Unlike George W. Bush, FDR Had Specific Warnings

Unlike George W. Bush, FDR Had Specific Warnings

Mike Thompson
Tuesday, Apr. 13, 2004

James Pinkerton, a columnist for Newsday, should have known better.

Rushing to judgment shortly after the April 10, 2004, release of the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) for August 6, 2001 ("Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."), Mr. Pinkerton asked rhetorically, "If you knew that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had received a memo a month before Pearl Harbor entitled, "Japanese Determined to Attack the United States in the Pacific," and that he had done nothing about that information, would that knowledge change your perception of FDR as a wise war leader? Roosevelt received no such memo, of course . . . ."

In fact, Roosevelt had been warned specifically about an attack on Pearl Harbor more than 10 months before it occurred, and generally about an attack almost 10 years before it occurred.

The facts overlooked by Mr. Pinkerton, a Republican who should know better, and partisan Democrats disguised as dispassionate journalists, are these:

In October 1940, Admiral J.O. Richardson, Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet, at the behest of Roosevelt's Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, began appraising the situation of Hawaii's Pearl Harbor. Admiral Richardson, of course, was extremely familiar with the Navy's maneuvers conducted in 1932, which determined Pearl Harbor could be struck by enemy (Japanese) aircraft carriers as close as 60 miles offshore.

With new intelligence at his disposal, Admiral Richardson not once but twice in late 1940 visited President Roosevelt in the White House and recommended strongly that the entire fleet at Pearl Harbor be moved to the American West Coast as soon as possible.

Under FDR's eight-year watch since his 1932 election, according to Admiral Richardson, 1) American ships were inadequately manned for war, 2) Hawaii was too exposed for training secrecy, and 3) the fleet's ability to combat air and submarine attacks was unacceptable. Mr. Roosevelt's gratitude for the Admiral's honesty was to fire him from his command of the Pacific Fleet, in January 1941.

In the meantime, probably as Admiral Richardson was packing up his personal effects to move on, Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew on January 27, 1941, sent this startling message to Roosevelt's State Department: "The Peruvian minister has informed a member of my staff that he had heard from many sources, including a Japanese source, that, in the event of trouble breaking out between the United States and Japan, the Japanese intended to make a surprise attack against Pearl Harbor . . . ."

Texas Congressman Martin Dies was one of FDR's least favorite Democrats. From his perch as chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, Rep. Dies waged a spirited campaign against the President's habit of naming hardcore leftists and worse to positions of great influence throughout the government.

After retiring from office, Congressman Dies in the mid-1960s finally described his fruitless efforts starting in early 1941 to help the President and the nation prepare for what Dies considered an imminent attack in Hawaii. The congressman amassed much evidence of Japan's hostile intentions, but what rattled him the most in the dossier was a strategic map of Pearl Harbor bearing the imprint of the Japanese Imperial Military Intelligence Department.

Because he was so reviled by President Roosevelt, Rep. Dies worked quietly through Secretary of State Cordell Hull to get the startling data into FDR's hands.

Hull, after consulting the President, ordered Dies not to reveal the map, or news of it, to the press or public. "If anyone questions the veracity and accuracy of these statements," Dies said in 1964, "I will be glad to furnish him with conclusive proof."

The most damning recollection of FDR's do-nothing reaction to the many warnings that reached the Oval Office was Secretary of War Henry Stimson's testimony to Congress. Under oath, he described a meeting of various Cabinet officers and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Harold Stark, convened by Roosevelt November 25, 1941, the day the Japanese fleet sailed for Pearl Harbor and almost two full weeks before the attack on sleeping U.S. sailors. Said Stimson:

"The President 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."

Did the President then order a full alert that would have 1) caused the Japanese to turn their ships harmlessly back to port, or 2) allowed the Pearl Harbor fleet to put out to sea and scatter to avoid carnage? No, according to Secretary Stimson:

"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."

The nebulous warning to President George W. Bush in his briefing was culled from nameless informants and compiled by faceless analysts, and totally lacks specificity. (Even some of the terrorists who participated in 9/11, it turns out, were kept in the dark until the very end -- so how was the President supposed to know more than the perps?) The warnings (plural) to President Roosevelt, on the other hand, were from highly respected, highly placed officials and contained relatively hard or precise evidence.

Comparing the known facts, how can anyone with an ounce of decency --including the mercurial Mr. Pinkerton -- think even for a moment that President Bush (unlike President Roosevelt, if we are to believe FDR's secretary of war), allowed the U.S. to be attacked by Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda in order to reap political benefit?

Mike Thompson is author of ‘What's The Difference? Gray Liberal Mush Or Vivid Conservative Facts” (Trafford Press, 1-888-232-4444)