PEARL HARBOR
Presidential Awareness and Instigation or An Intelligence and Decision Making Failure

Abstract: This monograph, which focuses on intelligence- related issues associated with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, provides an historical perspective on the collection, analysis and use of intelligence by decision-makers. It examines the twin arguments concerning the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, viz., whether it was instigated by Roosevelt considerable foreknowledge of the events that were to transpire or that Presidential and other executive decision-making failed to take into consideration the intelligence which would have otherwise allowed for the greater defense of Hawaii on December 7, 1941.

Preface

Modern business has seen the application of tried and true principles from other disciplines as a means of achieving their objectives. "Lessons learned" from military, political and diplomatic disciplines abound and can often be directly applied to business activities. Certainly some of the vocabulary comes across directly, especially the vocabulary of warfare.

The bookshelves of many of America's most successful business people include such works as Sun Tzu's The Art of War, von Clausewitz' On War, Leadership Principles of Attila the Hun, to name just a few. Are they there to gather dust or to impress a visiting senior military officer? Hardly. They're there in the interest of understanding and applying proven principles to achieving their strategic and tactical business objectives by using the lessons from those other disciplines as metaphors.

Many of the business leaders of the 1950's and the 1960's were influenced by the success of the Allies' strategic planning processes in winning World War II. It seemed to many that the strategy lessons of warfare and diplomacy could be directly translated into business, and to a certain extent this was correct. Yet, strategic planning has - to say the least - enjoyed only cyclical popularity.

Since the latter part of the 1980's, however, strategic planning has enjoyed somewhat of a resurgence. Much of the success of business strategy these days owes to the application of one of the ingredients of military, political and diplomatic strategy that had always been missing in the industrial world: intelligence.

By intelligence, we don't mean whether the business leader is as smart as his or her military or diplomatic counterpart. Instead we mean that buried somewhere deep in the American psyche, there has been at least a suspicion about, an aversion toward, or an outright disdain for, the world's second oldest profession and its practitioners.

Yet, with the steady application of what we term legal and ethical intelligence processes - for that's what they are - American corporations have found it increasingly appropriate to apply the supporting principles from the intelligence community to the conduct of business.

There are a variety of reasons which could be advanced for this sea-change in attitude.

One of the most influential appears to be the application of intelligence collection and analysis techniques to business operations by foreign corporations. This has been particularly true of Japanese firms owing to the emergence of so many of their companies as models of excellence and study. Of course, there is also the acknowledged linkage between government and industry in the case of Japan, France and a number of other countries - a linkage so well developed that government intelligence efforts complement and favor their businesses in a way that has never been legal or acceptable in the United States.

Indeed, the American failure to capitalize on the intelligence process as a crucial element of business activity has been the cause of wonderment by international business rivals. One of the more interesting questions that captures this curiosity about American business' use of the intelligence process was posed - perhaps not so rhetorically - by a representative of the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in a press conference in June 1985:

"Japan was defeated in World War II partly due to the superior intelligence network and strategy developed by the American government. Why can't American businessmen develop the same kind of superior intelligence and strategy to cope with Japan today and be victorious? Most Japanese don't understand why American businessmen cannot win this war."

The MITI spokesman's comments merely reflect the apparent, traditional differences in answers to the same question - posed to a Japanese business leader and an American MBA. To the question: "What is your role in the collection and analysis of information in your company?" the Japanese business executive's answer: "Of course, information collection and reporting is an important part of my job." Yet, the American MBA's dismissive answer: "That's the company librarian's job."

Yet, in the middle part of the 1980's, American firms began noting that one of the leading discriminators between successful and unsuccessful companies was the use of the intelligence process to support business decisions. A measure of that increased awareness - and the use of the intelligence process - is the growth in membership of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) and the wide range of industries and companies represented by that membership - with over 4,000 professionals representing some 2000 companies by 1996. And, a significant percentage of those have graduate business degrees.

Expenditures - even in an era known for cost-cutting of those business functions without clear pay-offs - is another metric. In 1996, firms spent over $8 billion on competitive intelligence activities.

At bottom, the rise in the conduct of Competitive Intelligence activities in the United States - as well as abroad - suggests that a review of one of the more intriguing intelligence discussions of the modern era might well have value to business decision-makers engaged as consumers of the commercial intelligence product.

Introduction

The first section of this paper addresses the issue of presidential awareness and instigation of events ultimately resulting in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Essentially, the first section examines the position that Roosevelt believed that the United States had no real legitimate reason for remaining out of the conflict and that he therefore engineered the attack on Pearl Harbor in the interest of having war declared on the basis of an attack by Japan in order to ensure a sense of national purpose and unity. In effect, then, Pearl Harbor is taken as an issue substantially larger than the attack itself in much the same way that Watergate eventually took on a substantially larger meaning than a mere "third-rate burglary." A separate section has been devoted to the tangent issue of electronic intelligence and its place in the attack

The second section of this paper views the attack on Pearl Harbor largely in isolation, but from several different perspectives, unified solely by an intent to rebut the essentially revisionist claims of presidential complicity. Included in this section is a general description of the so-called "Wohlstetter Argument", which is taken from Roberta Wohlstetter's book Pearl Harbor - Warning and Decision. This position argues that the attack on Pearl Harbor was simply caused by a misunderstanding of available information which was all too often confusing, coupled with a less than effective decision making machine. Since the "Wohlstetter Argument" addresses Pearl Harbor within the context of an intelligence failure while effectively ignoring the "intricacies of diplomatic maneuver and the shifting pressures of European and Far Eastern interests," other means have been sought to answer the arguments presented in the first section. It nonetheless provides a substantial backdrop of intelligence gathering/decision making difficulties, helpful for future crisis management, whether or not it serves as an effective and convincing tool in dealing with the issue of presidential awareness and instigation.

Section I

PEARL HARBOR: AN ISSUE OF PRESIDENTIAL AWARENESS AND INSTIGATION

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she must always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

-Winston S. Churchill

The British Ambassador to the United States attempted to confront his audience with reality when he addressed the commencement exercises at Yale in June 1940. He told them that isolation was completely impossible and that the world would force itself upon the United States as it had upon Great Britain. American wealth and strength would become magnets to other powers; it would be an irresistible challenge to Hitler or anyone else who dreamed of international power.

The Yale faculty was enthusiastic, yet most of the senior class failed to respond. However, Lord Lothian 's words were not wasted on Franklin D. Roosevelt, who believed that - in the long cycles of history - the United States must assume the role of watchdog to ensure that no one nation must ever control the continent. Roosevelt sought to find the means of answering that call of history and still find the means of remaining the driving force of the Republic by overcoming tradition and obtaining an unprecedented third term.

It was entirely conceivable that the country would elect an isolationist to the Presidency with intolerable results. As William Manchester has recorded:

"Just helping Britain and at the same time winning the election was going to be quite a trick. To carry it off, he felt - and Hull agreed with him - they would have to drop their policy of being frank with the American people."

Arrayed against Roosevelt was a not insignificant isolationist cum peace lobby at the forefront of which was the Committee to Defend America First. Founded by a Yale law student and the editor of the student newspaper, R. Douglas Stuart Jr. and Kingman Brewster Jr. respectively, it became the largest and most influential of the anti-war organizations. Within six months of its founding, the America Firsters numbered in excess of 60,000 actual members, among whom were such luminary and model citizens as Charles Lindbergh, General Robert A. Wood, Henry Ford, Robert Young, Joseph P. Kennedy, Alice Roosevelt Longworth and John Foster Dulles. Rallies addressed by such speakers as Lindbergh frequently drew huge crowds of up to 100,000 like the one in Madison Square Garden in the Spring of 1940.

In opposition, the power of the office of the President was used to its fullest between the announcement of the Administration's Selective Service and Training Act - with a great deal of emphasis on training and only a passing mention of service beyond its one year statutory life - on 10 June 1940 and the first day of registration on October 16. In the initial blush of patriotism over sixteen million men registered that first day. That feeling soon subsided. By the following summer, when the draftees were merely awaiting their October release times, emotions began to run very high against the Act -so much so that the House vote extending the draft from twelve to eighteen months barely skated through by a margin of 203 to 202. Such was the public and Congressional mood, largely a result of Roosevelt's often repeated public comments about keeping the United States out of war and using the power of his office to denigrate those who claimed that war was just around the corner.

Public opinion polls were even less assuring to Roosevelt than was the Congress: in late 1940, 60% of the American population believed that Great Britain was fighting at least in part for US interests but only 13% approved of any US participation. This statistic is all the more revealing when considered in light of contemporary events. Hitler's air war against Great Britain had escalated to punishing raids against population centers such as Coventry, where terrible civilian casualties were sustained. Times were especially hard for Roosevelt's kindred spirit, Winston Churchill. Coventry type events were perhaps the hardest part of his job, since he had known for three days prior to the bombing of Coventry that it would be the target of a saturation bombing raid. Yet he could take no action to evacuate the city or even heighten defensive measures for fear of compromising the fact that the British had obtained one of the German high commands supposedly unbreakable code machines and that as a result, the British were "reading all the German mail."

Against this backdrop, Roosevelt was giving Britain everything he could lay his hands on. He was mobilizing American industry and arming to the teeth. By convoy escorts and any number of other measures, he was making some American vessels into very tempting targets for German submarine wolf-packs operating in the North Atlantic - hoping for an incident which would weld the entire Nation into a single, aggressive instrument. As Thomas Bailey put it:

"President Franklin Roosevelt was caught in a world crisis in which he felt he had to 'do good by stealth.' He warned the people repeatedly of the mounting danger of the dictators, but large segments responded lethargically or even resentfully, as in their reaction to the Quarantine Speech. A more forthright leader would have probably rung the alarm bell again and again. But Roosevelt, one of the less candid Presidents, believed that he could achieve his ends more quietly by easing the Nation into a position of quasi- belligerency. As a consequence, we had the spectacular destroyer- bases deal, a daring lend-lease program, and an outright misrepresentation, notably in the reporting of an attack which the USS Greer had provoked from a German submarine. Roosevelt evidently concluded that since the people would not listen to when he warned them of dire peril, he owed it to them to deceive them into an awareness of that peril. He may have been right, but such a slippery course is paved with danger. It bespeaks a basic lack of faith in democracy and in a people who are "too damned dumb," as one wheel-horse politician put it, "to know what's good for them."

Thus, the loss of 115,000 tons of cargo bound for England during January and February 1941, Roosevelt announced that the United States would extend its "safety belt" to 1,000 miles into the Atlantic and at the same time - actually for the first time - he announced that US warships were "cooperating" with the British fleet, something which had secretly been going on for some six months by then. In an April 1941 cable, Roosevelt advised Churchill of this extension and requested that US naval forces be advised of convoy dates, plans and destinations in order that the US be able to patrol the appropriate sea lanes and "so that our patrol units can seek out any ships or planes of aggressor nations operating west of the new line." Thus, "it was under this policy, and these conditions - unannounced military orders - that America entered the North Atlantic war." Yet, while dispatching these patrols, Roosevelt publicly differed with both his Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of War, both of whom argued publicly and loudly for convoying. Instead, Roosevelt told reporters he was against it and Americans being sent overseas. That was duplicity as we now know. Walter Lippman saw the credibility gap and wrote a bitter column accusing FDR of treating the American people "cleverly, indirectly, even condescendingly and nervously." It was Roosevelt who had to lead a united country, however, and he knew unity would be strengthened if the flag were attacked on the high seas, which, under his policy, was inevitable.

In the context of Pearl Harbor, then, but not necessarily out of context here, is the statement of Admiral Theobald that:

"The President, before the event, probably envisaged a Panay incident of somewhat larger proportions."

By the end of April, with English losses now running at 400,000 tons a month, Roosevelt extended the safety zone even farther until it almost reached the North Sea. In June 1941, and at the urging of Chief of Naval OperationsAd miral Stark, Harry Hopkins sent Roosevelt a memorandum recommending that a US Marine regiment relieve the British troops in Iceland, to which Roosevelt agreed. The Marines landed at Rijkjavik on July 7 with the announcement that they had done so at the request of the Icelandic government. Roosevelt's variation on the Hitlerian theme of innocently supporting a defensive position while in actuality projecting influence, failed to elicit a military response from the German Chancellor, in the same way that convoying and the extension of the safety belt had failed to do. Nonetheless, the American presence in Iceland put US troops and ships squarely into the Battle of the Atlantic. As James MacGregor Burns put it:

"If ever there was a point when Roosevelt knowingly crossed some threshold between aiding Britain in order to stay out of the war and aiding Britain by joining the war, July 1941 was probably the time."

A Panay-type incident as referred to by Admiral Theobald, with perhaps as an attack on one or several US naval vessels by German submarines would have gotten the United States into the shooting war at long last with a minimum of sacrifice in order to make the point that we needed to be actively engaged in the war. Yet, Hitler refused to be drawn in, realizing full-well that a two-front war was bad enough without encouraging the deepening of one of those fronts by drawing the United States into the fray.

Yet July 1941 was not full of Atlantic Ocean oriented strategy. Roosevelt had been poking at the Japanese for some time as well, with little real response. Having been unsuccessful in provoking Hitler, Roosevelt then increased his efforts to provoke the Japanese. All indicators at that point showed that Japanese expansion was clearly aimed at British and Dutch possessions, yet they had held off so far. The President was well aware of the utter importance of the continuation of American oil to Japan and where the Japanese would have to go should the American oil shipments be cut off. The Japanese had few alternatives but to proceed south in search of oil by conquest and Roosevelt had plenty of advice on this point:

"On July 22, 1941, Admiral Stark wrote to Mr. (Sumner H.) Wells in the State Department that he had prepared a memorandum for the President, that the President was pleased with it and that the President proposed sending a copy to Mr. Hull. In this memorandum, prepared by Admiral (Richard K.) Turner and initialed by Admiral Stark, the President's naval advisers informed him: (1) the effect of an (oil) embargo would be to hamper Japanese war effort although not immediately and not decisively; (2) an embargo would probably result in a fairly early attack by Japan on Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies... if war in the Pacific is to be accepted by the US, actions leading up to it should, if practicable, be postponed until Japan is engaged in a war in Siberia; (3) an embargo on exports is "almost certain to intensify the determination of those in power (in Japan) to continue their present course. Furthermore, it seems certain that, if Japan should take military measures against the British and Dutch, she would also include military action against the Philippines, which would immediately involve us in a Pacific war.

Roosevelt was well aware of the seriousness of the situation with respect to the Japanese and their probable courses of action in the continuation of their expansion, not only as shown by memoranda from Admiral Stark, but from other sources as well. At the very least, he was sufficiently aware of what was vital to the Japanese and what was not. In an address to members of the Volunteer Participation Committee on 24 July 1941, he showed his awareness of what was keeping the peace in Asia:

"There is a World War going on, and has been for some time-- nearly two years. One of our main efforts, from the very beginning, to prevent the spread of that World War in certain areas where it hadn't started. One of those areas is a place called the Pacific Ocean--one of the largest areas on earth. It was very essential from our own selfish point of defense to prevent a war from starting in the South Pacific. So our foreign policy was - trying to stop a war from breaking out down there... It was essential for Great Britain that we try to keep the peace down there in the South Pacific. All right. And now here is a nation called Japan... If we had cut the oil off, they would probably have gone down to the Dutch East Indies a year ago, and you would have had a war. Therefore, there was -- you might call it -- a method in letting this oil go to Japan, with the hope -- and it has worked for the past two years of keeping war out of the South Pacific for our own good, for the good of the defense of Great Britain, and the freedom of the seas."

This speech is important in two respects. One is that Roosevelt employed the past tense as if to signify -- as it did to many at the time as well as it does today -- that the period of appeasement was over. This small episode would merely constitute a point of debate if considered in isolation. However, the substance of the issue surrounds the second point; that on the 24th of July 1941, Roosevelt was crediting the maintenance of peace in Asia to the continued export of oil to Japan. The very next day he did away with that tool of peace by announcing the freeze on all Japanese assets in the United States and of course that meant an embargo on oil. On July 26, the British followed suit by freezing all Japanese assets and the Dutch governor in Djakarta froze all Japanese assets in Indonesia and terminated all oil contracts with Japan.

Shortly thereafter, Roosevelt and Churchill left their respective capitals and met -- at the time -- secretly, mostly out of concern for personal security considerations. The American public learned of the meetings and what came to be known as the Atlantic Charter. However, parts of the talks dealt with matters other than those which were publicly released, as Churchill wrote:

"'(Roosevelt) has agreed to end his communication with a very severe warning which I drafted,' Churchill cabled the War Cabinet, 'that further encroachment either in the South or North Pacific will be met by counter measures which may lead to war between Japan and the United States. With this we should associate ourselves. The dominions should be informed,' he advised, 'and made to see that it is a very great advance toward gripping of Japanese aggression by the United States'."

On 18 August, Roosevelt met with Congressional leaders to give them a detailed account of what had transpired during his secret meeting with Churchill earlier in the month. He repeatedly assured them that

"he had made no new commitments for the United States in his conversations with Mr. Churchill. Apparently he did not explain to the members of Congress what he meant by the word 'new.' Apart from his reassuring declaration as to commitments, the most significant feature of his report to congressional leaders was his statement that the chief danger of involvement in a 'shooting war' lay in the Far East where the chances were even that Japan would start new aggression."

The events and statements of July and August could possibly, in and of themselves, have been sufficient indicators of the prodding in which Roosevelt was engaging. Taken, however, as parts of a greater mosaic, there is little doubt that that was exactly what he wanted to do. In June, Cordell Hull, as the American Secretary of State, handed Japanese Ambassador Admiral Kochisaburo Nomura a note. In the note, America had put her terms for agreement with the Japanese on such matters as China, economic matters, the European War and Pacific Affairs. These were all unacceptable to the Japanese. Even more unacceptable was the content of an "oral statement" handed to Nomura at the same time. This declared that although the Americans understood that the Ambassador himself desired peace, the Americans nonetheless believed that

"some Japanese leaders in influential positions were committed to Nazi Germany. So long as such leaders maintain this attitude... is it not illusory to expect that adoption of a proposal such as the one under consideration offers a basis for achieving substantial results along the desired lines?"

The June notes caused the Japanese to react as one might legitimately expect the heads of a sovereign government to react. In the Japanese Liaison Conference held on 10 July 1941, the US note and the oral statement were discussed: "Hull's statement is outrageous," stormed Matsuoka. "Never has such a thing occurred since Japan opened diplomatic relations with other countries. Ambassador Nomura and I are friends but it is inexcusable for him to transmit such an outrageous statement. I was truly amazed that he would listen without protest to a demand that Japan, a great world power, change her cabinet."

Two days later, Matsuoka's anger erupted again at another liaison conference session: "It is characteristic of Americans to be highhanded toward the weak. The statement considers Japan to be a weak, dependent country. The United States thinks that Japan is exhausted and for that reason it sent the statement. I propose here and now that we reject this statement and that we end negotiations with the United States."

A lack of understanding of the "Oriental mind" has often been assailed or credited, dependent upon perspectives, as the cause for much of America's problems in Asia - both today and yesterday. However, the often strident voice of the very able American Ambassador Joseph Clark Grew was frequently heard by Secretary Hull with little apparent appreciation. Characteristic of the type of American message traffic between Tokyo and Washington was Grew's admonition against

"...any possible misconception of the capacity of Japan to rush headlong into a suicidal conflict with the United States. National sanity cannot be measured by our own standards of logic."

The Japanese response to the actions of Roosevelt and his Cabinet during the summer of 1941 was anything but bellicose. By August 29, it became known that Ambassador Nomura had delivered a personal note to President Roosevelt. In this message, Prince Konoye proposed a direct personal consultation between the two national leaders in order to attempt to find mutually satisfactory grounds for continued negotiations -- in fact, continued relations. A proposed direct personal contact at this point meant several things. In the first place, requesting a personal meeting with Roosevelt represented the moderate response to Matsuoka's angry reactions earlier in the summer -- not the proposal of a belligerent but rather the one which might be expected to come from a peace-seeker. Further, it represented a rather obvious attempt to find a common ground with Roosevelt rather than an alternative ground with Hitler and Mussolini. It represented an opportunity for two heads of government -- not functionaries who would repeatedly be required to seek instructions from their respective governments -- to meet on more or less equal grounds insofar as their statements to each other could be expected to represent the views of their respective governments with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Additionally, acceptance of such a proposal would prove that all parties were taking every possible step to avoid war. Finally, the proposal could also be seen as a test of Prince Konoye's personal power and prestige as leader of the Japanese Cabinet. Ambassador Grew's advice - repeated even more strongly in early October and again to no avail -was that to humble Konoye by saying no was to do little more than invite those who were among those "far worse men around the throne" to insure that Konoye was replaced by a hawk. Thus, not only was Konoye's personal prestige and the power of his office on the line, but, quite literally, the chances of peace in the Pacific.

In this situation, one would expect the United States to respond with appropriate alacrity and decorum. Notwithstanding the urgency of the situation and frequent questions asked of the Administration by the media, it was not until after the war that an actual acknowledgment of the Konoye proposal was made:

".......on August 17, the Japanese Ambassador informed President Roosevelt and Secretary Hull that Premier Konoye proposed direct consultation at a meeting in the Pacific; and on August 28, the Japanese Ambassador handed to the President a message from Premier Konoye urging a meeting between the two heads of governments of the United States and Japan to discuss all important problems of the Pacific. "

In terms of how seriously the Administration received and treated Prince Konoye's notes -- notwithstanding Ambassador Grew's warnings -- and how frankly they dealt with the American people, Beard records that on September 4, 1941, the New York Times reported on the White House Press Conference of September 3, 1941 that:

"White House Secretary Stephan Early denied today that Premier Prince Fuminaro Konoye of Japan had invited President Roosevelt to confer in a conference in the Pacific. Mr. Early made the statement after discussing with Mr. Roosevelt the New York Herald Tribune's report that such an invitation had been extended.

'1. The President has no invitation.'

'2. If the Herald Tribune had seen fit to check with the White House before the publication of the story I would have told them that.'

'3. The only plan the President has involving a trip on the water in the immediate future is a cruise from Annapolis on the Chesapeake Bay and on the Potomac River.'

"If the Herald Tribune cares to follow the President to Annapolis, they will readily see the falsity of this story." Responding to a question, Mr. Early added that he did not believe "Premier Prince Konoye will be coming up Chesapeake Bay".

That this course of action is somewhat less than candid is obvious; sadly, that it occurred at a point where it could easily have had a substantial impact on the course of events is also obvious. The episode describes in short the manner in which Roosevelt sought to involve the United States in that "shooting war" he had foretold. Perhaps the most difficult part of the event to understand is the response of the Congress. There was no immediate response by the Congress as there would have been in today's environment; the only response from the Congress was the essentially exculpatory report issued at the end of the war by the Joint Congressional Committee. Among its findings were:

"5.The President, the Secretary of State, and high government officials made every possible effort, without sacrificing our national honor and endangering our security to avert war with Japan."

There were other steps taken as well, largely of the same character as those already listed. While Roosevelt certainly cannot be held completely accountable for all the domestic political turbulence in Japan, he nonetheless was well aware of the probable consequences of dealing with the Japanese in such a provocative manner. His understanding of the probable fall of the Konoye Government and the imminence of hostilities caused by it is shown in his October 15, 1941 cable to Churchill that:

"The Jap situation is definitely worse and I think they are headed north -- however, in spite of this you and I have two months of respite in the Far East."

The Konoye Cabinet fell on 16 October and was replaced by one headed by Premier Hideki Tojo -- a man regarded as the leader of the most bellicose group of advisors to the throne. In the month following the fall of the Konoye cabinet, little, if any fruitful diplomatic movement could be detected on either side of the Pacific. A debate still persists about the next diplomatic flurry in middle to late November.

The Japanese submitted a proposal which came to be known as the "modus vivendi." According to Charles Beard, it constituted a proposed truce which might have been used at the very least to postpone the war until American forces were prepared to fight, and perhaps, even to avoid a two-front war altogether. The Japanese, in a view shared by Secretary Stimson, considered Hull's response to the "modus vivendi" - a ten point proposal - an ultimatum in itself. A wealth of literature dedicated to this topic argues whether Tokyo or Washington delivered a so-called "final ultimatum" in 1941. The point is almost rendered moot, however, since the situation was so tense that the war was viewed as being just around the corner in both capitals. The Japanese had already dispatched the attacking force. The die had already been cast -- they knew full well that protracted negotiations would only serve the American advantage and to their disadvantage.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the senior members of the Administration were privately contemplating the upcoming events. Secretary Stimson recorded a meeting at the White House on November 25, 1941 to the effect that:

"(Roosevelt) brought up the event that we were likely to be attacked perhaps (as soon as) next Monday, for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning and the question was what should we do? The question was how should we maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much damage to ourselves? It was a difficult proposition ....... I pointed out to the President that he had already taken the first steps toward an ultimatum in notifying Japan way back last summer that if she crossed the border into Thailand she was violating our safety and that therefore he had only to point out (to Japan) that to follow any such expedition was a violation of a warning we had already given. Hull is to go to work on that." (Italics added).

Stimson also described the discussions of 25 November 1941 to the 1946 Joint Congressional Committee:

"In spite of the risk involved, however, 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 that there should remain no doubt in anyone's mind as to who were the aggressors. We discussed at the meeting the basis on which this country's position could be most clearly explained to our own people and to the world, in case we had to go into the fight quickly because of some sudden move on the part of the Japanese."

Roosevelt and his War Cabinet no longer believed in the possibility of deterring the Japanese. Roosevelt and Hull were so certain of a Japanese refusal to accept Hull's ten point plan that, without waiting for a response, they authorized a war warning to American outpost commanders the day after the document had been handed to the Japanese representatives. His concern now was clearly for the unity of the nation when the blow was struck. A warning that would have been ultimative in character was not the way to bring the nation together, especially not a joint warning with the British and the Dutch. Should the blow by some chance fall on the British and Dutch rather than on the Americans he would have to go to Congress and ask for the declaration of war nonetheless. Thus, the denial to everyone - by almost everyone except for Stimson - that Hull's ten points were ultimative.

In keeping with the thoughts expressed by Stimson then, the Administration was faced with a very thorny problem: The attack had to be made upon, not by, the United States; it had to be of a significant enough magnitude to seem like a disaster without being completely debilitating; it had to happen close enough to home to be, undeniably, against a distinctly American target. Yet the attack could not cause strategic damage, it had to leave the tactical forces with some vestiges of response capability while at the same time permitting a national sense of horror and revulsion to unify the country. Thus, the allegation that Pearl Harbor was set up, since it fit the bill almost completely. An attack against Pearl Harbor would not be as strategically debilitating as one against the Panama Canal , for example, and not as far away as the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island or even Midway Island.

Roger Parkinson has added somewhat to this theory in reporting that:

"Pearl Harbor seemed fairly secure -- although one big precaution was taken: the three aircraft carriers at the base were ordered to leave, together with half the Army aircraft. The prime target had therefore been removed....."

The overall loss that day, in terms of naval ships, amounted to five battleships, three destroyers and one minelayer. While the personnel and equipment loss was indeed a terrific price to pay, it did not -- when all was said and done --cripple the Pacific Fleet. As Admiral (then Captain) Ellis M. Zacharias told his men in an address "somewhere in the Pacific" aboard their undamaged destroyer one week after the attack at Pearl Harbor:

"You will note that they did not get a single carrier or heavy cruiser and barely touched any of the light forces. You will be heartened to know that strong reinforcements have already arrived in Hawaii and are arriving daily --aircraft carriers, planes and light forces."

MAGIC and WINDS

MAGIC was the codeword given to that information provided by intercepts and decryption of both the Japanese military and diplomatic codes. These intercepts began in the latter part of 1940 and continued almost uninterrupted throughout the war. MAGIC traffic collected from electronic listening posts through-out the Pacific was sent to several places for decryption. Washington was the central clearing house for all decryption and analysis, although the equipment had also been provided to others, such as the Commander of the 16th Naval District in the Philippines, then under what was known as the Asiatic Command. The purpose of this intercept-decryption in the Philippines was to monitor and break Berlin-Tokyo traffic and its information was passed directly to Washington in both its raw and analyzed forms.

Notable was that the Commander in Chief of Pacific Forces in Hawaii was not provided this equipment nor was he provided the information as an addressee. This situation was not rectified until two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

On November 19, 1941, a significant signal was intercepted on its way to the Japanese Embassy in Washington; it was completely decrypted on 20 November and made available to the President. It dealt with the codes to be used in the event that normal communications systems were disrupted and would consist of a statement placed in the middle of the daily Japanese language short-wave news broadcasts emanating from Tokyo. The code became known as the WINDS Code. In this message a complete breakdown in conversations was foreseen and provided the following:

1. In case of war between Japan and the United States, the signal would be Higashi No Kazeame (East Wind Rain).
2. In case of war between Japan and the Soviet Union, the signal would be Kitamokaze Ku Mori (North Wind Cloudy).
3. In case of war between the Japanese and Great Britain, the signal would be Nishi No Kaze Hare (West Wind Clear).

It was certainly with the schedule in mind that Roosevelt and his War Cabinet met, as detailed above, on 25 November 1941 and dealt with the matter of the up-coming attack. Now, they knew that an attack was coming, if for no other reason than pure common sense. Certainly the Japanese would not advise their embassy of the code they would use to notify of an attack upon Japan which would cause war, since the Embassy would be the first to receive the declaration of war in Washington, not the other way round. Further, if the Japanese were to be the ones to be attacked, they would have no reason whatever to employ a code to tell anyone that they were at war. Further supporting the understanding of the offensive nature of this message and the code contained in it were the messages sent to the respective field commanders by the service chiefs. General Marshal, as the Army Chief of Staff, cabled his generals in the Pacific that:

"Negotiations with Japan appear to be terminated to all practical purposes with only the barest possibilities that the Japanese government might come back and offer to continue. Japanese future actions unpredictable but hostile action possible at any moment. If hostilities cannot, comma repeat cannot be avoided, the United States desires that Japan commit the first overt act. This policy should not comma repeat not comma be construed as restricting you to a course of action that might not jeopardize your defense. Prior to Japanese hostile action you are directed to undertake such reconnaissance and other measures you deem necessary but those measures should be carried out so as to not alarm the civilian population or disclose intent. Should hostilities occur, you will carry out tasks assigned in Rainbow Five as far as they pertain to Japan. Limit dissemination of this highly secret information to minimum essential officers."

Admiral Stark's radiogram was even more final:

"This dispatch is considered to be a war warning. Negotiations with Japan looking toward stabilization of conditions in the Pacific have ceased and an aggressive move is expected in the next few days. Execute an appropriate defensive deployment preparatory to carrying out the tasks assigned in WPL 46. Inform district and Army authority 25. A similar warning is being sent by the War Department. British to be informed by SPENAVO."

The SPENAVO (Special Naval Officer) was Roosevelt's son, Navy Captain James Roosevelt, who was dispatched to New York to brief Sir William Samuel Stephenson, the head of British Intelligence in the United States. On 27 November 1941, Stephenson cabled the British government following the meeting with the younger Roosevelt that "Japanese negotiations off, services expect action within two weeks."

These messages from Marshall and Stark have been quoted time and time again by various boards and investigating committees, scholars and historians. The substance of these messages has been subjected to much debate - generally semantic. The relative ambiguity of some parts of the messages is obvious, to some as is the delimiting tone of the messages as to what the recipients could actually do with the advice once they received it. At best the messages placed the field commanders in the awkward position of having to do a lot of things without appearing to do them for fear of alarming the citizenry. They were to expect an attack and to prepare for it; yet at the same time they could not take any detectable measures. Further, all this had to be done with a very small, select group of very trusted officers to carry out those plans. The "damned if I do, damned if I don't" tone runs throughout this episode. It seems that it is really worthy of little further comment except to note that some consider the messages to be purposely misleading so as to permit the field commanders to take the blame -- or allowing them to misinterpret their duties and freeing Washington from any culpability, since Washington had done its job by notifying the field of the impending dangers. However, it was on precisely these same grounds that arguments charging gross dereliction of duty on the parts of General Short and Admiral Kimmel began to fall apart. In the long term, Short and Kimmel were found not guilty by the separate courts-martial trying them.

For additional intercepts and advice of the probable date and place of attack, the historian William Manchester has recorded several items of distinct interest. The first has to do with a telephone intercept made on November 29, 1941 of a conversation in which

"an Embassy functionary asked 'Tell me, what zero hour is. Otherwise, I won't be able to carry on diplomacy.' The voice from Tokyo said softly, 'Well then, I will tell you. Zero hour is December 8 (Tokyo time, that is, December 7 Washington time) at Pearl Harbor'."

Further, he quotes Ambassador Grew's alert to Washington of the possibility of a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor which Grew recorded in his diary as

"There is a lot of talk around town (Tokyo) to the effect that the Japanese, in case of a break with the United States, are planning to go all out in a surprise mass attack on Pearl Harbor. I rather guess that the boys in Hawaii are not precisely asleep."

The bottom line for the purposes of this paper is that irrespective of warning or confusion, from a purely diplomatic perspective, Roosevelt and Secretaries Hull, Stimson and Knox -- as indicated by the messages of their direct subordinates to the field commanders -- knew that conditions for the maintenance of peace were effectively terminated on November 27.

Indicators then began to pile up which were even more ominous, if it could be possible to say that the administration did not have enough definitive information on hand. On December 1, 1941, the Japanese fleet, known to be underway but with a precise location unknown, destination unknown, changed all call letters. On December 2, 1941 US Naval Intelligence discovered the Japanese fleet to still be in motion yet observing complete radio silence among themselves, with only communication being between the individual ships and Tokyo. Additionally, a MAGIC intercept on the same date revealed that the Japanese Embassies in Washington and Havana had been instructed to destroy their codes and code machines -- long known to be one of the last measures taken by a nation prior to outbreak of hostilities. On December 5, 1941, the moving Japanese fleet began very heavy radio use, again following the pattern of complete radio silence followed by an outburst of radio activity shortly before an attack.

All of this information was known by the Administration in Washington. That they failed to notify the Hawaiian commanders of it by the most expeditious means possible cannot be effectively challenged, especially when the "last-minute details" prior to an attack were taking place at precisely the times forecast by what would otherwise have been extraordinarily prescient commentators, such as Roosevelt to Churchill in October ("we have two months of respite in the Far East") and the advice given to Stephenson which he passed on to the British government that the services expected action within two weeks of the 27th of November.

Two final points need to be made concerning the WINDS code. There is some debate about whether or not a "Winds execute" message was ever sent and intercepted. This issue had a great bearing on the outcome of the courts-martial of General Short and Admiral Kimmel. Both the Army and the Navy courts-martial cleared the respective officers of the charges based in part on the finding that Washington knew of the broadcast of a "Winds execute" message, yet the information was never sent to Hawaii. As reported later by the TOP SECRET "Report of the Army Pearl Harbor Board (1944)", which only released its findings in 1946 in providing the Joint Congressional Committee with requested information:

On December 4, 1941 information was received through the Navy Department which was sent to Captain Safford which contained the Japanese "Winds message", "War with England, War with America, Peace with Russia." This original message has now disappeared from the Navy files and cannot be found. It was in existence just after Pearl Harbor and was collected wih other messages for submission to the Roberts Commission. Copies were in existence in various places but they have all disappeared....... This "Winds execute" message .. . was last seen by Commander (Sic) Safford about December 14, 1941, when he collected the papers together with Commander Kramer and turned them over to the Director of Naval Communication for use as evidence before the Roberts Commission.

There, therefore, can be no question that between the dates of December 4 and December 6, the imminence of war on the following Saturday and Sunday December 6 and 7, was clear cut and definite.

As far as the court-martial board trying Admiral Kimmel was concerned, the Navy Court of Inquiry encountered the same problem. In its report, the Court declared that:

"On 4 December an intercepted Japanese broadcast employing this code was received in the Navy Department .. . This message cannot now (1944) be located in the Navy Department and concluded therefore that "this information was not transmitted to the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet, or to the Commanders afloat".

The Court then added that

"No attempt was made by the Navy Department to ascertain whether this information had been obtained by the Commander-in- Chief Pacific Fleet and by other Commanders afloat. Admiral Stark stated that he knew nothing about it, although Admiral Turner stated that he himself was familiar with it and presumed that Admiral Kimmel had it."

The other point is that at that time the US was actually incapable of changing the whole situation no matter what it did short of an attack against Japan, and even this in the circumstances would have been an offensive action only on the level of tactics; Japan had already seized the initiative of the offensive on the higher level of strategy. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly in the matter of what to do with information once you have it was addressed by Thomas Bailey.

"Complete information naturally increased the hazards of leakage. On the eve of Pearl Harbor, the Washington nerve center did not fully inform its diplomatic and military agents in the field as to an imminent Japanese assault somewhere. The fear prevailed that such top secret information might leak out and warn the enemy that we had 'cracked' Japan's most important secret code. In this eventuality, Tokyo would certainly have changed to another which might not have been so 'crackable' or which could have been 'cracked' only after dangerous delay."

Thus, MAGIC was not compromised and served-to save the day at the Battle of Midway and was in large part responsible for the first American success in the war in the Pacific. It continued to be effectively used throughout the remainder of the war in the Pacific with an almost incalculable benefit in terms of personnel, ships and other equipment.

To answer the question of Presidential instigation and awareness, one must first have the answers to several other questions such as "Was it just a coincidence that the Japanese obligingly fired the first shot which was the Administration's unstated objective?" A review of the points raised above more than permits second thoughts about coincidence - indeed, one of the ages-old dicta in the intelligence community is that "There is no such thing as a coincidence".

Another question would have to deal with just how much knowledge Roosevelt had and what he did with it. The forecasts of 'respite from war for two months' in his cable to Churchill on 16 October -1941 and the 'Services expect action within two weeks' which was information given to the British by Roosevelt's son ten days before the attack suggests that Roosevelt knew well enough of the approximate date of the beginning of the conflict.

An allegation of Presidential duplicity must also be met as a condition of this overall theme. Incidents such as the unpublicized and definitely provocative involvement of the US Navy vessels further and further into the North Atlantic while castigating his advisors publicly for even suggesting such a thing puts a couple of months of bombing in Cambodia during the Nixon Administration into a somewhat different perspective. The incident of the invitation by Prince Konoye for the two heads of state to participate in a conference which might well have delayed if not averted war, and its outright denial of receipt until well after the war, does little to engender full trust and confidence in the public integrity of the President.

When Roosevelt began his program of economic sanctions in the middle of the summer of 1941, he had been advised by his naval experts that such action should be postponed and that, if taken, they would almost certainly inflame the war party in Japan and probably result in a fairly early attack by the Japanese in the Pacific. The logical question which proceeds from this point is what should the Japanese leadership do? They knew the price for expansion in search of oil was an invitation to an American military response. Should they have waited for the American attack or should they rely on the old adage that the best defense is a good offense? The answer, as Thomas Bailey saw it:

"In 1941, the United States, under President Franklin Roosevelt imposed an embargo on fuel and other crucial supplies needed by Japan's war machine. Washington's spectacular assets-freezing order, proclaimed on July 25, 1941 was, in effect, a declaration of economic warfare on the island kingdom. The Japanese militants watching the oil gauge drop on their reserve tanks, were driven to the madness of Pearl Harbor."

And then, among so many others, there was Roosevelt's comment during a White House press conference of 2 December 1941 that "the United States is at peace with Japan and perfectly friendly too," which does not do much to help counter this particular allegation. The question of why each of the two major field commanders in Hawaii were exonerated on the basis of their not having been advised of the actual available information in Washington, without proceeding to a determination of where the fault actually lay, has never adequately been resolved.

Intelligence collection methodology is intended as a final result to enhance national diplomatic and military endeavors. However, it, because of its very peculiar nature can be servant turned master. In the case of Pearl Harbor, it is not a step into unreality to suggest that the possibility exists that Roosevelt was placed in the same, unenviable position that Churchill was placed with respect to the bombing of Coventry and the protection of the 'ULTRA' Secret.

More consideration is given to this position than to the more ominous choice of imagining Churchill trying to convince his friend Roosevelt. That is, Churchill has been seen by some as telling Roosevelt of the decision he had to make at Coventry -- a sacrifice for the greater future good -- and suggesting to Roosevelt that he might have to do the same. At the same time, in suffering such a loss, it resulted in Roosevelt's ability to shape events in the Pacific toward an attack on Pearl Harbor which would appear to be Japanese treachery at its finest.

Throughout the war, maintenance of the national morale at the highest possible level demanded complete public confidence in the President and his principal military and civilian advisors. During that time the public could not be given cause to assign an iota of blame for the Pearl Harbor attack on the Administration. As Allen Drury recorded in his Journal:

"November 21, 1944. (Senator) Homer Ferguson has put in his two resolutions, one passed immediately and the other referred to Military Affairs, to extend the statute of limitations on the Kimmel - Short courts-martial , and to set up a 10 man Senate Committee to investigate Pearl Harbor. The extension went through virtually without debate, but the other of course ran into trouble from the Democrats ... Barkley, deploring this tendency to look backward instead of forward expressed the customary Administration willingness to forget the whole thing. As the event recedes farther and farther into the past and the Roosevelt Administration continues to combat successfully all attempts to disclose the truth, it begins to seem more and more likely that neither the American people nor history will ever know what really happened on the morning of December 7, 1941 --or why."

And then, on December 5, 1944:

"Ferguson's Pearl Harbor resolution is having tough sledding in view of the unexpected Army and Navy statements clearing Admiral Kimmel and General Short and expressing the official determination to keep the lid on the entire matter until the end of the war. Ed Johnson says that the conflict between their statements and the Roberts Report makes a Congressional investigation 'absolutely necessary', but it will apparently not be until the next Congress, and probably not then."

And so, dating the report of the Roberts Commission, most of the responsibility for Pearl Harbor had been placed upon the two Hawaiian commanders -- notwithstanding their exoneration. This carefully executed plan which diverted all suspicion from Washington contributed its full measure to the successful conduct of the conflict which, as Congresswoman Clair Booth Luce charged in 1944, Roosevelt had "lied us into a war because he did not have the political courage to lead us into it." Or, as Roosevelt's other principal ally in the Second World War, Joseph Stalin put it:

"Sincere diplomacy is no more possible than dry water or iron wood.

The attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941 was not an irrational response to a miscalculated provocation but rather the anticipated outcome -- in numerous respects -- of an abuse of Presidential power for which no smoking gun has ever actually been located.

Section II

PEARL HARBOR: AN INTELLIGENCE AND DECISION MAKING FAILURE

The essence of the Wohlstetter Argument, as stated earlier, is that there was a plethora of information and the combination of many factors made it even more difficult to read the develop-

ments correctly which contributed materially to the total surprise achieved by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. In saying that Pearl Harbor "was just a dramatic failure of a remarkably well- informed government to call the next enemy move in a cold war crisis," Thomas C. Schelling of Harvard's Center for Inter-national Affairs lists the many various factors -- often contradictory factors -- which catch governments by surprise.<

Schelling considers governmental surprise to be a complicated, diffuse, bureaucratic thing which in its makeup includes a

"neglect of responsibility, but also a responsibility so poorly defined or so ambiguously delegated that action gets lost .. . gaps in intelligence but also intelligence that, like a string of pearls too precious to wear, is too sensitive to give to those who need it.. the alarm that fails to work, but also the alarm that has gone off so often it has been disconnected.. .the unalert watchman, but also the one who knows he'll be chewed out by his superior if he gets higher authority out of bed... the contingencies that occur to no one, but also those that everyone assumes somebody else is taking care of.. straightforward procrastination, but also decisions protracted by internal disagreement... the inability of individual human beings to rise to the occasion until they are sure that it -- the occasion -- which is generally too late....... and some measure of genuine novelty introduced by the enemy as well as some sheer bad luck."

The Pearl Harbor debacle meets most of these criteria, directly as well as in opposition. To be certain, judging from the outcome of various investigating committees and boards such as the Roberts Commission of 1944, there was enough neglect of responsibility by the military commanders in Hawaii to have provided for three attacks like Pearl Harbor. However, that responsibility and the guidance of superiors in the exercise of that responsibility was deemed to be so ambiguous by court-martial boards convened to deal with the charges of dereliction of duty of Admiral Kimmel and General Short that the officers were cleared of the charges.

On an even more elemental level of the point of responsibility, we are given the example of the situation of the Naval Air Defense Officer at Pearl Harbor. His question of his own particular responsibilities concerned his actions to be taken should he be alerted to an imminent enemy attack. Only after some research, was Admiral Patrick Bellinger able to clarify his supposed response, but unfortunately, his research occurred quite some time after the fact. He had various command responsibilities with respect to reconnaissance, yet "even though he was to direct the patrol aircraft, he did not have the authority to order such reconnaissance."

Further, Admiral Bellinger was a victim of one of those gaps in intelligence in a very real, but somewhat different, sense than what is normally meant in the strategic realm when intelligence gaps are discussed. He was responsible for a great deal of the protection of Pearl Harbor, yet according to his testimony before the Joint Congressional Committee in 1946

"During October, November and December my only information concerning our relation with Japan and the imminence of war came from Honolulu newspapers...The information available to me -- limited and unofficial as it was -- did not indicate that I should recommend to the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, that distant patrol planes search for the security of Pearl Harbor be undertaken at that time."

To be certain, there were gaps in intelligence on the strategic level such as the problems experienced by Navy radio intercept facilities. The operators of these stations knew that the Japanese Fleet was underway, but neither they on the local scene nor their higher headquarters at Pearl Harbor or in Washington knew where the Japanese were headed or when the attack they were obviously underway to participate in would occur.

Then, on the other hand was the type of information produced by MAGIC which was really so valuable a source of information that it could not, in some cases, be used lest the enemy determine that his supposedly secure communications systems had been compromised causing him to replace it with another system which might or might not be read as easily. The alarm system can be said to be faulty -- numerous areas of fault can easily be imagined from a lack of sophis-

tication to improper maintenance to a simple lack of training -- yet even when the warning system was operating at peak efficiency as some of the systems at Pearl Harbor were doing, there was still not enough time to respond effectively. The warning system built in its own limitations.

As only one example of these limitations is the boundary of distance and time. In the case of radar systems available at Pearl Harbor, it had to be in operation twenty-four hours a day which it was not at the time of the attack. It made little difference, however, because the attack came when the radar system was in operation and it still was unable to provide timely information. In the case of the Navy ships at harbor, they would have required a minimum of one hour to get the larger ships underway from a standing start; the Army aircraft would have taken nearly that long to get into the air from their anti-saboteur formation.

Thus, it would have done neither service much good since the radar system would have only been able to give the Army forty-five minutes warning and the Navy would have only received thirty minutes notification from the Army. As far as the local Navy alarms were concerned, the Pearl Harbor Naval protection consisted mainly of naval inshore patrols which might have provided a maximum of approximately one hour of warning.

On the other hand, false alarms had done just as much to reduce the integrity of the alarm mechanism as anything else, not because of the systems themselves but rather by the command structure. Alarms became drills, drills remained drills and never escalated to alarms again and simply became bothersome. It has long been an operating dictum of military forces that while a defending force need not be as large as an attacking one, it must fulfill the more difficult of the two combat roles; not only do the defending forces have to be efficiently trained for all contingencies, but they must also maintain consistently high levels of readiness, knowing all the while that in almost all cases it will become yet another drill. This type of problem occurred with respect to troops under General Short's command, not only once but several times, and as a case in point, Major General Philip Hayes, Short's Chief of Staff testified to the Joint Congressional Committee that in July 1941:

"we were notified by the State Department, with a 6 hour advance notice, that they were going to freeze the assets of the Japanese, and he (General Short) went into Alert 3, with all kinds of troops out in position. The order came out, there was no disturbance of any kind, and he left them as I remember in maneuvers then for the purpose of ... showing that it was (not) an alert . . but that they were just out for training and they stayed out there for several days; then he called the maneuvers off.

Contingency planning has always been a fine art, conceived and bred by an alert, viable, reliable and responsive intelligence collection and analysis capability. Practitioners of this rather arcane art form through the ages have considered themselves masters, but have nonetheless often wound up 'with several layers of mud on their faces'. Such underestimates as Japanese fighter aircraft production, their overall numbers, their dispersal, the quality of the aircraft themselves and the quality of training of their pilots are just a few of the many factors considered in assessing enemy capabilities, thus contingency plans.Not only were aircraft details as those above significantly in error but many other details as well , had in sum contributed to "the prevailing belief that the Japanese attack would come in March or April 1942 -- a date that corresponded neatly-with the date set by military estimates for the completion of US Philippine defenses.

The issue of "some measure of genuine novelty introduced by the enemy" opens several other areas to consideration, a number of which are tied inextricably to contingency planning. Such a case was the Navy's assumption that ships anchored in shallow waters were not susceptible to sinking by torpedo carrying aircraft. Assuming that the Japanese technology was inferior to the American brand which had not yet overcome this technical problem, US Navy planners had not reckoned with the fact that the Japanese had successfully tested a new torpedo with a special wooden fin which would and could do the job.

Thus, not only was the attack on Pearl Harbor surprising to the military experts on the ground, but to those in Washington as well. William Manchester reported the 1932 naval exercises off the Hawaiian Islands in which a US Navy aircraft carrier "attacked" Pearl Harbor and completely destroyed the Pacific Fleet.

This incident demonstrates that our military, especially our naval, planners were not ignorant of the potential for disaster. Sadly, it also reveals that by not being alert to that precise threat in a period of heightened international tension in that very theater of the world in 1941, they considered the Japanese, with their inferior equipment, training and eyesight, to be incapable of launching that type of an attack, and do it successfully.

The contingency planners not only failed in the area of tactics and technology, but also created psychological blind spots on the strategic level as well. The inability to ascribe boldness and strategic ingenuity is all the more incredible when seen in light of contemporary events. Our planners could well have profited from the Japanese operation in Manchuria in 1931, later in China and even later in Singapore, where they demonstrated their qualifications as masters of unconventional warfare before it became a popular term.

As one case in point, the boldness of the successful operation against 'The Mighty Bastion of the Far East" - Singapore - is notable.

The Japanese went around the tremendous naval guns (defying the then conventional wisdom in the same way Adolf Hitler avoided the Maginot Line) by landing 275 miles north of Singapore and mounting an attack with a superior land force of 80,000-100,000 specially trained jungle fighters. Further, leapfrogging from one island chain to another constructing bases from which Mitsubishi bombers could extend their range and thus the empire, even further -- was then an unknown and untested tactic, adopted by the Americans a few years later with the same highly satisfactory results. However, at the time, such strategy gave the Japanese Java and the gateway to the Philippines.

It has often been suggested -- quite correctly -- that at least a part of the conditioning which led to these psychological blind spots was founded on racism, pure and simple. It was simply unimaginable and inconceivable to the White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant mentality that "these little, heathen monkeys" could launch an ocean blitzkrieg of the magnitude of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Who would be willing to admit -- in the pre-war environment -- to the possibility that the Japanese military planning and training was simply superior?

Only with the benefit of hindsight can we selectively quote such examples of Japanese preparedness for infantry operations as that described by Captain Harry Doud, an American officer then serving a language detail with the Japanese Army and reporting on war games with a peacetime regiment:

"These exercises were remarkable chiefly for the long distance marches and the long periods without rest or sleep. One day we marched thirty-seven miles. Twice the troops went three days and two nights without sleep except that which could be snatched during ten-minute halts and brief lulls in the situation. Sometimes the men slept while walking . . . the last four day period was the most strenuous. We started out at five in the morning and marched almost continuously until ten the following morning. In that time we covered fifty six miles.

Doud's italicizing of the event is explained by his subsequent conversation with the Japanese commander, to whom he suggested that the soldiers might have slept during the night, to which the Japanese commander replied

"Oh no! That is not necessary. They already know how to sleep. They need training in how to stay awake."

With respect to naval plans and training, Maria Wilhelm describes Admiral Zacharias' discovering that

"....even then, in 1928, the Japanese Navy had a clear objective in view. The theory of an attack on Oahu was being worked out in minute detail, using Shioku Island as a model, complete with full- scale reproductions of Oahu's buildings and harbor facilities ..... even then Yamamoto and his closest friends were already referring to Shioku as "Pearl Harbor."

to which William Manchester adds that

"beginning in 1931, every member of every graduating class at Japan's Naval Academy had been required to answer one question: How would you execute a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor?"

This explanation not only serves to disabuse us of the inability of the Japanese to plan effectively for battle some years in the future, but also serves to effectively refute those who deny that Japan had been treacherously preparing for the attack on Pearl Harbor for several years. It also serves to answer those who claim that President Roosevelt forced the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor against their own better judgement and that pure bad luck contributed largely to their success in the attack. It was neither good luck nor bad that set the stage for the debacle at Pearl Harbor, but rather good, solid, long-range strategic planning.

In terms of domestic issues, the United States had gone through a period of 'active isolationism' in which large numbers of prominent and not-so-prominent Americans led the Nation away (or so they thought for some time) from the brink of war. But that was 1939 and 1940. By the fall of 1941, there was less public division over the prospect of war with Japan. Most isolationists were as violently anti-Japanese as the liberal interventionists. Far from seeking to avoid a clash, almost the entire country was willing to countenance a war with Japan. This, in light of the traditionally tense history of US-Japanese diplomatic relations virtually from the time of Admiral Perry, was not altogether surprising. As Kenneth N. Waltz described the phenomenon:

"The unity of a nation, in short, is fed not only by indigenous factors but also by the antagonisms that frequently occur in international relations. Such antagonisms become important not when they result in feelings of hatred between individuals in different countries but when the state mobilizes resources, interests and sentiments behind a war policy. Previously inculcated feelings of enmity may make a war policy more likely and may increase its chances of success."

Intervention has scored all the major victories and what had remained of isolationism had been outflanked by the growing crisis with Japan. Geoffrey Perrett chronicles the events of 1941 which described the national mood with respect to involvement in the war:

"The isolationists were by now a vestige of what they had been. In numbers and enthusiasm they were little more than a corporal's guard. Every major strategic point had been lost: Among the Republican rank and file 75 percent supported the President's foreign policy; the National Association of Manufacturers, hospitable to isolationist speakers in 1940, was not even polite to them at the 1941 convention - instead, there was Alfred P. Sloan, Chairman of GM, trumpeting to a sleek, prosperous group of fellow tycoons that 'The war abroad can only be won on the American industrial front' ; the editor of The Republican pronounced isolationism dead if it counted on the conservatives within the GOP; at most, one person in five was willing to admit to being an isolationist; even the Saturday Evening Post had deserted. Isolation had been outflanked and was about to be routed.

"More than half the country was now overtly interventionist. Manifestations of interventionist supremacy were frequent. Half the Episcopalian clergy wanted a declaration of war on Germany; so did the director of the Progressive Education Association; the New York Post came out for war in July; the New Republic followed suit in August; in the following weeks a swelling parade of big-city dailies such as the San Francisco Chronicle joined in; and the President of Harvard added his support. Newspaper advertisements sponsored by the Associated League for a Declared War began to appear with growing regularity. And interventionists could look back on an unbroken string of successes -- destroyers for bases, Selective Service, lend-lease, convoys -- while the isolationists had lost every round."

Thus, it can be reasonably seen that isolationist arguments against the involvement of the United States served little to influence the Administration that it should "do good by stealth" as has been suggested.

Another argument suggesting the genuineness of surprise at Pearl Harbor is the one which seeks to provide alternative explanations for seemingly provocative actions. As an example, one of the principal, so-called provocative actions was the oil embargo of July 1941, which some observers credit with being the final straw leading to Pearl Harbor. In point of fact, an embargo had been in effect since mid-1940 on all materials except for oil. By the spring of 1941, more oil was going to Japan than was going to England. Interventionists were especially piqued at this situation for many and varied reasons ranging from political and military to social and racist.

However, the matter did come to a head, not as an international political or military issue but rather as a purely domestic economic issue. Further, the showdown over continued oil shipments to Japan came about not so much by design as by stumbling. Former Secretary of the Interior -turned Oil Coordinator for National Defense - Harold Ickes made an ill-fated attempt to spark a national sense of sacrifice into a flame by curbing gasoline distribution along the East Coast. The immediate response to rationing anything in the United States -- especially fuel -- was the same political morass it remains today. Yet it was one which was compounded by the legitimately raised question of "How could we be expected to sacrifice in the interest of national frugality when we're exporting huge amounts of oil to two countries who are effectively warring against each other and one of whom could very well become our next enemy?" In short, interventionism starts at home.

Needless to say, the domestic political considerations played a great role in the oil embargo on Japan. Roosevelt was more than aware that he was going to soon need all the political unity he could muster if the nation suddenly found itself in a war. Thus, charges that Roosevelt engineered Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor with the oil embargo as the catalyst for the events of that fall, are significantly deflated in the face of domestic political expediency.

It has been suggested that Churchill exercised a great deal of influence over Roosevelt and that this influence caused the United States to be provocative toward both Japan and Germany -- an attitude it would not have otherwise adopted. While the movement from a clearly isolationist to a clearly interventionist majority in the United States lent more than enough legitimacy to any provocative acts which Roosevelt might have otherwise wished to make -- if in point of fact -that that was his selected course of action -- the matter of Churchill's influence still needs to be addressed.

The following episode, which would have hardly been provocative in comparison to other alleged provocations, depicts the relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt in a somewhat different light. In this, Roosevelt can be seen as conducting himself as befitted the occupant of the Oval Office.

On 15 May 1940, in his very first official message to the President, the Prime Minister had proposed among other measures that the United States "keep the Japanese quiet in the Pacific using Singapore in any way convenient" and gave notice that he would bring up the issue again. Roosevelt actually did just the opposite, by ordering the United States Fleet to remain at Pearl Harbor and not go on any excursions throughout the Pacific -- to show the flag or for any other reason. Then, soon after the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact by Germany, Italy and Japan, Churchill once again corresponded with Roosevelt in the matter of the use of the American Navy in the Pacific.

"On 4 October 1940, Churchill requested that 'an American squadron, the bigger the better, to pay a friendly visit to Singapore .

"If desired, occasion might be taken of such a visit for technical discussions of naval and military problems in those and Philippine waters and the Dutch might be invited to join in. Anything in this direction would have a marked deterrent effect upon a Japanese declaration of war upon us over the Burma Road opening.'"

Roosevelt's response to this invitation to provocation remained the same: the fleet was to remain at Pearl Harbor and it was to undertake no operations or excursions beyond its immediate area of responsibility. Roosevelt's response to both of these overtures by Churchill were based at least in part on the very strongly negative reactions and recommendations of the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Marshall and the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Stark.

This one incident also serves at least in part to answer some of the critics of the Administration who saw the stacking of the entire Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor as just another one of many provocations. This point of view is based on the charge that Roosevelt wished to present an overwhelmingly tempting and lucrative target for the Japanese which they simply could not resist, and thus, that he effectively invited the attack.

The final point which needs to be made is that Japanese intelligence was truly effective, pervasive and ubiquitous. It was making the Japanese high command well aware of the progress of the United States in the matter of rearmament. By October, 1941, the American defense industry was producing at a monumental rate. Every day a new merchant ship sailed out to sea; every three days a new warship was launched. The two-ocean Navy, previously envisioned to be completed by 1946 would now be completed and in the water by 1944. In all, the Navy had planned to add 17 new battleships, 12 aircraft carriers, 54 cruisers, 201 destroyers and 195 other ships ranging from submarines to minesweepers by the end of 1945. Sixty-nine of those ships were already under construction in the spring of 1941.

Just as important was the growth of the Army from a rag-tag bunch of troops drilling with broomsticks into a first-class fighting force, occupying over 100 new posts and bases, housing twenty-seven infantry divisions, two armored divisions and two cavalry divisions by spring 1941. This compared to five infantry divisions and one cavalry division at the end of 1939. In terms of numbers, the Army had had 260,000 men in May, 1940; according to plans by January 1942, it would have 1,500,000. In a country which produced 2500 aircraft of all types in 1939 for 2500 pilots, and 5000 aircraft for 6000 pilots by May 1940, by the close of 1941 the national aircraft production per month equaled the rate for the entire year of 1939 and there were over 100,000 pilots to fly them. Perhaps the most revealing statistic was that in June 1940 about 7 percent of the total national production went toward defense; by December 1941 it had reached a full 25 per cent and it was planned that by June 1942, 49 per cent would be dedicated to the war effort.

The important point to remember about all this is that the United States was still at peace; if it could produce this much this fast and this reliably while still at peace, how much greater would its capacity be once it was engaged in a shooting war? This question was certain to be foremost in the minds of the well-informed policy makers in Japan. They knew, based on this readily available information, that if they were to act at all effectively, they would have to take the initiative now or lose it forever.

If this situation can be judged by those of the isolationist persuasion to be yet another indicator of the machinations of a wily, deceitful President, attempting to maneuver the Japanese into attacking, it must also be borne in mind that such a huge transition would not have been possible without a willing Congress and a willing and dedicated population, already unified in a great work. Such cooperation does little to support claims that the President was dragging the body politic, screaming and kicking, into war.

The full tragedy of the attack at Pearl Harbor and the entry of the United States into the war was not that America was not ready for war; she was simply not ready for Pearl Harbor.

About the author: John A. Nolan, III CPP, OCP is Chairman and Managing Director of Phoenix Consulting Group, which provides competitive intelligence, counterintelligence and professional development/training programs across a variety of industries. He is also a co-founder of The Centre for Operational Business Intelligence in Sarasota, FL where corporate intelligence practitioners from around the country and the world learn the tools and techniques necessary to prevail in the marketplace. His newest book, “CONFIDENTIAL”:Uncover Your Competitor's Top Secrets Legally and Quickly - And Protect Your Own was released by HarperCollins Business Books in June 1999. He is frequently featured in national and international media such as Forbes, George, Times of London and CNN, to name just a few. He can be reached at jnolan@intellpros.com, or at 1.800.440.1724.