The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor - Essay Example

December 7, 1941, “…a which will live in infamy…” is often quoted from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous speech to Congress after the attack upon Pearl Harbor. On this date, at 7:58am Japanese military forces attacked the Harbor, leaving 3,581 Americans dead or wounded (DeAngelis, 9 – 10). Up until the attack occurred, the United States had been keeping a close eye on Japan and the pacts the country made with Germany and Italy. The question that has been unanswered since the attack is whether the attack could have been prevented. Research suggests that the United States had been intercepting coded messages, one of which discussed the plans for the attack. Other information alluded that President Roosevelt wanted to enter the war and finally had a reason. Still others believed that Roosevelt manipulated the United States into the war by withholding information from the American people. This paper will explore if Roosevelt did or did not covertly maneuver the United States into the Second World War and if he had access to information that could have prevented the attack upon Pearl Harbor. In the 1930’s Japan’s aggressive actions were causing concern in the United States. Japan was in control of Manchuria by 1931 (DeAngelis, 13). By September of 1941, Japan had signed an agreement with Germany and Italy. Upon hearing of this pact, Roosevelt instituted an embargo on oil and gasoline shipments to Japan (DeAngelis, 13 -14). Essentially, the United States cut off strategic materials that Japan needed to keep up their war on China. Japan had claimed to represent global Asian interests, the racial beliefs at the time, when in fact they had only Japan’s military/economic interests in mind. As the supplies from the United States dwindled, Japan claimed they were forced to sneak attack the United States in hopes of forcing our economic hand. Japan expected the United States would be so stunned and would sue for peace after a cursory attempt at fighting back. The Japanese thought that the U.S. citizenry was soft and lacked the Japanese fighting spirit, called bushido. The basic argument at this time was Roosevelt attempted to use negotiations to force Japan’s back to the wall. However, the U.S. had a large interest group that eventually were known as the China First Lobby (Post World War II) that felt the Japanese were preying upon Chinese weaknesses at the time. It was politically expedient for Roosevelt to press the Japanese into backing off using the U.S.’s economic card as an advantage. These tactics are in usage today to get negotiations moving along. The United States in 1941 were using other tactics – America was harboring a secret. During this time, the United States Intelligence had been working hard decrypting secret coded messages from Tokyo to its outlying ambassadors. The Japanese coded messages that a cryptologist named William Friedman had broken, the Americans called the ‘Purple’ Code. The information the code provided was called ‘Magic’ (Bachrach, 26). These messages were then passed on to President Roosevelt, and research shows that he received the final message on December 6, 1941 that stated talks between the United States and Japan had ended (Bachrach, 26). This meant that any negotiations with Japan had failed. However, there is speculation that President Roosevelt was not receiving any raw intelligence until just a month before the attack on Pearl Harbor. In May of 1941, it appeared as if the Purple Code had been compromised, when a message was sent to Tokyo from the Japanese Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura stating: “Though I do not know which ones I have discovered the United States is reading some of our codes…” (Prange, 119). Although United States Intelligence became worried, days later Japanese Intelligence continued to utilize the old codes. The United States was still able to intercept and decode important messages. Nomura carried out an investigation into the matter of U.S. decoding the secret messages but believed that the U.S. was reading one of the low-grade codes (Rusbridger & Nave, 119). After the message to Tokyo about the possibility of U.S. decryption, the United States Intelligence became more selective of future magic decryptions and their distribution. There is speculation that President Roosevelt in the confusion was taken off the Magic list and was no longer receiving any decoded messages from U.S. Intelligence. Apparently, the State Department had decided that Roosevelt would receive only summarized messages, since it was decided by Army officials that Magic was diplomatic material (Rusbridger & Nave, 119). Access to raw intelligence was not restored to President Roosevelt until November, 1941. The American codebreakers were not the only ones withholding messages and information from Roosevelt. Winston Churchill also kept information from Roosevelt. He was aware of a task force that had sailed from Japan, and that a likely target for this task force was Pearl Harbor. Keeping this vital information from Roosevelt was his means of forcing the President into World War II. This leads to another question that is yet unanswered. Churchill may have had access to other Navy decoded messages called JN-25. JN-25 stands for Japanese Naval code 25. This code was introduced for secret communication in the summer of 1939 (vectorsite.net). The Japanese remained dependant on the code through the entire Pacific War. Research suggests that Churchill had access to these messages decoded by OP-20-G, the Navy’s codebreakers. Any of the information on pre-Pearl Harbor JN-25 is nonexistent, presumably destroyed. There is no information to suggest that Roosevelt saw any of the decoded JN-25 messages. Roosevelt also never saw any messages like the Bomb Plot message, a J-19 consular code (Rusbridger & Nave, 177-178). The J-19 consular code was a new version of the J code, ordered by Japan’s Foreign Minister in June of 1941 (Stinnett, 339). This code was used for the aforementioned bomb plot message. When the Bomb Plot message was intercepted by the Americans, there was no action taken and nothing was relayed to the military forces in Hawaii. The information was shrugged off in favor of the ongoing talks between the United States and Japanese officials, downplaying Japanese subversion. In August of 1941, President Roosevelt and Churchill met in Newfoundland. On this trip, Churchill argued with Roosevelt about giving the Japanese an ultimatum: if they did not back of in Southeast Asia, America would fight. Roosevelt did not want to commit the U.S. to the war and rejected Churchill’s suggestion (Bachrach, 38). In later memoirs, Churchill provides a misleading representation of his actions during this section of time. The question remains if Roosevelt did in fact plan for the United States to enter the war and if he did so through dishonest means. Numerous opinions from critics lean heavily in favor of yes. They feel that although Roosevelt felt the responsibility weighing heavily upon him, they believe that he knew more about the Japanese army’s intent than he was willing to discuss. Isolationists at the time believed that the small military force that was located in Pearl Harbor made it an excellent starting point for a surprise attack from the Japanese military. They felt that Roosevelt should have expected an attack and been prepared, even if he didn’t know that an attack would be made. One critic, a historian Harry Elmer Barnes, believed that Roosevelt wanted to use the “back door,” using the attack on Pearl Harbor to anger the U.S. citizenry. Barnes’ reasoning was that the President was willing to sacrifice American lives and undermine the isolationists (Bachrach, 35). Roosevelt never acknowledged how much he did or did not know about the intentions of Japan. In various conversations with other public figureheads within the American government, Roosevelt pondered Japan’s intent and speculated on the possibility of surprise attacks. When Franklin Roosevelt died, he took his secrets with him. Historians agree that he did want to enter the war on behalf of the British. They also agree that he did have prior knowledge of the attack fleet that had left from Japan. Reason suggests that this fleet was the possibility Roosevelt needed, if it attacked the United States. In summation, it will never be clear if Roosevelt did have clear intent for the United States to enter World War II. The attack on Pearl Harbor set into motion a response from the American public to join the war. Through decryption methods of U.S. Intelligence and the Navy, messages were intercepted and decoded, giving incite to Japanese military intent. Roosevelt may have been misinformed by the U.S. Intelligence, receiving summarized messages instead of raw intelligence, and was a victim of indirect subterfuge. Works Cited: Bachrach, Deborah. Pearl Harbor. Greenhaven Press, Inc. San Diego, 1989. DeAngelis, Therese. Pearl Harbor: Deadly Surprise Attack. Enslow Publishers, Inc. Berkeley Heights, 2002. Goebel, Greg. “The Japanese JN-25 Code.” 01 Jan. 2007. 25 Nov. 2008. Public Domain. Prange, Gordon W. At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981. Rusbridger, J. and Nave, E. Betrayal at Pearl Harbor: How Churchill Lured Roosevelt into World War II. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991. Stinnett, Robert B. Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999. Read More