To ensure a successful Japanese attack — one that would enrage America into joining the war — it was vital to keep Kimmel and Short out of the intelligence loop. However, Washington did far more than this to facilitate the Japanese assault.
On November 25th, approximately one hour after the Japanese attack force left port for Hawaii, the U.S. Navy issued an order forbidding U.S. and Allied shipping to travel via the North Pacific. All transpacific shipping was rerouted through the South Pacific. This order was even applied to Russian ships docked on the American west coast. The purpose is easy to fathom. If any commercial ship accidentally stumbled on the Japanese task force, it might alert Pearl Harbor. As Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner, the Navy’s War Plans officer in 1941, frankly stated: “We were prepared to divert traffic when we believed war was imminent. We sent the traffic down via the Torres Strait, so that the track of the Japanese task force would be clear of any traffic.”
The Hawaiian commanders have traditionally been censured for failing to detect the approaching Japanese carriers. What goes unsaid is that Washington denied them the means to do so. An army marching overland toward a target is easily spotted. But Hawaii is in the middle of the ocean. Its approaches are limitless and uninhabited. During the week before December 7th, naval aircraft searched more than two million square miles of the Pacific — but never saw the Japanese force. This is because Kimmel and Short had only enough planes to survey one-third of the 360-degree arc around them, and intelligence had advised (incorrectly) that they should concentrate on the Southwest.
Radar, too, was insufficient. There were not enough trained surveillance pilots. Many of the reconnaissance craft were old and suffered from a lack of spare parts. The commanders’ repeated requests to Washington for additional patrol planes were turned down. Rear Admiral Edward T. Layton, who served at Pearl Harbor, summed it up in his book And I Was There: “There was never any hint in any intelligence received by the local command of any Japanese threat to Hawaii. Our air defenses were stripped on orders from the army chief himself. Of the twelve B-17s on the island, only six could be kept in the air by cannibalizing the others for spare parts.”
The Navy has traditionally followed the rule that, when international relations are critical, the fleet puts to sea. That is exactly what Admiral Kimmel did. Aware that U.S.-Japanese relations were deteriorating, he sent 46 warships safely into the North Pacific in late November 1941 — without notifying Washington. He even ordered the fleet to conduct a mock air raid on Pearl Harbor, clairvoyantly selecting the same launch site Admiral Yamamoto chose two weeks later.
When the White House learned of Kimmel’s move it countermanded his orders and ordered all ships returned to dock, using the dubious excuse that Kimmel’s action might provoke the Japanese. Washington knew that if the two fleets met at sea, and engaged each other, there might be questions about who fired the first shot.
Kimmel did not give up, however. With the exercise canceled, his carrier chief, Vice Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, issued plans for a 25-ship task force to guard against an “enemy air and submarine attack” on Pearl Harbor. The plan never went into effect. On November 26th, Admiral Stark, Washington’s Chief of Naval Operations, ordered Halsey to use his carriers to transport fighter planes to Wake and Midway islands — further depleting Pearl Harbor’s air defenses.
It was clear, of course, that once disaster struck Pearl Harbor, there would be demands for accountability. Washington seemed to artfully take this into account by sending an ambiguous “war warning” to Kimmel, and a similar one to Short, on November 27th. This has been used for years by Washington apologists to allege that the commanders should have been ready for the Japanese.
Indeed, the message began conspicuously: “This dispatch is to be considered a war warning.” But it went on to state: “The number and equipment of Japanese troops and the organizations of naval task forces indicates an amphibious expedition against the Philippines, Thai or Kra Peninsula, or possibly Borneo.” None of these areas was closer than 5,000 miles to Hawaii! No threat to Pearl Harbor was hinted at. It ended with the words: “Continental districts, Guam, Samoa take measures against sabotage.” The message further stated that “measures should be carried out so as not repeat not to alarm civil population.” Both commanders reported the actions taken to Washington. Short followed through with sabotage precautions, bunching his planes together (which hinders saboteurs but makes ideal targets for bombers), and Kimmel stepped up air surveillance and sub searches. If their response to the “war warning” was insufficient, Washington said nothing. The next day, a follow-up message from Marshall’s adjutant general to Short warned only: “Initiate forthwith all additional measures necessary to provide for protection of your establishments, property, and equipment against sabotage, protection of your personnel against subversive propaganda and protection of all activities against espionage.”
Thus things stood as Japan prepared to strike. Using the Purple code, Tokyo sent a formal statement to its Washington ambassadors. It was to be conveyed to the American Secretary of State on Sunday, December 7th. The statement terminated relations and was tantamount to a declaration of war. On December 6th, in Washington, the War and Navy departments had already decrypted the first 13 parts of this 14-part message. Although the final passage officially severing ties had not yet come through, the fiery wording made its meaning obvious. Later that day, when Lieutenant Lester Schulz delivered to President Roosevelt his copy of the intercept, Schulz heard FDR say to his advisor, Harry Hopkins, “This means war.”
During subsequent Pearl Harbor investigations, both General Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, and Admiral Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, denied any recollection of where they had been on the evening of December 6th — despite Marshall’s reputation for a photographic memory. But James G. Stahlman, a close friend of Navy Secretary Frank Knox, said Knox told him FDR convened a high-level meeting at the White House that evening. Knox, Marshall, Stark, and War Secretary Stimson attended. Indeed, with the nation on war’s threshold, such a conference only made sense. That same evening, the Navy Department received a request from Stimson for a list of the whereabouts of all ships in the Pacific.
7th December 1941: Aerial view of the US Hawaiian Air Base at Wheeler Airfield burning after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawaii. Photograph taken by a Japanese bomber during the attack. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
On the morning of December 7th, the final portion of Japan’s lengthy message to the U.S. government was decoded. Tokyo added two special directives to its ambassadors. The first directive, which the message called “very important,” was to deliver the statement at 1 p.m. The second directive ordered that the last copy of code, and the machine that went with it, be destroyed. The gravity of this was immediately recognized in the Navy Department: Japan had a long history of synchronizing attacks with breaks in relations; Sunday was an abnormal day to deliver diplomatic messages — but the best for trying to catch U.S. armed forces at low vigilance; and 1 p.m. in Washington was shortly after dawn in Hawaii!
Admiral Stark arrived at his office at 9:25 a.m. He was shown the message and the important delivery time. One junior officer pointed out the possibility of an attack on Hawaii; another urged that Kimmel be notified. But Stark refused; he did nothing all morning. Years later, he told the press that his conscience was clear concerning Pearl Harbor because all his actions had been dictated by a “higher authority.” As Chief of Naval Operations, Stark had only one higher authority: Roosevelt.
In the War Department, where the 14-part statement had also been decoded, Colonel Rufus Bratton, head of the Army’s Far Eastern section, discerned the message’s significance. But the chief of intelligence told him nothing could be done until Marshall arrived. Bratton tried reaching Marshall at home, but was repeatedly told the general was out horseback riding. The horseback ride turned out to be a long one. When Bratton finally reached Marshall by phone and told him of the emergency, Marshall said he would come to the War Department. Marshall took 75 minutes to make the 10-minute drive. He didn’t come to his office until 11:25 a.m. — an extremely late hour with the nation on the brink of war. He perused the Japanese message and was shown the delivery time. Every officer in Marshall’s office agreed these indicated an attack in the Pacific at about 1 p.m. EST. The general finally agreed that Hawaii should be alerted, but time was running out.
Marshall had only to pick up his desk phone to reach Pearl Harbor on the transpacific line. Doing so would not have averted the attack, but at least our men would have been at their battle stations. Instead, the general wrote a dispatch. After it was encoded it went to the Washington office of Western Union. From there it was relayed to San Francisco. From San Francisco it was transmitted via RCA commercial radio to Honolulu. General Short received it six hours after the attack. Two hours later it reached Kimmel. One can imagine their exasperation on reading it.
Despite all the evidence accrued through Magic and other sources during the previous months, Marshall had never warned Hawaii. To historians — ignorant of that classified evidence — it would appear the general had tried to save Pearl Harbor, “but alas, too late.” Similarly, FDR sent a last-minute plea for peace to Emperor Hirohito. Although written a week earlier, he did not send it until the evening of December 6th. It was to be delivered by Ambassador Grew, who would be unable to receive an audience with the emperor before December 8th. Thus the message could not conceivably have forestalled the attack — but posterity would think that FDR, too, had made “a valiant, last effort.”
The Roberts Commission, assigned to investigate the Japanese attack, consisted of personal cronies of Roosevelt and Marshall. The Commission fully absolved Washington and declared that America was caught off guard due to “dereliction of duty” by Kimmel and Short. The wrath of America for these two was exceeded only by its wrath for Tokyo. To this day, many believe it was negligence by the Hawaii commanders that made the Pearl Harbor disaster possible.
* Though a major exposer of the Pearl Harbor conspiracy, Robert Stinnett is sympathetic regarding FDR’s motives. He writes in his book: “As a veteran of the Pacific War, I felt a sense of outrage as I uncovered secrets that had been hidden from Americans for more than fifty years. But I understood the agonizing dilemma faced by President Roosevelt. He was forced to find circuitous means to persuade an isolationist America to join in a fight for freedom.” In our view, a government that is allowed to operate in such fashion is a government that has embarked on a dangerous, slippery slope toward dictatorship. Nonetheless, Stinnett’s position on FDR’s motives makes his exposé of FDR’s actions all the more compelling.
Kimmel and Short, however, protested the findings of the Roberts Commission, which they viewed as a kangaroo court. Roberts had run an unusual hearing — initially, evidence was heard without being recorded, and statements not made under oath. Kimmel and Short were denied the right to ask questions, cross examine witnesses, or have fellow officers present to serve as legal councel. They also found that the Commission’s report omitted significant testimony.
Members of Congress demanded that they be court-martialed — which was exactly what the two officers wanted: to resolve the issue of Pearl Harbor in a bona fide courtroom, using established rules of evidence, instead of Owen Robert’s personal methods. Courts-martial, however, were feared by the Roosevelt administration, which had secrets concerning Pearl Harbor it wished to conceal. Therefore, it was announced, courts-martial would be held, but delayed “until such time as the public interest and safety would permit.” Roosevelt knew that, if three years ellapsed, the statute of limitations would expire, and Kimmel and Short could no longer be required to face court-martial.
However, the two officers waived the statute of limitations, and in June 1944 a Congressional resolution mandated the trials. That August, the Navy Court of Inquiry and Army Pearl Harbor Board convened.
At these proceedings, the attorney for Kimmel and Short presented undeniable proof that Washington had complete foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack, but had withheld this information from the commanders in Hawaii. As the evidence was presented at the Navy Court of Inquiry, two of the admirals, including chairman Oran Murfin, flung their pencils on the floor in outrage. The court exonerated Admiral Kimmel of all charges and laid the blame squarely on Washington. The Army Pearl Harbor Board also concluded that Washington had full foreknowledge of the attack. Its report closed with these words: “Up to the morning of December 7th, 1941, everything that the Japanese were planning to do was known to the United States.”
The American people had reacted with Kimmel and Short were condemned by the Roberts Commission. How do you suppose they responded to this reversal? The answer: they didn’t respond, because the Roosevelt administration ordered that the trial verdicts be made confidential. The public remained in the dark.
Direct criticism of the President was forbidden to these proceedings as beyond their jurisdiction. But FDR held ultimate responsibility for Pearl Harbor, and the warnings he had received – some of which only later came to light – far exceeded anything they might have dreamed.
Damage Control
Washington now explained that it would conduct additional investigations supplementing the courts of inquiry. Henry Stimson picked Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Henry Clausen – known to disagree with the Army Board findings – to carry out the War Department’s investigation. The Navy Secretary appointed Admiral W. Kent Hewitt. Hewitt’s role, however, was largely titular; most of the operation was carried out by Lieutenant Commander John F. Sonnett.
The ventures were without precedent: a major was to investigate (and overturn) a verdict rendered by generals; a lieutenant commander was to challenge a verdict of admirals.
The game rules were reminiscent of those of the Roberts Commission. Kimmel and his attorneys were refused permission to attend the Hewitt Inquiry, which operated under this directive: “Except that the testimony you take should be taken under oath so as to be on equal status in this respect with the testimony previously taken, you will conduct your examination in an informal manner and without regard to legal or formal requirements.”43
Not surprisingly, witnesses who had testified against Washington now reversed themselves. Colonel Rufus Bratton had informed the Army Pearl Harbor Board that on December 6, 1941, he had delivered the first 13 parts of Japan’s terminative message to General Marshall via his secretary, and to General Gerow, Chief of the War Plans Division. Now in Germany, Bratton was flagged down on the Autobahn by Clausen, who handed him affidavits from Marshall’s secretary and Gerow denying the deliveries were ever made. Confronted with denials from the Army’s highest levels, Bratton recanted, signing a new affidavit.44
Other officers, their memories similarly “refreshed,” retracted their statements about seeing the “Winds” message; now, it seemed, the message never existed. These individuals faced a dilemma. They were career military men. They knew telling the truth would pit them against the Army Chief of Staff and end all hope of promotion.
But one man wouldn’t bend – Captain Laurance Safford, father of naval cryptography. Safford had overseen that branch of naval intelligence for many years. He personally invented some 20 cryptographic devices, including the most advanced used by our armed forces. For his work, he was ultimately awarded the Legion of Merit.
Safford
Safford, who had testified before the Naval Inquiry that he had seen the “Winds” message, was confronted by Sonnett. Safford wrote of this meeting: “His purpose seemed to be to refute testimony (before earlier investigations) that was unfavorable to anyone in Washington, to beguile ‘hostile’ witnesses into changing their stories. . . .” In a memorandum written immediately after the encounter, Safford recorded some of Sonnett’s verbal prods, such as: “It is very doubtful that there ever was a Winds Execute [message]”; “It is no reflection on your veracity to change your testimony”; and, “It is no reflection on your mentality to have your memory play you tricks – after such a long period.”45 Safford realized a colossal coverup was underway, but was not surprised. He had already discovered that all copies of the “Winds” message in Navy files, along with other important Pearl Harbor memos, had been destroyed. Just four days after Pearl Harbor, Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes, director of naval communications, told his subordinates: “Destroy all notes or anything in writing.”46 This was an illegal order – naval memoranda belong to the American people and cannot be destroyed except by Congressional authority. Stories circulated of a similar information purge in the War Department. Some files, however, escaped destruction.
The Clausen and Hewitt inquiries pleased Washington. Equipped with fresh sophistries, the administration produced highly revamped versions of the Army and Navy inquiry findings. The dual Army/Navy announcement came on August 29, 1945 – the very day American troops arrived in Japan, when a rejoicing public was unlikely to care about Pearl Harbor’s origins. The War Secretary’s report shifted the blame back to Short, while saying of General Marshall that “throughout this matter I believe that he acted with his usual great skill, energy, and efficiency.”47 It admitted the Army Board had criticized Marshall, but said this was completely unjustified. The Navy Secretary’s statement again imputed guilt to Kimmel, while asserting that Washington had not been negligent in keeping him informed. It did acknowledge that Admiral Stark should not be given a future position requiring “superior judgement.”
Consequently, Americans didn’t learn what the original inquiries had determined. Of course, anyone wanting to find out for himself could do so when the government released the official record of the hearings connected with Pearl Harbor – if he didn’t mind wading through 40 volumes.
Congress Enters the Act
Only one obstacle remained to burying Pearl Harbor. Congress had long made noises about conducting its own investigation; with the war over, it was sure to do so.
To nip any threat in the bud, the administration sent a bill to both the House and Senate forbidding disclosure of coded materials. It was promptly passed by the Senate, whose members had never heard of Magic and had no idea that the bill would hamstring their forthcoming investigation.
Admiral Kimmel read about the bill in the papers. He and his attorneys notified the press and congressmen about the measure’s implications. As a result, the House voted it down and the Senate rescinded it.
Capitol Hill’s Pearl Harbor probe began in November 1945, when the Joint Congressional Committee assembled. It comprised six Democrats and four Republicans. A split along party lines quickly emerged. The Democrats knew that, even though Roosevelt had recently died, a Pearl Harbor scandal could devastate them at the ballot box. But so long as all six Democrats maintained unswerving party loyalty, a majority decision favoring the administration was inevitable.
The Democrats used their edge to jockey things their way. The counsel chosen for the committee was a Democrat who previously served with Henry Stimson; his assistant was a former New Dealer working for the law firm of Dean Acheson, the Under Secretary of State. A majority vote determined what evidence the committee would review. Several witnesses Kimmel wanted introduced were never called.
Admiral Richardson testifies before Joint Congressional Committee
Coercion prevented others from testifying. Major Warren J. Clear, who had warned the War Department in early 1941 that the Japanese were planning to attack a series of islands including Hawaii, was ordered not to appear before the committee.48 So was Chief Warrant Officer Ralph T. Briggs, the man who had originally intercepted the “Winds” message at a United States monitoring station. He was summoned before his commanding officer, who forbade him to testify. “Perhaps someday you’ll understand the reason for this,” he was told. Briggs had a blind wife to support. He did not come forward as a witness.49
The treatment of Lieutenant Commander Alwin Kramer was cruder. Kramer, who had been in charge of the Navy Department’s Translation Section at the time of Pearl Harbor, and had once testified to having seen the “Winds” message, was confined to a psychiatric ward at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Representative Frank Keefe, a committee Republican, learned of this and vigorously protested.50 Kramer was told that his testimony had better change or he’d be in the ward for the rest of his life. The officer went before the committee, but gave a confusing narrative that essentially denied existence of the “Winds” message.
Captain Laurance Safford, however, remained fearless in his revelations. A campaign to “nail” him was soon evidenced among committee Democrats. Congressman John Murphy, a former assistant DA, put him through a wringer of cross-examination. Safford’s personal mail was read aloud before the committee in an effort to humiliate him. Artful polemics made the captain – naval cryptography’s most eminent man – look forgetful on one hand, vindictive toward superiors on the other.
Safford was accused of being the only one to believe in the “Winds” message. In fact, no less than seven officers had acknowledged seeing it before having their memories “helped.” Perhaps the browbeating of Safford helped inspire Colonel Otis Sadtler of the Signal Corps. During the Clausen investigation, Sadtler had recanted his testimony about the message. Now he came forward and corroborated Safford. (Any doubts about the “Winds” affair have since been dispelled. As historian John Toland reported, both Japanese assistant naval attachés posted at the Washington embassy in 1941, Yuzuru Sanematsu and Yoshimori Terai, have verified that the message was transmitted on December 4th, exactly as Safford said.)51
Sadtler
Sadtler
The Congressional investigation battled on for over six months. In the end, all six Democrats held to the party. One Republican (Congressman Bertrand Gearhart) signed the majority report, reportedly for political reasons,52 and a second, Representative Frank Keefe, signed in exchange for modifications in the findings. An 8-2 majority decision was handed down on Pearl Harbor assigning most of the blame to the Hawaiian commanders, some blame to the War and Navy departments, and none at all to Roosevelt and his civilian administration.
That was the last major official inquiry into Japan’s attack. The lie of Kimmel and Short’s guilt was perpetuated and Washington’s secrets sealed. Congress did conduct a “mini-probe” in 1995, at the urging of the families of General Short (died 1949) and Admiral Kimmel (died 1968). The families hoped to restore the ranks of their libeled, demoted fathers. The 1995 probe requested that the Pentagon reinvestigate Pearl Harbor in light of new information. However, on December 1, 1995, Undersecretary of Defense Edwin Dorn concluded his own investigation with these comments: “I cannot conclude that Admiral Kimmel and General Short were victims of unfair official actions and thus I cannot conclude that the official remedy of advancement on the retired list is in order.”53
Collaboration Pays
Those who cooperated with the Pearl Harbor coverup were generously rewarded. As to the men who served with Owen Roberts on the Roberts Commission:
Though he had been retired since 1936, five months after signing the commission’s report Rear Admiral Reeves was advanced to full admiral for “eminent and conspicuous service in the Spanish-American war,” his gallantry discovered by Roosevelt 44 years after the fact.54
In January 1942, the same month that he signed the commission’s report, Brigadier General McNarney was promoted to major general, and subsequently lieutenant general, full general, and after the war commanding general of American occupation forces in Germany.
After signing the report, Admiral Standley received the Distinguished Service Medal, and the following month (April 1942) was appointed ambassador to the Soviet Union.
Retired General Frank McCoy became chairman of the Far Eastern Commission.
As to other major figures in the coverup:
General Marshall was made America’s first five-star general (no such designation had previously existed). Subsequently he enjoyed stints as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense.
Brigadier General Gerow was made a lieutenant general and commander of the 15th U.S. Army.
Lieutenant Colonel Henry Clausen, who oversaw the inquiry that revamped the findings of the Army Pearl Harbor Board, went on to spend 16 years as the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite in the Southern Jurisdiction, same position Albert Pike held. In other words, he became the highest-ranking Freemason in America. (Given that President Roosevelt was a 33rd degree Freemason, and that Marshall was a Freemason as well, it is perhaps not surprising that Clausen’s report absolved Roosevelt and Marshall of any wrongdoing. One would not be unjustified in wondering if Masonic handshakes and countersigns preceded the launching of the Clausen investigation.)
Secretary of State Cordell Hull received the 1945 Nobel Peace Prize.
As to men who sought to tell the truth about Pearl Harbor, such as Captain Laurance Safford, Colonel Otis Sadtler, and Colonel Rufus Bratton, their careers did not advance.
Some postscripts
On May 25, 1999, the U.S. Senate approved a resolution that Kimmel and Short had performed their duties “competently and professionally” and that our losses at Pearl Harbor were “not a result of dereliction of duty.” “They were denied vital intelligence that was available in Washington,” said Senator William V. Roth, Jr. Senator Strom Thurmond called Kimmel and Short “the last victims of Pearl Harbor.”55
Former Justice Dept. official Daryl Borgquist discovered from examination of the drafts of Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech that work on it was begun on December 6, the day before the actual attack. And from Helen E. Hamman, daughter of Don Smith, who directed the Red Cross’s War Service before World War II, we have the following quote which appeared in the June 2, 2001 Washington Times:
Shortly before the attack in 1941, President Roosevelt called him [my father] to the White House for a meeting concerning a top‑secret matter. At this meeting, the president advised my father that his intelligence staff had informed him of a pending attack on Pearl Harbor, by the Japanese. He anticipated many casualties and much loss; he instructed my father to send workers and supplies to a holding area. When he protested to the president, President Roosevelt told him that the American people would never agree to enter the war in Europe unless they were attacked within their own borders. . . . He followed the orders of his president and spent many years contemplating this action, which he considered ethically and morally wrong. I do not know the Kimmel family, therefore would gain nothing by fabricating this situation, however, I do feel the time has come for this conspiracy to be exposed and Admiral Kimmel vindicated of all charges. In this manner perhaps both he and my father may rest in peace.
Joel Skousen adds a couple of additional pieces of evidence of foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack in his WorldAffairsBrief.com:
On this anniversary of Pearl Harbor, when we are subjected to the establishment view ad nauseum, it’s refreshing to have more truth on the subject courtesy of a book review by Patrick J. Buchanan:
“On Dec. 8, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt took the rostrum before a joint session of Congress to ask for a declaration of war on Japan. ‘We have only one job to do now, and that is to defeat Japan.’
But to friends, ‘the Chief’ sent another message: ‘You and I know that this continuous putting pins in rattlesnakes finally got this country bit.’
“Today, 70 years after Pearl Harbor, a remarkable secret history, written from 1943 to 1963, has come to light. It is [Herbert] Hoover’s explanation of what happened before, during and after the world war that may prove yet the death knell of the West.
“Edited by historian George Nash, Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath, is a searing indictment of FDR and the men around him as politicians who lied prodigiously about their desire to keep America out of war, even as they took one deliberate step after another to take us into war.
“Yet the book is no polemic. The 50-page run-up to the war in the Pacific uses memoirs and documents from all sides to prove Hoover’s indictment. And perhaps the best way to show the power of this book is the way Hoover does it — chronologically, painstakingly, week by week.
“Consider Japan’s situation in the summer of 1941. Bogged down in a four year war in China she could neither win nor end, having moved into French Indochina, Japan saw herself as near the end of her tether. Inside the government was a powerful faction led by Prime Minister Prince Fumimaro Konoye that desperately did not want a war with the United States.
“The pro-Anglo-Saxon camp included the navy, whose officers had fought alongside the U.S. and Royal navies in World War I, while the war party was centered on the army, Gen. Hideki Tojo and Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, a bitter anti-American. On July 18, 1941, Konoye ousted Matsuoka, replacing him with the ‘pro-Anglo-Saxon’ Adm. Teijiro Toyoda.
“The U.S. response: On July 25, we froze all Japanese assets in the United States, ending all exports and imports, and denying Japan the oil upon which the nation and empire depended. Stunned, Konoye still pursued his peace policy by winning secret support from the navy and army to meet FDR on the U.S. side of the Pacific to hear and respond to U.S. demands. U.S. Ambassador Joseph Grew implored Washington not to ignore Konoye’s offer, that the prince had convinced him an agreement could be reached on Japanese withdrawal from Indochina and South and Central China. Out of fear of Mao’s armies and Stalin’s Russia, Tokyo wanted to hold a buffer in North China.
“On Aug. 28, Japan’s ambassador in Washington presented FDR a personal letter from Konoye imploring him to meet. Tokyo begged us to keep Konoye’s offer secret, as the revelation of a Japanese prime minister’s offering to cross the Pacific to talk to an American president could imperil his government. On Sept. 3, the Konoye letter was leaked to the Herald-Tribune.
“On Sept. 6, Konoye met again at a three-hour dinner with Grew to tell him Japan now agreed with the four principles the Americans were demanding as the basis for peace. No response. On Sept. 29, Grew sent what Hoover describes as a ‘prayer’ [petition] to the president not to let this chance for peace pass by. On Sept. 30, Grew wrote Washington, ‘Konoye’s warship is ready and waiting to take him to Honolulu, Alaska or anyplace designated by the president.’
“No response. On Oct. 16, Konoye’s cabinet fell. In November, the U.S. intercepted two new offers from Tokyo: a Plan A for an end to the China war and occupation of Indochina and, if that were rejected, a Plan B, a modus vivendi where neither side would make any new move. When presented, these, too, were rejected out of hand at a Nov. 25 meeting of FDR’s war council. Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s notes speak of the prevailing consensus: ‘The question was how we should maneuver them (the Japanese) into … firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.”
“As Grew had predicted, Japan, a ‘hara-kiri nation,’ proved more likely to fling herself into national suicide for honor than to allow herself to be humiliated. Out of the war that arose from the refusal to meet Prince Konoye came scores of thousands of U.S. dead, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the fall of China to Mao Zedong, U.S. wars in Korea and Vietnam, and the rise of a new arrogant China that shows little respect for the great superpower of yesterday.”
The seminal work on Roosevelt’s six point plan to induced Japan to war is Robert Stinnett’s “Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor.” The NSA published some disinformation trying to debunk Stinnett’s interpretation of the intercepted codes that proved FDR knew of the coming attack, but Stinnett successfully debunked the government: http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2008/12/10/stinnett-responds-to-nsas-pearl-harbor-claims/
ANOTHER SOURCE CONFIRMS US PLANNED PEARL HARBOR ATTACK (from a later brief)
It was predicted a week in advance and was headline in two of the island’s newspapers. Keith Stimely writes that, “Joseph Leib, a former New Deal bureaucrat and retired newspaper correspondent, wrote an article which appeared several years ago in Hustler magazine, ‘Pearl Harbor: The Story the Rest of the Media Won’t Tell,’ in which he claimed that his friend, Secretary of State Hull, had confided to him on 29 November 1941 that J. Edgar Hoover and FDR knew that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor within a few days, and that the President, over Hull’s strident objections, was going to let this happen as a way to get the country into war.
Based on Hull’s leak of Japanese radio intercepts, the Hilo Tribune Herald as well as the Honolulu Advertiser were able to predict the attack
“Hull’s dilemma was that he could not reveal this openly to the press, since the White House would simply denounce him, and no one would believe him. He turned over to Leib a document containing a transcript of Japanese radio intercepts which supposedly detailed the Pearl Harbor plan, making the reporter promise never to reveal the source. Leib rushed the story, minus the identification of Hull, to the United Press bureau, which refused to run it since it was so incredulous. But Leib did manage to persuade UP’s cable editor, Harry Frantz, to transmit it on the foreign cable. Although the story managed somehow to get garbled in transmission, it did create a front-page banner headline in the Sunday, 30 November, Honolulu Advertiser: JAPANESE MAY STRIKE OVER WEEKEND! Thus Leib, writing in 1983, has finally cleared up the mystery of the origins of that headline, which has always been a particularly curious part of the Pearl Harbor puzzle.”
In Day of Deceit, Robert Stinnett delivers the definitive final chapter on America’s greatest secret and our worst military disaster.
Drawing on twenty years of research and access to scores of previously classified documents, Stinnett proves that Pearl Harbor was not an accident, a mere failure of American intelligence, or a brilliant Japanese military coup. By showing that ample warning of the attack was on FDR’s desk and, furthermore, that a plan to push Japan into war was initiated at the highest levels of the U.S. government, he ends up profoundly altering our understanding of one of the most significant events in American history.
If you are one of those who senses that something just isn’t right with the explanations we are given for wars, our dying economy, and other world events, this book may be just right for you. Countless lies have been planted in the corporate-controlled media to benefit the rich and the few; these lies have become “fact” through the mechanism of frequent repetition. Refuting such lies with credibility requires in-depth analysis. Therefore, beware of reviews of this book which attempt to debunk it by pulling a sentence or idea out of context.
Perloff covers Pearl Harbor in his first chapter and proceeds to show how other U.S. wars were instigated by a powerful elite.
A revealing and controversial account of the events surrounding Pearl Harbor:
Evidence that FDR and his top advisors knew about the planned Japanese attack but remained silent.
Includes the conspiracy afterwards to cover up the facts and find scapegoats for the greatest disaster in US military history.
Admiral Kimmel was blamed for Pearl Harbor’s ‘surprise attack’, but after finally getting his day in a real court, his attorney’s were able to provide undisputable evidence that not only was he not to blame, but that Washington had complete foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack, and had withheld this information from the commanders in Hawaii.
Rear Admiral Robert A. Theobald makes the case (and a very good one) that Franklin Delano Roosevelt deliberately left Pearl Harbor commanders in the dark with regard to the threat of a Japanese attack in order to rally the American people into entering World War II.
I believe this book makes it abundantly clear that something was amiss in the way the Roosevelt administration handled the intelligence data that indicated Japan was preparing to attack the United States.
While other localities of military interest were fully cognizant of the ongoing evidence, the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii was kept out of the loop. Additionally, Pearl Harbor itself was given orders that were inconsistent with military intelligence and in fact suggest that Pearl Harbor was purposely weakened in order to make it more vulnerable (and hence attractive) to a Japanese attack.
The military officials who were responsible for informing Pearl Harbor of the unfolding events either were collectively incompetent or were given strict orders not to propagate pertinent information to Hawaii. And since many of these commanders reported directly to Commander-in-Chief FDR, Theobald believes (and I concur) that it was FDR’s intention to ensure a Pearl Harbor slaughter of sufficient magnitude to change public opinion towards favoring entry into World War II.
On the evidence alone, I believe Rear Admiral Theobald makes a case sufficient to render a guilty verdict on FDR. But it is even more compelling given the documented corruption of FDR throughout his years in office.
It is sad that America has erected a memorial to FDR in Washington, D.C. The sacrificing of American military men and women in order to effect public opinion is unforgivable. FDR’s mythic legacy should be tossed onto the ash heap of history where every other evil and false ideology is placed.
Did U.S. intelligence know of Japan’s coming attack on Pearl Harbor? Did President Roosevelt know? If so, why did he withhold warnings from the commanders in Hawaii? The answers are embedded in the cogent analysis of The Pearl Harbor Myth. Based on voluminous data that does not appear in other books on the topic, it discusses in detail Roosevelt’s developing strategy-both military and diplomatic-and his secret alliances to save the world from Hitler. It contains a wealth of fresh material on secret diplomacy; on secret military strategy, planning, and intelligence; and on disguised combat operations that began six months before the Pearl Harbor attack.
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In Day of Deceit, Robert Stinnett delivers the definitive final chapter on America’s greatest secret and our worst military disaster.
If you are one of those who senses that something just isn’t right with the explanations we are given for wars, our dying economy, and other world events, this book may be just right for you. Countless lies have been planted in the corporate-controlled media to benefit the rich and the few; these lies have become “fact” through the mechanism of frequent repetition. Refuting such lies with credibility requires in-depth analysis. Therefore, beware of reviews of this book which attempt to debunk it by pulling a sentence or idea out of context.
A revealing and controversial account of the events surrounding Pearl Harbor:
Admiral Kimmel was blamed for Pearl Harbor’s ‘surprise attack’, but after finally getting his day in a real court, his attorney’s were able to provide undisputable evidence that not only was he not to blame, but that Washington had complete foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack, and had withheld this information from the commanders in Hawaii.
Rear Admiral Robert A. Theobald makes the case (and a very good one) that Franklin Delano Roosevelt deliberately left Pearl Harbor commanders in the dark with regard to the threat of a Japanese attack in order to rally the American people into entering World War II.
Did U.S. intelligence know of Japan’s coming attack on Pearl Harbor? Did President Roosevelt know? If so, why did he withhold warnings from the commanders in Hawaii? The answers are embedded in the cogent analysis of The Pearl Harbor Myth. Based on voluminous data that does not appear in other books on the topic, it discusses in detail Roosevelt’s developing strategy-both military and diplomatic-and his secret alliances to save the world from Hitler. It contains a wealth of fresh material on secret diplomacy; on secret military strategy, planning, and intelligence; and on disguised combat operations that began six months before the Pearl Harbor attack.