The day on which the US government's first fascist got his way

[fastpat]

Why, yes, when the Japanese Imperial Navy struck Pearl Harbor Navy Base, it was a dream come true for FDR.

The Conspiracies of Empire

by H. Arthur Scott Trask

Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor
by Robert B. Stinnett
New York, NY: Free Press; 260pp., $26.00

The late Murray Rothbard often argued that far from being evidence of a "paranoid" strain in the American mind, belief in conspiracies as a factor in American history was usually not taken far enough. The truth behind most conspiracies, he alleged, was far more heinous and diabolical than even the most diehard conspiracy theorist suspected. While many have assumed Rothbard was only being half serious, a new book on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor by Robert B. Stinnett offers compelling evidence that Murray had it right. The truth that emerges as one makes his way through this exhaustively researched volume is of an American political and military establishment whose brilliance is exceeded only by its utter lack of moral scruple or genuine patriotism. Sixty years after the fateful attack, Stinnett has uncovered, presented, and substantiated the truth behind Pearl Harbor. It is now clear that FDR did know the Japanese attack was coming. He knew more than a year in advance of Japanese plans to bomb the United States’ Pacific fleet at Pearl, and he knew more than a week before that the attack would come early Sunday morning. He knew because American naval intelligence had cracked the Japanese naval codes in the early fall of 1940, 15 months before the fateful attack.

The smoke had barely cleared from Pearl Harbor before rightwing journalists, cranky poets, and some Republican politicians began suspecting that somehow Pearl Harbor was all a set-up. Since then, revisionist historians have contended that FDR both provoked and welcomed the war; and some even charged that he knew of the attack beforehand. Establishment historians and government officials countered these charges by insisting that the attack was indeed a surprise due to a failure of American intelligence and incompetence in the naval high command. Stinnett quotes historian Stephen E. Ambrose who claimed, as recently as a 1999 Wall Street Journal editorial, that "the real problem was that American intelligence was terrible." According to Ambrose (who echoes the official story), the navy had not yet broken the Japanese naval codes, and the Japanese task force maintained strict radio silence on its way to Hawaii. As a result, "in late November, intelligence ‘lost’ the Japanese aircraft carrier fleet." Other historians have contended that the Japanese caught us by surprise due to faulty analysis of pretty good intelligence, bureaucratic squabbling among high-level naval officers in Washington, underestimation of Japanese daring and capabilities, and expectations that the attack would come against Dutch or British possessions in East Asia, not against Hawaii. Stinnett exposes each one of these theories to be false. For instance, he amply demonstrates that the ships of the Japanese carrier fleet engaged in daily radio communication with the high command in Japan, military commands in the Central Pacific, and with each other. Stinnett found out the truth by reading American naval intelligence radio intercepts of the Japanese transmissions. American intelligence did not lose the carriers.

How did Stinnett manage to uncover the truth when congressional investigations (in both 1945-1946 and 1995) failed to do so? The answer lies in Stinnett’s intelligence, integrity, and unflagging research effort (lasting 17 years), qualities that we know from experience are all too lacking in congressional investigations. But it also lies in a crucial Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the author in 1983. In that year, Stinnett learned of the existence of the Pacific War communications intelligence files of the United States Navy (a top secret file containing over one million documents relating to U.S. communication intelligence before and during the war). The author’s request was at first denied, but in 1994 the navy decided to declassify the records, or at least most of them. As the Stinnett soon discovered, key intercepts and documents were kept back, some were missing from the records, and other documents had been altered to conceal vital information. However, enough information was released, perhaps inadvertently, to enable Stinnett to piece together the truth.

American communication intelligence operations in the Pacific theater was primarily a naval operation. The intelligence network was composed of 21 radio intercept stations located along the North American coast from Panama to Alaska and on Pacific islands from Hawaii to the Philippines. As Stinnett demonstrates, well over 90 percent of all Japanese radio transmissions were intercepted by one or more of these stations. Once intercepted, these messages were sent to one of three regional control centers, two of which were also cryptographic centers, and from there they were sent on to Station US in Washington, the headquarters for naval communications intelligence. Of course, all official Japanese communications were in code. Diplomatic messages were sent in the Purple, Tsu, or Oite codes; naval communications in one of 29 codes called the Kaigun Ango, the most important of which were the 5-Num (naval operations), SM (naval movement), S (merchant marine), and Yobidashi Fugo (radio call sign) codes. Stinnett conclusively demonstrates that American cryptologists (codebreakers) had broken all four naval codes by October of 1940. (American intelligence had broken Japanese diplomatic codes even before: Tsu in the 1920s, Oite in 1939, and Purple in September 1940. As a result, cryptologists could intercept, decipher, and translate almost all Japanese diplomatic and military radio traffic within a matter of hours after receiving them. The decryption (decoding) and translating was done at three cryptographic centers: Station CAST on Corregidor in the Philippines; Station HYPO on Oahu; and Station US in Washington.

The resulting intelligence information was then sent to top U.S. military, naval, and cabinet officials, including the president (about 36 individuals in all). However, as Stinnett meticulously and thoroughly demonstrates, crucial intelligence information indicating a Japanese strike at Pearl was deliberately withheld from both Lt. Gen. Walter Short, commander of army forces on Hawaii, and Admiral Husband E. Kimmell, commander of the Pacific fleet. Roosevelt and his advisers had set up these two distinguished officers to be the fall guys for the catastrophe at Pearl. The story of their betrayal by friends and colleagues in the naval high command, all of whom knew of the impending attack and Roosevelt’s strategy of provocation, is heartrending.

In addition to the interception and decryption of Japanese radio transmissions, most of the radio intercept stations were equipped with radio direction finders (RDF) which allowed trained operators to pinpoint the exact location of specific Japanese warships once their distinct radio call sign was identified. By means of RDF, naval intelligence experts were able to track the movement of the Japanese carrier force as it approached Pearl Harbor. Stinnett’s findings confirm the truthfulness of the claim made by the Dutch naval attaché to the United States, Captain Johan Ranneft, that while on visits to the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington on December 2 and 6 he saw intelligence maps tracking the movement of Japanese carriers eastward toward Hawaii. Also, his findings support the testimony of Robert Ogg who claims that while on assignment to the 12th Naval District in San Francisco he located (by means of RDF intelligence) the Japanese fleet north of Hawaii three days before the attack.

Perhaps the single most important document discovered by Stinnett is a 7 October 1940 memorandum written by Lt. Commander Arthur H. McCollum, head of the Far East desk of the Office of Naval Intelligence. McCollum’s memo outlines a strategic policy designed to goad the Japanese into committing "an overt act of war" against the United States. McCollum writes that such a strategy is necessary because "it is not believed that in the present state of political opinion the United States government is capable of declaring war against Japan without more ado." McCollum suggests eight specific "actions" that the United States should take to bring about this result. The key one is "Action F" which calls for keeping "the main strength" of the U.S. Pacific Fleet "in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands." McCollum concludes his memo by stating that "if by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better." Stinnett has little trouble demonstrating that the strategy outlined in this memo became the official policy of the Roosevelt administration. Not only was the memorandum endorsed by Capt. Dudley Knox, one of Roosevelt’s most trusted military advisers, but White House routing logs demonstrate that Roosevelt received the memorandum; and over the next year, Roosevelt put every one of the eight suggested actions into effect. He implemented the last one (Action H) on 26 July 1941 when he ordered a complete embargo of all U.S. trade with Japan.
End part one
Article first published
December 9, 2000
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/trask1.html

[fastpat]

Roosevelt’s summer embargo was the culmination of another very clever administration policy, namely helping the Japanese to build up their military oil reserves just enough to encourage them to attack the United States but not enough to enable them to win a long war. In the summer of 1940, Roosevelt took two actions designed to implement this truly Machiavellian plan. First, he signed a bill authorizing a massive American naval build up designed to create a two-ocean navy. Second, he required American companies to obtain a government license before selling any petroleum products or scrap metal to Japan. For the next 12 months, the administration readily granted export permits to American firms selling raw materials to Japan, and Japanese oil tankers and merchant vessels could be seen loading up on scrap iron and petroleum at America’s West Coast ports. Meanwhile, American naval intelligence, using radio direction finding (RDF), tracked the tankers to the Japanese naval oil depot at Tokuyama. Roosevelt’s strategists calculated that helping the Japanese build up a two-year supply of reserves would be about right. That way, if war broke out in the second half of 1941, the Japanese would run out of oil in mid to late 1943, just as American wartime industrial production would be peaking and her massive carrier fleets (100 proposed carriers) would be ready to go on the offensive. In July 1941, Roosevelt took the final step and, together with the British and Dutch, imposed an embargo on the sale of petroleum, iron, and steel to Japan (McCollum’s Action H). The trap had now been laid, and the Japanese were not slow to fall for it.

Stinnett does not ignore the moral dimensions of the Roosevelt strategy. How did those who knew the attack was coming justify the deliberate sacrifice of over three thousand American lives? A bone-chilling comment by Lt. Commander Joseph J. Rochefort, commander of Station HYPO at Pearl Harbor, provides the answer. In a postwar assessment of the attack made to a naval historian, he remarked of Pearl Harbor that "it was a pretty cheap price to pay for unifying the country." There you have it. Massive deception, lying, the sacrifice of military careers, the betrayal of friends and fellow officers, and the deaths of thousands of American servicemen – all is justified for the cause of inciting a peaceful people to go to war. Stinnett himself is far from being unsympathetic to Roosevelt’s strategy. He agrees with the pre-war interventionists that America needed to go to war against the Axis powers. According to Stinnett, Roosevelt and his advisers "faced a terrible dilemma." The public was overwhelmingly opposed to entering the war, and in a democracy the people are supposed to rule. Yet, Roosevelt believed this war would be both necessary and just. What to do? In the end, they decided that "something had to be endured in order to stop a greater evil."

Here we have yet another example of Americans making use of the doctrine that the end justifies the means. Americans are quick to deny the ethical legitimacy of this doctrine when it is presented to them as a naked proposition, yet there is no doctrine that they more readily turn to in order to justify morally questionable practices. Do not those who defend the nuclear holocaust of Hiroshima and Nagasaki argue as their first line of defense that it was morally justified because it saved American lives? And can we not expect to hear in the near future from those who can no longer deny the truth, "Roosevelt’s duplicity was justified because it was necessary to stop Hitler." The Christian’s response to this question was articulated by Paul two thousand years ago: "And why not say, ‘Let us do evil that good may come’? – as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just." (Romans 3:8 NKJV).

We owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Stinnett. Not only has he uncovered the truth behind Pearl Harbor, but in so doing he has exposed one of the greatest cover stories, or con jobs, of all time – American prewar naval intelligence and high command as keystone cop. After sixty years, America’s brave band of revisionist historians have been vindicated, while her servile crop of court historians have been pretty much disgraced.

[fastpat]

Pearl Harbor Revisionist Resources
Posted by Anthony Gregory at 01:54 PM

In addition to the Trask article Lew links to, I'd like to suggest these resources:

Gary North has a historiographical essay. Alex Cockburn has a good piece on historiography as well.

Here's Justin Raimondo, on the important early work by John Flynn.

Here's Scott Horton, with an amusing exchange between Stinnett and a curator of the National Cryptologic Museum. Listen to Scott interviewing Stinnett here.

And see the really cool Independent Institute archive on Pearl Harbor here. Look especially at some of Stinnett's articles. See also the debate between Stinnett and Stephen Budiansky, author of Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II — the link to this last one is broken in the archive.

[fastpat]

Resource on the Japanese Code breaking mythology. In another thread, someone hid behind this, I'm removing their fig leaf.

Day of Deceit

Wednesday, December 7th, 2005 in Old Posts by Scott Horton|

When I first heard the accusation that FDR had deliberately allowed the attack on Pearl Harbor, on this day in 1941, I thought it impossible. That would be like saying we did it to ourselves. But it turned out that I was wrong. All that it meant was that some individuals did it to others. In this case, Roosevelt and his closest advisors, along with some cooperative officers in the US military, worked to provoke the attack and make sure that Admiral Kimmel and General Short remained in the dark. For certain, as every year around this time, we will have to put up with a bunch of crap about how “military hobbyists and crusty Roosevelt-haters are propounding far-flung theories about presidential treachery,” while in fact the man who proved the case is no Roosevelt-hater, but the furthest thing from it. His name is Robert Stinnett, he’s a veteran of the pacific war and biographer of his fellow veteran George H.W. Bush. Though he proves beyond doubt the case for Roosevelt’s treachery in his book Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor, Stinnett remarkably justifies this action as necessary to get us into the war in Europe.

For just one piece of his smoking gun evidence, take a look at the McCollum memo, which lays out the eight point plan to provoke Japan into attacking first, which was implemented step by step by Roosevelt. See #9 A-H.

US involvement in the so-called “good war,” which laid the foundations of American Empire and has served as the founding myth of the inherent right of the US government to travel around murdering people for their own good was, in fact, begun by the most despicable act of treason against the American people - an act worthy of Adolf Hitler himself.

To listen to my interviews of Mr. Stinnett, click here and here. Get the book here.

Update: Wednesday afternoon I received an email from Patrick D. Weadon, curator of the National Cryptologic Museum, disputing Mr. Stinnett’s claims, and have received a response from Mr. Stinnett to his objections:

Patrick D. Weadon:

Mr. Horton:

Please be advised that Mr. Stinett’s [sic] book is based on faulty evidence. The book claims that the Allies broke the top Japanese naval code(JN25) prior to December 7th 1941. This is nonsense. Small parts of JN25 were cracked in the early 40s but JN25-B ( the upgraded code which was used by the Japanese Navy in days and months leading up to Pearl Harbor) was not cracked until the spring of 1942. If Stinett’s theory is correct it would mean that the United States had forewarning of Japanese naval operations prior to Pearl Harbor but failed to act on the information until June of 1942. This is absurd. In the days and months after Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Army and Navy conquered over a tenth of the earth’s surface. The Allies took it on the chin in places like Wake Island, the Philippines, Singapore and Hong Kong. To think that we sat on the information for months and did nothing with it is crazy.

Stinett is right that the information was being collected prior to Pearl, but he is wrong to assert that it was being read. Some years later the JN25 intercepts were deciphered after the fact. They provided strong evidence, that had it been known at the time may have led to our being prepared for the attack.

I am not alone in pointing out just how wrong Stinett [sic] is in his assertions. Many prominent historians such as David Kahn, Stephen Budiansky, and the late Gordon Prange all agreed that the U.S. myopic focus on Japanese diplomatic traffic, along with the inability to read JN25-B and a general underestimation of Japanese capabilities were the main elements that led to the debacle at Pearl Harbor.

Patrick D. Weadon
Curator
National Cryptologic Museum

Robert Stinnett responds:

Mr. Horton:

Mr. Weadon is relying on 1950 information for his observations. I am surprised he regards the US Navy’s brilliant cryptographic reports of 1941 as “faulty evidence.” Apparently he had not read my book or even consulted the US navy crypto records.

The person putting forth the faulty evidence is Mr. Weadon himself. He quotes the JN-25-B Hoax. Neither the Japanese Navy nor the US Navy used such a code designator in the pre Pearl Harbor period of 1939 to December 1941. Japan’s Naval Operation code was known as Code Book D. Random Number Table Seven in fall of 1941; the USN used the designator “Five Number Code.” The JN-25-B designator originated sometime in early 1943.

The proper question is: When did the US Navy solve Code Book D, Table Seven? The answer is provided by Lieutenant John Lietwiler, commanding officer of Station CAST on Corregidor. Leitwiler, head of 65 naval radio cryptographers on Corregidor reported to Washington that his staff was “current in intercepting, decoding and translating” Japan’s operations code as of November 16, 1941, Manila time. On the same day (November 15 EST) in Washington, DC, General George Marshall chief of Staff of the US Army, called Washington bureau chiefs of major newspapers and magazines to his office, swore them to secrecy and revealed the US had broken the Japanese codes and expected the danger period would be the first week in December 1941.

Mr. Weadon sources are not to be trusted. David Kahn in reviewing my book, Day of Deceit for the New York Review of Books, rewrote the Hawaiian Communication Summary of November 25, 1941, which reported the Commander Carriers of the Japanese fleet was in extensive radio communications with the Japanese admirals leading the submarine attack on Hawaii and invasion forces of Wake and Guam. Mr. Kahn was attempting to cover up reports by Pulitzer Prize winner, John Toland, that the Twelfth Naval District in San Francisco also intercepted the “extensive communications’ with radio direction finders. These reports placed the Commander Carriers, north of Hawaii. Naval intelligence officers who were stationed in San Francisco in 1941, call Mr. Kahn’s report a “journalistic crime.” I have refuted Mr. Kahn’s violation of journalistic ethics in the NYROB and also the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Weadon should get into the 21st century and drop the 1950 nonsense.

Best regards,
Robert Stinnett

[Nostril Cheese]

you ever have anything positive to post?

[sammyg2]

[Cdnone1]

Hey Lews Back! Welcome back Lew

Steve

[Eric 951]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by fastpat
[B]Why, yes, when the Japanese Imperial Navy struck Pearl Harbor Navy Base, it was a dream come true for FDR.


Ummm, actually a "dream come true for FDR" probably would have involved him NOT having polio and losing the loss of his legs.

[fastpat]

Originally squealed by Nostril Cheese
you ever have anything positive to post?

squealed by sammy2

squealed by cdnone1
Hey Lews Back! Welcome back Lew

Steve

squealed by eric 451
Ummm, actually a "dream come true for FDR" probably would have involved him NOT having polio and losing the loss of his legs.

Do you guys ever have anything interesting to post besides personal criticisms of subjects you simply do not understand?

Why don't you all go watch Survivor reruns, it'lll keep away from your non-productive keyboards for hours.

[Nostril Cheese]

TEQUILA!!!!!!!!

[Cdnone1]

Hey Pat
I know that you know everything, but how do you figure that we simple do not understand your Lew Rockwell's posts.
Factualy there was not anything personal or critical in my response. Of course you really don't like to pay attention to facts anyway.
I hate to bring this to your attention but there are a lot of people that think you don't ever have anything interesting to post. You certainly never have any original thoughts.
Please now proceed to call me names and explain my ignorance.
Steve

[Nostril Cheese]

What can you say in response?




Well, It's just Pat..

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Cdnone1
Hey Pat
I know that you know everything, but how do you figure that we simple do not understand your Lew Rockwell's posts.

Factualy there was not anything personal or critical in my response. Of course you really don't like to pay attention to facts anyway.
I hate to bring this to your attention but there are a lot of people that think you don't ever have anything interesting to post. You certainly never have any original thoughts.
Please now proceed to call me names and explain my ignorance.
Steve

It's pretty obvious, Steve. You've never had a criticism of any kind to the content of anything I've posted that I can recall. The first refuge of the non-intellectual is the personal attack, or whining about the post in any way.
Mature, thinking adults that don't like a particular subject simply ignore the posts about that subject, and go to those they do like.

If you don't like being lumped in with the other two childish people that wrote similarly, I'd suggest you act to differentiate yourself from them.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Nostril Cheese
What can you say in response?




Well, It's just Pat..

There you go, I fixed it for you, now you won't have to deal with your obvious androgyny.

[Rearden]

Roos'evelt was the first American fascist?
And you've been telling us Lin'coln was the first one.

Now I'm really confused.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Rearden
Roos'evelt was the first American fascist?
And you've been telling us Lin'coln was the first one.

Now I'm really confused.

Lincoln was a mercantilist, which is a paleo-fascist.

[Danny_Ocean]

Pat,

That's you? I didn't figure you as a geezer. I thought you were "our" age (40-something)...



Well, since you are so opposed to our Government, would you mind sending me your SS checks?


[QUOTE]Originally posted by fastpat
There you go, I fixed it for you, now you won't have to deal with your obvious androgyny. [/QUOTE

[Dan in Pasadena]

Originally posted by fastpat
Lincoln was a mercantilist, which is a paleo-fascist.

Whew, well....I'm glad THAT'S been cleared up.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Dan in Pasadena
Originally posted by fastpat
Lincoln was a mercantilist, which is a paleo-fascist.
Whew, well....I'm glad THAT'S been cleared up.

My pleasure, I'm always here for you guys.

[dd74]

Sorry Pat - couldn't read everything you posted but...

Based on W. potentially reaping financial gain from Iraq, do you think it was the same with FDR? Did he become rich off WWII?