Pearl Harbor: An Intelligence Success

by Jeremy R. Hammond

August 9, 2003

In his article "Pearl Harbor: A Rude Awakening" from the BBC online history of World War II, Bruce Robinson adamantly defends the official version of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He writes that "rumours" regarding the Day of Infamy are "still hanging around" on account of "revisionist historians and conspiracy cranks". These "revisionists" and "cranks", Robinson explains in his introduction, "claim Roosevelt was itching for war with Japan", but that Roosevelt "was constrained by US neutrality" and so needed Pearl Harbor as "a solid reason to fight."

Although Robinson would have us believe that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was not "itching" for a war with Japan, he also acknowledges that "If war was to come", then Roosevelt would have "wanted Japan to be seen to be the aggressor". Given this, how well does the suggestion that Roosevelt did not desire war with Japan hold up to the historical facts?

In the year before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum, of the Office of Naval Intelligence, drafted a document commonly known as the "McCollum Memo". The memo proposed 8 steps by which to force Japan to strike at the U.S. and was endorsed by two of President Roosevelt's closest military advisors. Roosevelt eventually implemented all 8 steps of the plan, one of which was to "embargo all U.S. trade with Japan".

To borrow a phrase from Orwell, "it wouldn't do", in Robinson's mind, "to mention that particular fact"; but once having been mentioned, one would thereafter be hard pressed to try to support any claim that Roosevelt had not desired war with Japan. Winston Churchill himself had noted the "astonishing depth of Roosevelt's intense desire for war" and told his cabinet that Roosevelt "obviously was very determined" to "come in". Still, according to Robinson, the "conspiracy" version "doesn't add up", simply because, in his opinion, Roosevelt "was in no hurry" to enter the fray. Perhaps Robinson is correct in one regard: the McCollum Memo may, in fact, be seen as a testimony to the great patience of which he attests. Robinson's central fallacy here is that Roosevelt's willingness to wait until the implemented plan brought its desired effect does not diminish in the least his "intense desire for war".

According to Robinson, the "revisionist" version "doesn't add up" not only because "Roosevelt was in no hurry", but also because "Roosevelt had already pushed neutrality to the limit and had assigned warships to accompany convoys in the Atlantic." Hence, "War with Germany was only a matter of time", and so "why [would the U.S.] choose to fight another with Japan?" Robinson seems unable or unwilling to grasp the concept that since Japan and Germany were allied a declaration of war upon one would amount to war with the other, also. The act of asking this question necessarily depends upon disregarding historical evidence showing an opposite reality which would otherwise negate the validity of the question. Furthermore, Robinson's own answer rejects, without discussion, the most reasonable and simplest explanation, which Robinson himself makes note of; that an attack from Japan would provide a "solid reason to fight" a war that, prior to December 7, 1941, had lacked popular support.

With that in mind, the McCollum Memo also states that "It is not believed that in the present state of political opinion the United States government is capable of declaring war against Japan" (It was precisely for that reason that the 8 steps were needed, after all). "If by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war," the document declares, "so much the better."

The McCollum Memo is not the only document that attests to the government's recognition that the desire to go to war was "constrained by US neutrality"--namely by the desire to maintain that "neutrality" by the majority of Americans--and that entry into war would require some sort of pretext, a "solid reason to fight". In a memo to Roosevelt in June of 1941, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes wrote, "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."

To this end, an embargo was also suggested to Roosevelt by others, as well, such as Admiral Richmond Turner, who wrote that "shutting off the American supply of petroleum" would force Japan to take "military action" and would thus "immediately involve us in a Pacific war." This is something Roosevelt clearly needn't have been told, however, since prior to this he had declared that if the U.S. had "cut the oil off, they probably would have gone down to the Dutch East Indies a year ago, and you would have had war."

Roosevelt's Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, wrote in a journal entry from November of 1941, "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."

Still, these same "revisionists" and "cranks", Robinson writes, "accuse [Roosevelt] of suppressing prior knowledge of the attack, or of provoking [Japan] to enable America to enter the war". The implied suggestion regarding the second of these two statements, in light of such documented admissions, cannot be taken seriously. In essence, although the President implemented the steps of a government document which laid out the plan to provoke Japan "to enable America to enter the war", Robinson would have us believe that anyone who might happen to point out that fact should be regarded as a "revisionist historian", which is apparently the professional equivalent of a "conspiracy crank".

"Some", writes Robinson, "even say that the attack on Pearl Harbor was deliberately engineered by a crypto-communist president guilty of high treason". Let us concede the point that Roosevelt was a "crypto-communist", regarding it as an apparent straw-man argument, and focus our attention on Robinson's denial that the attack was "deliberately engineered". To review the facts momentarily, Roosevelt had implemented a series of "means" which were intended to lead Japan "to commit an overt act of war"--an outcome that was to be regarded as "so much the better" than other scenarios. Still, to suggest that Roosevelt had "deliberately engineered" the attack, according to Robinson, is a bunch of "conspiracy" nonsense that "doesn't add up". The historical facts are clearly inconvenient for official-version apologists such as Robinson, which might help to explain the noteworthy absence of their mention in his article.

Moreover, if the fact that Roosevelt "deliberately engineered" the attack qualifies him as being "guilty of high treason", so be it. "It is", as a wise man once said, "as you say".

But what of the claim that Roosevelt had suppressed prior knowledge of the attack? Would it be accurate to suggest, as Robinson does, that this is little more than a "rumour" propagated by these same "cranks" who are so fond, in their grievous lack of intentional ignorance, of pointing out the historical evidence? Is there any evidence at all that members of the U.S. government, including the President, were aware of more than what was publicly admitted, and that they conspired to withhold vital information regarding the impending attack? While it is difficult to do so for many of Robinson's other suggestions, let us make a concerted effort to consider this one seriously.

First, though, let us reiterate a few corollaries. If Robinson's version is to stand up to scrutiny, it would be necessary to conclude either that Roosevelt was ignorant of the fact that the embargo might "provoke" Japan into action, or that a Roosevelt who didn't want war was aware that an embargo would be just such a provocation, but who chose to provoke anyhow. It would be necessarily to conclude that the U.S. had not predicted that Japan might strike militarily in response to such an act of economic warfare. The Naval Fleet in Pearl Harbor would necessarily not have been regarded as a potential target (which would only be logical, since no attack was expected anyhow). Other such sophistic assumptions abound, but it should hardly be necessary to continue to identify them. Let it suffice to point out that if Robinson's version is to stand, it would be necessary for us to disregard a great many facts which would otherwise provide monumental obstacles to his overall hypothesis.

It may also be beneficial to note, before continuing, that the very nature of such a plan as the one outlined in the McCollum Memo would require that the intended outcome would be kept to look like a surprise and that ignorance be feigned on the part of those responsible for implementing this blueprint for war. While it may be superfluous to continue, let us do so, in order to make absolutely certain to lay to rest this grand rumour that has been reiterated by Robinson and which is still hanging around, well past its "sell-by" date and fuelled only by sentimental propagandists and journalistic cranks.

Robinson acknowledges that "the US had broken Japan's diplomatic codes and could sometimes decode messages faster than the Japanese themselves". However, while there may have been "blushing cover-ups of previous blunders", there is "little evidence" of government complicity in the crime. "The real crime," he writes, "was one of incompetence on a huge scale." In other words, even though the attack fulfilled the stated goal of the Roosevelt administration's blueprint for war, it should be regarded as an intelligence failure rather than success by the professional journalist--of which Robinson considers himself one.

So, even though the US "could sometimes decode messages faster than the Japanese themselves", we are requested to believe that Roosevelt, who was briefed twice daily on encoded message traffic, had no knowledge of such information. While we cannot know precisely what Roosevelt learned from these briefings since that information is still classified due to "national security" concerns, a brief look at a few examples of the kind of information it would be reasonable to assume just might have made it to the President's ears may be instructive.

One such intercepted message, sent from Japanese Naval Intelligence in Tokyo to Japan's consul-general in Honolulu, requested exact locations of targets. Following this, a series of messages were decrypted which pinpointed Pearl Harbor as the primary target of a Japanese attack. An intercept known as the "Bomb Plot" message requested information on ships at Pearl Harbor. Another message spoke of ambush and "[destroying] the U.S. enemy", with references to armor-piercing bombs and shallow-dive torpedoes. An intercept known as the "East Wind Rain" message reported that a "rain" weather report from Radio Tokyo would be the signal for an attack, and from the "east" would specify the U.S.

As shocking as these decrypted messages might be, such intelligence should not have been, nor should be, altogether surprising. In March of 1941, the Navy issued a report that predicted a strike at Pearl Harbor in the event of a war with Japan. This was a natural conclusion to draw; it is simple common sense to assume that the Japanese, in the event of a war with the U.S., would strike the Pacific Fleet. After all, the Japanese had learned from U.S. military mock attacks on Pearl Harbor in 1932 and again in 1938 that the Fleet in Pearl Harbor was vulnerable to attack. Fleet Commander Admiral James O. Richardson was well aware of this threat. After the Fleet was ordered to Pearl Harbor, Richardson consistently made his objections known, and was then relieved of his command and replaced by Admiral Husband Edward Kimmel, who similarly objected to the Fleet's exposure at Pearl Harbor.

Still, it was "American myopia", a "staggering lack of co-ordination", and not government complicity that allowed for the attack on Pearl Harbor to be carried out without obstruction. "The problem was not raw data, but its interpretation, evaluation and communication". This "raw data" should have been "used properly", which is something that, inexplicably, simply "did not happen". "Japanese messages were decoded by the army and navy on alternate days", but "all too often one service failed to properly communicate their new intelligence to the other." Furthermore, "it wasn't just codes", but "on the day of the attack, Japanese aircraft were spotted by American radar." Still, "No action was taken" because "they were assumed to be a flight of B-17 bombers due in from the mainland", which is even more puzzling since, after all, "It's not as if America wasn't warned." While "In January 1941 Ambassador Grew in Tokyo passed on intelligence that stated that Japan was planning the attack", the intelligence "was disregarded".

The German Ambassador to the U.S., Dr. Hans Thomsen, an anti-Nazi, also informed the Office of Strategic Services (the OSS, predecessor to the CIA) that Pearl Harbor would be attacked. Like the OSS, the FBI received similar intelligence specifically mentioning Pearl Harbor from British agent Dusko Popov, code named "Tricycle". This intelligence, which "[spelled] out in detail exactly where, when, how, and by whom we are to be attacked", was considered to be "too precise, too complete to be believed" and in just such a manner was similarly "disregarded".

Also "disregarded", by President Roosevelt himself, was intelligence from an agent for the Sino-Korean People's League, Kilsoo Haan, who told Eric Severeid of CBS that he had proof that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor before Christmas. Haan convinced Senator Guy Gillette of the impending attack, who then alerted the State Department, Army and Navy Intelligence, and President Roosevelt personally.

Robinson continues, explaining that "Warnings from military personnel in February and July were overlooked, largely because they recommended massive transfers of aircraft to Oahu, aircraft that America simply did not have." However, it's not so much that America "simply did not have" the aircraft, but that the government simply was not willing to give them to Oahu. On numerous occasions throughout 1941, Admiral Kimmel, who had 49 aircraft, most of which were obsolete or worn out, begged Navy Chief Harold R. Stark for more 280 more planes to defend Hawaii. Though he was promised the planes, they were instead sent to General MacArthur in the Philippines.

"War warnings", writes Robinson, "from Washington to Hawaii ten days before the attack were virtually ignored." Indeed, on November 23, a message declaring that "The first air attack has been set for 0330 hours on X-day" was decrypted. On the 25th, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Fleet, sent a code detailing the attack on the U.S. Fleet in Hawaii. The message ordered the task force to "advance into Hawaiian waters" and "attack the main force of the United States Fleet in Hawaii" in order to "deal it a mortal blow". The British decoded the message that same day, but just when the U.S. learned of the content of Yamamoto's transmission is classified on the grounds of "national security". Also that same day, having "virtually ignored" the intelligence it was known to have received by that point in time, the Navy Department, in another criminal act of "incompetence", ordered all U.S. trans-Pacific shipping to take a southern route, thus clearing the way for the Japanese task force.

The explanation Robinson insists upon is that "Team USA was proving pretty dysfunctional." The possibility that "Team USA" was actually demonstrating its incredible functionality seems to have been discarded by Robinson, as are so many historical evidences that he does not find, it would seem, suitable to mention.

"This American myopia", Robinson writes, in yet another example of ignoring inconvenient facts, "stemmed from complacent disbelief that Japan would mount such an attack". While ignoring the smoking gun memo and other proof that this "complacent disbelief" is nothing more than a whimsical figment of the imagination, he is not so insulting to our intelligence as to neglect mentioning that "any study of Japanese history" would have "demonstrated that pre-emptive attacks such as this were almost standard operating procedure." Again, this must merely be a matter of "incompetence on a huge scale", since it could not surely be evidence of "anything more than blushing cover-ups of previous blunders". That there was a "staggering lack of co-ordination between Washington and Oahu" must suffice as the explanation for these otherwise inexplicable circumstances. "Instead of concentrating on what Japan could do, the US tried to guess what it would do." Once again ignoring the historical evidence which shows otherwise, Robinson concludes that "[The U.S.] guessed wrong."

On the 26th of November, Churchill sent an urgent message to Roosevelt, which is the only one of his many correspondences with the President to remain classified on the grounds of "national security", and to which Roosevelt responded, "Negotiations off. Services expect action within two weeks." Testifying before a Board of Inquiry, Navy Chief Harold R. Stark later stated that "On November 26, there was received specific evidence of the Japanese intention to wage offensive war against Great Britain and the United States." In his book "The Secret War Against Hitler", former CIA Director William Casey, who was in the OSS in 1941, wrote that "The British had sent word that a Japanese Fleet was steaming east toward Hawaii."

On the same day Churchill sent the mystery message, Washington ordered both U.S. aircraft carriers, the Enterprise and the Lexington, out of Pearl Harbor (yet another act of "criminal incompetence", to be sure), stripping Oahu of another 50 planes, or 40% of its already inadequate fighter protection. While "their survival", writes Robinson, "was a major blow" to Japan, it was "only chance" that saved the American aircraft carriers. It is apparently expected of us to accept this explanation, without further qualification and without questioning, and to do so while keeping a straight face.

True to the design of the blueprint for war implemented by the President, Robinson acknowledges that the desired outcome, that "the attack united the country behind Roosevelt and behind war", was successfully achieved on that fateful day.

As a concluding thought, Robinson writes that although "Operationally brilliant," the attack on Pearl Harbor "was nonetheless strategically disastrous" for Japan because it would "Never again…have the opportunity to act with such forethought and planning." In other words, Japan would never again be able to "surprise" the criminally "incompetent" United States with another such attack, and therefore it is to be considered as having been "strategically disastrous" by Robinson, who apparently would consider Japan not attacking the exposed U.S. Fleet as a much more successful strategy. Or, to put it into terms which Robinson might be inclined to contend with, it was "strategically disastrous" for Japan to walk into the trap set for it by the Roosevelt administration. "It got itself the short term breathing space it wanted," but "also a war against both Britain and America". The attack was "the result of courage, optimism and (possibly) madness on a massive scale"--the latter of which surely must also hold true for the U.S. "Japan lost", he observes. But then, after all, "it could never really win."

"So why", he asks, "all the conspiracy theories?" He answers his own hypothetical question, "Maybe because some just cannot accept that on the day, in round one, their boys were beaten by the better team." Japan was the "better team" on that day, one is left to assume, because although it was "possibly" guilty of "madness on a massive scale", unlike the United States it was not "dysfunctional"; nor had it committed the "real crime" of "incompetence on a huge scale".

To his credit, I would like to acknowledge that Robinson recognizes that a crime was indeed committed on December 7, 1941, not only by Japan, but also by the United States government, whose alleged "incompetence" led to the deaths of nearly 3000 souls as a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor on that fateful Day of Infamy.

The title "Pearl Harbor: An Intelligence Success" was inspired by comments from Michael Rivero at What Really Happened. The McCollum Memo may be found in its entirety at http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/McCollum/.

The article "Pearl Harbor: A Rude Awakening" by Bruce Robinson may be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwtwo/pearl_harbour_1.shtml. I have also preserved a local copy, in anticipation of my hope that the BBC will remove Bruce Robinson's article from its online history of World War II. In furtherance of this desire, my above response to that article has been sent to the BBC:

To whom it may concern:

The article "Pearl Harbor: A Rude Awakening" by Bruce Robinson, found at the BBC online history of WWII, is one I find particularly insulting to the intelligence to the readers of the BBC History page. I have written a response to this article, which can be found at:

www.yirmeyahureview.com/pearl_harbor.htm

By endorsing this article, the BBC is willingly propagating a lie that has long since been exposed. It is my hope that, out of respect for the truth, you will remove this article from your website.

I would be more than happy to provide a replacement.

Sincerely,

Jeremy R. Hammond
www.yirmeyahureview.com