-Caveat Lector-
PEARL HARBOR
Political Implications of a Self-Inflicted Defeat
By Arnaud de Lassus
“(Pearl Harbor) was a moment of historic surprise...when warfare suddenly
spread, for the first and only time in history, to virtually the whole world.”
Fifty years ago, on December 7, 1941 (Washington time; by Tokyo time it
was December 8th), a Japanese naval force launched a surprise attack on Pearl
Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands, some 3,400 miles from Japan. The result was
that the United States entered the war on the side of Great Britain and the
USSR, and against the axis powers (Japan, Germany and Italy).
By and large the impression that the general public has of this crucial
event in contemporary history is just that the Japanese treacherously
attacked the Americans at a time when no state of war existed between the two
countries; and four years later they paid for this crime by a crushing and
well-deserved defeat.
This picture is incorrect in some important respects, and this is a
result of a remarkably effective disinformation operation. We shall set that
picture aside, replacing it by the real facts as they have emerged from
research and historical studies carried out since 1941, and this will shed
invaluable light on the objectives of American policy during and after the
Second World War and in the first stages of the drive towards “One-World.”
We will set out in turn the facts, their explanation, and the lessons that
can be drawn from them.
The Facts
Facts Generally Known
On December 7th, 1941, at dawn, the Japanese naval task force,
code-named Kido Butai (6 aircraft-carriers with an escort of battleships,
cruisers, submarines and smaller craft), flew off its planes in a bombing
attack on the American base at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands. Their
approach was undetected, and war had not been declared.
Eighteen American ships were sunk or heavily damaged, among them 8
battleships (they were old vessels and were later raised and brought back
into service, except for the Arizona and the Oklahoma); 188 American planes
were destroyed, most of them on the ground, and 2,403 men were killed.
Losses on the Japanese side were very slight.
On the following day, Franklin Roosevelt, President of the United States,
addressed a joint session of both houses of Congress and said: “Yesterday,
December 7, 1941, a day which will live in infamy, the United States was
suddenly and deliberately attacked...”
Congress immediately voted a resolution declaring that a state of war
existed between the United States and Japan...which, in view of the
alliances in force at the time, implied a state of war between the U.S. and
Germany.
In thus joining in WW2, the government of the United States had therefore
not broken the pledge made by Roosevelt to the American people during his
1940 electoral campaign: “We shall not send our land, sea or air forces to
fight in foreign lands outside the American unless we are attacked.”
Three factors on the American side contributed to the success of the
Japanese attack:
· --the U.S. forces in Hawaii were taken entirely by surprise;
· --Washington’s general instructions had made much of the risk of sabotage;
to simplify the task of guarding them, the planes had been parked very close
together, and thus made an ideal target;
· --the vessels of the fleet were immobilized, berthed alongside the quays,
taking on supplies for a possible sortie -- again, easy targets.
Some Less Well-Known Facts
Between 1941 and 1946 the military or civil authorities carried out 9
official inquiries into Pearl Harbor. These often looked as though their
purpose was to cover up certain facts.
But as time passed, the real picture ultimately managed to break through
the camouflage to which it has been subjected. Witnesses spoke out, and
their evidence was published. Books such as Admiral Robert A. Theobald’s The
Final Secret of Pearl Harbor or John Toland’s Infamy - Pearl Harbor and Its
Aftermath, which we have already mentioned, give us a truer picture of what
actually happened.
Information Available to Washington
Several months before Pearl Harbor, U.S. and British specialized services
had already succeeded in breaking the chief communication codes used by the
Japanese (their diplomatic, consular and naval codes, nicknamed respectively
“Purple,” “J-19” and “AN” by the Americans, who called the resultant
information “Magic”).
As a result Roosevelt and his staff had a detailed knowledge of the
Japanese plans and could follow them as they were carried out, noting any
modifications from day to day. In particular, they had advance knowledge of
the Japanese instructions of December 4th, 1941, ordering their embassies and
consulates in the U.S. and U.K. territories to destroy their codes -- an
order that could only mean a decision to go to war in the immediate future.
And thanks to a radio watch maintained by merchant shipping in the Pacific,
they were able to track the course of the Kido Butai task force as it
approached Hawaii.
The attack on Pearl Harbor could not, therefore, have been a surprise for
the leadership in Washington.
Information Available to the Commanders in Hawaii
The position was quite different in Hawaii. The local commanders,
Admiral Kimmel and General Short, were systematically kept in ignorance about
the progress of the diplomatic discussions between the U.S. and Japan, the
measures taken by the Japanese with a view to launching an attach, and the
movements of the Kido Butai task force. They complied with orders coming
from Washington instructing them basically to take precautions against local
sabotage, to prepare for possible naval action in Southeast Asia, and to do
nothing that might arouse panic among the local population. As a consequence
they took the measures we have already mentioned...and which made the task of
the Japanese so much easier.
Thus, instead of dispersing their planes, they parked them densely in a
small area which could be easily guarded against sabotage on the ground, and
the vessels of the fleet were all immobilized alongside the quays as they
took on fuel and supplies.
We may cite here the evidence of Fleet Admiral W. F. Halsey, who was one
of Admiral Kimmel’s three principal subordinate commanders in December 1941:
“All our intelligence pointed to an attack by Japan against the
Philippines or the southern areas in Malaya or the Dutch East Indies. While
Pearl Harbor was considered and not ruled out, the mass of evidence made
available to us pointed in another direction. Had we known of Japan’s minute
and continued interest in the exact location and movement of our ships in
Pearl Harbor, as indicated in the ‘Magic Messages,’ it is only logical that
we would have concentrated our thoughts on meeting the practical certainty
of an attack on Pearl Harbor.”
Camouflaging the Facts
The leadership in Washington (chiefly President Roosevelt, Admiral Stark,
chief of naval operation, and General Marshall, the army chief of staff) went
to some lengths to cover up their responsibility by concealing the real facts
(not an impossible task under conditions of wartime ‘security’) and by
allowing Admiral Kimmel and General Short to be accused of grave “dereliction
of duty.” A variety of methods was deployed. Commissions of inquiry were
outrageously biased; essential witnesses were excluded, or were pressured not
to speak out.
John Toland gives a detailed account of this tampering with judicial
process by the supreme authority in this book; it provides additional - and
vivid - proof of reality of the facts.
In his preface to Admiral Theobald’s book mentioned already, Admiral
Halsey concludes with the words: “I have always considered Admiral Kimmel and
General Short to be splendid officers who were thrown to the wolves as
scapegoats for something over which they had no control. They had to work
with what they were given, both in equipment and information. They are
outstanding military martyrs.”
Roosevelt Wanted War With Japan
President Roosevelt was thus forewarned about the impending Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor, a hazardous long-range operation which would have to
cover 3,150 nautical miles from its starting point at Tankan Bay in the north
of the Kurile Islands, and which could only succeed if it maintained total
surprise. As John Toland explains:
“By December (1941), Roosevelt and a small group of advisers,
including Stimson, Knox and Marshall, were faced with three options. They
could announce to Japan and the world word of the approaching Kido Butai;
this would have indubitably forced the Japanese to turn back. Second, they
could inform Kimmel and Short that Japanese carriers were northwest of
Hawaii and order them to send every available long-range patrol plane to
discover this force. An attack conceived in such secrecy would necessarily
depend on complete surprise for success, and once discovered out of range of
its target, Kido Butai would have turned back.”
Toland’s next paragraph sets out the third option.
“A month before the Hull ultimatum to Japan, Ickes had written in his
diary: ‘For a long time, I have believed that our best entrance into the war
would be by way of Japan.’ The first bomb dropped on Oahu would have finally
solved the problem of getting an American -- half of whose people wanted
peace -- into the crusade against Hitler. And the third option would
accomplish this: keep Kimmel and Short and all but a few in ignorance so that
the Japanese could continue to their launching point unaware of their
discovery. This would insure that the Japanese would launch their attack.
If Kimmel, Short and others had been privy to the secret, they might possibly
have reacted in such a way as to reveal to the Japanese that their attack
plan was known. ”
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
