Contrary to popular belief, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was neither unexpected nor unprovoked. In this section, we look at FDR's arms buildup prior to Pearl Harbor and his new strategy for drawing America into World War II.

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Part 2:   Economic Pressure and a Vulnerable Naval Base

In Part 1, we learned that Americans became disillusioned after World War I, and opposed entering the new European war.   However, President Franklin D. Roosevelt intended to provoke an attack by the Axis powers to change public opinion and convince America to enter the war on the side of Britain and France.

Meanwhile, President Roosevelt was having far more success in his efforts to increase military spending.   A contributing factor was the lingering economic depression, and the popularity of Keynesian economic theories.   According to the British economist John Maynard Keynes, any government spending - even spending that diverts resources away from production of consumer goods and capital goods - contributes to economic growth.   The logical conclusion of this theory is that any government spending, including military spending, stimulates the economy.   Other economists (such as Henry Hazlitt) criticized this theory as merely a variation of the broken-window fallacy.    However, the idea that military spending contributes to economic growth is still with us to this day.   As a result, some Congressmen who opposed intervention in foreign wars may have been willing to increase military spending anyway.   Admiral Theobald describes the intense American military buildup:

On September 3, 1940, the United States obtained long-term leases to outlying bases in British territory, in exchange for 50 old destroyers.   On September 16, the Selective Service Act became law.   By the end of 1940, Congress had voted: an immediate increase of the Army to 1,000,000 enlisted men, with an eventual goal of 4,000,000; 50,000 planes for the Army Air Corps; 170,000 enlisted men for the Navy, and 34,000 for the Marines; 15,000 planes and 10,000 pilots for the Naval Air Force; and a naval building program which envisaged an eventual two-ocean navy and embraced 17 battleships, 14 heavy cruisers, 40 light cruisers, 197 destroyers and 74 submarines.

Continuing his efforts, the President, on December 29, 1940, made a radio plea to the country for support for further large increases in the Army and Navy; and the budget submitted in January, 1941, recommended the then tremendous peacetime appropriation of $10,811,000,000 for the military and naval establishments.

But despite some low-level conflict with German submarines, FDR had failed to provoke Germany into an attack. As George Victor wrote in The Pearl Harbor Myth: Rethinking the Unthinkable, "He seems to have concluded - correctly as it turned out - that Japan would be easier to provoke into a major attack on the United States than Germany would.   As Secretary of War Henry Stimson later told a Congressional investigation, 

In spite of the risk involved... in letting the Japanese fire the first shot, we realized that in order to have the full support of the American people it was desirable to make sure that the Japanese be the ones to do this so there should remain no doubt in anyone's mind as to who were the aggressors.

Also, Stimson met with President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, General George Marshall, and Admiral Harold Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations, on November 25, 1941.   At this meeting, Secretary Hull remarked that the Japanese might attack at any time.   Later that day, Secretary Stimson wrote in his diary, "The question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves."

By then, Japan had been subjected to intense diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions.   These sanctions included ending exports of aviation fuels and lubricants to Japan under the Export Control Act, scrap iron and steel, and oil.   Roosevelt also froze all Japanese assets in the United States.   The diplomatic pressure exerted on Japan is described in Charles Callan Tansill's book, Back Door to War; Roosevelt Foreign Policy 1933 - 1941 and in William L. Neumann's essay, "How American Policy Toward Japan Contributed to War in the Pacific" in Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, edited by Harry Elmer Barnes.

According to George Victor:

Expecting to lose a war with the United States - and lose it disastrously - Japan's leaders had tried with growing desperation to negotiate.   On this point, most historians have long agreed.   Meanwhile, evidence has come out that Roosevelt and Hull persistently refused to negotiate....   It was after learning of Japan's decision to go to war with the United States if the talks "break down" that Roosevelt decided to break them off.

Meanwhile, Roosevelt baited his trap by moving the Pacific Fleet's base from San Diego, California, to Pearl Harbor in April, 1940.   The Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral James Richardson, objected to the move because in his opinion it left the fleet vulnerable to enemy attack.   Roosevelt removed Richardson from command and replaced him with Admiral Husband Kimmel, who commanded the fleet at the time of the Japanese attack.   General Walter Short was also placed in command of the island's shore defenses, including the harbor.   During the attack, Admiral Robert "Fuzzy" Theobald, author of The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor, was in command of the Pacific Fleet's destroyers.

Pearl Harbor is a relatively shallow harbor, and the aerial torpedoes with which American military leaders were familiar would have become stuck in the mud before rising to the surface and hitting their targets.   Roosevelt (who had served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson) and his staff were not aware that Japan had developed new torpedoes that would be effective in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor.   Therefore, it is likely that they underestimated the damage an aircraft carrier-based attack could cause.

However, U.S. Army Colonel Billy Mitchell had proved that battleships were vulnerable to aerial attack as early as February, 1921.   And in war games in 1932, Admiral Harry Yarnell had proved that Pearl Harbor itself was vulnerable to a carrier-based naval attack, even without Japan's shallow-depth torpedoes.   So, it requires a leap of faith to conclude that Roosevelt and his advisors really thought that Admiral Richardson's objections to basing the fleet at Pearl Harbor were unfounded.   After all, Pearl Harbor was located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles from the mainland ports of San Diego and San Francisco.   And yet, that is exactly what the apologists for Roosevelt's strategy would have us believe.

Roosevelt's attempt to provoke a Japanese attack proved effective.   In his essay, "Japanese-American Relations, 1921 - 1941; The Pacific Back Road to War" in Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, Charles Callan Tansill quotes Captain Oliver Lyttleton, the British Minister of Supplies, saying

America provoked Japan to such an extent that the Japanese were forced to attack Pearl Harbor.   It is a travesty on history to say that America was forced into war.

Or, as Admiral Theobald put it,

Diplomatically, President Roosevelt's strategy of forcing Japan to war by unremitting and ever-increasing diplomatic-economic pressure, and by simultaneously holding our Fleet in Hawaii as an invitation to a surprise attack, was a complete success.

Prior to the Japanese attack, Roosevelt deliberately withheld information from Admiral Kimmel and General Short, which would have warned them that an attack was imminent.   In fact, both men were intentionally kept ignorant of events leading up to the attack, and then used as scapegoats afterward.   Roosevelt and his staff appear to have been concerned that Admiral Kimmel could have stopped the Japanese attack by merely sailing the fleet out of the harbor, if he knew it was imminent.   They may have also been concerned that the public would expect Roosevelt to resolve the conflict through diplomacy, if the attack were repulsed too easily.

Most of this information did not come to light until after the war, during the Joint Congressional Committee investigation held from November 15, 1945, to May 31, 1946.   Admiral Theobald (who served as an informal assistant to Admiral Kimmel during this investigation) described it and the previous Congressional investigations in The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor.  

Based on the information revealed in these investigations, Admiral Theobald outlined the intelligence that had been deliberately withheld from Admiral Kimmel and General Short.   Although a detailed description of this intelligence is beyond the scope of the present article, a few of the most important items will be mentioned.

On January 27, 1941, Ambassador Joseph Grew in Tokyo sent the following message to the State Department:

The Peruvian minister has informed a member of my staff that he has heard from many sources, including a Japanese source, that in the event of trouble breaking out between the United States and Japan, the Japanese intended to make a surprise attack against Pearl Harbor with all their strength and employing all their equipment.   The Peruvian minister considers the rumors fantastic.   Nevertheless, he considered them of sufficient importance to convey the information to a member of my staff.

A message from Tokyo to the Japanese Consul General in Honolulu on September 24, 1941 (and decoded by the War Department on October 9), divided the harbor into 5 sub-areas and requested the Consul to secretly report on the American warships within each sub-area.   Subsequent reports from the Consul detailing American ship movements were also intercepted and decoded.   The message from Tokyo continued,

With regard to warships and aircraft carriers we would like to have you report on those at anchor (these are not so important), tied up at wharves, buoys, and in dock.   Designate types and classes briefly.   If possible, we would like to have you make mention of the fact when there are two or more vessels alongside the same wharf.

Regarding the secret Japanese reports of American ship movements, Admiral Theobald wrote,

Not the slightest hint of all this was given to Admiral Kimmel or General Short.   Why was such irrefutable evidence of the coming attack so withheld?   Why did Washington contribute so completely to the surprise feature of that attack?   There can be only one answer - because President Roosevelt wanted it that way!

On October 18, the Japanese government arrested Dr. Richard Sorge, who led a Russian spy ring inside Japan.   The New York Daily News later reported that prior to his execution, Dr. Sorge confessed that he had told the Kremlin "that the Japs intended to attack Pearl Harbor within 60 days."   Japanese records showed that the Russian government provided this information to President Roosevelt, General Marshall, and Admiral Stark in exchange for intelligence regarding Germany's imminent attack on Russia.

On November 3, 1941, Ambassador Grew sent a message to the State Department emphasizing the need for an immediate resolution of the conflict with Japan to prevent war.   Between November 5 and November 24, several messages were sent from Tokyo to the Japanese Embassy in Washington (and decoded by the U.S. Navy Department) that emphasized the need to resolve the conflict before the "immovable" date of November 25.   The Japanese government subsequently changed this date to November 29.   Then on November 26, the Japanese Embassy in Washington sent two messages to Tokyo that reported their failure to conclude negotiations successfully, and described the terms of an expected American counter-proposal.   These messages were decoded on November 28.

On November 26, 1941, Secretary Hull presented a list of demands to the Japanese Ambassador in Washington for ending the embargo and releasing Japanese assets.   The demands included:

* Withdrawal of Japanese forces from China and Manchuria,

* Recognition of the Chiang Kai-shek government,

* Withdrawal from French Indo-China,

* Guarantees that the Philippines, Siberia, the Dutch East Indies, China, and Thailand would be safe from attack, and

* Abrogation of the Tripartite Treaty.

The administration knew that these demands would not be acceptable to the Japanese government.   According to Admiral Theobald,

The only possible conclusion is that President Roosevelt wanted to be absolutely sure that Japan's answer would be a declaration of war....   Everyone concerned recognized that this note put an end to the Kurusu-Nomura negotiations, and that war was inevitable.

In Part 3, we will look at the final result of the Roosevelt administration's economic sanctions on Japan and the list of demands presented to the Japanese Ambassador.   We will also draw some conclusions regarding the true lessons of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

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.