PEARL HARBOR
MOTHER OF ALL CONSPIRACIES
"...everything that the Japanese were planning to do was known to the United
States..." ARMY BOARD, 1944
President FDR provoked the attack, knew about it in advance and covered up
his failure to warn the Hawaiian commanders. FDR needed the attack to entice
Hitler to declare war, since the public and Congress were overwhelmingly against
entering the war in Europe. It was his backdoor to war.
FDR
- denied intelligence to HI
- on Nov 27, misled the commanders into thinking negotiations with Japan
were continuing
- had false information sent to HI about the location of the Japanese
carrier fleet.
BACKGROUND
- 1904 - The Japanese destroyed the Russian navy in a surprise attack in
undeclared war.
- 1932 - In The Grand Joint Army Navy Exercises the attacker, Admiral
Yarnell, attacked with 152 planes a half-hour before dawn 40 miles NE of
Kahuku Point and caught the defenders of Pearl Harbor completely by surprise.
It was a Sunday.
- 1938 - Admiral Ernst King led a carrier-born airstrike from the USS
Saratoga successfully against Pearl Harbor in another exercise.
- October 1939 - Tyler Kent, an American code clerk in London exposed coded
messages concerning FDR's attempts to oust Prime Minister Chamberlain so FDR
could involve the US in an all-out war with Hitler.
- 1940 - FDR ordered the fleet transferred from the West Coast to its
exposed position in Hawaii and ordered the fleet remain stationed at Pearl
Harbor over complaints by its commander Admiral Richardson that there was
inadequate protection from air attack and no protection from torpedo attack.
Richardson felt so strongly that he twice disobeyed orders to berth his fleet
there and he raised the issue personally with FDR in October and he was soon
after replaced. His successor, Admiral Kimmel, also brought up the same issues
with FDR in June 1941.
- 11 November 1940 - 21 aged British planes destroyed the Italian fleet,
including 3 battleships, at their homeport in the harbor of Taranto in
Southern Italy by using technically innovative shallow-draft torpedoes.
- 11 February 1941 - FDR proposed sacrificing 6 cruisers and 2 carriers at
Manila to get into war. Navy Chief Stark objected: "I have previously opposed
this and you have concurred as to its unwisdom. Particularly do I recall your
remark in a previous conference when Mr. Hull suggested (more forces to
Manila) and the question arose as to getting them out and your 100% reply,
from my standpoint, was that you might not mind losing one or two cruisers,
but that you did not want to take a chance on losing 5 or 6." (Beard THE
COMING OF WAR, p 424)
- March 1941 - FDR sold munitions and convoyed them to belligerents in
Europe -- both acts of war and both violations of international law -- the
Lend-Lease Act.
- 23 Jun 1941 - Advisor Harold Ickes wrote to FDR a memo the day after
Germany invaded the Soviet Union, "There might develop from the embargoing of
oil to Japan such a situation as would make it not only possible but easy to
get into this war in an effective way. And if we should thus indirectly be
brought in, we would avoid the criticism that we had gone in as an ally of
communistic Russia." FDR was pleased with Admiral Richmond Turner's report
read July 22: "It is generally believed that
shutting off the American supply of petroleum will lead promptly to the
invasion of Netherland East Indies...it seems certain she would also include
military action against the Philippine Islands, which would immediately
involve us in a Pacific war." On July 24 FDR told the Volunteer
Participation Committee, "If we had cut off the oil off, they probably
would have gone down to the Dutch East Indies a year ago, and you would have
had war." The next day FDR froze all Japanese assets in US cutting off their
main supply of oil and forcing them into war with the US. Intelligence
information was withheld from Hawaii from this point forward.
- 14 August - After the Atlantic Conference, Churchill noted the
"astonishing depth of Roosevelt's intense desire for war." Churchill cabled
his cabinet "(FDR) obviously was very determined that they should come in.".
- 18 October - diary entry by Secretary of Interior Harold Ickes: "For a
long time I have believed that our best entrance into the war would be by way
of Japan."
CODES
- Purple Code - the top diplomatic code of the Japanese, encoded by a
machine that used automatic telephone switches to separately and differently
encypher each character sent. It was cracked by the Army Signal Intelligence
Service (331 men).
- J-19 was the Japanese diplomatic code. It was a high-grade columnar
code, but it was cracked.
- JN-25 - The Japanese Fleet's Cryptographic System, a.k.a. 5 number
code. JN stands for Japanese Navy, introduced 1 June 1939. This was a very simple
old-type code book system used by the American Army and Navy in 1898 and
abandoned in 1917 because it was insecure. It has a dictionary of 33,333 words
and phrases, each given as a five figure number. These were added to random
numbers contained in a second code book. The dictionary was only changed once
before PH on Dec 1, 1940, to version B but the random book was changed every 3
to 6 months. The Japanese blundered away the code when they introduced JN25-B
by continuing to use, for 2 months, random table books that had been solved by
the Allies. That was the equivalent of handing over the JN-25B codebook. It
was child's play for the Navy group OP-20-G (738 men whose primary
responsibility was Japanese naval codes) to reconstruct the exposed
dictionary. We recovered the whole thing immediately - in 1994 the NSA
published that JN-25B was completely cracked in December 1940. In January 1941
the US gave Britain two JN-25B code books with keys and techniques for
deciphering. The entire Pearl Harbor scheme was laid out in this code.
Australia, Great Britain, and the Netherlands also had completely cracked and
monitored this code. The official US Navy statement on JN-25B is the NAVAL
SECURITY GROUP HISTORY TO WORLD WAR II prepared by Captain J. Holtwick in June
1971 who quotes Captain Safford, the chief of OP-20-G, on page 398: "By 1
December 1941 we had the code solved to a readable extent." Churchill wrote
"From the end of 1940 the Americans had pierced the vital Japanese ciphers,
and were decoding large numbers of their military and diplomatic
telegrams."(GRAND ALLIANCE p 598) Safford reported that during 1941 "The Navy
COMINT team did a thorough job on the Japanese Navy with no help from the
Army." "A large (JN-25) code might contain as many as 55,000 values. But in
actual practice, such was the stereotyped nature of the text, 7,000 recoveries
permitted almost complete decryption, and many pattern messages could be read
practically entire with as few as 1500 meanings." (HISTORY OF OP-20-GYP-1,
NSA).
In 1979 the NSA released 2,413 JN-25 orders translated in 1945-46 of the
26,581 intercepted by US between Sept 1 and Dec 4, 1941. A secret 1946 Navy
report concluded that 188 of these Japanese orders had clearly indicated
Pearl Harbor was the target of attack. Of the
over thousand radio messages sent by Tokyo to the attack fleet, only 20 are in
the National Archives. All messages to the attack fleet were sent several
times, at least one message was sent every odd hour of the day and each had a
special serial number. Starting in early November 1941 when the attack fleet
assembled in the Kurile Islands and started receiving radio messages, OP-20-G
stayed open 24 hours a day and the "First Team" of codebreakers worked on
JN-25. In November and early December 1941, OP-20-G spent 85 percent of its
effort reading Japanese Navy traffic, 12 percent on Japanese diplomatic
traffic and 3 percent on German naval codes. FDR was personally briefed twice
a day on JN-25 traffic by his aide, Captain John Beardell, and demanded to see
the original raw messages in English. The US Government refuses to identify or
declassify any pre-Dec 7, 1941 decrypts of JN-25 on the basis of national
security, a half-century after the war.
- AD or Administrative Code wrongly called Admiralty Code was a four
character code super-enciphered by transposition. No important messages were
sent in this code. A secret memo reported on page 547 of Layton's AND I WAS
THERE says that it was partially readable. Recall Safford's quote: "We found
we could always trust the Japanese themselves to do something that would
assist us in the solutions of their systems. They never failed us!"
- Magic - the security designation given to all decoded Japanese
diplomatic messages. It's hard not to conclude with historians like Charles
Bateson that "Magic standing alone points so irresistibly to the Pearl Harbor
attack that it is inconceivable anybody could have failed to forecast the
Japanese move." The NSA reached the same conclusion in 1955.
- Ultra - the security designation for military codes. No Pearl
Harbor investigation discussed Ultra even though on June 7, 1942 the Chicago
Tribune and six other newspapers betrayed the fact we were reading JN-25.
WARNINGS
Warnings do no harm and might do inexpressible good
- 27 January 1941, Dr. Ricardo Shreiber, the Peruvian envoy in Tokyo told
Max Bishop, third secretary of the US embassy that he had just learned from
his intelligence sources that there was a war plan involving a surprise attack
on Pearl Harbor. This information was sent to the State Department and Naval
Intelligence and to Admiral Kimmel at Hawaii.
- 31 March 1941 - A Navy report by Bellinger and Martin predicted that if
Japan made war on the US, they would strike Pearl Harbor without warning at
dawn with aircraft from a maximum of 6 carriers. For years Navy planners had
assumed that Japan, on the outbreak of war, would strike the American fleet
wherever it was. Logically, Japan couldn't engage in any major operation with
the American fleet on its flank. The strategic options for the Japanese were
not unlimited.
- 10 August 1941, the top British agent, code named "Tricycle", Dusko Popov,
told the FBI of the planned attack on Pearl Harbor and that it would be soon.
The FBI told him that his information was "too precise, too complete to be
believed. The questionnaire plus the other information you brought spell out
in detail exactly where, when, how, and by whom we are to be attacked. If
anything, it sounds like a trap." He also reported that a senior Japanese
naval person had gone to Taranto to collect all secret data on the attack
there and that it was of utmost importance to them. The information was given
to Naval IQ.
- Early in the Fall, Kilsoo Haan, an agent for the Sino-Korean People's
League, told Eric Severeid of CBS that the Korean underground in Korea and
Japan had positive proof that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor
before Christmas. Among other things, one Korean had actually seen the plans.
In late October, Haan finally convinced US Senator Guy Gillette that the
Japanese were planning to attack in December or January. Gillette alerted the
State Department, Army and Navy Intelligence and FDR personally.
- 24 September 1941, the " bomb plot" message in J-19 code from Japan Naval
Intelligence to Japan' s consul general in Honolulu requesting grid of exact
locations of ships pinpointed for the benefit of bombardiers and torpedo
pilots was deciphered. There was no reason to know the EXACT location of ships
in harbor, unless to attack them - it was a dead giveaway. Chief of War Plans
Turner and Chief of Naval Operations Stark repeatedly kept it and warnings
based on it prepared by Safford and others from being passed to Hawaii. The
chief of Naval Intelligence Captain Kirk was replaced because he insisted on
warning HI. It was lack of information like this that lead to the exoneration
of the Hawaii commanders and the blaming of Washington for unpreparedness for
the attack by the Army Board and Navy Court. At no time did the Japanese ever
ask for a similar bomb plot for any other American military installation. Why
the Roosevelt administration allowed flagrant Japanese spying on PH has never
been explained, but they blocked 2 Congressional investigations in the fall of
1941 to allow it to continue. The bomb plots were addressed to "Chief of 3rd
Bureau, Naval General Staff", marked Secret Intelligence message, and
given special serial numbers, so their significance couldn't be missed. There
were about 95 ships in port. The text was:
"Strictly secret.
"Henceforth, we would like to have you make reports concerning vessels
along the following lines insofar as possible:
"1. The waters (of Pearl Harbor) are to be divided roughly into five
subareas (We have no objections to your abbreviating as much as you
like.)
"Area A. Waters between Ford Island and the Arsenal.
"Area B. Waters adjacent to the Island south and west of Ford Island.
(This area is on the opposite side of the Island from Area A.)
"Area C. East Loch.
"Area D. Middle Loch.
"Area E. West Loch and the communication water routes.
"2. With regard to warships and aircraft carriers, we would like to have
you report on those at anchor (these are not so important) tied up at
wharves, buoys and in docks. (Designate types and classes briefly. If
possible we would like to have you make mention of the fact when
there are two or more vessels along side the same wharf.)"
- Simple traffic analysis of the accelerated frequency of messages from
various Japanese consuls gave a another identification of war preparations,
from Aug-Dec there were 6 messages from Seattle, 18 from Panama, 55 from
Manila and 68 from Hawaii.
- Oct. - Soviet top spy Richard Sorge, the greatest spy in history, informed
Kremlin that Pearl Harbor would be attacked within 60 days. Moscow informed
him that this was passed to the US. The most interesting part of the story is
that all references to Pearl Harbor in the War Department's copy of Sorge's
32,000 word confession to the Japanese were deleted. NY Daily News, 17 May
1951.
- 16 Oct. - FDR grossly humiliated Japan's Ambassador and refused to meet
with Premier Konoye to engineer the war party, lead by General Tojo, into
power in Japan.
- 1 Nov. - Order to continue drills against anchored capital ships to
prepare to "ambush and completely destroy the US enemy." The message included
references to armor-piercing bombs and 'near surface torpedoes.'
- 13 Nov. - The German Ambassador to US, Dr. Thomsen an anti-Nazi, told OSS
that Pearl Harbor would be attacked.
- 14 Nov. - Japanese Merchant Marine was alerted that wartime recognition
signals would be in effect Dec 1.
- 22 Nov. - Tokyo said to Ambassador Nomura in Washington about extending
the deadline for negotiations to November 29: "...this time we mean it, that
the deadline absolutely cannot be changed. After that things are automatically
going to happen."
- CIA Director Allen Dulles told people that US was warned in mid-November
that the Japanese Fleet had sailed east past Tokyo Bay and was going to attack
Pearl Harbor. FOIA #F-1998-00977.
- 25 Nov. - British decrypted the Winds setup message sent Nov. 19. The US
decoded it Nov. 28. It was a J-19 Code message that there would be an attack
and that the signal would come over Radio Tokyo as a weather report - rain
meaning war, east (Higashi) meaning US.
- 25 Nov. - Secretary of War Stimson noted in his diary "FDR stated that we
were likely to be attacked perhaps as soon as next Monday." FDR asked: "the
question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first
shot without too much danger to ourselves. In spite of the risk involved,
however, in letting the Japanese fire the first shot, we realized that in
order to have the full support of the American people it was desirable to make
sure that the Japanese be the ones to do this so that there should remain no
doubt in anyone's mind as to who were the aggressors."
- 25 Nov. - Navy Department ordered all US trans-Pacific shipping to take
the southern route.
- 25 Nov. - Yamamoto gave this order in JN-25: " (a) 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. The raid is planned for dawn on X-day -- exact date
to be given by later order. (b) Should the negotiations with the US prove
successful, the task force shall hold itself in readiness forthwith to return
and reassemble. (c) The task force will move out of Hitokappu Wan on the
morning of 26 November and advance to the standing-by position on the
afternoon of 4 December and speedily complete refueling." (Order to sail -
scan from the PHA Congressional Hearings Report, vol 1 p 180,
transcript p 437-8) This was decoded by the British on November 25 and the
Dutch on November 27. When it was decoded by the US is a national secret,
however, on November 26 Naval Intelligence reported the concentration of units
of the Japanese fleet at an unknown port ready for offensive action.
- 26 Nov. 3 A.M. - Churchill sent an urgent secret message to FDR, probably
containing above message. This message caused the greatest agitation in DC. Of
Churchill's voluminous correspondence with FDR, this is the only message that
has not been released (on the grounds that it would damage national security).
Stark testified that "On November 26 there was received specific evidence of
the Japanese intention to wage offensive war against Great Britain and the
United States." C.I.A. Director William Casey, who was in the OSS in 1941, in
his book THE SECRET WAR AGAINST HITLER, p 7, wrote "The British had sent word
that a Japanese fleet was steaming east toward Hawaii." Washington, in an
order of Nov 26, ordered both US aircraft carriers, the Enterprise and the
Lexington out of Pearl Harbor "as soon as possible". This order included
stripping Pearl of 50 planes or 40 percent of its already inadequate fighter
protection. In response to Churchill's message, FDR secretly cabled him that
afternoon: "Negotiations off. Services expect action within two weeks." Note
that the only way FDR could have linked negotiations with service action, let
alone have known the timing of the action, was if he had the message to sail.
In other words, the only service action contingent on negotiations was Pearl
Harbor.
- 26 Nov. - the "most fateful document " was Hull's ultimatum that Japan
must withdraw from Indochina and all China. FDR's
Ambassador to Japan called this "The document that touched the button that
started the war."
- 27 Nov. - Secretary of War Stimson sent a confused and confusing
hostile action possible or DO-DON'T warning. The Navy Court found this message
directed attention away from Pearl Harbor, rather than toward it. One purpose
of the message was to mislead HI into believing negotiations were continuing.
A companion message was sent to Hawaii not to excite suspicions of the
population by taking unusual precautions which indicated lowest level of alert
(this level was then approved by Washington). It repeated, no less than three
times as a direct instruction of the President, "The US desires that Japan
commit the first overt act Period." It was unusual that FDR directed this
warning, a routine matter, to Hawaii which is proof positive that he knew that
IQ was denied Hawaii and he expected denial to continue unless he ordered
otherwise. If FDR were in the dark, he would have expected the warning to be
automatically sent. A simple question--why was FDR expecting a Japanese overt
act at Pearl Harbor?
- 29 Nov.- Hull sat in Layfayette Park across from the White House with ace
United Press reporter Joe Leib and showed him a message stating that Pearl
Harbor would be attacked on December 7. This could well have been the Nov. 26
message from Churchill.
- 29 Nov. - U.S. made a telephone intercept of an uncoded conversation in
which
"an Embassy functionary asked 'Tell me, what zero hour is. Otherwise, I
won't be able to carry on diplomacy.' The voice from Tokyo said softly,
'Well then, I will tell you. Zero hour is December 8 (Tokyo time, that is,
December 7 Washington time) at Pearl Harbor'."
- 30 Nov. US Time (or 1 Dec. Tokyo time) - The Japanese fleet was radioed
this Imperial Naval Order (JN-25): "JAPAN, UNDER THE NECESSITY OF HER
SELF-PRESERVATION AND SELF-DEFENSE, HAS REACHED A POSITION TO DECLARE WAR ON THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA."
(Congress Appendix D, p 415). US ally China also recovered it in plain text
from a shot-down Japanese Army plane near Canton that evening. This caused an
emergency Imperial Conference because they knew the Chinese would give the
information to GB and US. In a related J-19 message the next day, the US
translated elaborate instructions from Japan dealing in precise detail with
the method of internment of American and British nationals in Asia "on the
outbreak of war with England and the United States"
- 1 Dec. - Office of Naval Intelligence, ONI, Twelfth Naval District in San
Francisco found the missing Japanese fleet by correlating reports from the
four wireless news services and several shipping companies that they were
getting strange signals west of Hawaii. The Soviet Union also knew the exact
location of the Japanese fleet because they asked the Japanese in advance to
let one of their ships pass (Layton p 261). This info was most likely given to
them by US because Sorge's spy ring was rolled up November 14. All long range
PBY patrols from the Aleutians were ordered stopped on Dec 6 to prevent
contact.
- 1 Dec. - Foreign Minister Togo cabled Washington Ambassador Nomura to
continue negotiations "to prevent the U.S. from becoming unduly suspicious."
- 1 Dec. - The tanker Shiriya, which had been added to the strike
force in an order intercepted Nov 14, radioed "proceeding to a position 30.00
N, 154.20 E. Expect to arrive at that point on 3 December." (near HI) The fact
that this message is in the National Archives destroys the myth that the
attack fleet maintained radio silence. They were not ordered to (Order 820).
Serial numbers prove that the Striking Force sent over 663 radio messages
between Nov 16 and Dec 7 or about 1 per hour. The NSA has not released any raw
intercepts because the headers would prove that the Striking Force did not
maintain radio silence. On Nov 29 the Hiyei sent one message to the Commander
of the 3rd fleet; on Nov 30 the Akagi sent several messages to its tankers -
see page 474 of the Hewitt Report. From traffic analysis, HI reported that
the carrier force was at
sea and in the North. THE MOST AMAZING FACT is that in reply to that report,
MacArthur's command sent a series of three messages, Nov 26, 29, Dec 2, to HI
lying about the location of the carrier fleet - saying it was in the South
China Sea. This false information, which the NSA calls inexplicable, was the
true reason that HI was caught unawares.
- There were a large number of other messages that gave the location of the
Striking Force by alluding to the Aleutions, the North Pacific and various
weather systems near HI.
- 1 Dec. - FDR cut short his scheduled ten day vacation after 1 day to meet
with Hull and Stark. The result of this meeting was reported on 2 Dec. by the
Washington Post: "President Roosevelt yesterday assumed direct command of
diplomatic and military moves relating to Japan." This politically damaging
move was necessary to prevent the mutiny of conspirators.
- 1 Dec. 3:30 P.M. FDR read Foreign Minister Togo's message to his
ambassador to Germany: "Say very secretly to them that there is extreme danger
between Japan & Anglo-Saxon nations through some clash of arms, add that
the time of this war may come quicker than anyone dreams." This was in
response to extreme German pressure on November 29 for Japan to strike the US
and promises to join with Japan in war against the US. The second of its three
parts has never been released. The message says it contains the plan of
campaign. This is 1 of only 2 known DIPLOMATIC intercepts that specified PH as
target. It was so interesting, FDR kept a copy.
- 2 Dec. 2200 Tokyo time- Here is a typical JN-25 ships in harbor report
sent to attack fleet, words in parenthesis were in the original: "Striking
Force telegram No. 994. Two battleships (Oklahoma, Nevada), 1 aircraft carrier
(Enterprise) 2 heavy cruisers, 12 destroyers sailed. The force that sailed on
22 November returned to port. Ships at anchor Pearl Harbor p.m. 28 November
were 6 battleships (2 Maryland class, 2 California class, 2 Pennsylvania
class), 1 aircraft carrier (Lexington), 9 heavy cruisers (5 San Fransisco
class, 3 Chicago class, 1 Salt Lake class), 5 light cruisers (4 Honolulu
class, 1 Omaha class)"
- 2 Dec. - Commander of the Combined Imperial Fleet Yamamoto signaled the
attack fleet Climb Niitakayama and gave date of attack. Mount Niitaka was
the highest mountain in the Japanese Empire - 13,113 feet.
- 2 Dec. - US translated Togo's "boomerang" message to all Japanese
consulates and embassies to destroy all codes. The fact that their embassy in
Washington was to keep one code machine was interpreted to mean that they were
going to war with US.
- 2 Dec. - General Hein Ter Poorten, the commander of the Netherlands East
Indies Army gave the Winds setup message to the US War Department. The Dutch
intercept station was Kamer 14 on Java. The Dutch, British and Americans all
had liaison officers at each others' Far Eastern code centers and secret radio
contact with each other (Dutch at Kamer 14, Java; British FECB at Hong Kong
and Singapore; and US at Station Cast, Philippines) throughout 1941. These
centers helped each other. The Australians had a center in Melbourne. A Dutch
sub had visually tracked the attack fleet to the Kurile Islands in early
November and this info was passed to DC, but DC did not give it to HI.
- 2 Dec - Japanese order No. 902 specified that old JN-25 additive tables
version 7 would continue to be used alongside version 8 when the latter was
introduced on December 4. This means the US read all messages to the Striking
Force through the attack.
- 4 Dec. - In the early hours, Ralph Briggs at the Navy's East Coast
Intercept station, received the "East Winds, Rain" message, the Winds Execute,
which meant war. He put it on the TWX circuit immediately and called his
commander. This message was deleted from the files. One of the main coverups
of Pearl Harbor was to make this message disappear. Japanese Dispatch # 7001.
In response to the Winds Execute, the Office of US Naval IQ had all Far
Eastern stations (Hawaii not informed) destroy their codes and classified
documents including the Tokyo Embassy.
- 4 Dec. - Kilsoo Haan called Maxwell Hamilton at the State Department and
told him that the Korean underground had information that the Japanese would
attack Pearl Harbor the coming weekend.
- 4 Dec. - The Dutch invoked the ADB agreement when the Japanese crossed the
magic line of 100 East and 10 North. The US was at war with Japan from this
moment but HI (and public) was not informed.
- 4 Dec. - General Ter Poorten sent all the details of the Winds Execute
command to Colonel Weijerman, the Dutch military attache' in Washington to
pass on to the highest military circles. Weijerman personally gave it to
Marshall, Chief of Staff of the War Department.
- 4 Dec - US General Thorpe at Java sent four messages warning of the PH
attack. DC ordered him to stop sending warnings.
- 5 Dec. - All Japanese international shipping had returned to home port.
- 5 December - In the morning FDR dictated a letter to Wendell Wilkie for
the Australian Prime Minister, "There is always the Japanese to consider. The
situation is definately serious and there might be an armed clash at any
moment...Perhaps the next four or five days will decide the matters."
- 5 Dec. - At a Cabinet meeting, Secretary of the Navy Knox said, "Well, you
know Mr. President, we know where the Japanese fleet is?" "Yes, I know" said
FDR. " I think we ought to tell everybody just how ticklish the situation is.
We have information as Knox just mentioned...Well, you tell them what it is,
Frank." Knox became very excited and said, "Well, we have very secret
information that the Japanese fleet is out at sea. Our information is..." and
then a scowling FDR cut him off. (Infamy, Toland, 1982, ch 14 sec 5)
- 5 Dec. - Washington Star reporter Constantine Brown quotes a friend in his
book The Coming of the Whirlwind p 291, "This is it! The Japs are
ready to attack. We've broken their code, and we've read their ORDERS."
- 5 Dec. - Lt. Howard Brown of Station Cast in the Philippines received
urgent request from Washington to listen for a short message from Tokyo which
ended with the English word "stop". He heard the message at 11:30 PM Hawaiian
time Dec 6. This is the Hidden Word Code set up in a message of November 27
(e.g. in code, Roosevelt=Miss Kimiko). The message was: "Relations between
Japan and the following countries are on the brink of catastrophe: Britain and
the United States."
- 6 December - This 18 November J19 message was translated by the
Army:
"1. The warships at anchor in the Harbor on the 15th were as I told
you in my No.219 on that day. Area A -- A battleship of the Oklahoma class
entered and one tanker left port. Area C -- 3 warships of the heavy cruiser
class were at anchor.
2. On the 17th the Saratoga was not in harbor. The
carrier Enterprise, or some other vessel was in Area C. Two heavy cruisers of
the Chicago class, one of the Pensacola class were tied up at docks 'KS'. 4
merchant vessels were at anchor in area D.
3. At 10:00 A.M. on the morning
of the 17th, 8 destroyers were observed entering the Harbor..." Of course this
information was not passed to HI.
- 6 Dec. - A Dec 2 request from Tokyo to HI for information about the
absence of barrage balloons, anti-torpedo nets and air recon was translated by
the Army.
- 6 Dec. - at 9:30 P.M FDR read the first 13 parts of the decoded Japanese
diplomatic declaration of war and said "This means war." (Infamy ch
14 sec 7) What kind of President would do nothing? When he returned to his 34
dinner guests he said, "The war starts tomorrow."
- 6 Dec. - the war cabinet: FDR, top advisor Hopkins, Stimson, Marshall,
Secretary of the Navy Knox, with aides John McCrea and Frank Beatty
"deliberately sat through the night of 6 December 1941 waiting for the Japs to
strike." (Infamy ch 16 sec 2)
- 7 December - A message from the Japanese Consul in Budapest to
Tokyo:
"On the 6th, the American Minister presented to the Government of
this country a British Government communique to the effect that a state of war
would break out on the 7th." The communique was the Dec 5th war alert from the
British Admiralty. It has been called "premature" and has disappeared. This
triple priority alert was delivered to FDR personally. The Mid-East British
Air Marshall told Col. Bonner Fellers on Saturday that he had received a
secret signal that America was coming into the war in 24 hours. Churchill
summarized the message in GRAND ALLIANCE page 601 as listing the two fleets
attacking British targets and "Other Japanese fleets...also at sea on other
tasks." There only were three other fleets: for Guam, the Philippines and HI.
2 paragraphs of the alert, British targets only, are printed in AT DAWN WE
SLEPT, Prange, p 464. There is no innocent purpose for our government to hide
this document.
- 7 December 1941 very early Washington time, there were two Marines, an
emergency special detail, stationed outside the Japanese Naval Attache's door.
9:30 AM Aides begged Stark to send a warning to Hawaii. He did not. 10 AM FDR
read the 14th part, 11 A.M. FDR read the 15th part setting the time for the
declaration of war to be delivered to the State Department at 1 PM, about dawn
Pearl Harbor time, and did nothing. Navy Secretary Knox was given the 15th
part at 11:15 A.M. with this note from the Office of Naval IQ: "This means a
sunrise attack on Pearl Harbor today." Naval IQ also transmitted this
prediction to Hull and about 8 others, including the White House (PHH pt 36
p.532). At 10:30 AM Bratton informed Marshall that he had a most important
message (the 15th part) and would bring it to Marshall's quarters but Marshall
said he would take it at his office. At 11:25 Marshall reached his office
according to Bratton. Marshall testified that he had been riding horses that
morning but he was contradicted by Harrison, McCollum, and Deane. Marshall who
had read the first 13 parts by 10 PM the prior night, perjured himself by
denying that he had even received them. Marshall, in the face of his aides'
urgent supplications that he warn Hawaii, made strange delays including
reading and re-reading all of the 14 Part Message
(and some parts several times) which took an hour and refused to use the
scrambler phone on his desk, refused to send a warning by the fast, more
secure Navy system but sent Bratton three times to inquire how long it would
take to send his watered down warning - when informed it would take 30 or 40
minutes by Army radio, he was satisfied (that meant the warning wouldn't reach
Pearl Harbor until after the 1 PM Washington time deadline). The warning was
in fact sent commercial without priority identification and arrived 6 hours
late. This message reached all other addressees, like the Philippines and
Canal Zone, in a timely manner.
- 7 December - 7:55 A.M. Hawaii time AIR RAID PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NOT
DRILL.
- 7 December - 1:50 P.M. Washington time. Harry Hopkins, who was the only
person with FDR when he received the news of the attack by telephone from
Knox, wrote that FDR was unsurprised and expressed "great relief." Eleanor
Roosevelt wrote about December 7th in This I Remember p 233, that FDR
became "in a way more serene." In the NY Times Magazine of October 8, 1944 she
wrote: "Dec. 7 was...far from the shock it proved to the country in general.
We had expected something of the sort for a long time."
- 7 December - 3:00 PM "The (war cabinet) conference met in not too tense an
atmosphere because I think that all of us believed that in the last analysis
the enemy was Hitler...and that Japan had given us an opportunity." Harry
Hopkins, Dec. 7 Memo (Roosevelt and Hopkins R Sherwood, p. 431)
- 7 December - 9 hours later, MacArthur's entire air force was caught by
surprise and wiped out in the Philippines (16 of 17 B-17s destroyed at Clark,
55 fighters out of 141 P-40s lost, 30 other planes lost), making the loss of
the Philippines inevitable. MacArthur had previously refused a request to
recon Japanese activities in Camranh Bay and Formosa because he claimed he had
higher orders from Washington. He had Magic and JN-25 code breaking
equipment. His reaction to the news of Pearl Harbor was quite unusual - he
read scripture for ten minutes, refused to meet with his air commander General
Brereton, made other delays and locked himself in his room all morning. He
refused to attack Japanese forces on Formosa, even under direct orders from
the War Department, or allow the bombers to be moved to the South islands out
of harm's way. MacArthur gave three conflicting orders that ensured the planes
were on the ground most of the morning. MacArthur used radar tracking of the
Japanese planes at 140, 100, 80, 60, down to 20 miles to time his final order
and ensure his planes were on the ground. Strategically, the destruction of
half of all US heavy bombers in the world was more important than naval damage
in Pearl Harbor. Either MacArthur had committed the greatest blunder in
military history or he was under orders to allow his forces to be destroyed.
If it were the greatest blunder in history, it is remarkable how he escaped
any reprimand, kept his command and got his fourth star and Congressional
Medal of Honor shortly later. Prange argued, "How could the President ensure a
successful Japanese attack unless he confided in the commanders and persuaded
them to allow the enemy to proceed unhindered?"
- 7 December - 8:30 PM, FDR said to his cabinet, "We have reason to believe
that the Germans have told the Japanese that if Japan declares war, they will
too. In other words, a declaration of war by Japan automatically brings..." at
which point he was interrupted, but his expectation and focus is clear. Mrs.
Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor, observed later about FDR: "I had a deep
emotional feeling that something was wrong, that this situation was not all it
appeared to be." Mrs. Perkins was obsessed by Roosevelt's strange reactions
that night and remarked particularly on the expression he had:" In other
words, there have been times when I associated that expression with a kind of
evasiveness."
- FDR met with CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow at midnight. Murrow, who had
seen many statesmen in crises, was surprised at FDR's calm reaction. After
chatting about London, they reviewed the latest news from PH and then FDR
tested Murrow's news instincts with these 2 bizarre giveaway questions: "Did
this surprise you?" Murrow said yes. FDR: "Maybe you think it didn't surprise
us?" FDR gave the impression that the attack itself was not unwelcome. This is
the same high-strung FDR that got polio when convicted of perjury; the same
FDR that was bedridden for a month when he learned Russia was to be attacked;
the same FDR who couldn't eat or drink when he got the Japanese order to sail.
- 8 December - In a conversation with his speechwriter Rosenman, FDR
"emphasized that Hitler was still the first target, but he feared that a great
many Americans would insist that we make the war in the Pacific at least
equally important with the war against Hitler."
- Later, Jonathan Daniels, administrative assistant and press secretary to
FDR said, "The blow was heavier than he had hoped it would necessarily
be...But the risks paid off; even the loss was worth the price..."
- FDR reminisced with Stalin at Tehran on November 30, 1943, saying "if the
Japanese had not attacked the US he doubted very much if it would have been
possible to send any American forces to Europe." Compare this statement with
what FDR said at the Atlantic Conference 4 months before Pearl: "Everything
was to be done to force an 'incident' to justify hostitlities." Given that a
Japanese attack was the only possible incident, then FDR had said he would do
it.
COMMISSIONS AND COVERUP
The issue of whether FDR and Washington were responsible for Pearl Harbor was
decided in two courts of law in 1944. Both the Navy Court and the Army Board
found Washington guilty.
- NAVY Court of Inquiry
- Top Secret ARMY Board Report, Oct, 1944, must read: "Now let us turn
to the fateful period between November 27 and December 6, 1941. In this period
numerous pieces of information came to our State, War, and Navy Departments in
all of their Top ranks indicating precisely the intentions of the Japanese
including the probable exact hour and date of the attack. " In response to
this report, Marshall offered his resignation - the sign of a guilty
conscience. Marshall testified at the MacArthur hearings that he considered
loyalty to his chief superior to loyalty to his country.
- JOINT CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack,
Nov 15, 1945 to May 31, 1946, although limited, put a considerable amount of
material on the record and proved that there had been so much reversion of
testimony, coverup and outright lies that the truth would have to wait until
all Pearl Harbor records were declassified.
Most of the conspirators were military men, all men of FDR's own choice,
men who only followed orders and FDR never delegated authority. Stark, in
answer to charges that he denied IQ to Hawaii, said publicly in August 1945
that everything he did pre-Dec 7, 1941 was on FDR's orders. The handfull of
military men in DC responsible for the disaster at Pearl Harbor were directly
under the control of FDR and were later promoted and protected from
investigation; promoted with FDR's full knowledge that they were responsible
for not warning Hawaii. On the record, Intelligence tried to warn HI scores of
times but were prevented by FDR's men.
STATISTICS - ROOSEVELT WAS DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FOLLOWING:
American
Deaths: 2403; Wounded 1,178. In memorium, here is the list of names of all
fatal US casualties.
Eighteen ships were sunk or seriously damaged including 5 battleships.
188 planes were destroyed and 162 were damaged.
JAPANESE
Out of an attack force of 31 ships and 353 raiding planes the Japanese
lost:
64 deaths,
29 planes,
5 midget submarines.
CONCLUSION - ROOSEVELT WAS A TRAITOR
The US was warned by, at least, the governments of Britain, Netherlands,
Australia, Peru, Korea and the Soviet Union that a surprise attack on Pearl
Harbor was coming. Most, if not all, Japanese codes were broken. FDR and
Marshall and others knew the attack was coming, allowed it and covered up their
knowledge. It's significant that both the the chief of OP-20-G Safford and chief
of Army Signal Intelligence Friedman, the two people in the world that knew what
we decoded, said that FDR knew Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked.
Pearl Harbor was not about war with Japan -
It was about war with
GERMANY
HITLER WOULD NOT DECLARE WAR IF U.S. UNBEATABLE
- OBJECTIVE: War with Germany. How do you get Hitler to declare war on you?
You don't get it by looking unbeatable!
- Direct efforts in Atlantic had failed.
- FDR knew from magic that if Japan attacked, Germany would declare
war.
- Therefore: the problem was how to maneuver Japan into firing the first
shot or make the first overt act.
- Japan must succeed or Hitler would renege.
War with Japan was a given because they had to attack the Philippines. If
Japan's fleet were destroyed, it would defeat the purpose. It would have been
obvious suicide for Hitler to declare war if Japan were crippled - it would
allow the US to attack him without even the possibility of a two-front war. That
was what he had just been avoiding for months. The plan could only work if
Japan's attack succeeded. The carrot of a weakened US in a two-front war was the
only way to get Hitler to bite. He naturally expected the US to focus on Japan,
anyway, making his war declaration cost-free.
CHURCHILL--FDR KNEW. Did FDR know that Pearl Harbor was a Japanese
target? Answer: FDR planned Pearl Harbor to be their target. He ordered
the ships in and the carriers out. It is of supreme significance that on 25 July
1941, when FDR cut off oil to Japan, forcing them into war with US, that he also
cut off military intelligence to Hawaii (they had already been ordered in May
not to decode JN-25 or J-19 traffic). Churchill wrote about Pearl Harbor that
FDR and his top advisors "knew the full and immediate
purpose of their enemy." Churchill's entire discussion of Pearl
Harbor was a justification of treason, e.g.: "A Japanese attack upon the U.S.
was a vast simplification of (FDR's and advisors') problems and their duty. How
can we wonder that they regarded the actual form of the attack, or even its
scale, as incomparably less important than the fact that the whole American
nation would be united...?"
(See GRAND ALLIANCE p 603, 602)
J. Edgar Hoover told his friends in early 1942 that FDR had known about the
Pearl Harbor plan since the early Fall. It was totally in character for FDR to
concoct such a plan. Not only had the US Senate already censured FDR for utterly
lacking moral perspective, but as Walter Lippmann wrote: "his purposes are not
simple and his methods are not direct." To get into the war, FDR used the
Atlantic Fleet as bait to be shot up; Pearl Harbor was the same thing in the
Pacific. US Admiral Bloch testified "The Japanese only destroyed a lot of
old hardware. In a sense they did us a favor." This was obviously FDR's view as
well, because on 7 December at 2:15, minutes after hearing of the attack and
before any damage reports were in, FDR called Lord Halifax at the British
Embassy and told him "Most of the fleet was at sea...none of their newer ships
were in harbour."
COVERUP BY SECRECY. Why does the government refuse to release all the
messages to the attack fleet, or any JN-25 messages decoded before Dec 7? There
is absolutely nothing about national security to hide in JN-25. It is a trivial
and worthless 19th century code. The techniques for cracking it had been
published world-wide in 1931. The US government has proudly showed how they used
JN-25 decrypts after December 8 to win the Battle of Midway which occurred 7
months after Pearl Harbor. Therefore, there is nothing intrinsic about the code
itself, the means of cracking it, or the fact that we cracked it, that has any
national security implications of any nature. What is the difference between
decrypts from the Purple machine and decrypts from JN-25? The answer is simply
that the JN-25 messages contained the final operational details of the Pearl
Harbor attack, whereas the Purple did not.
WHAT ARE THEY HIDING? Why won't they let the truth out? Such secrecy breeds
mistrust in government. The only thing that is left to hide are JN-25 decrypts
and worksheets showing that the US and Britain monitored the Japanese attack
fleet all the way to Pearl Harbor. That is the scandal. That is the big secret.
It raises the issue of whether the NSA is accessory after the fact to treason.
However, the secrecy and misdirection by the NSA about our capabilities with
JN-25B and pre-war messages proves there is something very wrong. The NSA is an
evil Gestapo that is committed neither to truth nor open government nor the rule
of law. We live an Orwellian history in which treason is honored, in which FDR's
murder of thousands of young innocent men is good. In a word, we are no
different from the tyranny we decry. A self-governing people must have truth to
make proper decisions. By subverting the truth, the National Security Agency is
subverting our Democracy.
He who controls the past, controls the future. He who controls the present,
controls the past. -
Orwell
Tokyo had to send the daily bomb-plots, cabled from its Honolulu
consulate, to the attack fleet by JN-25 radio messages. The pilots had to get
their target information. "The news of the position of enemy ships in Pearl
Harbor comes again and again." - Lt. Cmdr. Chigusa, executive officer of the
attack fleet's Akigumo in his diary, December 4, 1941 (At Dawn We
Slept, G. Prange, NY 1981, page 453). FDR got it, too. FDR knew the
Japanese pilots' targets as well as they did, because he got their bomb-plots
when they did. He had their specific targets, ship by ship, in his hands at the
Whitehouse. These messages would prove absolutely that FDR knew that the attack
fleet's target was Pearl Harbor and therefore are not released. The unnecessary
and illogical secrecy about pre-December 7, 1941, JN-25 decoding is conclusive
evidence that there was wrongdoing at the highest levels.
WARS BEGIN IN THE MINDS OF MEN. The evidence is overwhelming that FDR planned
for the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor and that he meant for Pearl to be caught
by surprise - FDR actively sought this. He set it up. It couldn't have happened
without him. FDR was a traitor for maneuvering Japan into war with US - and that
is known and admitted - FDR was a traitor for sacrificing American lives, for
putting America in danger, for usurping the Constitutional power of Congress to
make war. Day of infamy, indeed; he chose his words precisely with a hidden
double-meaning. Four days before the attack, FDR could have sent telegrams of
condolence to the families of the sailors he was going to allow to be killed.
Even today there is a coverup, based on a transparently bogus excuse of national
security, that shows that our government cannot face the truth about what
happened a half-century ago. Truth we owe the men of Pearl Harbor. Until we tell
the full truth, we dishonor them and every soldier and sailor who gave their
life for their country. Should their lives have been sacrificed for treason and
no one know, they had died in vain. If their honor cover treason - we are not a
nation of law. The Air Corps in the Philippines and the Navy at Pearl were FDR's
bait, the oil embargo was his stick, the end of negotiations was the tripwire in
FDR's game of shame - a game of death for so many. Roosevelt aided and abetted
the murder of thousands of Americans he had sworn to protect.