The Round Tablette
December 2007
Volume 16 Number 4
Published by WW II History Roundtable
Edited by Jim Gerber
www.mn-ww2roundtable.org
Welcome to the December meeting of
the Dr. Harold C. Deutsch World War Two
History Roundtable. Tonight author Robert
Stinnett and Roundtable member Jim Johns
will discuss the intelligence that the US had
before the attack on Pearl Harbor and how
we entered World War Two so disastrously.
Controversy
For 66 years, since the attack on Pearl
Harbor, there has been controversy about
how much America knew about the attack
before it happened and why nothing was
done to prevent the attack. Did President
Roosevelt apply pressure to cause Japan to
attack thereby getting the US into the war
that many Americans opposed? Consider
this: In July, 1941, after President Roosevelt
cut off exports when Japan was given French
Indo-China by the Vichy government
without firing a shot, Japan realized that to
get the imports turned back on again by
negotiations was far preferable to having to
go to war to get them back. To that end,
Japan made several attempts to restore the
status-quo. The first attempt was made by
the Japanese Prime Minister himself, whose
attempts were officially shunned in
Washington. The Japanese even sent the
diplomat extraordinaire Kurusu to
Washington to help their Ambassador
Admiral Numura to work out a deal that was
also refused.
It was Washington that discontinued
negotiations on November 26th and then
waited for Japan’s response until December
7th.
US Naval documentation which
discloses that the December 7, 1941 raid on
Pearl Harbor was not a surprise attack, will
be shown in tonight’s program. They were
obtained by Mr. Stinnett through the
freedom of information act. This will be the
first mid-west display of these secret
documents.
One of the documents that we will see
tonight, is what Mr. Stinnett refers to as the
“smoking gun” of Pearl Harbor. It is a secret
8 point US Navy Action Memorandum which
called for provoking Japan into attacking the
US at Pearl Harbor through an overt act of
war. This policy was adopted by FDR at the
White House on October 8, 1940, 14 ½
months before the actual Japanese attack.
After adopting the plan, Roosevelt directly
followed Japanese military and diplomatic
reaction through US Naval cryptographic
interception of radio messages sent to
Nippon’s warships and foreign officials.
Ten investigations of Pearl Harbor by
American Military and Congressional panels
failed to produce or discuss the military
intercepts gathered by American and Allied
radio monitor stations in the Pacific Basin.
The USN intercepts show the Japanese
commander of the Hawaiian attack was not
on “radio silence” as claimed by the
American investigations. Rather he was in
extensive radio communication with two
other admirals scheduled to attack American
bases in the Central Pacific on December 7,
1941. The American radio cryptographers
intercepted the “extensive messages” which
originated aboard the Imperial Japanese
Naval flagships in the north and central
Pacific as they approached Hawaii. Guam
and Wake Island. The cryptos, using
directional finders, located Japan’s huge
carrier fleet in the North Pacific Ocean and
30 vessels of the submarine fleet heading
toward Hawaii. Japan’s Wake and Guam
Islands invasion force was electronically
tracked in the Central Pacific.
Washington had no less than a dozen
warnings from reliable sources that Pearl
Harbor would be the sight of a major attack
and we were even told when. All of these
predictions were shunned.
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.”
Warnings
On 1/27/41, the Peruvian envoy in
Tokyo told the 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.
On 3/31/41, 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.
On 5/10/41, US Military Attaché
Smith-Hutton at Tokyo reported the
Japanese Navy was secretly practicing
aircraft torpedo attacks against capital ships
in Ariake Bay.
July 1941 – The US Military Attaché
in Mexico forwarded a report that the
Japanese were constructing special small
submarines for attacking the American fleet
in Pearl Harbor.
On 9/24/41, the “bomb plot” message
in J-19 code from Japan Naval Intelligence
to Japan’s consul general in Honolulu
requesting a grid of exact location 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 the harbor unless they were going to
be attacked. It was a dead giveaway.
On 11/25/41, Secretary of War Henry
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
Day of Deceit
By Robert B. Stinnett
The Free Press
New York 2000
More Reading On Tonight’s Topic
A Time For War
By Robert Smith Thompson
Prentice Hall Press
New York 1991
Betrayal At Pearl Harbor
By James Russbridger and Eric Nave
Summit Books
New York 1991
“And I Was There”
By Edwin T. Layton
William Morrow
New York 1985
The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor
By Robert Theobald
Devin-Adair
New York 1954
Pearl Harbor; The Verdict of History
By Gordon Prange
McGraw Hill
New York 1986
Day of Infamy
By Walter Lord
Holt, Rinehart
New York 1957
Have a safe holiday season.
See you next year.