanese naval attacks on American Pacific military bases were known in advance among the highest levels of the American government."


Day of Deceit is the definitive final chapter on America's greatest secret and its worst military disaster.

Day of Deceit was well received by media book reviews and the on-line booksellers, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, earning a 70 percent public approval rating. Day of Deceit continues among the top ten bestsellers in the non-fiction Pearl Harbor book category, according to Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.

Immediately after Day of Deceit appeared in bookstores in 1999, NSA began withdrawing pre-Pearl Harbor documents from the Crane Files housed in Archives II. This means the government decided to continue 60 years of Pearl Harbor censorship. As of January 2002, over two dozen NSA withdrawal notices have triggered the removal of Pearl Harbor documents from public inspection.

The number of pages in the withdrawn documents appears to be in the hundreds. Among the records withdrawn are those of Admiral Harold R. Stark, the 1941 Chief of Naval Operations, as well as crypto records authored by Commander Joseph J. Rochefort, the chief cryptographer for the Pacific Fleet at the time of Pearl Harbor. Under the Crane File transfer agreement with National Archives, NSA has the legal right to withdraw any document based on national defense concerns.

About 1,000 intercepted Japanese naval radio messages formed the basis of each Daily Summary written by Rochefort and his staff. The Japanese communication intelligence data contained in the messages was summarized and delivered daily to Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet. Rochefort's summary of November 25, 1941 (Hawaii time). It revealed the Commander Carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy were not observing radio silence but were in "extensive communications" with other Japanese naval forces whose admirals directly commanded the forces involved in the Pearl Harbor attack. Because of the International Dateline, the "extensive communications" mentioned in the summary took place on November 26, 1941, Japan time, the exact day the Japanese carrier force began its journey to Hawaii.

In its entirety the Rochefort summary reads: "FOURTH FLEET-CinC. Fourth Fleet is still holding extensive communications with the commander Submarine Fleet, the forces at Jaluit and Commander Carriers. His other communications are with the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Base Forces."

The meaning of the summary is unequivocal: The commanders of the powerful Japanese invasion, submarine, and carrier forces did not observe radio silence as they maneuvered toward U.S. bases in Hawaii, Wake, and Guam Islands in the Central Pacific. Instead they used radio transmitters aboard their flagships and coordinated strategy and tactics with each other.

The summary corroborates earlier findings by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian John Toland. In the late 1970s, Toland interviewed personnel and obtained U.S. naval documents from San Francisco's Twelfth Naval District that disclosed that the "extensive communications" were intercepted by the radio direction finders of the U.S. Navy's West Coast Communications Intelligence Network. Doubleday published Toland's account in 1982 as Infamy: Pearl Harbor and its Aftermath.

I think they knew an attack was coming, but everyone thought it would logically be against US forces in the Phillipines, which was in Japan's neighborhood and on their shipping routes to the oil, gas, and rubber deposits in the Dutch East Indies.  I think the sneak attack against the fleet at Pearl caught them totally by surprise. That was the conclusion of this book, at least.


www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465024653/sr=1-1/qid=1137204652/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-2337759-7183817?%5Fencoding=UTF8

He did but bush told him to keep it under his hat .

Adding more Gasoline to the Fire...

A 2002 Interview from:http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=408

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Do Freedom of Information Act Files Prove FDR Had Foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor?
March 11, 2002
Robert B. Stinnett, Douglas Cirignano



An Interview with Robert B. Stinnett by Douglas Cirignano

On November 25, 1941 Japan’s Admiral Yamamoto sent a radio message to the group of Japanese warships that would attack Pearl Harbor on December 7. Newly released naval records prove that from November 17 to 25 the United States Navy intercepted eighty-three messages that Yamamoto sent to his carriers. Part of the November 25 message read: “…the task force, keeping its movements strictly secret and maintaining close guard against submarines and aircraft, shall advance into Hawaiian waters, and upon the very opening of hostilities shall attack the main force of the United States fleet in Hawaii and deal it a mortal blow…”

One might wonder if the theory that President Franklin Roosevelt had a foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack would have been alluded to in this summer’s movie, Pearl Harbor. Since World War II many people have suspected that Washington knew the attack was coming. When Thomas Dewey was running for president against Roosevelt in 1944 he found out about America’s ability to intercept Japan’s radio messages, and thought this knowledge would enable him to defeat the popular FDR. In the fall of that year, Dewey planned a series of speeches charging FDR with foreknowledge of the attack. Ultimately, General George Marshall, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, persuaded Dewey not to make the speeches. Japan’s naval leaders did not realize America had cracked their codes, and Dewey’s speeches could have sacrificed America’s code-breaking advantage. So, Dewey said nothing, and in November FDR was elected president for the fourth time.

Now, though, according to Robert Stinnett, author of Simon & Schuster’s Day Of Deceit, we have the proof. Stinnett’s book is dedicated to Congressman John Moss, the author of America’s Freedom of Information Act. According to Stinnett, the answers to the mysteries of Pearl Harbor can be found in the extraordinary number of documents he was able to attain through Freedom of Information Act requests. Cable after cable of decryptions, scores of military messages that America was intercepting, clearly showed that Japanese ships were preparing for war and heading straight for Hawaii. Stinnett, an author, journalist, and World War II veteran, spent sixteen years delving into the National Archives. He poured over more than 200,000 documents, and conducted dozens of interviews. This meticulous research led Stinnet to a firmly held conclusion: FDR knew.

“Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars,” was Roosevelt’s famous campaign statement of 1940. He wasn’t being ingenuous. FDR’s military and State Department leaders were agreeing that a victorious Nazi Germany would threaten the national security of the United States. In White House meetings the strong feeling was that America needed a call to action. This is not what the public wanted, though. Eighty to ninety percent of the American people wanted nothing to do with Europe’s war. So, according to Stinnett, Roosevelt provoked Japan to attack us, let it happen at Pearl Harbor, and thus galvanized the country to war. Many who came into contact with Roosevelt during that time hinted that FDR wasn’t being forthright about his intentions in Europe. After the attack, on the Sunday evening of December 7, 1941, Roosevelt had a brief meeting in the White House with Edward R. Murrow, the famed journalist, and William Donovan, the founder of the Office of Strategic Services. Later Donovan told an assistant the he believed FDR welcomed the attack and didn’t seem surprised. The only thing Roosevelt seemed to care about, Donovan felt, was if the public would now support a declaration of war. According to Day Of Deceit, in October 1940 FDR adopted a specific strategy to incite Japan to commit an overt act of war. Part of the strategy was to move America’s Pacific fleet out of California and anchor it in Pearl Harbor. Admiral James Richardson, the commander of the Pacific fleet, strongly opposed keeping the ships in harm’s way in Hawaii. He expressed this to Roosevelt, and so the President relieved him of his command. Later Richardson quoted Roosevelt as saying: “Sooner or later the Japanese will commit an overt act against the United States and the nation will be willing to enter the war.”

To those who believe that government conspiracies can’t possibly happen, Day Of Deceit could prove to them otherwise. Stinnett’s well-documented book makes a convincing case that the highest officials of the government—including the highest official—fooled and deceived millions of Americans about one of the most important days in the history of the country. It now has to be considered one of the most definitive—if not the definitive—book on the subject. Gore Vidal has said, “…Robert Stinnet has come up with most of the smoking guns. Day Of Deceit shows that the famous ‘surprise’ attack was no surprise to our war-minded rulers…” And John Toland, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the Pearl Harbor book, Infamy, said, “Step by step, Stinnett goes through the prelude to war, using new documents to reveal the terrible secrets that have never been disclosed to 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.”

What led you to write a book about Pearl Harbor?

Stinnett: Well, I was in the navy in World War II. I was on an aircraft carrier. With George Bush, believe it or not.

You wrote a book about that.

Stinnett: Yes, that’s right. So, we were always told that Japanese targets, the warships, were sighted by United States submarines. We were never told about breaking the Japanese codes. Okay. So, in 1982 I read a book by a Professor Prange called At Dawn We Slept. And in that book it said that there was a secret US Navy monitoring station at Pearl Harbor intercepting Japanese naval codes prior to December 7. Well, that was a bombshell to me. That was the first time I had heard about that. I worked at The Oakland Tribune at that time….So I went over to Hawaii to see the station to confirm it. And, then, to make a long story short, I met the cryptographers involved, and they steered me to other sources, documents that would support all of their information. And so that started me going. My primary purpose was to learn about the intercept procedures. And so I filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the Navy because communications intelligence is very difficult. It’s a no-no. They don’t want to discuss it. But the Navy did let me, gave me permission to go to Hawaii and they showed me the station….So that started me on it. And then I would ask for certain information, this is now, we’re talking about in the 1980’s, the late 1980’s. And they’re very reluctant to give me more information. I’m getting a little bit.

Historians and government officials who claim that Washington didn’t have a foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack have always contended that America wasn’t intercepting and hadn’t cracked Japan’s important military codes in the months and days preceding the attack. The crux of your book is that your research proves that is absolutely untrue. We were reading most all of Japan’s radio messages. Correct?

Stinnett: That is correct. And I believed that, too. You know, because, Life magazine in September 1945, right after Japan surrendered, suggested that this was the case, that Roosevelt engineered Pearl Harbor. But that was discarded as an anti-Roosevelt tract, and I believed it, also.

Another claim at the heart of the Pearl Harbor surprise-attack lore is that Japan’s ships kept radio silence as they approached Hawaii. That’s absolutely untrue, also?

Stinnett: That is correct. And this was all withheld from Congress, so nobody knew about all this.

Until the Freedom of Information Act.

Stinnett: Yes.

Is this statement true?—If America was intercepting and decoding Japan’s military messages then Washington and FDR knew that Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor.

Stinnett: Oh, absolutely.

You feel it’s as simple as that?

Stinnett: That is right. And that was their plan. It was their “overt act of war” plan that I talk about in my book that President Roosevelt adopted on October 7, 1940.

You write that in late November 1941 an order was sent out to all US military commanders that stated: “The United States desires that Japan commit the first overt act.” According to Secretary of War Stimson, the order came directly from President Roosevelt. Was FDR’s cabinet on record for supporting this policy of provoking Japan to commit the first overt act of war?

Stinnett: I don’t know that he revealed it to the cabinet. He may have revealed it to Harry Hopkins, his close confidant, but there’s no evidence that anybody in the cabinet knew about this.

I thought you wrote in your book that they did…That some of them were on record for…

Stinnett: Well, some did. Secretary of War Stimson knew, based on his diary, and also probably Frank Knox, the Secretary of Navy knew. But Frank Knox died before the investigation started. So all we have really is Stimson, his diary. And he reveals a lot in there, and I do cite it in my book…You must mean his war cabinet. Yes. Stimson’s diary reveals that nine people in the war cabinet—the military people—knew about the provocation policy.

Even though Roosevelt made contrary statements to the public, didn’t he and his advisors feel that America was eventually going to have to get into the war?

Stinnett: That is right. Well, his statement was, “I won’t send your boys to war unless we are attacked.” So then he engineered this attack—to get us into war really against Germany. But I think that was his only option. I express that in the book.

Who was Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum and what was his connection to the Pearl Harbor attack?

Stinnett: He worked for Naval intelligence in Washington. He also was the communications routing officer for President Roosevelt. So all these intercepts would go to Commander McCollum and then he would route them to the President. There’s no question about that. He also was the author of this plan to provoke Japan into attacking us at Pearl Harbor. And he was born and raised in Japan.

McCollum wrote this plan, this memorandum, in October 1940. It was addressed to two of Roosevelt’s closest advisors. In the memo McCollum is expressing that it’s inevitable that Japan and America are going to go to war, and that Nazi Germany’s going to become a threat to America’s security. McCollum is saying that America’s going to have to get into the war. But he also says that public opinion is against that. So, McCollum then suggests eight specific things that America should do to provoke Japan to become more hostile, to attack us, so that the public would be behind a war effort. And because he was born and raised in Japan, he understood the Japanese mentality and how the Japanese would react.

Stinnett: Yes. Exactly.

Has the existence of this memo from Commander McCollum ever been revealed to the public before your book came out?

Stinnett: No, no. I received that as pursuant to my FOIA request on January 1995 from the National Archives. I had no idea it existed.

FDR and his military advisors knew that if McCollum’s eight actions were implemented—things like keeping the Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor, and crippling Japan’s economy with an embargo—there was no question in their minds that this would cause Japan—whose government was very militant—to attack the United States. Correct?

Stinnett: That is correct, and that is what Commander McCollum said. He said, “If you adopt these policies then Japan will commit an overt act of war.”

Is there any proof that FDR saw McCollum’s memorandum?

Stinnett: There’s no proof that he actually saw the memorandum, but he adopted all eight of the provocations—including where he signed executive orders…And other information in Navy files offers conclusive evidence that he did see it.

The memo is addressed to two of Roosevelt’s top advisors, and you include the document where one of them is agreeing with McCollum’s suggested course of action.

Stinnett: Yes, Dudley Knox, who was his very close associate.

The “splendid arrangement” was a phrase that FDR’s military leaders used to describe America’s situation in the Pacific. Can you explain what the “splendid arrangement” was?

Stinnett: The “splendid arrangement” was the system of twenty-two monitoring stations in the Pacific that were operated by the United States, Britain, and the Dutch. These extended along the west coast of the United States, up to Alaska, then down to Southeast Asia, and into the Central Pacific.

These radio monitoring stations allowed us to intercept and read all of Japan’s messages, right?

Stinnett: Absolutely. We had Japan wired for sound.

You claim that the “splendid arrangement” was so adept that ever since the 1920’s Washington always knew what Japan’s government was doing. So to assert that we didn’t know the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor would be illogical?

Stinnett: That is correct.

Your book claims that in 1941 Japan had a spy residing in the Japanese consulate in Honolulu.

Stinnett: Japan secreted this spy—he was a Japanese naval officer—in Honolulu. He arrived there in March 1941 under an assumed name, and he was attached to the Japanese consulate there. But when the FBI checked on him they found out he was not listed in the Japanese foreign registry, so they were suspicious immediately. They put a tail on him. And then the spy started filing messages to Japan that we were intercepting. This was in a diplomatic code now. And so the FBI continued to tail him, and so did Naval intelligence.

Naval intelligence, the FBI, and Roosevelt knew this man was spying on the fleet in Pearl Harbor, and they let the espionage go on. The policy of FDR’s government then was to look the other way and let Japan prepare itself for attacking us?

Stinnett: That’s right. That is correct. He was providing a timetable for the attack.

The spy was even sending bomb plots of Pearl Harbor?

Stinnett: Yes. From March to August he was giving a census of the US Pacific fleet. Then starting in August he started preparing bomb plots of Pearl Harbor, where our ships were anchored and so forth.

And Roosevelt even saw those bomb plots, right?

Stinnett: Yes, that is correct.

You claim that twice during the week of December 1 to 6 the spy indicated that Pearl Harbor would be attacked. According to a Japanese commander, the message on December 2 was: “No changes observed by afternoon of 2 December. So far they do not seem to have been alerted.” And on the morning of December 6 the message was: “There are no barrage balloons up and there is an opportunity left for a surprise attack against these places.” These messages were intercepted by the Navy, right? Did Roosevelt know about these messages?

Stinnett: They were intercepted. That is correct. They were sent by RCA communications. And Roosevelt had sent David Sarnoff, who was head of RCA, to Honolulu so that this would facilitate getting these messages even faster. Though we were also intercepting them off the airways, anyway. And on December 2 and on December 6 the spy indicated that Pearl was going to be the target. And the December 2 message was intercepted, decoded, and translated prior to December 5. The December 6 message…there’s really no proof that it was…it was intercepted, but there’s all sorts of cover stories on whether or not that reached the President. But he received other information that it was going to happen the next day, anyway.

You saw the records of those intercepts yourself?

Stinnett: Yes. I have those.

And all these other messages that the Navy was constantly intercepting showed exactly where the Japanese ships were, that they were preparing for war, and that they were heading straight for Hawaii. Right?

Stinnett: That’s right. Our radio direction finders located the Japanese warships.

You say Roosevelt regularly received copies of these intercepts. How were they delivered to him?

Stinnett: By Commander McCollum routing the information to him. They were prepared in monograph form. They called it monograph….it was sent to the President through Commander McCollum who dispatched it through the naval aide to the
President.

On page 203 of the hardcover edition of your book it reads, “Seven Japanese naval broadcasts intercepted between November 28 and December 6 confirmed that Japan intended to start the war and that it would begin in Pearl Harbor.” Did you see the
records of those intercepts yourself?

Stinnett: Yes. And also we have new information about other intercepts in the current edition that’s coming out in May 2001….There’s no question about it.

According to Day Of Deceit, on November 25 Admiral Yamamoto sent a radio message to the Japanese fleet. Part of the message read: “The task force, keeping its movements strictly secret and maintaining close guard against submarines and aircraft, shall advance into Hawaiian waters, and upon the very opening of hostilities shall attack the main force of the United States fleet in Hawaii and deal it a mortal blow…” What’s the proof that the record of that intercept exists? Did you see it yourself? Again, did Roosevelt know about it?

Stinnett: The English version of that message has been released by the United States, a government book. The Japanese version—the raw message—has not been released by the U.S. I have copies of the Station H radio logs—a monitoring station in Hawaii. They prove that the Navy intercepted eight-three messages that Yamamoto sent between November seventeenth and twenty-fifth. I have those records, but not the raw intercepts, eighty-six percent of which have not been released by the government…As far as Roosevelt, early in November 1941 Roosevelt ordered that Japanese raw intercepts be delivered directly to him by his naval aide, Captain Beardall. Sometimes if McCollum felt a message was particularly hot he would deliver it himself to FDR.

Late on December 6 and in the very early morning hours of December 7 the United States intercepted messages sent to the Japanese ambassador in Washington. These messages were basically a declaration of war—Japan was saying it was breaking off negotiations with America. At those times, General Marshall and President Roosevelt were shown the intercepts. When FDR read them he said, “This means war.” When the last intercept was shown to Roosevelt it was still hours before the Pearl Harbor attack. In that last intercept Japan gave the deadline for when it was breaking off relations with the U.S.—the deadline was the exact hour when Pearl Harbor was attacked. FDR and Marshall should have then sent an emergency warning to Admiral Kimmel in Pearl Harbor. But they acted nonchalantly and didn’t get a warning to Kimmel.

Stinnett: Yes. This is a message sent from the Japanese foreign office to the Japanese ambassador in Washington DC. And in it he directed….it broke off relations with the United States and set a timetable of 1:00 PM on Sunday, December 7, eastern time.

Which was the exact time that Pearl Harbor was bombed.

Stinnett: That’s right. So they realized, with all their information, this is it. And then General Marshall, though, sat on the message for about fifteen hours because he didn’t want to send…he didn’t want to warn the Hawaiian commanders in time….he didn’t want them to interfere with the overt act. Eventually they did send it but it didn’t arrive until way after the attack.

Roosevelt saw it too. They should have sent an emergency warning to Admiral Kimmel in Hawaii, right?

Stinnett: That’s right. But you see they wanted the successful overt act by Japan. It unified the American people.

This seems like a classic case of higher-ups doing something questionable, and then getting the people below them to take the blame for it. Admiral Husband Kimmel was in charge of the fleet in Pearl Harbor, and he was demoted and took the blame for the attack. Was that justified?

Stinnett: No, it was not. And Congress, you know, last October of 2000 voted to exonerate him because the information was withheld from them. That’s very important. But it was subject to implementation by President Clinton who did not sign it. But at least Congress filed it, made the finding.

You claim that Admiral Kimmel and General Short—who headed up the army in Hawaii—were denied by Washington of the information that would have let them know the attack was coming. In what ways were Kimmel and Short denied intelligence?

Stinnett: Well, they were just cut off…They were not told that the spy was there, and they were not given these crucial documents, the radio direction finder information. All this information was going to everybody but Kimmel and Short. That’s very clear…. At one point Kimmel specifically requested that Washington let him know immediately about any important developments, but they did not do that.

Kimmel was given some information, because two weeks before the attack he sent the Pacific fleet north of Hawaii on a reconnaissance exercise to look for Japanese carriers. When White House military officials learned of this what was their reaction?

Stinnett: Admiral Kimmel tried a number of occasions to do something to defend Pearl Harbor. And, right, two weeks before the attack, on November 23, Kimmel sent nearly one hundred warships of the Pacific fleet to the exact site where Japan planned to launch the attack. Kimmel meant business. He was looking for the Japanese. His actions indicated that he wanted to be thoroughly prepared for action if he encountered a Japanese carrier force. When White House officials learned this, they directed to Kimmel that he was “complicating the situation”….You see, the White House wanted a clean cut overt act of war by Japan. Isolationists would have charged FDR was precipitating Japanese action by allowing the Pacific fleet in the North Pacific…So, minutes after Kimmel got the White House directive he canceled the exercise and returned the fleet to its anchorage in Pearl Harbor…That’s where the Japanese found it on December 7, 1941.

The White House was handcuffing Kimmel? They wanted him to be completely passive?

Stinnett: That is right.

FDR did send a war warning to Kimmel on November 28. Was that enough of a warning?

Stinnett: Well, that was a warning, but also in there they directed Admiral Kimmel and all the Pacific commanders to stand aside, don’t go on the offensive, and remain in a defensive position, and let Japan commit the first overt act. That’s right in the message, and it’s in my book. And Admiral Kimmel, the message he received, it was repeated twice….stand aside and let Japan commit the first overt act, the exact wording is in my book.

Your book makes it abundantly clear that FDR and his advisors knew Japan was preparing for war, and knew that Japan was eventually going to attack. But can it be said that FDR knew that the attack was going to take place specifically on the morning of December 7 at Pearl Harbor?

Stinnett: Yes…..Absolutely.

Through the radio intercepts.

Stinnett: Through the radio intercepts. Right. Both military and diplomatic.

Did America’s ambassador in Japan, Ambassador Joseph Grew, have any indications that Japan was planning a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor?

Stinnett: The information is that he did. I do quote him in the book, and he warned Washington to be on the alert because he couldn’t give them the last minute information.

Well, according to your book Ambassador Grew had a reliable source in the Japanese embassy tell him that Japan was planning the attack, and then Grew sent dire warnings to the White House that an attack on Hawaii was a very real possibility.

Stinnett: Yes, well, he was the first one to—after President Roosevelt adopted this eight action memo—Ambassador Grew learned about the Pearl Harbor attack in January1941. And then Commander McCollum was asked to evaluate this, and he said, “Oh, there’s nothing to it.”—even though it was his plan!

He was being disingenuous, McCollum.

Stinnett: Yea. Exactly.

On December 5 the Navy intercepted a message telling Japanese embassies around the world to burn their code books. What does it mean when a government is telling its embassies to burn their code books?

Stinnett: That means war is coming within a day or two.

That’s common knowledge in the military. And the military officials in Washington saw this intercept and the meaning of it wasn’t lost on them.

Stinnett: Yes. That’s right.

FDR and Washington also knew that Japan had recalled from sea all its merchant ships. What does that mean?

Stinnett: It’s known in government and the military that if a nation recalls its merchant ships then those ships are needed to transport soldiers and supplies for war.

So, in your opinion, if there had been no Pearl Harbor, then would America ever have ended up dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Stinnett: Well, that’s what the survivors, the families of those who were killed at Pearl, and other people say. They claim that if there hadn’t been Pearl Harbor there would have been no Hiroshima. But, of course, that’s a “what if” question. And I don’t know how to answer it.

One could only speculate on that. But it seems in a way Hiroshima and Nagasaki were maybe retribution for Pearl Harbor.

Stinnett: I think it was more really to bring a close to the war. You know, I was out there at the time, and, frankly, I…we were subject to kamikaze attacks, they were attacking our carriers, and about half of our carriers were knocked out as of July 1945, so, personally, I was very pleased with the atom bombing because that ended the war. It probably saved my life.

If what you’re saying is true, then Pearl Harbor is a prime example of government treating human beings like guinea pigs. Yet, you, yourself, don’t disparage and don’t have a negative view of FDR.

Stinnett: No, I don’t have a negative view. I think it was his only option to do this. And I quote the chief cryptographer for the Pacific fleet, who said, “It was a pretty cheap price to pay for unifying the country.”

That cryptographer, Commander Joseph Rochefort, was a confidant of McCollum’s. He worked closely with Kimmel in Pearl Harbor. It could be argued that Rochefort was the closest one to Kimmel who was most responsible for denying Kimmel of the vital intelligence. And he did make that statement. But do you agree with that? A lot of people would be offended and angered by that statement. A lot of people wouldn’t agree with it.

Stinnett: A lot of people would not, but I think under the cirumstances this was FDR’s only option. And, of course, this was sort of used in the Viet Nam War, you know. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was based on a provocation aimed at the North Vietnamese gunboats—something like that. That’s how President Johnson got The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed through the Congress. There was a provocation.

Apparently, it’s a military strategy, but the families—obviously—of the people who get killed when a military uses this strategy wouldn’t agree with it.

Stinnett: Oh, right. I know. Oh, when I speak about this with the families they just start crying about it, you know. They’re terribly upset….But, you know, it was used by President Polk in the Mexican War in 1846. And also by President Lincoln at Fort Sumter And then also, as I say, another example is Viet Nam, this Gulf of Tonkin business.

It could be a traditional military philosophy, the idea that a military has to sometimes provoke the enemy to attack, sacrifice its own soldiers, so as to unify a country for war.

Stinnett: I think so. I think you could probably trace it back to Caesar’s time.

How much in your book has never been revealed to the public before?

Stinnett: The breaking of radio silence. The fact that the Japanese ships did not keep silent as they approached Hawaii….The breaking of Japanese codes—I mean the full proof of it. Military codes, I want to emphasize that….And also McCollum’s eight action memo—that’s the whole heart of my book. If I didn’t have that it wouldn’t be as important. That is the smoking gun of Pearl Harbor. It really is.

Your research seems to prove that government conspiracies can exist. In your view, how many people would you say ultimately knew that Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor, but kept quiet about it and covered it up before and after the event?

Stinnett: I cite about thirty-five people there in the book that most certainly knew about it. And it’s probably more than that.

It also seems like a classic Washington cover-up. In your book you use the phrase “Pearl Harbor deceits”. Ever since the attack there have been missing documents, altered documents, people being disingenuous, and people outright perjuring themselves before the Pearl Harbor investigation committees. Correct?

Stinnett: That is right. Absolutely. And you know the Department of Defense has labeled some of my Pearl Harbor requests as B1 National Defense Secrets, and they will not release them. I say that in the book. Janet Reno would not release them to me.

And all the official Congressional Pearl Harbor committees were denied and weren’t privy to all this revealing information?

Stinnett: That’s right. They were cut out, also.

A lot of people probably don’t want to believe that a president would let something like Pearl Harbor happen. Have you gotten any criticism for contending that FDR had a foreknowledge of the attack?

Stinnett: Yes. I get about a seventy percent approval rating. From, you know, comments, news media, radio, and all that. And there’s about thirty percent just don’t accept this….But the nitty-gritty questions are fine to me. You know, the people who are attacking me, what they are really quoting from is 1950 information. They don’t have the 1999 or 2000 information….

The information you put out in your book. You’re talking about new things here.

Stinnett: That’s right. And this thirty percent, I feel they just don’t want to accept it, or they regard FDR as an icon who brought Social Security, and all that. But he also unified this country, and we were able to stop Hitler, you know, and the holocaust, and everything else that was going on. So, you could also say that this was a victory for President Roosevelt.

But it seems under our system of government if President Roosevelt felt it was an emergency to go to war with Germany then he should have come before the American people and the Congress and explained it and convinced us that we had to go defeat Hitler.

Stinnett: Well, you see that was the problem. The strong isolation movement. Eighty percent of the people wanted nothing to do with Europe’s war. And, you know, German submarines were sinking our ships in the North Atlantic. That did not rouse the American public. Nobody gave a damn. The USS Ruben James was a destroyer that was sunk, and lost a hundred lives about a month before Pearl Harbor. And there were other ships, merchant ships, and other ships in the North Atlantic that were sunk or damaged. But no one cared about it. I think the American people thought that Roosevelt was trying to provoke us into the German war, or Europe’s war. They didn’t want anything to do with that. But, you see, Commander McCollum was brilliant. He fashioned this—it was a real PR job—he got Japan to attack us in a most outrageous manner that really did unite the country.

A lot of people would probably be of the opinion that it wasn’t so brilliant. The families of the three thousand people who were killed and injured at Pearl Harbor probably wouldn’t think it was brilliant.

Stinnett: I know, I know. You see, that’s the argument today.

But if this is true, then you agree with what FDR did?

Stinnett: I do. I don’t see what other option he had.

Because a lot of the tone in your book seems to be questioning and disagreeing with Roosevelt’s actions.

Stinnett: Well, I disagree with the way he treated Admiral Kimmel and General Short, letting them hang out to dry.

Kimmel and Short were cut off from the intelligence loop.

Stinnett: They were cut off. And Congress, you know, last October, the Senate and the House, found that they were cut off. They made the finding. That would have never happened five years ago. Or ten, twenty years ago

It happened because of the Freedom of Information Act?

Stinnett: I think so. And the Short and Kimmel families have credited my book with getting that through Congress.

Did you ever read Clausen’s book? Colonel Henry Clausen was part of a Pearl Harbor investigation of November 1944. He wrote a book that was published in 1992 that claimed FDR didn’t have a foreknowledge of the attack.

Stinnett: Well, you know, I read that. But I fault Colonel Clausen because he had access to all of these military intercepts and he did not bring them out. And I think that was a crime for him to have done that. He should have been court-martialed for that.

You infer in your book that at one point Clausen was probably trying to cover up for General Marshall’s actions of December 6 and 7.

Stinnett: I think so. You know, he was acting on the behalf of the Secretary of War. He had carte blanche with these intercepts.

When was he acting on behalf of the Secretary of War?

Stinnett: Well, Clausen was authorized by Secretary of War Stimson to conduct the Pearl Harbor investigation in November 1944. He traveled to the Hawaiian monitoring stations and interviewed cryptographers but failed to obtain any evidence or testimony concerning the intercepts the Navy was making prior to December 7. So when Congress opened its Pearl Harbor investigation in November 1945 there were no pre-Pearl Harbor Japanese naval intercepts available. Clausen was told by Stimson to get the intercepts, but he didn’t do it.

Did you ever talk with Clausen? Did he criticize you?

Stinnett: He died. I tried to contact him. He was an attorney in San Francisco, and I did write him but he would never answer me. I wanted to ask him why he didn’t obtain the intercepts. His book doesn’t address that major issue. He didn’t return my calls, and he never answered my letters. I guess he just didn’t want to be exposed to this. Clausen was obviously a part of the conspiracy that kept the pre-Pearl Harbor intercepts from Congress and the American public.

What kind of attention did your book get from the mainstream media? Did it get as much attention as you thought it would?

Stinnett: Most of the mainstream print media has given Day Of Deceit very fine reviews. That includes The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, et al. Mainstream TV has not been forthcoming. The exceptions have been C-Span, PAX TV, and local television stations. Neither ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, or Fox News have carried a word. C-SPAN carried ninety minutes of me discussing the book with a crowd of one hundred-fifty people. That was arranged by independent.org—The Independent Institute, a major, progressive think tank in Oakland, California.

Why do you think the information in your book is important?

Stinnett: It’s important because it reveals the lengths that some people in the American government will go to deceive the American public, and to keep this vital information—in our land of the First Amendment—from the people. And that’s against everything I believe in.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert B. Stinnett is a Research Fellow at The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. and the author of Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor (Free Press).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A shorter version of this interview appeared on www.disinfo.com. Reprinted by permission of the author.

USS Arizona BB-39

Arizona was the most heavily damaged of all the vessels in Battleship Row, suffering three near-misses and two direct-hits from 800-kg bombs dropped by high-altitude Kates. The last bomb to strike her penetrated her deck starboard of turret two and detonated within a 14-inch powder magazine. The resulting massive explosion broke the ship in two forward of turret one, collapsed her forecastle decks, and created such a cavity that her forward turrets and conning tower fell thirty feet into her hull. She was a total loss. Never seriously considered a candidate for salvage, her top-hamper was removed in 1942 and she remains where she sank to this day,
a tomb for 1,102 men who died with her.

It was Bush's fault.

Terrier, I don't want to sound like a GN, but
the word is imminent.

FDR, like a lot of people, KNEW we'd get hit.

Like almost everyone, he had no idea where.

Everybody expected it would be the Phillipines or someplace similar.

This of course does not take away from the fact that FDR was a socialist BASTARD who fucked over the country.

Quoted: FDR, like a lot of people, KNEW we'd get hit. Like almost everyone, he had no idea where. Everybody expected it would be the Phillipines or someplace similar. This of course does not take away from the fact that FDR was a socialist BASTARD who fucked over the country.

Singapore. That would have been the smart move, or at least the move that would have put us in the most awkward position. So that's what we were expecting.

If the Japanese hit Singapore then we would have faced a tough choice, sit back while the Japanese and Brits fought, or go against public opinion and delcare war.

No, FDR didn't know Pearl would be attacked.  If he had, he wouldn't have had all our battleships there.  He wanted us in the war, but he also wanted to WIN the war.  Allowing the Japanese to destroy most of our heaviest naval weapons would have been lunacy, not conspiracy.

Quoted: No, FDR didn't know Pearl would be attacked.  If he had, he wouldn't have had all our battleships there.  He wanted us in the war, but he also wanted to WIN the war.  Allowing the Japanese to destroy most of our heaviest naval weapons would have been lunacy, not conspiracy.

And if all those conspiracy nutz had bothered to notice, he wanted into the war against Hitler's Germany.  Japan was always second banana.

It is certainly plausable but I'd like to see the decoded intercepts myself.

If true, this has HUGE implications.   Many...many angles to this...who knew...who KNOWS...how has this shaped recent foreign policies and wars...?  

Frankly, I suspect it is true.  The fate of the entire free world rested on the United States entering WW II.  Once we did, the outcome was a virtual certainty.

www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?id=179

Excerpt from above link..

BACKGROUND TO BETRAYEL

Roosevelt’s intentions were nearly exposed in 1940 when Tyler Kent, a code clerk at the U.S. embassy in London, discovered secret dispatches between Roosevelt and Churchill. These revealed that FDR — despite contrary campaign promises — was determined to engage America in the war. Kent smuggled some of the documents out of the embassy, hoping to alert the American public — but was caught. With U.S. government approval, he was tried in a secret British court and confined to a British prison until the war’s end.

During World War II’s early days, the president offered numerous provocations to Germany: freezing its assets; shipping 50 destroyers to Britain; and depth-charging U-boats. The Germans did not retaliate, however. They knew America’s entry into World War I had shifted the balance of power against them, and they shunned a repeat of that scenario. FDR therefore switched his focus to Japan. Japan had signed a mutual defense pact with Germany and Italy (the Tripartite Treaty). Roosevelt knew that if Japan went to war with the United States, Germany and Italy would be compelled to declare war on America — thus entangling us in the European conflict by the back door. As Harold Ickes, secretary of the Interior, said in October 1941: “For a long time I have believed that our best entrance into the war would be by way of Japan.”

Certain Aspects of MAGIC in the Cryptological Background of the Various Official Investigations Into the Attack on Pearl Harbor

Was Magic Withheld from Kimmel and Short?

Quoted: As Harold Ickes, secretary of the Interior, said in October 1941: “For a long time I have believed that our best entrance into the war would be by way of Japan.”

Well, war with Japan wasn't exactly a remote possibility. We stopped oil shipments due to their aggression in China. The rhetoric was ramping up. Like I said, the worst case would have been Singapore because it would not have mobilized the American people. Even an attack on the Phillipines would have been a difficult sell.

  Weren't most, if not all  the ships still at Pearl on Dec.7 older ships, close to retirement? Including The Arizona?  All the carriers and thier battle groups were conviently out to sea steaming for San Diego.   Which was highly unusual.   The Japanese fully expected to find our carriers birthed at Pearl.   These were thier main target.    I've seen drawings done by Japanese pilots depicting U.S. carriers bursting open from Jap bombs. Also all modern land based aircraft ,B17's,had been sent to California.

   FDR knew Pearl was going to be hit

     

Quoted:   Weren't most, if not all  the ships still at Pearl on Dec.7 older ships, close to retirement? Including The Arizona?  All the carriers and thier battle groups were conviently out to sea steaming for San Diego.   Which was highly unusual.   The Japanese fully expected to find our carriers birthed at Pearl.   These were thier main target.    I've seen drawings done by Japanese pilots depicting U.S. carriers bursting open from Jap bombs. Also all modern land based aircraft ,B17's,had been sent to California.    FDR knew Pearl was going to be hit

This is my underztanding, also.

Timeline

1936
December 2 Yamamoto begins forging the naval air arm into a modern weapon.

1939
February 10 Japan occupies the Chinese island of Hainan.
August Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto appointed commander-in-chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
September 4 Yamamoto writes to V/Adm. Shimata to say that he is uneasy about "Japan's relations with Germany and Italy in the face of changes now taking place in Europe."

1940
Spring The US fleet transfers to Pearl Harbor as its permanent home base: to the Japanese, this is a thinly veiled threat. Yamamoto uses this to urge expansion of naval air power. Yamamoto begins thinking that it would be better to carry war to the US Navy rather than wait for them to choose the time and place for battle.

July Roosevelt has an embargo placed on all aviation fuel, steel and scrap iron to Japan.

August Lieutenant-Colonel. Friedman, a cryptographer, breaks the Japanese Purple Code (MAGIC).

September 3 Roosevelt gives Britain 50 old destroyers for the rights to establish US naval bases in British territories.

September 4 The US warns Japan not to attack French Indochina.

September 11 Ojiro Okuda is appointed acting consul general to Hawaii. He is in charge of reporting on movements of US ships in the harbor, much of which appears in American newspapers. Kohichi Seki studies Jane's Fighting Ships and travels around the island studying the base and airfields, but without trespassing on US government property though.

September 27 Japan joins the Tripartite Pact. Yamamoto tells Konoye: "I hope you will . . . avoid a Japanese-American war.  

November 12 British torpedo bombers attack the Italian fleet at Taranto, disabling half of Italy's Mediterranean fleet.

December 10 Yamamoto writes to Shimada: "The probability is great . . . our operations against the Netherlands' Indies are almost certain to develop into a war with America, Britain and Holland before those operations are half-over. Consequently we should not launch . . . the southern operation unless we are prepared . . . and adequately equipped."

December 30 Rear Admiral Bloch sends a memo: "Any aircraft attacking Pearl Harbor will . . . be brought by carriers."

1941

January 1 In Japan, American ambassador Grew writes in his diary: "Japan . . . is on the warpath . . . If . . . Americans . . . could read . . . articles by leading Japanese . . . they . . . would realize the utter hopelessness of a policy of appeasement."

January 6 President Roosevelt declares the United States the "arsenal of democracy."

January 7 Yamamoto writes a letter to R/Adm. Takijiru Oikawa, saying: "A conflict with the United States . . . is inevitable." The Japanese navy should "destroy the US main fleet at the outset of the war." He continues that the Japanese Navy should strike so as to "decide the fate of the war on the very first day." His plan is to find the US Navy "at Pearl Harbor [and] attack it vigorously with our air force." He concludes that if the US Navy is not at Pearl Harbor, they should find them regardless of where they are. The Japanese First and Second Carrier Divisions should mount a "surprise attack with all their air strength, risking themselves on a moonlight night or at dawn." Oilers were needed for refueling at sea, destroyers would pick up survivors whose aircraft or ships went down, and submarines would attack vessels fleeing Pearl Harbor and attempt to sink Allied vessels at the entrance and block it. An attack on "the Philippines and Singapore should be made at almost the same time as . . . against Hawaii." At the end of the letter, Yamamoto requests: "I sincerely desire to . . . personally command that attack force."

January 24 Prince Fumimaro Konoye, the Japanese prime minister, asserts that "firm establishment of a Mutual Prosperity Sphere in Greater East Asia is . . . necessary to the continued existence of this country." Yamamoto hypothesizes that should war break out "between Japan and the United States, it would not be enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. We would have to . . . dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians . . . are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices."

January 27 In secret talks with Britain, the US decides that if Japan enters the war on the German side, and if the US enters the war, Germany is to be defeated first, then Japan. Ambassador Grew, in Japan, is warned by his Peruvian counterpart that he has heard a Japanese worker in his embassy say that if war occurs the "Japanese military . . . [will] attempt a surprise mass attack on Pearl Harbor using all their military facilities." In Washington, military intelligence is surprised only that Grew puts credence in the source of the report and not in the supposition of the report. In Japan, Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka says, "We must control the Western Pacific," and that the US should reconsider their prior actions: if the US does not, there is "no hope for Japanese-American relations." Aboard Nagato, Yamamoto discusses the logical and technical feasibility of an attack on Pearl Harbor. After this meeting, Onishi asks Maeda (his senior staff officer) the following question: if US capital ships were "moored around Ford Island, could a successful torpedo attack be launched against them?" Maeda says no, the water is too shallow for torpedoes to be effective. However, if the torpedoes were modified. . .  

February 1 Kimmel replaces Richardson as CinCPAC; Short is promoted to commander of the Hawaiian Department.

February 5 Kimmel receives a letter from Secretary Knox stating: "If war eventuates with Japan . . . hostilities . . . would start . . . with a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor." The letter tells Kimmel to "increase the joint readiness of the army and navy to withstand a raid." He says that probable forms of attack are bombing, torpedo attacks, or both. Congressman Faddis of Pennsylvania states: "The Japanese are not going to risk a fight . . . where they must face the American Navy in open battle. Their navy is not strong enough."

February 12 Nomura presents his credentials, which appoint him Ambassador to Washington, to Cordell Hull.

February 15 Kimmel issues a Pacific Fleet Conference letter saying they are faced with a possible surprise attack on ships in Pearl Harbor.

Mid-February Onishi sends for Cmdr. Minoru Genda and presents Yamamoto's plan, mentioning that Yamamoto has given some thought to making it a one-way mission (katamechi kogami) to increase the striking distance to over 500 miles. Genda opposes treating aircraft as disposable: "Ditching . . . would be a waste of men and planes." He thinks Yamamoto should include dive-bombers and high altitude bombers as well as torpedo planes in the attack. "To obtain the best results, all carriers should approach as close to Pearl Harbor as possible." His last point is: "Our prime target should be US carriers." Onishi asks Genda to prepare a report about feasibility, component forces and manner of execution, and then report back in ten days.

Late February Genda gives Onishi a report containing ten main proposals. It must be a surprise attack; US carriers are its main objective; US aircraft on Oahu are an objective; and every available Japanese carrier should take part in the operation. Furthermore, all kinds of attack aircraft should be used, and Japanese fighters should play an active role in the attack; the attack should be in early morning; refueling vessels at sea is necessary for success; and all planning must be ultra-secret. The tenth proposal is for a full-scale invasion, which Onishi disagrees with because they could not maintain supply so far from their present bases. Yamamoto wants to cripple the US Navy whereas Genda feels they should annihilate it.

February 27 Okuda reports: "The fleet goes to sea for a week and stays in Pearl Harbor for one week. Every Wednesday those at sea and those in the harbor change places."

March 5 The Japanese foreign ministry wires Nomura to say that they feel fairly certain that the US "is reading your code messages."

March 10 Onishi gives Yamamoto a draft of his plan for attack, based on Genda's plan but with some modifications.

March 11-12 Congress passes the Lend Lease Act, which supplies materiel to governments fighting the Axis.

March 14 Kita is appointed consul general to Hawaii.

March 20 Nomura responds to the foreign ministry: "Though I do not know which ones, I have discovered that the United States is reading some of our codes." Nomura informs them he will tell them details in a "safe" way. Still they did not change the Purple Code. Matsuoka may have been suspicious of Nomura's warning, feeling it sprang from insecurity.

March 27 Takeo Yoshikawa, an intelligence officer, arrives in Pearl Harbor and realizes that battleships are berthed in pairs and that the in-shore ship is protected from torpedo attacks by the outboard one.

March 30 Roosevelt orders the Coast Guard to seize two German, 28 Italian and 35 Danish ships in US ports.

April 1 Naval Intelligence in Washington alerts district commanders to the fact that "the Axis Powers often . . . [attack on] Saturday and Sunday or on national holidays" and that commanders should put "proper watches and precautions . . . in effect."

April 10 The IJN reorganizes into the 1st Air Fleet, consisting of the First Carrier Division (Kaga and Akagi and four destroyers), the Second Carrier Division (Hiryu and Soryu and four destroyers) and the Fourth Carrier Division (Ryuho and two destroyers).

April 13 Japan and Russia sign a neutrality pact giving Japan the green light for southward expansion.

April 15 The US begins shipping lend-lease goods to China.

April 21 US, English, and Dutch officers coordinate the proposed roles of each in the military defense against Japan in case of a Japanese attack on Singapore.

April 23 Marshall disagrees with Roosevelt's decision to keep the US fleet in Hawaii because "our heavy bombers and . . . pursuit planes . . . could put up such a defense that the Japs wouldn't dare attack Hawaii."

April 28 When queried about the US choice to strengthen the Atlantic Fleet by removing vessels from the Pacific, the British reply that the "reduction . . . would not unduly encourage Japan." New Mexico, Mississippi, Idaho, Yorktown, four light cruisers, 17 destroyers, three oilers, three transports, and ten auxiliaries are transferred by the end of summer.

May 20 Nomura confirms to Tokyo: "the US is reading some of our codes."

May 26 Yoshikawa reports that three battleships and three light cruisers have disappeared from Pearl Harbor. Kimmel fires off an 11-page memo noting that 72 percent of the new officers for the Atlantic came from the Pacific Fleet and that the Pacific Fleet's needs are subordinated to those of Britain and the Atlantic Fleet.

May 27 Roosevelt declares the US to be in an unlimited state of national emergency.

June 14 The US freezes German and Italian assets.

June 16 German consulates in the US are shut down.

June 17 Germany moves against US property in Germany.

June 20 The US stops oil shipments from Gulf and East Coast ports to all destinations except Latin America and Britain.  

June 22 Italian consulates in the US are closed.

June 26 Vichy France permits Japan to occupy French Indochina. The US impounds Japanese credits in the US. Roosevelt nationalizes the Philippine Army.

July 17 A new Japanese government is formed.

July 28 The US puts an embargo on oil sales, freezes assets, and closes ports to Japanese vessels.

August 18 An amendment to the 1940 Selective Service Law extends the length of service for US inductees from one year to two-and-a-half years.

September 24 A message from Tokyo to the Consulate General instructs the spy to report on US vessels in Pearl Harbor.

October 16 Konoye resigns and Gen. Tojo sets up a new government with himself as prime minister. Stark warns Kimmel of the possibility of Japanese activities.

November 5 Yamamoto issues Top Secret Order No.1 to the Combined Fleet, detailing the plan for the attack on Pearl Harbor.

November 7 Congress repeals sections of the Neutrality Act concerning arming US cargo ships and transporting war goods to warring nations.

November 10 Britain states that should Japan go to war with the US, they will declare war on Japan "within the hour."

November 22 The US intercepts a message telling Nomura that the deadline of November 22 has been extended to November 25, 1941.

November 25 No US-Japanese agreement is reached: consequently, Nagumo's task force sails from the Kuriles.

November 26 A large Japanese fleet under Vice-Admiral Chuichi Nagumo (Nagumo, Chuichi) leaves the Kurile Islands for Hawaii, maintaining radio silence and taking a northerly route to avoid detection. It has orders to attack the United States Pacific Fleet, in Pearl Harbor.

November 27 Argentina decides not to sell tungsten to Japan. Kimmel and Short are advised that US-Japanese negotiations have failed and that they should be prepared for any eventuality. Kimmel is ordered to deliver 25 aircraft to Wake and Midway.

November 28 An intercepted dispatch from Tokyo to the Japanese embassy in Washington confirms that Japan was now preparing to go to war.

November 29 This day marks the Japanese government's secret deadline for US compliance with their ultimatum of 20 November.

November 30 General Tojo (Tojo, Hideki)addresses a public rally in Japan, attacking the Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and his allies. "Chiang Kai-shek is dancing to the tune of Britain, America, and communism at the expense of able-bodied and promising young men."

December 1 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt returns hurriedly to Washington from vacation in Georgia, after suspicion heightens that the Japanese will attack. A meeting of the Imperial conference in Tokyo decides that Japan should go to war against the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.

December 2 Nagumo gets the go-ahead. The US intercepts a message to the Japanese Embassy to destroy all codes.

December 3 In the afternoon, Hawaiian time, the Japanese strike force stops at 43 degrees North, 170 degrees East to refuel one last time before the attack. Their tanks are filled to capacity.  

December 4 Naval commanders at Pearl Harbor receive a dispatch:
"Highly reliable information has been received that categoric and urgent instructions were sent yesterday to Japanese diplomatic and consular posts at Hong Kong, Singapore, Batavia, Manila, Washington, and London to destroy most of their codes at once and to burn all other important, confidential, and secret documents."  

December 5 At a cabinet meeting on this day, Secretary Hull tells the president that 'With every hour that passes, I become more convinced that they [the Japanese] are not playing in the open...I'm convinced that they don't intend to make any honorable agreement with us about anything, or to come to any understanding. I think it is useless and futile.'

December 6 Roosevelt is given the partly deciphered 14-part message. Instructions state it is not to be given to Hull until 1300 hrs Washington time on December 7.

December 7 The Japanese Navy attacks Pearl Harbor.

December 8 Roosevelt calls the attack on Pearl Harbor a day that will "live in infamy," and Congress declares war on Japan. Gen. Yamashita's 25th Army lands near the borders of Thailand and Malaya and begins the battle for Singapore.

December 9 The Japanese strike force moves homeward ater completing their mission.

December 10 News of victorious attacks on Hong Kong, Singapore, Pearl Harbor, and the British warships the Prince of Wales and the Repluse reach a jubilant Tokyo.

December 11 Italy and Germany declare war on the US.

December 12 Japanese forces occupy Guam.

December 23 Japanese forces capture Wake Island.

December 25 Hong Kong falls to the Japanese.

1942
February 15 Singapore surrenders.

Quoted:   Weren't most, if not all  the ships still at Pearl on Dec.7 older ships, close to retirement? Including The Arizona?  All the carriers and thier battle groups were conviently out to sea steaming for San Diego.   Which was highly unusual.   The Japanese fully expected to find our carriers birthed at Pearl.   These were thier main target.    I've seen drawings done by Japanese pilots depicting U.S. carriers bursting open from Jap bombs. Also all modern land based aircraft ,B17's,had been sent to California.    FDR knew Pearl was going to be hit

First of all, it's berthed not birthed.
Secondly, they were ferrying planes to forward bases to strengthen the defenses of the outposts that were most vulnerable to Japanese attack.

Quoted: No, FDR didn't know Pearl would be attacked.  If he had, he wouldn't have had all our battleships there.  He wanted us in the war, but he also wanted to WIN the war.  Allowing the Japanese to destroy most of our heaviest naval weapons would have been lunacy, not conspiracy.

Correct on both counts.

He certainly was prepared to allow Japan to "force" our involvement in the war, but nobody had any idea it would start at Pearl.

I think they knew.

Quoted: Quoted: No, FDR didn't know Pearl would be attacked.  If he had, he wouldn't have had all our battleships there.  He wanted us in the war, but he also wanted to WIN the war.  Allowing the Japanese to destroy most of our heaviest naval weapons would have been lunacy, not conspiracy. Correct on both counts. He certainly was prepared to allow Japan to "force" our involvement in the war, but nobody had any idea it would start at Pearl.

From Wikpedia



"In 1924, Mitchell's superiors sent him to Hawaii, then Asia, to get him off the front pages. Mitchell came back with a 324-page report that predicted future war with Japan, including the attack on Pearl Harbor. His report was mostly ignored."

I seriously DOUBT Roosevelt knew Pearl Harbor was going to be hit.

For one thing, if the Japanese had done more damage to the port facilities as they originally intended, the U.S. Navy would have been royally screwed in the Pacific.


Maybe he knew they were going to attack somewhere, but if that is the case, wouldn't U.S. forces have been alerted for the attack?  It makes no sense to sacrifice fighting men and capability; a successfully defended attack would have convinced congress to declare war just as easily.

I'm no fan of FDR but this is one conspiracy theory I have a hard time swallowing.

It's all to get Bush's name tied to another war.  The left won't care which war is being talked about as long as you can mention Bush, and I'm sure Haliburton is in there some where.

Quoted: I think they knew an attack was coming, but everyone thought it would logically be against US forces in the Philippines, which was in Japan's neighborhood and on their shipping routes to the oil, gas, and rubber deposits in the Dutch East Indies.  I think the sneak attack against the fleet at Pearl caught them totally by surprise. That was the conclusion of this book, at least.

I've not studied the issue much, let alone read any of the quoted books, but raven's statement pretty well sums up my opinion on the matter.

I do believe Roosevelt wanted us in the war. I think he saw the war as just what it was, the largest struggle between good and evil the world had ever seen. But he had to maneuver the rest of the country into believing it and supporting it. And that may have led to some decisions that seem very questionable now.

It's over. It's done. I firmly believe the world is a better place today than it would be if we had not entered the war at the time we did. Or if we hadn't at all.

United States Navy Communications Intelligence 1924-1941

Excerpt

"The aspect of the Pearl Harbor disaster which is really surprising is that so many people failed to do either the obvious or the sensible things." Washington Star, 1 September 1945
Introduction

This is the story of the U.S. Navy's communications intelligence (COMINT) effort between 1924 and 1941. It traces the building of a program, under the Director of Naval Communications (OP-20), which extracted both radio and traffic intelligence from foreign military, commercial, and diplomatic communications.1 It shows the development of a small but remarkable organization (OP-20-G) which, by 1937, could clearly see the military, political, and even the international implications of effective cryptography and successful cryptanalysis at a time when radio communications were passing from infancy to childhood and Navy war planning was restricted to tactical situations.2 It also illustrates an organization plagued from its inception by shortages in money, manpower, and equipment, total absence of a secure, dedicated communications system, little real support or tasking from higher command authorities, and major imbalances between collection and processing capabilities. It explains how, in 1941, as a result of these problems, compounded by the stresses and exigencies of the time, the effort misplaced it focus from Japanese Navy traffic to Japanese diplomatic messages. Had Navy cryptanalysts been ordered to concentrate on the Japanese naval messages rather than Japanese diplomatic traffic, the United States would have had a much clearer picture of the Japanese military buildup and, with the warning provided by these messages, might have avoided the disaster of Pearl Harbor.

This story also records what today must be ranked as an intensely important interlude when the Navy radio-traffic intelligence program deliberately avoided the underlying intelligence of intercepted traffic while exploiting foreign cryptographic systems. Today most intelligence experts would call such a practice naive or ill advised. Yet a policy requiring OP-20-G cryptanalysts to search primarily for unique cryptographic features of codes and ciphers which might later be refined and employed by navy cryptographers was not changed until 1942. Coupled with a reluctance to fire civilian trainees, this policy seriously delayed the training of enough Navy cryptanalysts linguists to deal with a work load which increased exponentially both in complexity and volume after 1939. Ultimately, the resulting shortage of cryptanalysts and Japanese linguists, the problem of misplaced priorities and interservice rivalry issues all contributed to misplacing the major focus of the Navy's cryptanalytic and linguistic efforts

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: No, FDR didn't know Pearl would be attacked.  If he had, he wouldn't have had all our battleships there.  He wanted us in the war, but he also wanted to WIN the war.  Allowing the Japanese to destroy most of our heaviest naval weapons would have been lunacy, not conspiracy. Correct on both counts. He certainly was prepared to allow Japan to "force" our involvement in the war, but nobody had any idea it would start at Pearl. From Wikpedia upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/Billy_Mitchell.jpg/180px-Billy_Mitchell.jpg "In 1924, Mitchell's superiors sent him to Hawaii, then Asia, to get him off the front pages. Mitchell came back with a 324-page report that predicted future war with Japan, including the attack on Pearl Harbor. His report was mostly ignored."

OK...One guy figured it out.

Until Germany declared war, having Japan attack the US was the worst thing in Roosevelt's mind or for his goals.  It's true that FDR wanted to get in the fight, but he wanted to get in the fight against the Germans.  Basically, he was afraid of getting in a war with the Japanese that would force us to ignore the European theater while we dealt with Japan.  He felt that it would be better to take care of the Germans before we took care of the Japanese.

Some people argue that he knew Germany would declare war when we declared war against Japan, but there is no way he could have known that.  According to the treaties that Germany and Japan had signed, Germany only had to come to Japan's defense, Germany didn't have to when Japan was the aggressor.  FDR was afraid that the Germans wouldn't do anything and just let us and Japan duke it out.

Pearl Harbor Action Reports for Dec 7 1941

First off you better read Clausens book.  I have it right here now under my elbow.

Stinnet very conveniently ignored a lot of what Clausen found.

Did they know an attack was coming?  Yes.  Did they know the when?  Not in time, and even then the idiots in Washington should have picked up the phone and called, no matter the cost and followed up with a message, that something was up and increase the readiness conditions, but they had already done that a few times and the Hawaii commanders were unwilling to exert independnt efforts.    Both left it to the other.

Did they know where?  No, all the money was on a push to the south.  That's where the oil and raw materials were and the Brita, Dutch and French were already in the war.  A strike against their territory was not going to be enough to get the US in to the war.  FDR really wanted to get into the European War and letting the US get dragged into a war in the Pacific was not what he wanted.  If he knew the Japanese were coming ahead of time he would have taken steps to prolong negotiations, and to "find" them ahead of time, eliminating their element of surprise, and making sure they knew they were spotted.

Japan made a bid mistake waking the sleeping giant, they should have gone south and avoided bringing the US in.

Were they old ships? yes.  Were they ready for retirement?  hell NO.  Yes there were newer and better ships arriving and on the ways, but they weren't going to scrap any of the cruisers, battleships or other warships.  Everybody knew that the US was going to get in the war sooner or later, and every ship would be needed.

Mitchell and others including either Patton or Eisenhower postulated the same kind of strike for other studies

As I recall most of the BB's at Pearl were older ships but had just been updated and refitted prior to being damaged during the strike.

In any event, FDR may have been a rat bastard liberal commie POS, but he was right on with wanting to fight and win against the Nazi's.  Too bad he didn't do the same against Communism.

Merlin