December 7, 1999
Bookshelf
The Latest Sortie on That
Fateful Surprise Attack
By BRUCE BARTLETT
Today marks the 58th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Like so much else about World War II, that infamous, deadly event remains a living issue. The question has always been, to paraphrase former Sen. Howard Baker: What did President Roosevelt know, and when did he know it? "Day of Deceit" (Free Press, 386 pages, $26) purports to give a definitive answer.
Did Roosevelt know about Pearl Harbor in advance?
The question has remained open all these years because a Japanese secret code of the time was not, in fact, so secret. In August 1940, some Army cryptanalysts working under William F. Friedman succeeded in breaking Japan's top-secret Purple Code, used for diplomatic communication. They were even able to build working models of the Purple Code machine so that U.S. officials could read Japan's diplomatic wire messages almost as quickly as Japan's own ambassadors.
This code-breaking feat was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the war. But as the fighting drew to a close, word began to leak out. Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican candidate for president in 1944, even learned about it and was urged to make the news public. He refused to do so while America was still at war. Shortly after the armistice, however, John Chamberlain broke the story in Life magazine.
Once it became known that the U.S. had had access to Japan's codes long before the Pearl Harbor attack, it was inevitable that people would claim that President Roosevelt had known of the attack in advance and had perhaps even encouraged it. From November 1945 through May 1946, a joint congressional committee investigated the matter, with ambiguous results. The vast hearing record of this investigation remains the key source for everything written about Pearl Harbor.
All historians concede that President Roosevelt wanted the U.S. to enter World War II, to thwart a Nazi victory. They also concede that he used subterfuge to achieve this goal -- publicly denying any intention of sending American soldiers into combat while goading the Germans and Japanese and planning for war with Winston Churchill -- since public opinion strongly opposed American intervention. And they know that Roosevelt had access to decoded messages that, with the benefit of hindsight, appear to pinpoint the time and date of a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But no one has ever found the "smoking gun" that would prove beyond doubt that Roosevelt was complicit in the deaths of 2,273 American soldiers and sailors on Dec. 7, 1941.
Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, Robert B. Stinnett believes he has found some guns that may not be smoking but were certainly fired at some point. The first is a memo from Lt. Cmdr. Arthur H. McCollum, the top expert on Japan in naval intelligence before the war. Dated Oct. 7, 1940, the memo outlines an eight-point plan to force Japan to attack the U.S. Among the recommendations were the relocation of the U.S. Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Hawaii and an embargo on all trade with Japan. Mr. Stinnett correctly notes that every item on McCollum's list was acted upon -- starting the day after Roosevelt received the memo.
Mr. Stinnett turned up some other guns with warm barrels. For example, he discovered evidence that the U.S. had broken not only Japan's diplomatic code but also many of its military codes, which pinpointed Japanese intentions even more precisely. Mr. Stinnett also found evidence that the Japanese fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor had not maintained complete radio silence, as has long been claimed officially, and that U.S. government officials knew it.
Mr. Stinnett believes all of this -- along with what was already known -- adds up to an indictment of Roosevelt for provoking the Pearl Harbor attack and failing to warn his military commanders there when he knew an attack was imminent. Furthermore, he asserts that Roosevelt instituted a cover-up of his actions that lasted more than 50 years.
Mr. Stinnett has written a fascinating and readable book that is exceptionally well-presented. (He does a great service by reprinting many of his newly discovered documents.) But while he brings us closer to a final judgment, the case against Roosevelt remains circumstantial. In short, there is still a reasonable doubt. No firsthand evidence exists that Roosevelt actually saw this material at the right time and drew the necessary conclusions.
Mr. Stinnett concedes that even if Roosevelt did know about the attack, his actions may have been justified: "As heinous as it seems to families and veterans of World War II, of which the author is one, the Pearl Harbor attack was, from the White House perspective, something that had to be endured in order to stop a greater evil -- the Nazi invaders in Europe who had begun the Holocaust and were poised to invade England."
What has never been defensible is Roosevelt's treatment of the military commanders at Pearl Harbor -- Gen. Walter C. Short and Adm. Husband E. Kimmel -- who were kept in the dark about many facts vital to their responsibilities and then scapegoated afterward. Fortunately, time has a way of righting old wrongs. Earlier this year, the Senate approved a resolution asking President Clinton to retroactively restore the ranks that were stripped from Kimmel and Short as punishment for their failures at Pearl Harbor. "Day of Deceit" makes a strong case that such action is long overdue.
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Mr. Bartlett is the author of "Coverup: The Politics of Pearl Harbor, 1941-1946."
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