Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor

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Summary: Marshall warned both Admiral Kimmel and General Short
Review: It is well known that ten days before the attack on Pearl Harbor took place that Marshall sent a message to both Kimmel and Short warning them to prepare for an attack.Unfortunately,both Kimmel and Short interpreted this to mean that a sabotage attack by potential infiltrators was eminent.Kimmel's response was to send the carriers out of Pearl Harbor while simultaneously grouping all of the battleships as close as possible so as to guard them against a sabotage attack.Short did precisely the same thing with respect to his air force.All the planes were placed wing tip to wing tip so as to guard them against a sabotage attack.I guess that both Kimmel and Short had forgotten General Billy Mitchell's prediction made back in 1931 that the Japanese would one day attack Pearl Harbor using carrier based torpedo bombers at 7:00 A M on a Sunday morning.This book is very incomplete and should never have been published with out extensive revisions.

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Summary: Stinnett believes his theories; he's just simply wrong.
Review: ...In reading most of the previous reviews, I see two levels of misunderstanding by several reviewers: (1) there are those who have read little else about the Pearl Harbor attack and assume that this is an authoritative reference, and (2) there are those who give it a glowing 5-star rating, proclaiming "see, Roosevelt DID want war with Japan!"
...To the first group, I'd strongly advise you to get a much broader education on this subject. Taking Stinnett's book as a prime source of information on Pearl Harbor makes as much sense as asking your local Ford dealer for his recommendation on which brand of car to buy. If you really want to know the full story on the cryptologic aspects of the Pearl Harbor story, read "And I Was There," by Edwin Layton. Layton WAS there, and he has the facts that Stinnett doesn't want to believe.
...To the second group, you're missing the point. There's no argument that FDR expected, perhaps even wanted war with Japan. The question is, did he KNOW that an attack was coming upon Hawaii? The answer is no--he and all of his advisors expected it in the Phillipines, or perhaps Malaya. His war plans chief, Admiral Turner, even predicted an initial attack against the USSR! To be sure, hindsight provides evidence that the U.S. should have been able to predict a specific threat to Pearl Harbor, but (as Layton effectively explains), our leadership was unable to see the forest with all those trees in the way. Ineffective intelligence handling and analysis? Certainly. But a deliberate conspiracy? A resounding no.
...In October 2004, the History Channel did a one-hour special on this book, allotting about half the time to Stinnett and an associate, and the rest to a number of distinguished historians and scholars who thoroughly picked Stinnett's theories to pieces. As one of them eloquently stated at the end of the program, "it's clear that Mr. Stinnett actually believes his theories; he's just simply wrong."

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Summary: The more things change, the more they stay the same...
Review: Most Americans alive today will view this book as ancient history. They were not alive then, and so what Franklin Roosevelt knew, did, and the devious measures he employed to drag the United States kicking and screaming into a foreign war, against its will, and despite his promises to avoid such an entanglement, will evoke mostly indifference, yawns, and "so what?"

But, for those of us who were alive then and, even then, suspected the President's motives and his statements and assurances, this is a fascinating document. And, for many of us, it vindicates our suspicions that President Roosevelt purposely pushed the Japanese into attacking us at Pearl Harbor in order to draw us into the war against the Axis powers, who then dominated the continent of Europe, including the Balkans, much of North Africa, and were threatening to overrun Asia.

The majority of the American people were dead-set against being drawn into Europe's war, and were little concerned with the fate of China. Our cities were not directly threatened. despite the fact that the Nazis had friends in Argentina, and if England fell, would no doubt end up with clout in Canada and Mexico, the former being, after all, part of the Commonwealth of the British Empire.

The world was in flames, and Roosevelt knew that to get America off its collective duff and help put out the fire, it would be necessary to get in the war.

So, he drove Japan over the brink with a bellicose policy that deprived them of oil, raw materials, and scrap iron, and sailed our submarines and cruisers into their home waters. He denied them fishing rights in waters historically available to them. He drove them to the edge, and then pushed them over it.

This book, through documents formerly classified and now available through the Freedom of Information Act, six decades after the fact, irrefutably demonstrates that FDR knew, through access to broken Japanese codes and other sources, that the Japanese were going to strike us in a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, knew their fleet was underway to do so, and denied the commanders on the scene, General Short and Admiral Kimmel, the intelligence resources to protect themselves. Then, he fired them for their failure. He expected the attack. It was part of his plan to achieve a Cause Celebre that would motivate the American people to get in the war.

It took this author 17 years to document this book: to access all of the documents and interview the multi-thousands of people involved. It represents no small effort, in the interest of historical truth.

We lost much of our Pacific Fleet at Learl Harbor on December 7, 1941. We lost upward of 2,500 American Lives. The goal of the American President, achieved at such a high cost, was the motivation of the American people. Monstrous? Perhaps, but in his defense, one must remember the stakes. Almost inevitably, without our active entry into the war, Britain would have fallen to Hitler. China would have fallen to Japan, and a Greater East-Asia Co-Proserity Sphere would have resulted, allied with a Europe completely dominated by the Nazis, and allied with Japan and Italy.

Already inroads were being made into South America, and the Nazis shortly would have dominated Canadian politics as well.

We would have been a country isolated, and doomed.

Those were the stakes. So, perhaps Roosevelt does not look quite so much the monster, after all. For, we DID survive, didn't we?

Joseph (Joe) Pierre, USN (Ret)
(...)

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Summary: Opponents of this book make weak arguments
Review: Mr. Stinnett's book contains valuable documentation showing that the U.S. had decrypted both diplomatic and military codes of Japan. As a result, Stinnett shows that FDR not only knew of the coming attack on Pearl, but he ensured its success by clearing the northern Pacific of U.S. Navy reconnaissance vessels. Further, he arranged communications so that Admiral Kimmel would not be informed of the approaching Japanese fleet -- thus setting him up to "take the fall" for the attack. That FDR would adopt such a course of action is not surprising when one considers his betrayal of his closest associates -- not least of whom was his own Vice President Wallace (in the 1944 election) in favor of Truman. Remember that he kept assuring Wallace even as he solicited Truman. Further, his attempts to ignore information about Stalin's actions in the Ukraine (starvation of 10 million) and to suppress information about the Katyn massacre of Polish soldiers by Stalin -- this time so that he would not alienate Polish-American voters -- bear further witness to his lack of character if a course of action would help him obtain a goal. Stinnett claims that FDR sought war against Germany and that he could do this by provoking war with Japan. This claim is supported in two ways: First, FDR was aware of an intercepted diplomatic message between the Japanese ambassador and Von Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister. In the message, Von Ribbentrop states that Germany would join Japan immediately if Japan went to war with the U.S. Furthermore, FDR's cabinet member, Harold Ickes has stated: "For a long time I've believed our best entrance into the war would be [via] Japan...which will inevitably lead to war against Germany." This clearly answers the objection of many -- and a correct one if one does not consider the agreement just described -- that Germany did not otherwise seek war with the U.S.
Furthermore and not surprisingly, many critics of this book who post at this site prefer to use illogical and emotional attacks instead of reason. For example, simply to call something a "conspiracy theory" is not enough to damn Mr. Stinnett's book. In children's circles, this is simply called "name-calling." In adult circles and in debate, this kind of thinking is usually dismissed for what it is -- as an example of either: (1) card stacking since it seeks to prevent consideration of "inconvenient" information or (2) an appeal to the gallery, which seeks to capitalize on the prejudices, ignorance, or preconceptions of the hearers without addressing Stinnett's content at all. This type of statement should immediately remove from serious consideration the opinion of those who offer it because a sneer is not an argument. It is the very same type of behavior used by the pope when he instructed Galileo Galilei to deny what he saw when he looked through his telescope and observed a number of celestial phenomena that did not correspond to the "approved" facts of the time. Critics of this book would -- at another time -- have insisted upon a flat earth.

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Summary: Slow boat to Hawaii
Review: Robert Stinnett's book was published in 1999 but is especially relevant today at a time when the whys and wherefores of America's entry into war and specifically the veracity of the representations made to us by our leaders to induce us to go to war are a front-and-center issue.

If there is one conspiracy theory with "legs", it might be "Pearl Harbor", as Stinnett seems to have found a large number of memoranda, logs, and coded messages (supplemented by interviews with still-living cryptographers) evidencing a far-reaching effort on the part of the Roosevelt administration to antagonize Japan into making precisely the sort of attack on U.S. naval bases in Hawaii that it would end up making on December 7, 1941.

More disturbing is the implication that naval personnel at Pearl Harbor were deliberately kept ignorant of the pending Japanese attack. If there were a plot to provoke an attack that would bring America into the war, would not the attack itself have served the interests of the plotters without need for the loss of life that resulted from unpreparedness on December 7?

Were Roosevelt and his commanders really so indifferent to human life as to allow naval personnel to die needlessly in order to "gild the lily" that the attack itself otherwise would have provided?

It looks as though the Left needs to clean its own house. It looks like they have their own "911" because Stinnett's evidence in the form of broken Japanese codes, tracking of warships, and government warnings that somehow never quite made it to the "intended" recipients at Pearl Harbor suggests that the Roosevelt administration was indeed so indifferent.

But the "smoking gun" drama that Stinnett's revelations should invoke is muted in a hodge-podge of footnotes and appendices that make this book very difficult to read or evaluate. A number of characters strut and fret their way upon the historical stage that Stinnett lights without making a firm impression as to either their identities or to the role that they play on this stage. There is certainly enough information here, however, for others to examine and perhaps to present in more readable format.

Actually, it really isn't even necessary to discuss Pearl Harbor when considering the issue of FDR's indifference to human life. The internment of thousands of American citizens of Japanese descent in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, pursuant to Roosevelt's executive order, is not a disputed factual issue at all and itself illustrates this indifference.

Although there are yet living survivors of Pearl Harbor and of the internment, the incidents that took place over sixty years ago almost themselves fade before the issue of why Roosevelt's historical reputation is scarcely affected by what has always been known about the internment and by ongoing revelations about Pearl Harbor, just as JFK's historical reputation scarcely suffers in the eyes of historians or the general public from what is now KNOWN about his connections with the Mob.

Orwell once wrote that he who controls the past controls the future, and our past seems to be controlled by liberal/Left academics that censor and rewrite history in order to maintain a liberal/Left consensus.

Orwell also wrote that the prospect that the ruling classes might convince their subjects that two plus two equals something other than four frightened him more than bombs. The fact that liberal leaders with deeply-ingrained, sometimes criminal flaws, are STILL being portrayed by "history" as examples of moral uplift is an example of liberal/Left academics and weak sisters among the general public decreeing that two plus two equals five whenever it's necessary.

Perhaps after 60 years, our emphasis should shift away somewhat from the possibility of government conspiracies from bygone days and should focus on the active conspiracies to control the past that are actively and openly taking place in the halls of academia.

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Summary: It's All There!
Review: Since I've already wrote a review of this excellent book, I just wanted to challenge some posters who are either ignoring what is available from it, or ignoring other sources.For those that ask..."how could FDR be sure that Germany would make such a blunder and declare war on the US," the answer is clearly laid out here and in other sources. As part of the Tripartite Pact, Germany...as with each other country, had an agreement to come to the defense of the other if they were declared war upon. While no one could be certain this would happen, there was further corraboration of this on pg. 409 of the governments decoded "Diplomatic Conversations" (re: Magic). Intelligence intercepts from Germany to Japan decoded this message from Hitler: "should Japan become engaged in a war against the United States, Germany, of course, would join the war immediately."Other questions I hear asked are..."why would FDR sacrifice the Pacific Fleet and especially the lives of those stationed there. As Stinnett...and others have rightfully noted, what was left at Pearl after the weeks earlier departure of the heavy ships, was nothing more than the old WWI relics that were planned on being replaced. And while no one wants to think that FDR would sacrifice the lives of others to get us into this war, the fact is, he made a similar suggestion early in 1941 to Admiral Stark. According to Charles Beard in his book, as it is in Stinnett's, FDR "wouldn't mind losing 1 or 2 Cruisers" in Manila to get into this war. As Stinnett points out, these "pop-up" Cruisers could hold up to 900 men per ship. Ironically, it was Admiral Kimmel who objected to this procedure saying..."it is ill-advised and will result in war if we make this move." Fortunately, it was never implimented...and one of the reasons why is because there was never enough American outrage over the loss of US escort ships to German subs in the declared war zones. As many isolationists said at that time, if the US doesn't want to lose lives and ships, stay out of the war zones. This is why PH became that more important.

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Summary: It's All There!
Review: The magnitude of what this book has revealed is unspeakably great to anyone who researches on wartime history of Japan and to any Japanese who is desperately trying to debunk terrible false accusations Japan received from the victorious Allied Powers in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, a.k.a. Tokyo Trial after the World War 2 ended.

The McCollumfs Eight Action Proposal to gprovoke Japan to commit overt act of warh suggested so-called gABCD Encirclementh: Economic encirclement of Japan by America, Britain, China and Dutch.

In May 1951, General Douglas MacArthur stated before the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate; gThere is practically nothing indigenous to Japan except the silk worm. They lack cotton, they lack wool, they lack petroleum products, they lack tin, they lack rubber, they lack a great many other things, all of which was in the Asiatic basin.h And most of those were being imported from abovementioned four countries. Then MacArthur concludes; gThey feared that if those supplies were cut off, there would be 10 to 12 million people unoccupied in Japan. Their purpose, therefore, in going to war was largely dictated by security.h

At the court of the Tokyo Trial, the Prosecutors actually failed to prove Japanfs evil intention to go for the war with China, the U.S.A. and the British and other Allied countries, let alone to gconquer the worldh. They had to admit that the world famous forged document; Tanaka Memorial, which allegedly announced Japanfs cunning plan of conquest of the world, was in fact a forgery.

As for Japanfs starting war against China, the defense counsels almost succeeded to prove Japan had been provoked and harassed by the Chinese Communists with Red Russia behind them, if the trialfs final judgments of guilty verdicts on all defendants had been already fixed from the first. Japan was not Aggressor there, either.

According to some judges who presented dissentient judgments to the trial, like Judge Radhabinod Pal of India and Judge Bert V.A. Roling of Holland, all the verdicts of guilty charges, including Death by Hanging to seven men, was gpresumed guiltyh being against the decent law practice. With no perjury applied to the prosecutorfs side, the trial accepted all evidences presented by the prosecutors even though most of them were in fact groundless hearsay or even mere rumors, while the evidences that would work in favour of the defendants were plainly dismissed altogether.
The trial was just a gvictorfs justiceh.

I have no intention to jump to the conclusion that Japan was pure innocent with all those warfare in the past, but, having seen those undeniable evidences of provocation of Japan by the U.S.A. that Stinnett has revealed before us, I think it is sensible for us all to, at least to say, re-examine whole issue of the war in the light of truly decent International Laws of War and history studies. This is about Calumny made against Japan by the Allied Powers under the name of the gInternational justiceh. Does the International community recognise the responsibility towards the defamation on a country for half a century long? At least, I think, the false accusations on the Japanese individuals should be recognised and in that light true history should be re-studied to see if any other gtrueh aggressors have been overlooked for the sake of the worldfs peace seeking.

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Summary: Claims Long Proven PHONY. A Deceitful Book
Review: The reviewer from Southern California on 26 Sept 2001 make an interesting statement that FDR knew from intercepted dipomatic message that Germany will declared war on US when Japan attacked the United States. Funny that I didn't see that in the book anywhere and for sure, its not in the index. I wondered where that reviewer got his information since I never heard of it. If such thing were true, then FDR may had a case for covering up and allowing the Japanese to attacked.

But since I haven't seen it on paper yet, I have to go along with the fact that if FDR wanted a war with Germany, Japan would be the last source. Did FDR knew that Germany would declared war on US? Did FDR knew that Hitler would make such a stupid blunder that will caused Germany repeat the mistakes of 1917 and if so, how come no one has written about such foresight? Becuase if all the answers to these questions are "NO", then this book don't have a purpose despite of all the nice writing and evidences provided by the author. Without war with Germany, there was no sense in having war with Japan, in fact that would be the exact opposite of what FDR wanted!! Japan's alliance with Germany did not gurantee Germany's declaration since such alliance was of a defensive nature. Why would anyone think that FDR wanted a war with Japan without Germany? If there is an evidence of prior knowledge that Germany will entered the war against the United States with Japan, I would like to know about it. That would be a real conspiracy worth reading about. But I doubt that the Japanese dipomatic corps knew anything about Pearl Harbor planning while Germany was still kind of hoping that Japan would help them against the Russians. But this book does not show such revealing evidence and in the end, its all second guessing, hindsight analysis and conjectures based on very good research but pointless without the real prize.

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Summary: What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?
Review: To the many uninformed, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a devastating surprise. To those knowledgeable, it was not. The author claims that the US Government carefully orchestrated a series of moves to create this attack. Historians learned that some knowledge or warnings of this were known in advance. Dusko Popov's 1972 book tells how he and Ian Fleming visited J. Edgar Hoover in July 1941 to tell of Axis interest in the defenses of Pearl Harbor. The author served in the Navy under Lieutenant George Bush, and earned ten battle stars and a Presidential Unit Citation. After he retired as a photographer and journalist in 1986, he devoted his time to research and writing this book.

Appendix A has Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum's proposed eight actions of October 7, 1940 designed to provoke Japan into attacking. Allying with Britain, Holland, and China; sending heavy cruisers and submarines to the Orient; keeping the fleet in Hawaii; refuse selling oil to Japan; and a trade embargo with Japan. Stinnett does not question America's entry into the war, or even the manipulation to force the Japanese attack. He just wanted to reveal what actually happened; a scoop by a reporter. During 1941 a Japanese spy surveyed Pearl Harbor as a target. His last message on December 6 said it was ready for a surprise attack (p.85). All the time he was watched by Naval Intelligence! The FBI wiretapped the telephones of the Japanese consulate (p.86). But Admiral Kimmel was not informed (p.95). In August 1941 this spy established grid coordinates to prepare for the attack. Their transmissions were intercepted and decoded (p.99). Yet Admiral Kimmel and General Short were not informed (p.107). Did a Rear Admiral leave his ship Saturday to be safe at home Sunday (p.111)?

In early November 1941 Ambassador Joseph Grew warned that Japan decided on war with America (pp.143-4). After Admiral Kimmel ordered a search for Japanese forces north of Hawaii, the White House countermanded his order (p.145). This book is so rich in details that is can't be easily summarized here. Except to note that if Kimmel and Short were kept in the loop, the attack on Pearl Harbor would not have been a surprise. The imperialist conflicts between Japan and Britain, China, and Holland spread like a forest fire. But "the United States desires that Japan commit the first overt act" (p.282). The 'Epilogue' summarizes this book.

"The Wrath To Come" is the title of an E. Phillips Oppenheim novel written in the mid 1920s. Reflecting the politics of that time, this novel suggested a plan for a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and attacks by Germany and Russia along the Atlantic seaboard.