Pearl Harbor & 9/11

There is a fascinating historical parallel between the Japanese attack on the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7^th, 1941 and the al Quaeda attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11^th, 2001. In both cases, it was learned subsequent to the attacks that a great deal of important information about the pending attacks was received in Washington. In both cases, a sort of paralysis seemed to descent on the American leadership and although there was every reason to believe both attacks had been detected before their execution, nothing was done to interdict them. Both attacks led directly to war, a war strongly desired by the two Presidents, Roosevelt and Bush.  Here we are presenting, initially, a very in- depth study of the interception by the United States of top secret Japanese messages prior to the Pearl Harbor attack.

The Japanese attack on the headquarters of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941 was one of those watershed events which mark the history of all nations.

The facts of the attack have never been in doubt. The ships comprising the Imperial Japanese naval task force are as well known as the ships of the U.S. Navy that were sunk during the raid. The losses in men and material on both sides are a matter of uncontested public record as are the names of the various military and political leaders of both Japan and the United States.

What has been a matter of conjecture from the moment that the last carrier-based Japanese bomber left Hawaii is why did the attack happen and who or what was responsible for the unleashing of a destructive war in the Pacific that killed hundreds of thousands of American, British, Dutch, Australians, New Zealanders, Indians, Burmese and Koreans as well as one and a half million Chinese soldiers and left a similar number of Japanese dead. Not taken into account in most chronicles of the war are the numbers of civilian dead . The Chinese totals are unknown but estimated to be between 700,000 and 10,000,000. The number of Japanese civilians killed in air raids or other war-related casualties were about 953, 000.

In apportioning the guilt of war, it is the victors who write the histories and the losers who are condemned to a generation of silence.

There is no point, and certainly not sufficient space, to chronicle the complete root causes of this war. The actions and attitudes of past generations can be sifted and analyzed, circumstances and happenings viewed from a multitude of different angles and blame or praise apportioned by historians according to their personal opinions or, more often, by the official attitudes of those who command their works.

The 1941 war in the Pacific, like any incident, cannot be dissected with any degree of accuracy without exploring the history, politics and personalities of previous generations and to this prolix roll must be added such factors as economics, demographics and natural resources.

A kaleidoscope is a pleasant toy with which to amuse children but its concept can serve as an example of the extraordinary problems that face historians who wish to explore the avenues of history and to write about them without prejudice.

The mirrored tube of the toy contains bits of colored glass. What can't be known are what patterns that will form each time the tube is rotated. This is the problem that faces historians. Facts and dates are certainly easily recognized but all of the various factors involved in historical occurrences become blurred and confusing when viewed across the distance of time.

The further the observer is removed from the moment, the more confusing the patterns become because the literature he must consult is blurred with personal opinion, clumsy and inaccurate analysis and the reality that the winners never admit their victory was either unnecessary or accidental.

With this in mind, where is a beginning to be made concerning the great Pacific war? Does one go back to the beginning of the century or the beginning of the millennium?

It may be erudite for a writer to bring forward chapters of ancient history and to spangle his works with his own opinions and psychological insights into the motives and personalities of the leaders of the period but all this does is serve as a vehicle for the writer's ego and can only entertain but rarely inform.

This study will present a series of overviews which will condense historical background into readable form and devote the balance of the work to a through chronology of the events as well as supportive material that covers the period just prior to the Pearl Harbor attack. Since the end of the war and the death of all the major leaders, more and more valuable records are becoming available to the public. When these are gathered, studied and finally compiled in chronological order, many of the myths, legends and deliberate untruths dissolve to be replaced with as much of the truth as can ever be found concerning a controversial issue.

No one wishes to take the responsibility for deliberately beginning a war that might have had no real reason for its commencement and whose course slaughtered millions of people.

Those in power in the United States when the war broke out cannot have been expected to write memoirs in which they would admit to having instigated such a war. It is far easier to blame the Japanese for launching the bloody conflict with a surprise attack than to suggest that perhaps Japan had been maneuvered into launching the attack.

The supporters of President Franklin Roosevelt have poured out hundreds of books since the end of the war in 1945, not only in praise of the American president's actions but to place the blame for Pearl Harbor squarely on the expansionism and treachery of Imperial Japan. The basic themes of these essays in justification are Japanese treachery and American innocence.

Roosevelt's role in the Pearl Harbor attack has been a subject of intense speculation from the very day of the debacle in Hawaii. His opponents, and he had many, claim that he deliberately pushed the Japanese into a war to permit him to fight his arch enemy, Adolf Hitler. His supporters, and they are equally legion, have repeatedly, often and at length denied this thesis but as their ranks thin and as more and more important material becomes available, their defenses have been seriously breached.

In this protracted debate, several valid points have been brought out by Roosevelt supporters that ought to be carefully considered. The most important point is concerned with U.S. military intelligence achievements and mainly deals with the interception and decoding of secret Japanese radio messages. Historians agree that the Japanese diplomatic code, called "Purple" after the color of their diplomatic code book, was broken by military intelligence and consequently, all high-level diplomatic messages between the Japanese Foreign office in Tokyo and Japanese diplomats stationed throughout the world were being decrypted and read almost as soon as U.S. intelligence intercepted them.

The question of the Japanese Army and Navy operational codes is an entirely different matter. The American establishment and its in-house historians have firmly denied for a half-century these military codes were broken until the end of the Pacific war in 1945.

While all of the diplomatic "Purple" decrypts have been made public in the intervening years, only a few of the coded Japanese naval messages have been released and then only in a highly edited and factually vague form.

Another issue is the timing on the decryption of the Japanese messages and the actual distribution of them to U.S. military and governmental figures in Washington. Highly significant messages are claimed not to have been decoded for four years and a number of messages of a lesser importance have no indication as to whom they were delivered or when.

In general, the official governmental position is that no really significant military messages were seen prior to the attack and therefore, neither the President or his ranking military subordinates could have possibly had any knowledge of a pending attack.

The Japanese task force did not transmit any messages during their foray across the deserted waters of the north Pacific but they did receive a considerable number of transmissions sent to them, in naval code, from the CIC Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, and other military officials. A reading of this traffic makes it very clear indeed that an attack against Pearl Harbor was in train and for this reason, admission of the existence and knowledge of these transmissions by political and military figures in the U.S. has been very strongly, and officially, denied in the intervening years.

The argument has been well made, specifically by Roberta Wohlstetter in her 1961 book, 'Pearl Harbor, Warning and Decision', that so many Japanese coded messages were intercepted that it was extremely difficult for American intelligence agency personnel to winnow the wheat from the chaff. In retrospect, historians have stated, a Japanese attack was certainly in the offing but the direction of this attack was lost in the muddle of complex and difficult-to-translate messages.

One of the areas of great interest to historians has been the possible motivation for Roosevelt's increasing pressure on the Japanese government, a pressure that culminated in seizure of Japanese assets and an embargo on oil, gas and scrap metal which were vital to maintaining the Japanese military machine. Many reasons have been given for the President's action including a personal prejudice in favor of China. His maternal grandfather had a very lucrative opium smuggling operation with that country in the nineteenth century. Other, more likely scenarios encompass Roosevelt's personal hatred of Hitler in particular and all Germans in general as well as an overriding determination to remain President of the United States until carried out of the office.

Both of these reasons are valid but in and of themselves do not fully explain the dangerous brinkmanship practiced by Roosevelt in his 1941 dealings with Japan. It is painfully and very clearly evident from reading the intercepts of the Japanese diplomatic messages that Tokyo was not only not interested in pursuing war against the U.S. but was seriously engaged in frantic attempts to defuse a dangerous situation which its accelerating progress caused them great alarm. There is no question that Roosevelt and his top advisors were reading all the Japanese diplomatic intercepts and were made fully aware the ease by which they could establish effective dialog with the Japanese government. All diplomatic approaches by Japan were rebuffed by Roosevelt and Cordell Hull, his Secretary of State. The artificial diplomatic crisis deepened and as the year waned, the probability of Japanese military action was clearly evident at the highest official levels in Washington.

To attempt to ascertain Roosevelt's actual motives in his attitude towards Japan, it might be instructive to consider the situations in both Europe and the United States in 1941.

War between Germany and Poland had broken out on September 1, 1939 and rapidly escalated when France and Britain declared war on Germany several days later. The German army quickly crushed Poland but Hitler made no effort to attack either France or England, hoping that eventually some kind of a settlement could be made with both countries.

In spite of a number of diplomatic moves, Hitler could achieve nothing with either party although the French certainly were not interested in a reprise of the terrible First World War in which their country was turned into a shell-pocked ocean of mud and destruction.

In 1940, the British under their new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, decided to attack neutral Norway and by doing so, deprive Germany of Swedish iron ore shipments that came by sea along the Norwegian coast from northern Sweden. Hitler noted that the British had violated Norwegian neutrality on February 16 when Royal Navy destroyers entered Norwegian territorial waters and attacked the German tanker Altmark despite the protests of Norwegian naval units. The British now began to plan the invasion of Norway and this information came to German intelligence from a neutral diplomat in London.

This knowledge propelled Hitler into immediate action and German troops struck preemptively into Norway and Denmark on March 1. With an improvement in the weather, the Wehrmacht launched an attack on the western front on May 10 and by June 21, had forced the French to surrender and had driven the defeated British out of Europe

During this period, Roosevelt could not intervene in the conflict because the law

constrained him from declaring war without a mandate from Congress and, given the public American sentiment then prevailing, this would never be forthcoming.

Exactly when Roosevelt determined to attack Hitler is not known but there is a considerable body of evidence that his hatred of the German leader stemmed from a speech Hitler gave to his Reichstag on April 28, 1939. This speech, which was a masterpiece of sarcasm, was given in response to an address Roosevelt had made to Hitler a week earlier in which he demanded the German leader give assurances that he would not invade such countries as Ireland and Palestine. As Roosevelt had little actual knowledge of European politics, Hitler was able to very effectively demolish the American president's arguments. Roosevelt could not stand any kind of criticism from any source and his response to Hitler's speech was fury and a determination to attack Hitler at the first opportunity.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler launched a massive attack against the Soviet Union, at the time his ally. Many reasons have been given for this attack but a careful study of German and Soviet records indicates that Hitler viewed this campaign solely as a preemptive strike against a country which was rapidly preparing to attack him first.

Since the beginning of his presidency, Roosevelt had actively sought the support of the well-organized Communist party in the United States. This group was influential in certain industrial areas and especially in New York State whose Governor Roosevelt had once been. There is no question that the Communist support was vital in Roosevelt's election and would continue to be vital in maintaining him in the White House. A man of almost no ideological understanding, Roosevelt was an extremely shrewd domestic politician and he realized the active support of the radical left was vital to his survival in office. His administrations were rapidly filled with a significantly large number of members of the left and Roosevelt went to great lengths to support their aims. The Hitler-Stalin pact in 1939 came as a great shock to American Communists but when Hitler invaded Stalin's Russia in June of 1941, the Soviet dictator once again resumed his place as the champion of the workers and peasants and a very sought-after ally of Roosevelt and his administration.

The swift advances of the German Army and the virtual collapse of the Soviet Army became a source of great concern to Roosevelt. The large losses in territory and manpower suffered by the Soviets convinced many in Washington that the complete disintegration of the Soviet government was only weeks away. This caused great consternation in both London and Washington because Stalin was the last viable enemy of Hitler. England was militarily wrecked and could not launch a meaningful attack against Germany and the neutral U.S. could do nothing to assist Stalin but give him as much financial support as they could.

If, as it appeared in the autumn of 1941, Russia could collapse, the last major hope for the containment and destruction of Hitler and his country would be gone.

The point of balance now shifted from European Russia to the Far East.

When the leading edge of the German Army was before Moscow, the capital was subject to heavy air raids by the Luftwaffe, and the bulk of the Soviet government and the diplomatic corps had fled. What was left of the decimated Soviet Red Army was engaged in a protracted death struggle for the capital.

There was a very acute possibility the Japanese, chronic enemies of Russia and officially allied with Germany, would take advantage of Stalin's major preoccupation with the siege of his capital and fall onto his rear, invading the eastern province of Siberia. This area was extraordinarily difficult to supply as the Czar's generals discovered in 1904. The hostility between Japan and Russia which erupted in that year and the Russo-Japanese war ended in a defeat for Russia and Japan's elevation to the status of a world power. The animosity between the two countries never abated and in July of 1938, an expansionist Japan, engaged in a protracted and very savage war with the provincial warlords of China, turned its attentions towards Russia and attempted to seize land inside the Soviet Union at Chankufeng near the vital Soviet naval base of Vladivostok.

The Soviets counterattacked and drove the  Japanese back into their own territory. Undaunted by their defeat, Japan attacked the Soviets again in May of 1939 and for four months a series of battles raged back and forth. Eventually,  in late August of that year, Soviet General Zhukov launched a powerful attack against the  invader with nine divisions and 600 tanks. The Japanese were severely beaten; suffering the  loss of 18,000 men and considerable aircraft.

Following this humiliating defeat, there was a strong movement in the Japanese high command to prepare for war against the Soviet Union. This project was called the Strike North plan and their plans for an attack on Vladivostok were shown to Hitler by General Baron Oshima, Japan's pro-German ambassador as early as March, 1941. Hitler discussed the probability of this attack with members of his military staff throughout the balance of the year.

The major problem facing Roosevelt then is evident. Stalin was the linchpin of the Roosevelt-Churchill military policy. If Stalin fell, Hitler was certain to destroy Russia's capacity to remain in the war and this could not be allowed to happen. Roosevelt was able to give funds to Stalin but could send no supplies or weapons of war to the dictator without the approval of Congress. If Japan decided to move against Stalin's eastern territories, he would then be fighting a two-front war and without any question, would be quickly defeated.

In autumn of 1941, therefore, Roosevelt's most urgent task was to prevent Japan from launching any military actions against Russia. As the President was well aware, there was another military faction in Japan that wished to expand in a southern direction and secure the natural resources of Southeastern Asia. This faction was called the Strike South Force and their aims were far more acceptable to Roosevelt than their rivals' one.

By applying both diplomatic and economic pressure against Japan, Roosevelt obviously hoped to distract the Japanese from embarking on a Russian adventure and to encourage them to move, if move they did, in the opposite and far more acceptable direction. Roosevelt was safe enough in embracing this southern concept because the U.S. had very little invested in the Far East with the exception of a few mid-Pacific islands and the Philippines which, in any case, were slated for independence in 1948.

The British, on the other hand, had a great deal of capital invested in the same area so Churchill was equally fearful of the southern plan of the Japanese. By 1941, however, Britain had been reduced to the level of a client state of America.

Although professing great sympathy for Churchill's war, Roosevelt had no problem whatsoever in securing the most advantageous financial position he could when England found it must replenish its military equipment losses. When the British Expeditionary Force had fled France in 1940, they had to abandon all of their heavy equipment, vehicles, artillery and small arms on the beaches of Dunkirk.

Roosevelt was most pleased to resupply the British Army...at a price. He sold them obsolete American rifles, equipment, and outdated ammunition and sent them on trade fifty destroyers dating back 30 years and in deplorable repair. In return for this largesse, Churchill had to pay in gold, paper money not being wanted, and to find the gold, he had to empty the treasury and the banks of England. When the gold had all vanished into the U.S. Fort Knox repository, Roosevelt then demanded, and got, the surrender of all British assets and business holdings in the United States and Canada. These his Treasury Department consistently undervalued and these minimal values were credited to the account of the British government for arms purchases.

The assets were later resold by the government to private parties at a considerable profit. This Yankee trading also extended to other, similar spheres when in April of 1941,  Roosevelt had the Treasury Department freeze the assets of the Swiss bank branches in the United States on the flimsy grounds that German funds might be involved. What was actually involved were $230 million in Jewish refugee funds, all but $500 thousand of which were kept by the U.S. government.

When the possibility of a Japanese invasion of British territories arose, Churchill expressed great alarm to Roosevelt but the American President then held all the cards and brushed aside the Prime Minister's concerns with vague promises that America would regain any lost territory at the conclusion of what Roosevelt was certain would be a successful war.

In actuality, Roosevelt was a bitter opponent of the colonial system and expressed to his inner circle that he had no intentions of returning any former colony to its ante bellum masters.

American pressure on Japan to prevent any attack on Russia is certainly the simplest answer to the complex welter of issues raised in the postwar years concerning the outbreak of war in the Pacific. In reality, Roosevelt was completely successful in his goal of distracting the Japanese military but the price the American public eventually paid was enormous.

To be continued…