The conventional wisdom is that America was dragged into World War II with an unprovoked attack by the Japanese Navy at pearl Harbor, Hawaii. However, historians have shown that the attack was deliberately provoked by the Roosevelt administration to gain support for entering the war in Europe.

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Part 3:   Roosevelt's Success and the Lessons to Learn

In Part 1 and Part 2, we learned that although President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted the United States to help Great Britain fight against Germany in World War II, the American public strongly opposed getting involved in another European war.   In order to change public opinion, Roosevelt tried to provoke Germany into attacking the U.S.   When that plan failed, Roosevelt changed his strategy to provoking Germany's ally, Japan, into attacking the U.S.   This plan included economically isolating Japan while moving the Navy's Pacific Fleet to the relatively vulnerable base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

On November 28 and 29, 1941, two messages were sent from Tokyo to the Japanese Embassy in Washington, which warned that "the negotiations will be de facto ruptured," but directed its staff not to inform the American government that negotiations would end.   These messages were decoded on November 28 and November 30, respectively.

On November 30, two messages were sent from Tokyo to the Japanese Embassy in Berlin, which were decoded on December 1.   These messages referred to the American proposals as "insulting" and "clearly a trick."   They instructed the embassy staff to:

 

Say very secretly to [Hitler and Von Ribbentrop] that there is extreme danger that war may suddenly break out between the Anglo-Saxon nations and Japan through some clash of arms and add that the time of the breaking out of war may come quicker than anyone dreams.

Between November 27 and December 2, several messages between Tokyo and the Japanese Embassy in Washington were intercepted and decoded which included instructions regarding the code to be used for future communications.   These messages also contained directions to destroy all other codes, code machines, and secret files.   Similar instructions were sent to Japanese posts in Hong Kong, Singapore, Batavia, Manila, and London.   According to Admiral Theobald,

 

Thus, when a nation orders her embassies and consulates in particular countries to destroy their codes, ciphers, code machines and files of secret correspondence, that action can mean only one thing - the close approach of war with those countries.

On December 4 and December 6, instructions were sent to U.S. bases on Guam and other outlying islands to destroy secret files and prepare to destroy their codes.   However, this information was transmitted to Admiral Kimmel and General Short with low priority, which inferred that hostilities were not imminent.

On December 6, the American Minister in Budapest provided a British communiqué to the Hungarian government.   The communiqué said that a state of war would break out on the next day, December 7.   Since Great Britain was already at war with Hungary, the communiqué could only mean a war with Japan.   According to Admiral Theobald,

 

Ambassador Winant from London also reported to Washington that a large Japanese amphibious force had been sighted off Cambodia Point headed for the Kra Peninsula and distant 14 hours' steaming therefrom.   Every government concerned, including the United States, thus positively knew, on that Saturday, that the Pacific War would be initiated on the next day, Sunday, December 7.

On December 6, the War Department intercepted and decoded another message between Tokyo and the Japanese Embassy in Washington.   This dispatch, called the "Pilot Message," instructed the embassy staff to prepare to translate into English a lengthy, separate message, which would be sent the next day.   It was to be presented to the American government at precisely the time specified in the forthcoming message.   As Admiral Theobald explained,

 

The recipients of Magic [Japanese communications that had been intercepted and decoded] in Washington had known for over a week that the Japanese reply to the American note of November 26 would be a declaration of war.   The 14-part message was that answer, hence definitely a declaration of war.   Japan had started her previous three wars - with China in 1894, with Russia in 1904, and her attack upon German-held Tsingtao in 1914 - with surprise attacks synchronized almost to the minute with the deliveries of her declarations of war.

The next day was Sunday, the day of the week upon which Japan was expected to deliver her surprise attack if she should ever decide to initiate a war with the United States.   A Japanese amphibious force was known to be in position to make a dawn attack upon the Kra Peninsula the next day.   During the earlier days of the week, the Japanese code-destruction messages made the imminence of war a certainty.   The receipt of the Pilot Message made it practically certain that Japan would start the war on the next day, Sunday, December 7, 1941....

The Washington silence which followed the receipt of the Pilot Message was the most vital key to the true Pearl Harbor story.   War within 24 hours, initiated by a surprise attack which, according to all the evidence, would be delivered upon the U.S. Fleet in Hawaii, stared General Marshall and Admiral Stark in the face from that moment onward, and they made no move during 21 of the 22 hours which intervened before the attack to inform Admiral Kimmel and General Short.   Nothing but a positive Presidential order could have so muzzled them after the receipt of the Pilot Message.

The first 13 parts of the main message were intercepted by the Navy Department before 3:00 PM on December 26, and decoded by 9:00 PM.   The final part was not transmitted until early the next morning.   However, the first 13 parts "unmistakably indicated that they were part of a Declaration of War."

The only explicit intelligence that Admiral Kimmel and General Short received about a possible attack have been called the "War Warning" messages.   These messages were transmitted on November 27, after the American demands were given to the Japanese Ambassador in Washington.   The message sent to Admiral Kimmel read,

 

This dispatch is to be considered a war warning.   Negotiations with Japan looking toward stabilization of conditions in the Pacific have ceased and an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next few days.   The number and equipment of Japanese troops and the organizations of naval task forces indicates an amphibious expedition against either the Philippines, Thai, or Kra Peninsula, or possibly Borneo.   Execute an appropriate defensive deployment preparatory to carrying out the tasks assigned in WPL 46.   Inform District and Army authorities.   A similar warning is being sent by the War Department.   Spenavo inform British.   Confidential districts, Guam, Samoa take measures against sabotage.

The message sent to General Short simply stated, "Negotiations with Japan appear to be terminated with only the barest possibility of resumption."

According to Admiral Kimmel's and General Short's critics, these messages should have been adequate to warn them of the imminent danger they were in.   But as Admiral Kimmel testified before a Joint Congressional Committee,

 

The statement in the Navy Department dispatch to me to the effect that the negotiations had ceased on November 27th was a pale reflection of actual events; so partial a statement as to be misleading.   The parties had not merely stopped talking.   They were at swordpoints.   So far as Japan was concerned, the talking which went on after November 26th was play-acting.   It was a stratagem to conceal a blow which Japan was preparing to deliver.   The stratagem did not fool the Navy Department.   The Navy Department knew the scheme.   The Pacific Fleet was exposed to this stratagem because the Navy Department did not pass on its knowledge of the Japanese trick.

As Admiral Theobald noted, "Never before in recorded history had a field commander been denied information that his country would be at war in   a matter of hours, and that everything pointed to a surprise attack upon his forces shortly before sunrise."

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor began a few minutes before 8:00 AM on December 7.   The next day, in an emergency session, President Roosevelt asked for a declaration of war on Japan.   Congress approved the declaration of war immediately.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, public opinion swung decidedly in favor of war with the Axis powers, as Roosevelt had predicted.   Many opponents of America's entry into the war changed their positions, and the remaining opponents were left with little means of resistance.   As to Murray Rothbard wrote,

 

The America First Committee quickly dissolved after Pearl Harbor and went to war - despite the pleas of the bulk of its militants to continue being a focus of opposition to the nation's course.   Charles Lindberg totally abandoned the ideological and political arena and joined the war effort.

Among the intellectuals, there was, amidst the monolith of wartime propaganda, no room or hearing for libertarian or antiwar views.   The veteran leaders of libertarianism were deprived of a voice.

On December 11, 1941, as provided for in the Tripartite Pact, Germany declared war on the United States.   Roosevelt had achieved his goal of bringing America into the war against Hitler.  

Admiral Kimmel and General Short were blamed for the defeat at Pearl Harbor, and the mythology of an "unprovoked and dastardly" attack was woven into the fabric of the American consciousness.   Despite mountains of contrary evidence uncovered by historians and researchers, this mythology has gone largely unchallenged by educational institutions, civic leaders, and public opinion makers.  

This acceptance of a false mythology has undesired consequences, because the conclusions derived from this mythology are not the true lessons of history, but rather misleading conclusions based on deception.   Unfortunately, this is a common experience.   According to Frances FitzGerald (as quoted in Why American History Is Not What They Say: An Introduction to Revisionism):

 

History textbooks for elementary and secondary schools... are written not to explore, but to instruct - to tell children what their elders want them to know about their country.   This information is not necessarily what anyone considers the truth of things.

Jeff Riggenbach adds, "Public school history textbooks are meant to inculcate a certain general view of America in their student readers - a view that can be as well (perhaps better) served by a dose of myth as by a dose of truth."

So, what are the false lessons inferred by the dominant mythology of Pearl Harbor?   We can trust our leaders to protect us and tell us the truth.   We need our leaders to protect us from evil foreigners who want to harm us without cause.   If we get into a war with another country, it's probably their fault.   And so on.   As Robert Higgs wrote,

 

Historians have always known, however, that the true story was nothing like this patriotic fable dispensed each year on December 7 for popular consumption....   It behooves every educated American to learn this honest history and to pass it along to others when an opportunity arises, because the myth has long contributed, and continues to contribute, to a false view of the U.S. place in the world and to a grave misunderstanding of U.S. foreign policy. Ceaseless dissemination and widespread acceptance of this view is the very model of how the U.S. government tends to do foreign policy: provoke foreigners to attack Americans, then tell the American people that foreigners have attacked us for no reason and therefore we must strike back to defeat them or at least to teach them a lesson about treating the United States with deference.

Then what are the real lessons we should learn from a more critical (and accurate) view of the attack on Pearl Harbor?

 

First, the actions of our political and military leaders, and the motives that drive them, may not be what they say they are.   In any nation with a republican form of government, the political leaders are supposed to implement the will of its citizens.   However, under a veil of secrecy, or in conjunction with a complacent citizenry, those leaders may take actions that are contrary to the public will.

Second, unless they are restrained by effective safeguards, even a democratic nation's leaders may invert the power relationship between the citizens and their government.   Instead of implementing the people's will, they may take actions which shape public opinion to suit their own purposes.   They may even go so far as to deceive the public, allow the mass slaughter of their own citizens, and destroy the reputations of ethical leaders like Admiral Kimmel and General Short.

Third, for republican government to function properly, citizens must be vigilant to ensure that their leaders are truthful and actually implement the will of the people.   A complacent or inattentive citizenry provides an opening for politicians and military leaders to act contrary to the people's will.   Given Lord Acton's observation that "power tends to corrupt," if the public isn't vigilant, sooner or later leaders will emerge that will act unethically.

Fourth, in order for the citizens to be vigilant and exercise the proper control over their leaders, the government's actions must be transparent.   Also, adequate systems of news reporting must exist for the government's actions to be known to the public, and effective educational systems must exist for the citizens to be able to interpret those actions correctly, and understand their ramifications.

Fifth, if a nation's leaders act contrary to the public will, or operate with undue secrecy, they must be held accountable and any policies which are contrary to the public will must be reversed.

Sixth, if they are allowed to act without unrestraint, a nation's leaders can use the news media, educational systems, and entertainment outlets to create a mythology and a culture that facilitates unethical behavior and manipulate public opinion in the future.

Clearly, the lessons which have been learned from the false mythology of Pearl Harbor that dominates public opinion today, and the lessons that would have been learned from an accurate interpretation of events, conflict with one another.   Indeed, the success of Roosevelt and his subordinates in deceiving the public about their policies leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor set the stage for deception, manipulation of public opinion, and implementation of otherwise undesired policies in the future.

As a result, for a republican system of government to function effectively, it is vital that existing assumptions about historical events be challenged.   Our understanding of historical events must be revised constantly in response to new information, and better analyses of existing information.   And our news media, educational institutions, and entertainment industry should reflect the best understanding of historical events available, instead of regurgitating old mythologies which have been discredited.

Authors Bio:
Alan Pyeatt is an award-winning Civil Engineer who lives in Monrovia, California. He also enjoys music, organic gardening, economics, and audio/video production.