Pearl Harbor: Was It Japan's Fault, or America's? Conspiracy Theory vs. History

"December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy..." 

-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, addressing a joint session of Congress, December 8, 1941

What did FDR know and when did he know it? Allegations that President Roosevelt knew of the Japanese plot to attack Pearl Harbor before the event took place initially came from his Congressional [Republican] critics. In the years since, books such as Robert Stinnett's Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor and Patrick J. Buchanan's article from last year's anniversary of the event, claim the entire thrust of FDR's Far East policy was designed to push Japan into a war with the United States.

This observer does not buy the allegations of U.S. guilt or FDR's conspiracy. The objective evidence supporting such theories rests on interceptions of wartime Japanese plans, cherry-picked events in the timeline that point toward U.S. guilt, and a flawed reading of presidential motive.  

The intercepted Japanese plans make for problematic evidence because they came in a code not broken until after the event had taken place. The Japanese used different codes for diplomatic and military messages. Some codes had already been broken prior to Pearl Harbor, others had not. It remains unproven that messages advancing plans to attack Pearl Harbor had been received and decoded before the event took place.

The broader accusation of American provocation in pushing Japan to attack Pearl Harbor is unsupported by an unbiased analysis of the events leading to the attack. Patrick J. Buchanan's reading of these events is flawed (if honest). Most problematic is his over-sympathetic appraisal of the Japanese military condition in the run up to Pearl Harbor:

"Consider Japan's situation in the summer of 1941. Bogged down in a four-year war in China she could neither win nor end, having moved into French Indochina, Japan saw herself as near the end of her tether."

See the full text of Buchanan's article here: http://www.creators.com/opinion/pat-buchanan/did-fdr-provoke-pearl-harbor.html

Buchanan's analysis tells us Japan had no choice but to attack Pearl Harbor (after the U.S. had done everything diplomatically wrong up to that point). Yet, a more dispassionate observer looks at the same events and wonders the following. 

If Japan was at the end of its tether, why did it bring itself there? Who made Japan invade China? Not America. If after getting bogged down in China, Japan was militarily over-extended, why did she invade poor French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, etc.)?  Only then, did Japan reach the tether Buchanan and others claim America brought it to. Having bitten too much to chew, Japan had to look for other resources to keep greasing its war machine. Hence the countdown to Pearl Harbor.

Neither China nor Indochina provoked the naked aggression, murderous conquest, and slavery Japan unleashed on them. The assault on China began in the summer of 1937. Let no one forget what the Japanese did to the Chinese people of Nanjing, where they slaughtered 300,000 civilians in cold blood and gang raped untold thousands of women.

The attack on Indochina came in September 1940. Japan wanted its rubber for their army. This conquest placed the Japanese army and navy within striking distance of Malaya and the oilfields of the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). With these rubber and oil riches, Japan could end the war in China and set up a new East Asian empire on the backs of enslaved non-Japanese Asians. 

At this stage, the U.S. government had had enough. FDR responded with an embargo on Japan's oil imports and put the U.S. army on alert in the Philippines (where General MacArthur had been watching all these events). If Japan wanted to win its wars and safeguard its hideous empire, the American military presence in the Philippines had to be wiped out. To ensure that, the Philippines had to be severed from the reach of the U.S. Pacific Fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii. The attack began early in the morning, on December 7. Malaya, Indonesia, the Philippines, and most of the Pacific Rim were under Japanese occupation within five months. Japan wasn't pushed. It wanted to go there.

The chain of events notwithstanding, what of the allegation that asserts FDR's prior knowledge? Objective evidence does not bear his fingerprints. Speculation swirls around statements made between the state department and military chiefs. Given the relentless expansion of the Japanese Empire, everyone thought war between Japan and America inevitable. Japan could not rule the Pacific and expect America to remain idle. FDR and MacArthur anticipated an attack in the Philippines (which eventually came) and braced for it there. By contrast, the near knockout of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor came as a shock and a great embarrassment.

Lack of evidence aside, what about motive? The conspiracy theory holds that FDR needed an attack on Pearl Harbor to obtain a declaration of war from Congress. He wanted war because his failure to rejuvenate the American economy (from the Great Depression) led him to seek war production as a means of stimulating prosperity. He knew the attack was coming, kept the information secret, and got his declaration of war at the price of 2,402 dead American servicemen.

This motive is laughable. American presidents have never needed to hide information in order to obtain a declaration of war from Congress. 

• In 1846, President Polk asked Congress for a declaration of war against Mexico, after American troops were attacked in territory they ought not to have been in if avoiding a war with Mexico was desired. 

• In 1965, President Johnson unleashed a full scale war in Vietnam without even bothering to ask Congress for a declaration. 

• In 2003, President Bush asked for a declaration on the assumption Iraq was stockpiling Weapons of Mass Destruction which, as it turned out, were never discovered.

• In 2011, President Obama ordered Tomahawk missile attacks on Libya without even bothering to inform Congress beforehand.   

Evidence of an impending Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would have been all FDR needed to get a declaration of war from Congress. The president had no motive to risk his own neck when transparency would have achieved the same goals and more. Imagine the headline, "President Roosevelt Saves Thousands of American Lives By Foiling Japanese Plans To Attack Pearl Harbor!" As it was, the attack was a surprise and FDR obtained a declaration of war. Unfortunately, the failure to anticipate the attack cost 2,402 American servicemen whom we should remember on this day of infamy.

Patriot Thought