FDR Conspiracy to bomb Pearl Harbor

World War II General WWII Discussion
#1

This thread has been transferred from http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showthread.php?3667-Should-the-atomic-bombs-have-been-dropped-on-Hiroshima-and-Nagasaki/page55 after post #817

According to the directives of Orange Plan, Pearl Harbor doesn’t look like a " sneak attack" after all:

The Navy Base War Plan Orange for 1938 contained three new assumptions inspired by extensive Army revisions to the Joint Plan, which eliminated all references to offensive warfare: (1) outbreak of war would be preceded by a period of strained relations; (2) Orange would attack without warning; and (3) a superior US fleet would operate west of Hawaii
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/war-plan-orange.htm

Based on documents available by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), author Robert B. Stinnett wrote a well documented book that states that Pearl Harbor was not only foreknowledged but provoked by warmongers in the US, strangling Japan’s economy by an oil and raw materials embargo which put Japan in the disjunctive of accepting being a second order power subordinated to the US interests or try to impose it’s will through the war…

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.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/trask1.html

Another quote on this topic from the Independent:

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…”
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=408

#2

Well, there is the other conspiracy theory that Churchill withheld from Roosevelt knowledge of the impending Pearl Harbor attack so that America would be drawn into the war, but the problem with that for Stinnett adherents is that the Churchill conspiracy requires Roosevelt to be ignorant of Japanese intentions.

As for Stinnett’s theory:

A Cryptologic Veteran’s Analysis of
“Day of Deceit”
By: Philip H. Jacobsen

The author, Robert B. Stinnett, made a thorough search of National Archives files other repositories and contacted numerous personnel to justify his long held belief that President Franklin D. Roosevelt not only actively fomented war with Japan as a pretext to aid Britain in its fight with Hitler but that he purposely made Pearl Harbor an attractive target for the Japanese Navy. Then (as the theory goes) after learning of the of the Japanese plan to attack Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt (through conspiracies continuing today) not only kept Admiral Kimmel and General Short from obtaining information on Japanese intentions to attack Pearl Harbor but ordered or had ordered actions that prevented those commanders from discovering the Kido Butai and adequately defending Pearl Harbor from the expected attack by the Japanese.

“Day of Deceit” argues that Roosevelt was convinced the loss at Pearl Harbor must be of sufficient magnitude to overcome the isolationist views of the general public so that he could safely declare war on both Japan and Germany. Furthermore, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt through his co-conspirators (who apparently include General Marshall, Admirals Stark, Ingersoll, Anderson, Captain Turner and Commander McCollum and by implication Admiral Noyes, Captain Redman, Commander Rochefort and many others), attempted to cover up his and his co-conspirators’ dastardly deeds. However, through Stinnett’s foresight, expertise and diligence, he was able to see through this monstrous conspiracy and its cover-up to reveal its details to us some 58 years later when all previous efforts by revisionist conspiracy theorists have failed and all the participants are dead and cannot defend themselves. Nevertheless, this book will sell well among rabid Roosevelt haters, many Kimmel and Short supporters, and dedicated conspiracy theorists.

Beginning in World War I with the nascent United States involvement in cryptology, followed by the Yardley Black Chamber, the book rapidly progresses into the beginnings of the Army involvement in cryptology after Secretary of State Stimson closed the Yardley Black Chamber. Mr. William Friedman, who headed the Army’s Signal Intelligence Service since 1929, in 1930 hired three mathematician assistants, Mr. Frank Rowlett, Mr. Solomon Kullback, and Mr. Abraham Sinkov. (According to Mr. Rowlett in his book The Story of Magic it was called Signal Intelligence Section. The Section was part of the Army Signal Corps, and the immediate boss was actually Major Crawford, USA, who reported directly to the Chief Signal Officer). The four individuals functioned in a small secure space in the third wing of the old Munitions Building on Constitution Avenue, Washington, D.C. until the beginning of WW II.

In an effort to support his conspiracy theory, Stinnett came up with many new documents not generally known to be available. However, these documents do not add anything new to the question of who knew what and when. In his zeal, he misinterprets not only some of these “new” documents but comes up with radically new meanings for the plain words and characterizations of well accepted documentation already available in this Pearl Harbor arena. One of the centerpieces of his argument is an October 1940 memorandum by then Lieutenant Commander McCollum of ONI in response to the September 1940 signing of the Tripartite Pact by Germany, Italy and Japan and not as any blueprint for initiating war with Germany and Japan. McCollum recognized the danger to the western powers if Japan was able to connect up with Germany and Italy through Asia and suggested eight actions designed to contain Japan generally and to keep her from making such connection with its other Axis partners. Unfortunately, the book seizes on an off hand comment that is not one of the main points of the memo as the springboard for its conspiracy theory. That comment was if the eight proposed actions designed to contain Japan should by chance cause Japan to commit an overt act of war, so much the better. No proof of any official implementation of this mid-level memo is provided. Furthermore, Stinnett improperly ascribes McCollum’s office as “an element of Station US (by which he means OP-20-G), a secret American cryptographic center located at the main naval headquarters” in an effort to tie McCollum closer to OP-20-G than he actually was before WWII. A non-cryptologic fallacy of the book is the fact that Roosevelt had no assurance that Germany would declare war on the U.S. if the Japanese did attack Pearl Harbor thus negating any reasonable conspiratorial design to get the U.S. into war with Germany by forcing Japan to attack the U.S.

It is well established that the SRN series of Japanese naval messages in the National Archives were decrypted in 1945-46 and translated in 1946-47, but Stinnett incorrectly suggests they may only have been transcribed at those times and that these decrypts (or at least some of them) were available not only in radio intelligence centers in Washington, but Stations Hypo (Rochefort) in Hawaii and Cast on Corregidor. Among other things, the book misinterprets an article by Captain Pelletier in the “Cryptolog.” Even though Pelletier is now dead, he also wrote in the NCVA History Book that all such JN-25B raw messages were two months old by the time he saw them in Washington and that no Kido Butai transmissions while enroute from the Kuriles to Hawaii were ever found before or after 7 December 1941. Further, the book fails to inform its readers that Rochefort and his Hypo personnel were only assigned to and only worked on the unproductive Flag Officer’s Code and not the main Japanese Fleet Code JN-25B as well as the fact that they were only given the go ahead to work on JN-25B a few days or so after the Pearl Harbor attack. As mentioned before, Stinnett also omits the well known information that JN-25B intercepts from Corregidor, Guam and Station H were only forwarded to Washington by mail and took up to two months to arrive mostly by ship and rail. Thus, even Washington’s alleged 10 percent capability on JN-25B decrypts had not even begun to be applied to the November and December 1941 intercepts enroute there while Stinnett maintains they were available to all commanders except of course Kimmel and Short due to FDR’s co-conspirators.
continued

#3

The book implies more improprieties by the fact that Hypo had no assigned Japanese diplomatic intercept or decrypt authority until RCA President Sarnoff made available RCA cables from Honolulu beginning in early December 1941. Part of Stinnett’s overall conspiracy theory includes the allegation that Hypo only decrypted the administrative messages of these low level Japanese diplomatic messages provided by RCA before Pearl Harbor and did not decrypt the “bomb plot” messages until after Pearl Harbor.

Although Stinnett obtained definite information from Captain Whitlock that no significant JN-25B decrypts were made by Station Cast on Corregidor during the period in question, he disputes this fact and misinterprets other documents and sources as proof that Whitlock is wrong. Some navy cryptologic veterans involved in this book have complained Stinnett gained their confidence by agreeing to tell their stories but ignored their version of events in favor of the monstrous conspiracy theory finalized in the book. Admiral Layton terminated his interview with the author, most likely when he learned where the book was going. It should be noted that it took OP-20-G some 14 months to read the much simpler JN-25A system that was used from 1 June 1939 to 1 December 1940. The book misleads its readers by not revealing there were two distinct codes, the earlier JN-25A and its much more complicated successor JN-25B used during the period in question and refers to them collectively as “Code Book D” or “5-Num code.” Thus, the final successes of JN-25A are improperly imputed to JN-25B which was not read to any significant extent until March 1942 when the first published decrypt is found. The ever-increasing requirements to provide Japanese diplomatic decrypts and translations during 1941 took most of the time of navy cryptographers so that few people at both Washington and Station Cast were assigned to work on the new version of the Fleet Code, JN-25B. In addition, JN-25B used about eight additive cipher books up through 4 December 1941 further delaying the effort to read any significant amount of this new and far more complicated code and cipher combination.

Stinnett and his sources are apparently not aware that Japanese naval shore broadcast stations transmitted simultaneously on a number of frequencies covering their communications area and it was up to the ships in their communications zone (or U.S. intercept operators) to choose the best frequency on which to copy such broadcast. Thus, the deduction that because an intercept operator copied one message in the 12 MHz. range part of one day and 16 MHz. on part of a different later day means the ship or force has moved further away from the shore station is patently incorrect. These Tokyo broadcast transmitters were active on several of their assigned frequencies simultaneously and the 16 MHz. frequency had long been used by the Tokyo broadcast as a daytime frequency.

Stinnett often claims carriers or fleet units must have transmitted on high frequencies when they are only seen in the headings of messages on fleet broadcasts. He does not tell his readers that many ships are tied up at docks and have landline or cable communications available to them so they do not have to use radio and the original transmissions of such messages will never be heard by foreign intercept operators. In this regard, he maintains that Admiral Yamamoto’s messages sent (while tied up at a Kure dock) to the Pearl Harbor attack force and other ships on the Tokyo broadcast violated radio silence when, in fact, the radio silence imposed then only meant that ships (or aircraft) are not permitted to transmit by high frequency radio, not that messages to these units cannot be sent by fleet broadcasts or that fleet units or commands that have landline, cable or other approved facilities available to them cannot use them.

Apparently, Stinnett did come up with records to substantiate Hypo’s summaries about the carrier Agaki being active on the air on 26 and 30 November 1941. However, there is no documentation that any high frequency direction finder (HFDF) fixes were available to Hypo on such transmissions. The single line bearings reportedly obtained by Corregidor’s old DY-2 HFDF went by the island of Honshu as well as the Kurile Islands and the former location with acceptable HFDF variations was within Hypo’s previous general determination of carrier locations. According to the book, a possible cross bearing from Dutch Harbor was found in that station’s November monthly report that did not reach Station H until after 7 December and for some reason was not reproduced in the book. No documentary evidence was shown that such bearing was actually transmitted to Station H or subsequently forwarded to Rochefort at Hypo except a general statement as to routine forwarding by a Dutch Harbor operator.

Although the book claims more carrier and carrier commander transmissions were made after 26 and 30 November, this information is apparently due to a misinterpretation of the TESTM reports from Corregidor to Station H and a misunderstanding of traffic analysis procedures identifying call signs appearing in broadcast and point to point messages sent by shore communication stations. The single TESTM report provided in the book first lists the transmissions heard and their bearings and such bearings are mainly on unidentified call signs. Then, any fleet level call signs identifications made from the traffic analysis of message headings in shore station transmissions by Station Cast are given. In his enthusiasm to support its conspiracy theory, Stinnett apparently assumes that the latter call sign identifications by traffic analysis of shore station transmissions actually represent high frequency radio transmissions by such fleet units and commanders. Layton, Pelletier and Whitlock among others deny such transmissions were ever received. One wonders why Stinnett did not reproduce the other two TESTM reports upon which he relies to make his specific allegations to clarify his identification and deductive processes, especially since the one page reproduced does not support his allegations.
continued

#4

Gross misinterpretations of two decrypts and translations in the SRN series at the National Archives make up the other parts of the book’s centerpiece of its conspiracy theory. In an effort to give some credence to its allegation of a massive conspiracy, the book contradicts the plain meaning on the face of translations of these two decrypted messages, established Japanese naval communications practice, and standard decryption procedures. These messages were reported on long ago by Frederick D. Parker in “Cryptologia” Vol. 15 (4) p. 295. However, Parker fully reported that JN-25B was being decrypted at best on a 10 percent basis in Washington and those November and December 1941 raw messages discussed were enroute to Washington D.C. so that they were not available to be worked on until long after the Pearl Harbor attack. The glaring omission in the book of this vital “unavailability” information is instructive.

The first decrypt refers to naval spy Suzuki who was sent to the First Air Fleet on business to be picked up on 23 or 24 November at Hitokappu Wan (Bay). It is abundantly clear from the document that Hitokappu Wan is spelled out letter by letter in five numeral code groups of JN-25B because there was no two or three letter coded geographic designation available for this remote location (like AF for Midway Island.) Nevertheless, the book baldly claims, without any substantiation, that the words Hitokappu Wan were sent in plain language while the rest of the message was sent in code, an incredible absurdity. No other examples of plain language inserts within a high level Japanese naval coded message were ever claimed or reported. No one else has had the temerity to make such a ridiculous assertion when confronted with the JN-25B code designation on the face of the decrypt and no reference to a plain language insert in the decrypt.

The second gross misinterpretation contained in the book is that Yamamoto’s famous message of 2 December 1941 only referred to as “Climb Mount. Niitaka 1208” may have been sent in plain language. If so, it implies Rochefort knew of these two plain language “busts” by the Japanese and therefore is part of the conspiracy for not reporting them in his summaries. For this strong implication, one Japanese historian is cited saying the message was sent in the clear while Yamamoto’s biographer is identified as saying the message was encoded in a five numeral code (JN-25B). Captain Pelletier in the Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association History Book confirmed this message was sent in JN-25. To show the extreme lengths the book will go to conjure up his implication of conspiracy, it omits the fact in the narrative that this message labeled SRN 115376 by the National Archives had a cryptographer’s reference below the heading clearly showing that it was encoded in JN-25B. Furthermore, Stinnett does not clearly point out to his readers that “Climb Mount Niitaka” was prefaced by the words, “This dispatch is Top Secret. This order is effective at 1730 on 2 December #10.” Can you imagine the Japanese sending a Top Secret message in the clear and depending on a transparent underlying meaning for security? Except for battle tactical reports during the war, the Japanese seldom used plain language and even then preferred tactical codes. These are only a small part of the omissions, errors and misinterpretations contained in the book to try to make its revisionist conspiracy theory seem plausible to the uninitiated.

The book also resurrects the old allegations of Robert D. Ogg, a seaman in the 12th Naval District Intelligence office, and disregards Ogg’s recorded interview by then Commander Newman that he only plotted two very closely parallel bearings from California stations 100 miles apart. Stinnett now says Ogg had prewar information on Japanese warship transmissions in the Kuriles with HFDF bearings by Dutch Harbor in spite of Ogg’s original transcript to the contrary.

The old and thoroughly repudiated hearsay report of dead Dutch codebreakers’ prewar determinations that Japanese carriers were in the North Pacific enroute to Hawaii are regurgitated by the book. Only now it has the Dutch putting them in the Kuriles instead of the North Pacific. Stinnett also repeats Parker’s reporting of the tanker Shiriya moving eastward from the Bonin Islands in a 1 December 1941 message (SRN 115398) to Destroyer Division 7 with the Kido Butai that was intercepted on the Tokyo broadcast. Again, he does not tell his readers that this JN-25B message was only decrypted in 1945-46 and translated in 1946-47 and that the raw intercept was enroute to Washington DC in the U.S. postal system on 7 December 1941.

To further its revisionist conspiracy theory, the book argues that government censors are still withholding the publication of decryptions (and translations) of hundreds of vital Japanese naval messages whose secrecy is a part of this monstrous conspiracy. Stinnett points to missing Station Message Serial (SMS) numbers and missing versions of original transmissions by fleet units and commanders (supposedly on high frequency radio) that appear on shore station fleet broadcasts to naval ships and point to point circuits. However, the book does not mention that after the war navy analysts discovered that about 7,000 Japanese naval messages per month were forwarded to Washington from Corregidor, Guam and Hawaii from July to December 1941. During the expanded intercept coverage of WWII, an OP-20-G official estimated that the U.S. intercepted 60 percent of Japanese naval traffic. Therefore, far more than 10,000 messages were probably sent over the airways by the Japanese Navy per month in the months before Pearl Harbor and less than 60 percent were actually intercepted. Thus, the missing SMS numbers and original transmissions could be accounted for by missed intercepts and transmissions originated by landline, cable, visual means or even hand carried to shore radio stations. In fact, there was a cable office at Hitokappu Wan available to fleet units to send messages to Tokyo without transmitting on high frequency radio.

Again, in 1945-46 analysts decrypted those intercepts from the Pacific that were available in Washington. A total of 26,581 messages in seven different crypto systems were intercepted between 5 September and 4 December 1941. Between 15 March 1946 to 20 August 1947, OP-20-G analysts and linguists from ONI undertook the study of these 26,581 post war decrypts and only 2,413 were considered important enough for full translations. Of these, only 188 were isolated as pertaining specifically to the events of 7 December 1941. This information contradicts Stinnett’s assertion that government censors are withholding disclosure of hundreds of vital decrypted and translated messages in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy by President Roosevelt and many top an middle level government officials. Those 2,413 messages that were translated in this period are available in the SRN series and no other decrypts or translations are available for this period of time…

continued

#5

To his credit, Stinnett does recognize that the Winds Execute message (a favorite revisionist conspiracy allegation) was never sent. He also recounts Secretary of War Stimson’s blatant attempt to reverse the Army Board of Inquiry’s determination that Marshall was in dereliction of his duty as to his Pearl Harbor actions. Stimson sent attorney Clausen around the world to obtain new affidavits countering the witnesses’ previous testimony of Marshall’s neglect to act on Purple decrypts. However, Stinnett omits the fact that Clausen also tried to place the blame for not fully informing Hawaiian commanders on navy cryptologic officers. The latter effort is also part of the aim of this book, but its shot is far wide of the mark.

To those of us who are familiar with Japanese naval codes and communications procedures at the time, available documentation in the Pearl Harbor arena as well as the pertinent personnel and history of OP-20-G, it is abundantly clear that the book fails to prove any part of its massive revisionist conspiracy theory. In fact, the expansion of prior revisionist conspiracy theories to include so many new allegations of wrong doing by Roosevelt and his mid and high level co-conspirators plus a continuing cover-up makes its enormous conspiracy theory a complete impossibility.

In conclusion, it is still clear that no U.S. official knew beforehand of the Japanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor or discovered that the Kido Butai was on its way to Hawaii for such an attack in spite of this latest in a series of revisionist conspiracy theory books.

AFTERWARD: A few of the more gross errors noted after researching the actual archives documents

Further research confirms reports by numerous high ranking Japanese officials who participated in the Hawaiian Strike Force that programs of Japanese radio deception activities were carried out from major naval bases of Sasebo, Kure and Yokosuka to deceive the U.S. Navy's radio intelligence organization that the carriers were still in home waters. The actual Station C Corregidor TESTM HFDF bearing reports from 13 November through 4 December 1941 show the Akagi's bearings remaining between 026 and 030 degrees even though the Kido Butai first transited from the Inland Sea to Hitokappu Bay in the Kuriles and thence across the North Pacific Ocean to Hawaii. If the Corregidor bearings on the radio deception transmissions using the Akagi's call sign for 27 and 30 November and 4 December had been valid, they would have been 041, 048 and 051 degrees instead of remaining between 026 to 030 degrees. The reports of "carrier" transmissions on 26 and the Akagi on 30 November intercepted by Station H, Heeia, Oahu, Hawaii [but without HFDF bearings] were obviously part of the same Japanese radio deception program emanating from Sasebo (027 degrees from Corregidor) and Kure (030 degrees from Corregidor).

Official OP-20-GYP-1 reports verify that zero decrypts of JN-25B were made prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. All the early JN-25B decrypts are listed in numerical order with Station Hypo, Pearl Harbor making the first decrypt in January 1942. See Stephen Budiansky's article, "Too Late For Pearl Harbor" in the December 1999 issue of "U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings and my article, "Foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor? No!: The Story of the U.s. Navy's Efforts on JN-25B. In addition, Commander Rudolph Fabian, the Officer-in-Charge of Station C Corregidor testified before a Congressional committee about breaking JN-25B before the war. "We were in the initial stages, sir. We had established liaison with the British unit at Singapore. We were exchanging values both code and cipher, but we had not developed either to the point where we could read enemy intercepts." Stinnett dismisses Captain Whitlock's confirmation of this no decrypt testimony. The fact that Station C located the Akagi off Corregidor on 8 December 1941 based direction finder bearings on more radio deception activity is further evidence that they had not broken JN-25B and relied only on traffic analysis and direction finder bearings for their reports.

Stinnett blatantly misconstrued Station H's Comint Summary of 25 November 1941 that reported that ViceAdmiral Inoue, CinC Fourth Fleet in the mandated islands, was observed in "extensive communications" with many entities like Commander Submarines, Commander Carriers, Juluit and other mandate island bases as evidence that Nagumo violated radio silence and that U.S. Navy stations obtained bearings and fixes on such phantom radio transmissions. However, it was Inoue who was "observed" in the extensive communications not Nagumo. In the parlance of the times, the word "observed" meant these communications noted were only in the form of addressees of messages seen mostly on the Tokyo Fleet broadcast and not original radio transmissions as Stinnett alleges. Had Rochefort intended to describe extensive communications of Nagumo such an entry would have been under the heading of Combined Fleet and he would have specified "heard transmitting" instead of "observed." Thus, Stinnett completely turns the summary upside down to support his predetermined conspiracy agenda. Stinnett also erroneous states that this Comint Summary of 25 November covers the Japanese naval activity of 26 November 1941 when Nagumo departed Hitokappu Bay due to the time difference of the International Date Line. However, all U.S. Naval radio intelligence logs, messages, supervisor's reports and Comint Summaries covering Japanese naval activities used the Tokyo [-9] time zone of their target to avoid confusion. Thus, this summary reported Japanese naval activity for 25 November when Nagumo was at Hitokappu Bay not 26 November 1941 as Stinnett claims.

Stinnett also claims some 129 violations of radio silence during a 21 day period which he implies is from mid-November on. The figure of 60 actual radio transmissions by Admiral Nagumo being intercepted is ridiculous. Only a few were seen on the Tokyo broadcast and were not original radio transmissions. The messages were undoubtedly filed while in port by messenger, blinker or landline. None of these alleged transmissions by Nagumo were during his transit from Hitokappu Bay to Hawaii. The same for the 40 messages allegedly sent by radio by Kido Butai carrier commanders and units. Stinnett even makes the absurd claim that 25 messages sent on the Tokyo fleet broadcast by Yamamoto and other commands and ships were violations of radio silence. The reason for using the broadcast method of transmission from shore stations is to maintain radio silence by not requiring ships and commands to use their transmitters to receipt for messages.

Philip H. Jacobsen
Lieutenant Commander, USN (ret.)

http://www.usncva.org/books/book-10.html

#6

Perhaps. Does the fact that you’re married to your wife mean that you have the right to rape her, beat her, and steal her assets? Because that’s a rather interesting analogy you’re attempting to pose…

#7

You clearly misunderstand War Plan Orange and rely upon a version which had been abandoned by 1941.

WPO a few years before the war assumed, first, that America would be at war only with Japan and, second, that Japan would attack the Philippines, not Pearl Harbor, without warning. You, like most people fond of conspiracy theories, make the mistake of reading into a statement more than is there to support your theory rather than investigating the background to it and deducing the facts from that.

The USN part of WPO assumed that Hawaii would be a base for operations, along with Truk and the British base in Singapore, both of which were in fact captured by the Japanese.

An understanding of WPO in its various versions and the thinking behind it shows that the attack on Pearl Harbor was not anticipated by American planners, so it is futile to rely on selective quotes about WPO for evidence of anything to do with Pearl Harbor except that America was completely unprepared for Japan’s sneak attack there.

If you had read beyond your above selective quote you would have found this out for yourself, or you could have read Louis Morton’s original article http://www.history.army.mil/books/70-7_06.htm from which some of the Global Security article is taken and which expands upon it.

#8

There is a little problem with this analogy, which is that the abrogation was around 1922 and the supposed raping, beating and stealing not until 1937…, but maybe if she were a distant relative to Nostradamus, which I doubt.

#9

Regarding posts from #819 to # 822 ,
This is what I call “overwhelming evidence”, I will study this testimony but perhaps I will not be able of answering before the Tag der Toten.

#10

Here’s some more to study, with links to further articles in Budiansky’s reply to Sinnett. http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=445

But if you want conspiracy theories, this is the place. http://www.apfn.org/apfn/pearl_harbor.htm

#11

Well, conspiracy theories is a tag that sounds like fiction, it implies lack of seriousness , I prefer documents, like the ones that Sinnett refers (FOIA files). There is a serious accusation against Budiansky and Kahn in the article of the Independent that you recommended:

Concurrent with the NSA withdrawals, Budiansky, with the aid of Kahn and Drea, began a two-year media campaign to discredit the paper trail of the U.S. naval documents that form the backbone of Day of Deceit. One of the most egregious examples of ethical violations appeared in an article by Kahn published in the New York Review of Books on November 2, 2000. In that article, Kahn attempted to bolster his contention that Japanese admirals and warships observed radio silence while en route to attack American Pacific bases. Kahn broke basic journalism ethics and rewrote a U.S. Naval Communication Summary prepared by Commander Rochefort at his crypto center located in the Pearl Harbor Naval Yard.

#12

Budiansky affirms against Sinnett’s arguments the following:
“He seriously misquotes a late November 1941 U.S. Navy radio intelligence report—the words he places in quotation marks are altered significantly from the words that actually appear in the document he claims to be citing” http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=445

…why he doesn’t tell us the words that , according to him, “actually appear” in the document?? that would be interesting.

#13

The answer to the above question is that it would be completely irrelevant. There was no “central intelligence” authority in the United States gov’t architecture at the time and no way to coalesce the intelligence into any meaningful, accurate prediction.

Secondly, the “FDR knew of an impending Pearl Harbor attack” has to be one of the most nonsensical of typically nonsensical conspiracy theories as it makes no sense whatsoever. Why would the command intentionally prevent their forces from being on alert and sacrifice every battleship in the row in order to force an impressionable outrage for war when any sort of Japanese provocation and declaration of war would have had a similar affect.

The fact is that of course FDR’s inner circle were well aware of a Japanese attack, but they thought it would be in the Philippines as most USN senior brass still held that the carrier was second to the battleship in 1941…

#14

Why don’t you get the document yourself? Maybe you should actually read his reply instead of relying on the ramblings of a thoroughly discredited fringe-book that has little merit with actual historians…

Reply by Stephen Budiansky:

I have already discussed the considerable evidence, including many newly released archival documents, which confirms that the Japanese attack force did not break radio silence and that the main Japanese naval code was not broken by U.S. intelligence before Pearl Harbor. This is not a “cover story” but a thoroughly documented historical conclusion.

Mr. Stinnett cites the Lietwiler memorandum as proof that Station CAST was “current” in reading messages transmitted in the Japanese naval operations code in fall 1941. Here Mr. Stinnett continues his habit of incompletely quoting original documents. In fact Lietwiler refers not to the decryption of current traffic but rather to the massive and far from complete effort to reconstruct the code system itself, specifically the “current” version of its huge key book—a series of 50,000 random numbers that Japanese code clerks used to further disguise encoded messages before transmission. Far from showing that messages were being decoded by CAST at this time, it confirms that CAST in fact had a long way to go before any messages could be decoded at all. CAST personnel have stated repeatedly that their work was not far enough along to read any messages for intelligence value before Pearl Harbor. Are we to assume that they are all participants in the “cover up” too?

I am frankly at a loss as to how Mr. Stinnett can accuse me in one sentence of being mistaken in referring to Rudolph Fabian as commander of CAST and then acknowledge two sentences later that he was commander of CAST. I am not sure what Mr. Stinnett is referring to in his comments about the International Dateline, but they have no relation to any statements I have made here or elsewhere.

Mr. Stinnett’s focus on these few trivialities while ignoring the gaping lapses in logic and accuracy in his own case speaks for itself. He has been caught red-handed misquoting original sources to build his spurious case but his only response is to hurl anew the charge of “cover up.” Until he starts dealing with evidence as it actually exists, and not as it is misquoted and misinterpreted to fit his theories, it is hard to take his claims seriously.

#15

An interesting article on the fringe, conspiracy theories:

Why Those Pearl Harbor “Conspiracy” Theories Ain’t So
By Sherwood Ross
Created Dec 6 2008 - 12:26pm
As the anniversary of the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor rolls around, critics of President Franklin Roosevelt will again claim he had advance knowledge of the strike and allowed it to happen. That would be treasonable on FDR’s part, of course. A rational examination of events, though, shows that FDR had no such knowledge of the attack and that, preoccupied with the Nazi threat to Great Britain, he had absolutely no intent to provoke war with Japan.

It’s interesting to me, by the way, that those who excoriate FDR for treason never denounce General Douglas MacArthur, the U.S. commander in the Philippines, who was told of the actual attack after it occurred on December 7th and still did not order his Army Air Corps planes aloft to strike back. When MacArthur’s air arm was caught on the ground hours later, FDR is reported to have broken down and wept, “not again, not on the ground!” Overlooking MacArthur’s “treason,” (it wasn’t), while accusing a liberal president of it, a man who was weeping at his desk with his head on his arms utterly heart-broken by the surprise attack, has a strong aroma of right-wing political motivation.

An article published earlier this year in the monthly Rock Creek Free Press of Washington, D.C., reproduces the front page of the Honolulu Advertiser of November 30th, 1941, with its headline “Japanese May Strike Over Weekend!” The article claims FDR allowed the attack to happen. Since, presumably, U.S. military personnel on Hawaii could all read, why didn’t they respond by unlocking the ammunition lockers on the warships, cancel shore leaves, and take other readiness steps? Please note the Advertiser was a whole week early with the story about the threat of war, so there was plenty of time for Hawaiian military officers to prepare if they believed an imminent strike was aimed at Hawaii.

Could the explanation be they all believed the Japanese would attack Philippines, not Hawaii? It’s useful to keep in mind the U.S. was a racist country in 1941 and it was not believed Asiatics were technologically capable of such an audacious strike. U.S. ambassador to Tokyo Joseph Grew learned early that year from a friendly Latin American embassy that a drunken Japanese translator had mentioned the attack but it was ignored just as previous warnings were ignored. An attack on Pearl Harbor had even been postulated in 1921 in a prophetic book by British journalist and naval authority Hector Bywater, “The Great Pacific War.” Japanese admiralty officials studied the book closely and top U.S. naval officials gave it rave reviews—but still none of the latter believed war would begin at Pearl Harbor.

Besides, in 1941 FDR was interested in fighting Germany, not Japan, as evidenced by his strategy, once war broke out, of defeating Hitler first. Other indications that this was his primary concern were the enactment of lend lease for Great Britain and the transfer of 50 overage U.S. destroyers to the Royal Navy. FDR even lied to the public that Nazi U-boat attacks on American warships were unprovoked, when in fact the opposite was true. Hitler, who found himself in a desperate struggle after invading Soviet Russia and could not conquer England had strictly ordered his U-boat commanders not to attack American-flag vessels. Moreover, the U.S. Navy also violated neutrality by sending the Royal Navy information on the position of the German battleship Bismarck in May, 1941, that led to its destruction.

If FDR wanted an excuse to fight Japan he had every reason when the gunboat U.S.S. Panay was sunk by Japanese aviators in China’s Yangtze River in 1937 but he knew his Asiatic Fleet and the Philippine army were unready for war. This was still true in 1941 when Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall was telling FDR that he wouldn’t have enough Flying Fortresses based in the Philippines for war until April, 1942. Marshall put great stock in the bomber and told reporters at an off-the-record press conference in November, 1941, that if war broke out Japan’s wood and paper cities would be scorched by the warplane, as later proved to be true with its B-29 successor. Another indication the Pearl Harbor attack was a surprise is that the B-17s that arrived from the States as Pearl Harbor was under fire did not even have their machine guns in place.

Indeed, the U.S. knew war was coming in the Pacific but Washington did not know when or where Japan would strike. It is fair to say the U.S. was making diligent efforts, though, to prepare as rapidly as it could. That U.S. carriers were not in Pearl Harbor December 7th had nothing to do with getting them out of harm’s way because an attack was expected on that port but everything to do with their ferrying fighter planes to reinforce unprepared U.S. Pacific outposts such as Wake Island.

The idea that FDR, a former assistant secretary of the Navy in World War One, would have deliberately concealed knowledge of an imminent attack on a U.S. base, defies everything known about the character of the man, his lifelong love of ships, (see his childhood sketches on the wall at Hyde Park), and his visionary efforts to build shipyards to mass produce warships and to modernize the fleet upon taking office in 1933. In fact, FDR sparked the largest naval buildup in U.S. history from the time he took office, doubling naval personnel between 1939 and 1941 alone. Six months after Pearl Harbor at the battle of Midway, the Japanese navy suffered a terrible reverse largely at the hands of U.S. vessels built before the war under FDR or under prior presidents. If FDR had advanced knowledge of an imminent attack to precipitate a war with Japan he would at minimum have ordered the fleet into battle readiness and sent it steaming out into open water. That FDR knew the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was coming and allowed it to happen is one conspiracy theory that should be sunk promptly.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/19056

#16

Besides being a shill for a left-wing blog, Ross gets a number of details wrong in this article.

But first let me state that while I am certainly no fan of Roosevelt and feel that his legacy is definitely a mixture of good and harm for the country, I am adamantly opposed to the idea that Roosevelt could, or would, have deliberately withheld information of any attack on Pearl Harbor. He couldn’t because he had no way of having such information, and he wouldn’t have because, misguided as many of his policies were (packing the Supreme Court comes to mind), he was a patriot and loved the US Navy as few presidents ever have.

Now to the errors;

The article in the Honolulu Advertiser about the possibility of a Japanese attack over the weekend referred to the possibility that the Japanese might attack Malaya, Singapore and the NEI. In fact, the British had positive intelligence of invasion convoys for these areas being formed at Hainan and Formosa and had passed that intelligence to the US government. So even if the Army and Navy Commanders at Pearl Harbor had read the article, it wouldn’t have given an y hint of an attack on Pearl Harbor itself. At the same time, it must be said that Roosevelt definitely knew that the Japanese would be attacking somewhere within a few days but all the evidence in Roosevelt’s possession was that the attack would be in the Far East, not at Pearl Harbor.

As far as the great expectations of the B-17’s in the Philippines were concerned, it was Hap Arnold, the Army Air Force Chief of Staff, who oversold these aircraft, not Marshall. As it turned out, the B-17 could not even reach most of Japan with any kind of bomb load from the bases in the Philippines. In order to bomb Japan with B-17’s in 1941-42, it would have been necessary to utilize air bases in Soviet Siberia, and the Soviets were not about to jeopardize their relations with Japan by allowing that. So it didn’t really matter how many B-17’s the US might have been able to build up in the Philippines, they wouldn’t have been a creditable deterrent to Japanese aggression in Asia.

Ross claims that Roosevelt began to build up the US Navy from the very beginning of his first term in 1933. Nothing could be further from the truth. The US Navy did not begin a modest program of reconstruction until 1938 when it was authorized (by Congress) to build up to it’s treaty limits under the Washington and London Naval treaties. The real rearmament programs for both the Army and Navy were not authorized until the advent of the “Two Ocean” Navy Act in July 1940, and similar legislation that same month authorizing massive expenditures for the Army and Army Air Force. These acts were quickly passed by Congress upon the Fall of France in June, 1940, and did not owe so much to Roosevelt’s “vision” as to the very real fear that the US might soon find itself standing alone against the Axis forces.

It irks me to read the fantasies of the conspiracy buffs presented as fact and bolstered by the half-truths, misinformation and outright deception of hacks like Stinnett, but it does not serve history to defend Roosevelt with erroneous information, either.

#17

Out of all the other sources mentioned so far, you prefer Sinnett’s alleged sources. Despite the holes punched in his facile arguments and tortured analyses by people referring to rather more convincing documents and, worst of all, facts.

Why are documents allegedly released to Sinnet under the Freedom of Information Act preferable?

After all, wouldn’t the the all-powerful national security apparatus that Sinnett reckons has been concealing the truth about FDR’s conspiracy be able and determined to control and manipulate the release of documents which confirm that treasonable conspiracy by concealing any documents which confirmed that conspiracy?

Or am I missing something here, along the lines that there was and is an all-powerful conspiracy by the NSA et al to conceal the truth but the all-powerful conspirators nonetheless allowed supposedly incriminating documents to be released to Sinnett so he could expose their treason?

Yep, that makes sense, just like FDR allowing Japan to attack Pearl Harbor makes sense. If about 80% of your brain has shut down, and the rest is mush.

#18

Well, shill left wing blogs have their place as do shill right wing ones. I tend to read neither in case anyone cares. In any case, he gets some details wrong, but I think we agree he’s more right than wrong (no ironic pun intended :slight_smile: )

But first let me state that while I am certainly no fan of Roosevelt and feel that his legacy is definitely a mixture of good and harm for the country, I am adamantly opposed to the idea that Roosevelt could, or would, have deliberately withheld information of any attack on Pearl Harbor. He couldn’t because he had no way of having such information, and he wouldn’t have because, misguided as many of his policies were (packing the Supreme Court comes to mind), he was a patriot and loved the US Navy as few presidents ever have.

I’m a fan of Roosevelt, but yet I think he’s overrated on many levels. But we agree here, even if the FDR administration had “omnipotent competence,” as many conspiracists (both left and right) insinuate, a deliberate dive makes little sense on many levels. I have no idea as to Sinnett’s ideological motivations as I haven’t read the book and there’s little to his background on any online biographies. But I sense there seems to be a sensationalist bent along the lines of Alex Jones and 9/11 conspiracy theorists to propagate dribble for profit… In any case, we can argue about FDR ideologically. But I think one topic that transcends this is that FDR bettered all of his wartime rivals as an executive that delegated authority to his military brass and didn’t meddle in the day to day decisions as his contemporaries often did…

Now to the errors;

The article in the Honolulu Advertiser about the possibility of a Japanese attack over the weekend referred to the possibility that the Japanese might attack Malaya, Singapore and the NEI. In fact, the British had positive intelligence of invasion convoys for these areas being formed at Hainan and Formosa and had passed that intelligence to the US government. So even if the Army and Navy Commanders at Pearl Harbor had read the article, it wouldn’t have given an y hint of an attack on Pearl Harbor itself. At the same time, it must be said that Roosevelt definitely knew that the Japanese would be attacking somewhere within a few days but all the evidence in Roosevelt’s possession was that the attack would be in the Far East, not at Pearl Harbor.

Correct. But the article also states that FDR and his cabinet/advisors believed that a Japanese attack was inevitable and would occur on the outer possessions of the U.S. dominions, i.e. the Philippines…

As far as the great expectations of the B-17’s in the Philippines were concerned, it was Hap Arnold, the Army Air Force Chief of Staff, who oversold these aircraft, not Marshall. As it turned out, the B-17 could not even reach most of Japan with any kind of bomb load from the bases in the Philippines. In order to bomb Japan with B-17’s in 1941-42, it would have been necessary to utilize air bases in Soviet Siberia, and the Soviets were not about to jeopardize their relations with Japan by allowing that. So it didn’t really matter how many B-17’s the US might have been able to build up in the Philippines, they wouldn’t have been a creditable deterrent to Japanese aggression in Asia.

He gets this wrong, but remember at the time that the B-17 (and high level bombing in general) were thought to be effective against shipping and that the bomber was originally (deceptively) designated a long range coastal patrol aircraft with anti-shipping capability. In any case, the bombers in the Philippines were caught on the ground and rendered scrap, as was most of the fighter force. I don’t think anyone can argue that Mac didn’t drop the ball on that one…

Ross claims that Roosevelt began to build up the US Navy from the very beginning of his first term in 1933. Nothing could be further from the truth. The US Navy did not begin a modest program of reconstruction until 1938 when it was authorized (by Congress) to build up to it’s treaty limits under the Washington and London Naval treaties. The real rearmament programs for both the Army and Navy were not authorized until the advent of the “Two Ocean” Navy Act in July 1940, and similar legislation that same month authorizing massive expenditures for the Army and Army Air Force. These acts were quickly passed by Congress upon the Fall of France in June, 1940, and did not owe so much to Roosevelt’s “vision” as to the very real fear that the US might soon find itself standing alone against the Axis forces.

The U.S. Navy embarked on producing carriers in the early on in accordance with “New Deal” programs designed to spurn “premium prevailing wage” ship building jobs in the early 1930s, and the carrier tonnage was typically underreported in order to skirt said treaties…

It irks me to read the fantasies of the conspiracy buffs presented as fact and bolstered by the half-truths, misinformation and outright deception of hacks like Stinnett, but it does not serve history to defend Roosevelt with erroneous information, either.

I couldn’t agree more…

#19

As far as Roosevelt’s actions and motivations are concerned, I agree, but that’s no excuse for getting the de3tails wrong. I just can’t tolerate historical inaccuracies no matter which side they favor. I tend to be right wing and despise Leftists who are correct for the wrong reasons. If you read neither, why did you post a Left-wing article?

Yes. I suspect many of the conspiracy theorists have profit rather than historical accuracy as their major motivation. Sensationalism definitely sells books, as the general public is ignorant of the actual history of the Pearl Harbor attack, and tends to accept whatever oddball theories are advanced, as long as they sound half-way plausible. And yes, Roosevelt takes honors among his contemporaries as a leader who generally left the conduct of military operations to the professionals during WW II. But he was not perfect in that regard; for example, Roosevelt insisted on the production of small escort vessels that were practically useless against the U-boat menace, and this left the US Eastern coast virtually defenseless in early 1942. The resulting massacre of US and British merchant ships has been blamed on Admiral King, when it should be laid at Roosevelt’s feet.

Actually, this was mere speculation as no intelligence was available to indicate where the invasion convoys were bound. But it made sense to think that the Philippines would be included in the Japanese plans as the Philippine archipelago sat astride the sea routes necessary to the Japanese plans for expansion of their empire. The US had always assumed that the Japanese coveted the Philippines and that a war would start with a seizure of the US possession. In any case, the Japanese had always assumed that a US presence in the Philippines would be used to frustrate Japanese plans for seizing what they called the Southern Resources Area.

I’m not arguing that Mac didn’t drop the ball in the Philippines. In fact, I think Mac’s performance in the Philippines deserved a court martial at the very least. It would have been better for Roosevelt to leave Mac in command in the Philippines, and let him be captured by the Japanese. That would have enabled a unified command in the Pacific and saved many American lives over the course of the war. But Roosevelt was cognizant of Mac’s political ramifications and failed to treat him as he should have; that was Roosevelt’s failing.

As for the B-17, the USAAF knew very well that it was not an effective anti-shipping bomber, at least in the numbers available, or projected to become available, in the Philippines. Hap Arnold knowingly oversold the capabilities of the B-17 in an attempt to promote strategic bombing and an independent Air Force. Certainly, the US Navy was not convinced and quite correctly withdrew it’s major forces from the Philippines promptly upon the outbreak of war.

No, in the early 1930’s the US Navy was governed by Congress, primarily through the Vinson Act, which limited the authorized tonnage of every class of warship the Navy was allowed to build. The Vinson Act did not even allow the Navy to build up to Washington and London Naval treaty limits until 1938. In fact, the designed tonnage of US navy vessels was typically held under treaty limits and resulted in unsatisfactory carriers such as the Ranger (on which my father served in the late 1930’s). It was not until mid-1940, and the Fall of France, that the US Navy was authorized to build the Essex-class carriers which began to become available in 1943. Contrary to what most people think, the US Navy was NOT battleship-oriented after1939; absolute top priority was given to the construction of carriers in 1940, and resulted in construction times of Essex-class carriers averaging an astonishing 18 months.

#20

it wouldn’t have had a simular effect.
Becouse the main effect of PH was a …psycholigical act of sudden attack on american minds.That is quite different.If say the admiral Kimmel knew about japanese plans for sure , he may succesfully interrupt the Japane attack and probably the win the battle( having the superior forces) . But it would not have had an simular effect on american public which would learn in this case that the American fleet has enough power to deflect any Japane agression.By the other world- in this case hardly the lazy american public wouldn’t vote for entering to war.