Good day, everyone.

The more frequent readers of this blog, “Masako and Spam Musubi”, likely see that my main focus is on World War II and my family’s involvement on both sides of the Pacific.  Although I definitely am not a historian by any means, stories here are based on family records supplemented by tidbits of historical “facts”.

And some of these historical facts are public knowledge…while some are kept or suppressed from public knowledge.

Some were destroyed.

The White House also has perhaps the most insurmountable power over what is written – or how events are presented to or withheld from the public.  At times, this leads to the distrust of the very government the people have elected into power.  This distrust continues today and arguably, the worst its been in our country’s history.

This is a knotty topic without a doubt…about FDR’s involvement – or even orchestration – in what happened during these critical years.  But these factual conflicts have perplexed me for years.  Conflicts between what we were taught versus what wasn’t.

I wish to express some facts here and in the next couple of stories about the Pacific war and allow you to come to your own conclusions about FDR.  They will center around Pearl Harbor and the interment of my dad’s family in “war relocation centers”.  Please note that entire books and research papers have been written on this general topic so my blog will do as best possible to reveal the facts involving FDR – before Pearl Harbor, immediately after and up to his death late in the war.

So…  What did FDR know?

Let’s get into it, shall we?

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BACKGROUND

FDR was our only president to be elected to four terms in office.  He passed away while serving his fourth term on April 12, 1945, just weeks before the surrender of Nazi Germany.  The nation was distracted from the war for that moment.  They mourned his passing.  Indeed, there was great stress being President of the United States in time of World War. Some general background before I get into it:

• He was a politician.
• FDR was liked by a significant majority of Americans as proven by his being elected to a fourth term.
• He made a statement to America during his 1940 re-election campaign, “I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign war.” (1)
• A pre-war Gallup poll disclosed 88% of those Americans polled opposed US involvement in the European war.  Britain was fighting for her life.  FDR supported isolationism publicly.
• Perhaps the best kept secret prior to Pearl Harbor and up to immediately after World War II ended was that an elite cryptology group (members of the US Army Signal Intelligence Service, or SIS) had broken the Japanese diplomatic code in early 1939.  Any intelligence that was gathered was kept secret and under the cover name of “MAGIC”.  (One huge single diplomatic source of detailed enemy information was Baron Hiroshi Oshima, Japan’s ambassador to Nazi Germany.  Nearly all of Oshima’s messages from Berlin to Tokyo were intercepted and deciphered.) (2)
• Beginning in 1940 and then continuing, FDR and the League of Nations placed an economic embargo on Japan in reaction to their attacks in Asia.  Items were added weekly to the embargo list – except for oil.

• In 1940, Tyler Kent, a 29 year old code clerk at the U.S. embassy in London, discovered secret dispatches between Roosevelt and Churchill.  These revealed that FDR — despite contrary campaign promises — was determined to engage America in the war. Kent smuggled some of the documents out of the embassy, hoping to alert the American public — but was caught.  With U.S. government approval, he was tried in a secret British court and confined to a British prison until the war’s end.  FDR approved to carefully associate the term “German spy” to his name in a further coverup. (3)
• FDR authorized British and American military staff members to meet during January through March 1941; the purpose was to plan ahead military strategy in the event the U.S. entered war against Germany. They determined that Germany was to be first defeated, while the U.S. would stand on the defensive toward Japan in the Pacific.
• The Lend-Lease Bill was passed in March 1941, a major shift in FDR’s foreign policy.
• At the Nov. 25, 1941 White House conference, just weeks before Pearl Harbor, Secretary Stimson reported that FDR had said “The President said the Japanese were notorious for making an attack without warning and stated that we might be attacked, say next Monday, for example.”  FDR knew historically that on three different occasions since 1894, Japan had made surprise attacks coinciding with breaks in diplomatic relations.  (4)
• On November 29th, Secretary of State Cordell Hull secretly met with newspaper reporter Joseph Leib.  Hull knew him and felt he was a news man he could trust. The Secretary of State handed him secret MAGIC copies concerning Pearl Harbor.  Hull told him the Japanese were planning to strike Pearl Harbor and that FDR planned to let it happen.  Due to the incredibility, only one newspaper published the story.

• On December 2, 1941, days before Pearl Harbor, Captain Johann Ranneft, a Dutch naval attaché in Washington, visited the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI).  Two junior ONI officers pointed to a wall map and said, “This is the Japanese Task Force proceeding East.”  (He was referring to Admiral Nagumo’s carrier strike force heading towards Pearl Harbor.)  The officer had pointed to a spot midway between Japan and Hawaii.  On December 6th, Ranneft returned and asked where the Japanese carriers were.  He was shown a position on the map about 300-400 miles northwest of Pearl Harbor personally by Admiral Wilkinson, ONI chief. (5)
• The key battles and events during World War II post-Pearl Harbor from the American perspective were (NOTE: I had to center the bullet points below as WordPress does not allow you to use tab stops):

♦ The Battle of Coral Sea

♦ The Battle of Midway

♦  The Solomon Islands Campaign

♦  Battles for Pelileu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa

♦ The shootdown of Admiral Yamamoto.
(Flights to and from the shootdown point occurred before and
continued afterwards, solely to conceal the fact we broke their code.)

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The above tries to give you an at altitude look down on what was happening prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.  In the ensuing stories, I hope to present “things to think about”…  Things like secret codes, espionage, internment and even D-Day in a roundabout way.  Things that FDR knew then orchestrated actions as a politician should.

I hope you will stay tuned… then come to your own conclusions as to what FDR knew.

To be continued… Part 2 is here.

NOTES:

(1) However, the following comment was not part of his speech: Of course, we’ll fight if we’re attacked. If someone attacks us, then it isn’t a foreign war. – Yale University

(2) There were several codes being used by the Japanese Army and Navy in addition to the diplomatic code mentioned above.  All were broken by US cryptologists.  The Japanese also had their cryptologists but were nowhere’s near as successful in breaking US or British codes.

(3) It is important to note that CHAMBERLAIN was the Prime Minister of England, not Churchill.  Yet, FDR and Churchill were secretly making promises unbeknownst to Chamberlain.

(4) Source: Henry Lewis Stimson diaries.

(5) “Military Intelligence Blunders and Cover-Ups: New Revised Edition”