Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor [Paperback]

It was not long after the first Japanese bombs fell on the American naval ships at Pearl Harbor that conspiracy theories began to circulate, charging that Franklin Roosevelt and his chief military advisors knew of the impending attack well in advance. Robert Stinnett, who served in the U.S. Navy with distinction during World War II, examines recently declassified American documents and concludes that, far more than merely knowing of the Japanese plan to bomb Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt deliberately steered Japan into war with America.

Stinnett's argument draws on both circumstantial evidence--the fact, for example, that in September 1940 Roosevelt signed into law a measure providing for a two-ocean navy that would number 100 aircraft carriers--and, more importantly, on American governmental documents that offer apparently incontrovertible proof that Roosevelt knowingly sacrificed American lives in order to enter the war on the side of England. Although obviously troubled by his discovery of a systematic plan of deception on the part of the American government, Stinnett does not take deep issue with its outcome. Roosevelt, he writes, faced powerful opposition from isolationist forces, and, against them, the Pearl Harbor attack was "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." Sure to excite discussion, Stinnett's book offers what may be the final word on the terrible matter of Pearl Harbor. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Historians have long debated whether President Roosevelt had advance knowledge of Japan's December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. Using documents pried loose through the Freedom of Information Act during 17 years of research, Stinnett provides overwhelming evidence that FDR and his top advisers knew that Japanese warships were heading toward Hawaii. The heart of his argument is even more inflammatory: Stinnett argues that FDR, who desired to sway public opinion in support of U.S. entry into WWII, instigated a policy intended to provoke a Japanese attack. The plan was outlined in a U.S. Naval Intelligence secret strategy memo of October 1940; Roosevelt immediately began implementing its eight steps (which included deploying U.S. warships in Japanese territorial waters and imposing a total embargo intended to strangle Japan's economy), all of which, according to Stinnett, climaxed in the Japanese attack. Stinnett, a decorated naval veteran of WWII who served under then Lt. George Bush, substantiates his charges with a wealth of persuasive documents, including many government and military memos and transcripts. Demolishing the myth that the Japanese fleet maintained strict radio silence, he shows that several Japanese naval broadcasts, intercepted by American cryptographers in the 10 days before December 7, confirmed that Japan intended to start the war at Pearl Harbor. Stinnett convincingly demonstrates that the U.S. top brass in Hawaii--Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Husband Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Walter Short--were kept out of the intelligence loop on orders from Washington and were then scapegoated for allegedly failing to anticipate the Japanese attack (in May 1999, the U.S. Senate cleared their names). Kimmel moved his fleet into the North Pacific, actively searching for the suspected Japanese staging area, but naval headquarters ordered him to turn back. Stinnett's meticulously researched book raises deeply troubling ethical issues. While he believes the deceit built into FDR's strategy was heinous, he nevertheless writes: "I sympathize with the agonizing dilemma faced by President Roosevelt. He was forced to find circuitous means to persuade an isolationist America to join in a fight for freedom." This, however, is an expression of understanding, not of absolution. If Stinnett is right, FDR has a lot to answer for--namely, the lives of those Americans who perished at Pearl Harbor. Stinnett establishes almost beyond question that the U.S. Navy could have at least anticipated the attack. The evidence that FDR himself deliberately provoked the attack is circumstantial, but convincing enough to make Stinnett's bombshell of a book the subject of impassioned debate in the months to come. (Dec.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Most scholars long ago concluded that the Franklin Roosevelt presidency ranks as the best of the 20th century. They also have recognized that a dark thread was woven throughout FDR's publicly perceived ebullient personality. This volume is a new chapter in a decades-old controversy surrounding FDR: Did he somehow have advance knowledge of the attack on his own navy at Pearl Harbor? The author, a journalist and a World War II veteran who served with Lt. George H.W. Bush and later wrote George Bush: His World War II Years, asserts that FDR actually provoked Pearl Harbor. He bases his sensational conclusion on his archival research and interviews with surviving U.S. Navy cryptographers. Having uncovered some strange advice from naval officers, the author then infers that FDR followed that advice. (Yet presidents get all kinds of advice.) Contemporary and classic Roosevelt haters (see Albert Fried's FDR and His Enemies, LJ 8/99) will cherish this book as they celebrate the recent close vote in the Republican-dominated U.S. Senate that posthumously cleared the two most senior naval officers whom FDR had held responsible for the Pearl Harbor debacle. However, other readers, especially academic historians and FDR supporters, will be far less convinced by this new rehearsal of the old, highly speculative charges, which takes research out of context and reflects contemporary anti-government sentiment. However well intentioned, journalists who play amateur historian often write misleading history.AWilliam D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The Pearl Harbor disaster continues to be controversial. Uncertainty about whether the U.S. had knowledge of the Japanese attack has led to books suspicious of FDR's actions, such as John Toland's Infamy (1982). Although Stinnett's accusatory light doesn't definitively fall on FDR, it illuminates fishy aspects of the case. For starters, Stinnett, despite his assiduous Freedom of Information Act campaign that produced most of his data, was often stymied by official secrecy still enveloping certain decryptions of Japanese radio communications. Second, Stinnett reports that 13 messages from the Japanese commander, Yamamoto, to his attack force are missing from the American archive of decrypts. Third, Stinnett interviewed radio intelligence officers who recalled locating the force as it crossed the Pacific, contrary to lore that holds it sailed undetected. And the naval base commander was handcuffed: two weeks prior to the attack, he was ordered to stop patrolling waters north of Oahu. Whether the result of simple dereliction or sinister dereliction of duty, Pearl Harbor holds fewer secrets because of Stinnett's research. Gilbert Taylor --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

An explosive, well-written look at the events leading up to the Japanese raid on Pearl harbor, including FDRs provocation of the attack, by a WWII veteran and longtime journalist. Though rumors have long circulated about American prior knowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Stinnett has gone far beyond his models in substantiating the state of American intelligence, diplomacy, and readiness in the year preceding December 7, 1941. Though Stinnett easily makes his case that the Unites States knew an attack was coming and did not prepare for it, even more shocking is his discovery that the North Pacific area, where an attack was believed likely to originate, was declared a ``vacant sea'' just weeks prior to the attack and any patrols were forbidden in this area. The real heart of the book is the argument that the attack on Pearl Harbor was deliberately instigated by the Roosevelt Administration as a way of quickly bringing a unified America into the war. Stinnett begins his case by quoting a policy memo written by Lt. Cdr. Arthur McCullum listing eight actions designed to incite a military action by Japan, including such actions as the blocking of the sale of oil to the Japanese, maintaining a heavy US naval presence in the Pacific, and supporting Chiang Kai-shek in China. After showing how this plan was carried out, he then goes on to show how this effort systematically led up to Pearl Harbor. Although too little is made of the context in which Roosevelt apparently made the decision to allow the attack to go unchecked (it is only in the closing sections that this issue is even discussed), Stinnett has left no stone unturned in this account, which should rewrite the historical record of WWII. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Richard Bernstein The New York Times It is difficult, after reading this copiously documented book, not to wonder about previously unchallenged assumptions about Pearl Harbor.

Bruce Bartlett The Wall Street Journal Fascinating and readable....Exceptionally well-presented.

Robert Stinnett served in the United States Navy from 1942 to 1946, where he earned ten battle stars and a Presidential Unit Citation. He is the author of George Bush: His World War II Years. Before devoting himself to writing Day of Deceit, he was a photographer and journalist for the Oakland Tribune. He is a consultant on the Pacific War for the BBC, Asahi Television, and NHK Television in Japan. He lives in Oakland, California.

Chapter One: The Biggest Story of My Life

Washington

December 8, 1941

About 1:00 A.M.

Edward R. Murrow couldn't sleep. His wife, Janet, watched him pace in their hotel room. He was chain-smoking. Murrow, the CBS radio newsman, had just returned from a midnight meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House. Japan's carrier and submarine raid on Pearl Harbor had taken place twelve hours earlier, and the full impact of the military disaster was slowly sinking in for FDR and the American people.

During their twenty-five-minute discussion in the second-floor Oval Study, the President provided Murrow with something -- we will never know exactly what -- that any reporter would kill for. That night he told his wife, "It's the biggest story of my life, but I don't know if it's my duty to tell it or forget it." Long after the war ended, Murrow was asked about this meeting by author-journalist John Gunther. After a long pause, Murrow replied: "That story would send Casey Murrow through college, and if you think I'm going to give it to you, you're out of your mind."

Earlier in the week, the Murrows had accepted a personal dinner invitation from the Roosevelts. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt personally prepared, cooked, and served supper for two dozen guests. Her specialty was scrambled eggs and sausage, cooked in an electric chafing dish that sat atop a long buffet table in the family dining room. It was the invariable menu. Since the regular White House staff was given Sunday off, she did the cooking while the President mixed the cocktails.

After he heard the first news flashes about the Pearl Harbor raid, Murrow checked with the White House to see if the supper was still on. Told that it was, he and Janet then walked across Lafayette Park, crossed Pennsylvania Avenue, and entered the mansion through the North Portico. After the Murrows were ushered into the dining room, Mrs. Roosevelt explained that the President was meeting with congressional leaders and military officers and could not join them for supper.

Outside on Pennsylvania Avenue a small crowd had gathered. The White House was ablaze with light. No one inside the mansion thought to pull the window shades or institute blackouts on the first day of war -- that would came later. An Associated Press photographer took a picture from Lafayette Park. It shows a window in the family dining room with a silhouette of a tall figure -- probably the First Lady -- presiding over her scrambled eggs.

During the dinner, White House chief usher Howell Crim asked Murrow to remain for an informal meeting with FDR. After Janet Murrow returned to their hotel, her husband went to the second floor and waited outside Roosevelt's Oval Study -- not to be confused with the Oval Office -- in the West Wing of the White House. Soon Murrow was joined by William "Wild Bill" Donovan, Roosevelt's Coordinator of Information and later founder of the wartime Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA.

Donovan had not been present at dinner but had been summoned by the President from New York, where he had been watching a football game at the Polo Grounds. Football fans heard an unusual announcement over the public address system about 2:30 that afternoon: "Colonel William Donovan, come to the box office at once. There is an important phone message." The message was from James Roosevelt, the President's son and a member of Donovan's staff; he told Donovan about the Japanese attack.

Throughout the evening of December 7, Roosevelt conferred with congressional and military leaders. He decided his first wartime move would come the next morning, December 8, when he would ask Congress to declare that a state of war existed between Japan and the United States. He prepared a rough draft of what later became his "Day of Infamy" speech. Then he invited Murrow and Donovan into the study for a midnight snack of sandwiches and cold beer. Chief Usher Crim noted that the three men spent twenty-five minutes together in the study before Roosevelt retired to his adjoining bedroom. Crim's arrival and departure notations in the Usher Book comprise the only official record; there were no official minutes of the meeting.

Only Donovan has hinted at what went on: the conversation was mostly about public reaction to the attack. He sensed that this was FDR's overriding concern. In 1953, while he served as ambassador to Thailand, Donovan disclosed the details of the meeting to his executive assistant, William J. vanden Heuvel, who summarized the recollections in his diary. The President asked Murrow and Donovan whether they thought the attack was a clear case of a first Japanese move that would unite Americans behind a declaration of war against the Axis powers. Both guests thought it would indeed have that effect.

Donovan believed that Roosevelt welcomed the attack and that it was less of a surprise to him than it was to others in the White House. FDR claimed he sent an advance warning to Pearl Harbor that an attack by Japan was imminent. "They caught our ships like lame ducks! Lame ducks, Bill. We told them, at Pearl Harbor and everywhere else, to have the lookouts manned. But they still took us by surprise."

Still not convinced that America's isolationist sentiments would change after this attack, FDR then read to the two men from a message he had received from a British Foreign Office official, T. North Whitehead: "The dictator powers have presented us with a united America." Roosevelt wondered whether Whitehead's assessment was correct. Again he asked, would America now support a declaration of war? Donovan and Murrow again replied in the affirmative.

Whitehead was an influential member of the Foreign Office and an advisor to Prime Minister Winston Churchill on matters affecting America's aid to the British in 1940 and 1941. He evaluated American public opinion and "read" FDR's mind for the Prime Minister. In written comments to Churchill in the fall of 1940, Whitehead had warned of continued United States isolationism, but predicted it could be overcome: "America is not in the bag. However, the President is engaged in carefully calculated steps to give us full assistance."

Several years later Murrow made a brief, circumspect broadcast that in part addressed the question of what the President had known before the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor. According to Murrow's biographer Ann Sperber, "The broadcast itself was a response to an article by John Chamberlain in LIFE magazine charging Roosevelt with foreknowledge of the attack. Murrow did not believe it and said so on the air, making it clear that he had only his instinct to go on."

In the end, Murrow's big story remained unwritten and unbroadcast. Sperber believed that the meeting concerned damage reports. Whatever it was, it weighed heavily on Murrow's mind. "But he couldn't forget it either, blaming himself at times thereafter for not going with the story, never determining to his satisfaction where his duties lay that night or what had been in the subtle mind of FDR," Sperber wrote. Murrow took the story to his grave. He died April 7, 1965, two days past his fifty-seventh birthday.

Had FDR revealed something that night about his foreknowledge? Damage reports emerged immediately in local Hawaii papers, though the full details of the American losses were not released to the nation's news media until December 16, 1941, by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox. He confirmed the initial report by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Secretary Knox named the seven warships sunk: USS Arizona, USS Utah, USS Oklahoma, USS Cassin, USS Downes, USS Shaw, and USS Oglala. He said the human toll on Oahu was 2897 Americans killed, 879 wounded, and 26 missing. There was severe damage to the Army's aircraft and hangars on Oahu. Knox said the Japanese planes came from aircraft carriers and had the "most tremendously detailed" information of the naval layout at Pearl Harbor. He listed Japan's losses at forty-one planes shot down, and disclosed the American capture of a Japanese two-man midget submarine that had gone aground on an Oahu beach and the sinking of four other Japanese midget subs.

Once the nation's news media reported the attack details on December 16, 1941, there was no "big story" left to report on the main events at Pearl Harbor. None -- except speculation about Roosevelt's foreknowledge. Certain words and phrases cited by Donovan hinted at what he and Murrow were told by FDR. William vanden Heuvel's diary, according to author Anthony Cave Brown, is tantalizing: "The President's surprise was not as great as that of other men around him. Nor was the attack unwelcome. It had ended the past months of uncertainty caused by FDR's decision that Japan must be seen to make the first overt move."

Any conclusion about the Murrow meeting must remain speculative, because the participants refused to t...