New documentary about Pearl Harbor attack

[Winston]

Pearl Harbor - The Truth (Video, History Channel, Dec. 2016)

https://www.history.com/specials/pearl-harbor-the-truth/full-special

The new book upon which the above program was based:

A Matter of Honor: Pearl Harbor: Betrayal, Blame, and a Family's Quest for Justice Hardcover
November 15, 2016

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062405519/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Below is by far the best and most detailed documentary on this topic I've ever seen with many interviews of individuals actually involved. I saw this documentary on cable perhaps around 2006.:

Sacrifice at Pearl Harbor (BBC, 1989 - US VHS release 2001)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00005AAEG/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Video of above:

https://www.conspiracy-cafe.com/apps/videos/videos/show/18995529-sacrifice-at-pearl-harbor-bbc-1989-

 

[Peter Olivola]

This has been an ongoing effort to blame the Roosevelt administration to take the heat off the two general officers responsible for the degree of destruction accomplished during Pearl Harbor attack including other military facilities. It's been debunked repeatedly.

 

[The_Lone_Beagle]

Somebody has to do it...

 

[Winston]

This has been an ongoing effort to blame the Roosevelt administration to take the heat off the two general officers responsible for the degree of destruction accomplished during Pearl Harbor attack including other military facilities. It's been debunked repeatedly.

The first and second videos linked to do debunk that and in all of the linked films and a BBC review of the Channel 4 film, the ONE admiral most culpable is IDed in all, the one who wouldn't give straight answers to the investigation committee and whose incredible inaction is unexplained to this day nor were his excuses credible. Hint - it wasn't the admiral at Pearl. The guy should have been imprisoned for his failure to act... but wasn't.

 

[Peter Olivola]

The decision by General Short to park all aircraft in a tight group in the center of the airfields is one of the more egregious examples of a failure of command to heed the warnings that were issued, consider that the Japanese could launch an airborne attack from carriers and a stubborn belief that sabotage with the chief threat. Throw in the problems, not entirely overcome in this day and age, of inter service/inter agency rivalry and you have a recipe for the kind of disaster that was repeated on 9/11.

The first and second videos linked to do debunk that and in all of the linked films and a BBC review of the Channel 4 film, the ONE admiral most culpable is IDed in all, the one who wouldn't give straight answers to the investigation committee and whose incredible inaction is unexplained to this day nor were his excuses credible. Hint - it wasn't the admiral at Pearl. The guy should have been imprisoned for his failure to act... but wasn't.

 

[Winston]

The decision by General Short to park all aircraft in a tight group in the center of the airfields is one of the more egregious examples of a failure of command to heed the warnings that were issued, consider that the Japanese could launch an airborne attack from carriers and a stubborn belief that sabotage with the chief threat. Throw in the problems, not entirely overcome in this day and age, of inter service/inter agency rivalry and you have a recipe for the kind of disaster that was repeated on 9/11.

I agree on 9/11 and the failure to connect so many obvious dots due to security compartmentalization, inter-agency and inter-service rivalries, and just your usual bureaucratic muck-ups and incompetence. Same for much, but not all, of the Pearl story.

However, it's wrong to blame anyone at Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was officially told not to worry about an air attack (see below) and the prevailing suspicion was that the threat would come from the very large Japanese expat population on the island. Any military attack was expected in the Philippines or Midway at best. No, the Admiral who should have been busted to zero and jailed was in DC as pointed out in the first video above.

You all really need to watch the third documentary I linked to above because, although I don't buy into its conclusions, it is incredibly detailed and will have you wondering.

More info that is usually never covered:

McCollum memo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCollum_memo#Reception_of_the_Eight_Actions

Stinnett goes on to write, "throughout 1941, it seems, provoking Japan into an overt act of war was the principal policy that guided FDR's actions against Japan" and "Roosevelt's cabinet members, most notably Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, are on record favoring the policy, according to Stimson's diary".[7] Further evidence that suggests Roosevelt had seen the memos was his support of "pop-up" cruises,[2] an elaboration upon Actions D and E of the eight recommended actions detailed in the memo: "I just want them to keep popping up here and there and keep the Japs guessing. I don't mind losing one or two cruisers, but do not take a chance on losing five or six."[7]

Admiral Husband E. Kimmel (the four-star admiral and Commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor), on the other hand, opposed the "pop-up" cruises, saying they were "most ill-advised and will result in war if we make this move",[7] but "the decision [on the 'pop-up' cruise matter] may go against me".[9] In fact, at the time, Kimmel was not aware of Washington's eight-action policy.[10]

Admiral James O. Richardson also opposed the plan and "quoted the President as saying: 'Sooner or later the Japanese would commit an overt act against the United States and the nation would be willing to enter the war'."[11]

Also, Admiral Nimitz turned down the command of the Pacific Fleet [11] so that he would not become the scapegoat [citation needed] if the Japanese attacked the United States by surprise. In a History Channel interview, Admiral Chester Nimitz Jr. described his father's political maneuver: "He said, 'It is my guess that the Japanese are going to attack us in a surprise attack. There will be a revulsion in the country against all those in command at sea, and they will be replaced by people in positions of prominence ashore, and I want to be ashore, and not at sea, when that happens.'"[12]

I, also, don't buy into the conclusion of this article, but its content is absolutely outstanding:

https://www.thenewamerican.com/cult...pearl-harbor-hawaii-was-surprised-fdr-was-not

Just one juicy excerpt:

However, none of this information was passed to our commanders in Hawaii, Kimmel and Short, with the exception of Ambassador Grew's January warning, a copy of which reached Kimmel on February 1st. To allay any concerns, Lieutenant Commander McCollum — who originated the plan to incite Japan to war — wrote Kimmel: "Naval Intelligence places no credence in these rumors. Furthermore, based on known data regarding the present disposition and deployment of Japanese naval and army forces, no move against Pearl Harbor appears imminent or planned for in the foreseeable future."

As is so evident in ALL of the Pearl documentaries, once oil and other raw materials from the US were cut off from Japan, all key communications facilities of our military should have become 24 hour operations!!! That alone would have bought 4.5 hours more time to warn Pearl once it became clear an attack around 7:30 AM their time was imminent.

The reliance upon UNRELIABLE HF radio propagation for coded priority messages should have been backed up with a code word alert system that could be TELEPHONED to Pearl and all HF radio facilities for broadcast to all Pacific forces. That code word or words could describe the location and imminence of the most likely threat. Further, when DC to Pearl propagation was no good as on the morning of the Pearl attack, coded messages could have been read over a telephone to other stateside communication stations who would be called to see if they could contact Pearl via radio since the characteristics of HF propagation will make it likely that one or more of them could have. Finally, I'd love to know what set of frequencies the Navy used since the wise thing to do would be to choose frequency bands where if one isn't propagating, another would be likely to. Directional antennas and more transmit power can also help greatly. I may investigate this simply out of curiosity, not because I believe the propagation failure was a lie. I also need to investigate why the telegram sent to Pearl when radio contact failed wasn't sent at a high priority and, therefore, was received 8 hours after the attack. Anyone know why?

I'd also suggest that before anyone ever uses the term "thoroughly debunked" about anything whatsoever related to government screwups that they should read some very surprising info about the truth vs the official story of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the attack on the USS Liberty, the Israeli Six Day War, etc. in the outstanding series of books about the NSA by James Bamford. It's amazing what can surface after enough years go by with enough digging by an outstanding investigative author.

Based upon the reader reviews of it and the intriguing Google Books materials from it I've found just this morning via searches, I really need to read this more recent book:

The Pearl Harbor Myth: Rethinking the Unthinkable (2008)
by Dr. George Victor Ph.D

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1597971618/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[Peter Olivola]

Stinnett, in particular, is considered without merit by most historians of the era.

An article in Salon quotes CIA historian Donald Steury:

[Stinnett] concocted this theory pretty much from whole cloth. Those who have been able to check his alleged sources also are unanimous in their condemnation of his methodology. Basically, the author has made up his sources; when he does not make up the source, he lies about what the source says.

​

If Kimmel believed sabotage was the primary threat, keeping the fleet in port was the worst possible decision. If the aircraft carriers could be on maneuvers without provoking war, why not the rest of the fleet?

Yes, there were bad decisions throughout the chain of commend and there should have been much more thorough accountability, but the bad decisions of others doesn't exonerate Kimmel and Short.

 

[Winston]

Stinnett, in particular, is considered without merit by most historians of the era.

An article in Salon quotes CIA historian Donald Steury:

[Stinnett] concocted this theory pretty much from whole cloth. Those who have been able to check his alleged sources also are unanimous in their condemnation of his methodology. Basically, the author has made up his sources; when he does not make up the source, he lies about what the source says.

​

If Kimmel believed sabotage was the primary threat, keeping the fleet in port was the worst possible decision. If the aircraft carriers could be on maneuvers without provoking war, why not the rest of the fleet?

Yes, there were bad decisions throughout the chain of commend and there should have been much more thorough accountability, but the bad decisions of others doesn't exonerate Kimmel and Short.

Where do you continue to get the idea that I'm claiming that FDR specifically knew about the attack? And I'm mostly not going by Stinnett to see incredible screwups and lack of preparedness that could so easily have been fixed, I'm going by on-camera statements by people who were involved and documented, verified testimony. It is obvious from multiple sources that the US was trying to incite the Japanese to attack and many key individuals blamed for the Pearl massacre were not adequately kept in the loop about that. From the quote I gave above, even Nimitz admitted that incitement strategy. The US public didn't want to become directly involved in the war, the government wanted to, so it was "necessary" to incite the Japanese to attack.

The sabotage threat to lightweight aluminum aircraft parked on airfields surrounded by unoccupied land is vastly greater than armored battleships parked in well secured areas. Plus, he couldn't keep the fleet at sea continuously nor would he since, as I pointed out, he was told that there was no air threat.

Although they may very well be correct about Stinnett, overall I generally trust the objectivity of the left wing FDR fans at Salon about as much as I do the CIA to give us the full truth on anything IF there is anything to hide.

My policy from lessons learned through a reading of history - when a military action or some government failure to perform (ex., Pearl Harbor, 9/11, Iraq intel cooking, Russian hacking) is explained by the government, ALWAYS assume by default that it is a combination of truth, half truths, intentional omissions, and outright lies. Then, with an open mind but remaining highly SKEPTICAL to avoid confirmation bias, DEEPLY investigate before concluding with one's best judgement the most likely truth of the matter. As always, just as with any fact based endeavor, my conclusions can evolve based upon additional evidence.

EDIT: It will be interesting to see what the 2008 book by George Victor has to offer which I have ordered.

 

[Winston]

I looked for the Pearl Harbor attack investigations in the hope of finding an answer to that telegram question and found only HUGE file size PDF SCANS (painfully sluggish in PDF viewer) not keyword searchable - "Collected here are documents from the 23 volume, 40 part, 25,000 page report of HEARINGS BEFORE THE JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE INVESTIGATION OF THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES SEVENTY-NINTH CONGRESS which was released on July 20, 1946."

I found this is interesting tidbit. "You are extremely competent! You're fired! Oh, you were right... shhhhhhhhhh."

Admiral James O. Richardson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O._Richardson

James Otto Richardson (18 September 1878 – 2 May 1974) was an admiral in the United States Navy who served from 1902 to 1947. As Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (CinCUS), he protested against the redeployment of the Pacific portion of the fleet forward to Pearl Harbor, believing that a forward defense was neither practical nor useful, and that the Pacific Fleet would be the logical first target in the event of war with Japan, vulnerable to air and torpedo attacks. He was subsequently relieved of command in February 1941. His concerns were to be proved justified in December.

Beginning in January 1940, he was Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (CinCUS), which was command of both the Scouting Force (Atlantic Fleet) and Battle Force (Pacific Fleet). At the time of his appointment, Richardson was particularly suited for the post.

"[Richardson] was one of the Navy's foremost figures. Since his earliest days, after leaving Annapolis, he had made the study of Japanese warfare his life's work. He was beyond question the Navy's outstanding authority on Pacific naval warfare and Japanese strategy.[1]"

He held this position during a stressful period marked by Presidential orders to deploy the Pacific part of the Fleet to Pearl Harbor from its traditional naval base in San Diego, California. Richardson noted that:

"... In 1940, the policy-making branch of the Government in foreign affairs – the President and the Secretary of State – thought that stationing the Fleet in Hawaii would restrain the Japanese. They did not ask their senior military advisors whether it would accomplish such an end.[2]"

Richardson protested this redeployment to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and to others in Washington. He did believe that advanced bases like Guam and Hawaii were necessary but that insufficient funding and efforts had been made to prepare them for use in wartime. He also believed future battles in the Pacific would involve aircraft carriers and more scouting forces would be needed to locate them. Richardson recognized how vulnerable the Fleet was in such an exposed and remote position, a logistical nightmare only made worse by the slim resources, and lack of preparation and organization.[3] Richardson argued such a forward defense was not practical or useful, despite Japan's attack on China and whatever promises had been made to Britain to come to their aid if attacked. According to journalist John T. Flynn:[1] The Fleet had little in the way of housing, materials, or defensive mechanisms at Pearl Harbor. Richardson wanted to return to the West Coast, prepare the Fleet, and then perhaps return to Pearl Harbor.

"It was Richardson's belief – and indeed generally supported by the Navy – that the Fleet should never be berthed inside Pearl Harbor where it would be a mark for attack. This was particularly true in such troubled times when the airways of the East were hot with rumors of approaching conflict. What is more, Richardson held the belief that Pearl Harbor was the logical first point of attack for the Japanese High Command, wedded as it was to the theory of undeclared and surprise warfare. For ten years the U.S. Navy held "attacks" on the Army defenses at Pearl Harbor, and were always successful. Defending the base was rather hopeless, in his mind.[1]"

Richardson made two trips to Washington to meet with Roosevelt to discuss the issue. He followed this up with an official letter to the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admiral Harold R. Stark, pointing out that it was Richardson's firm conviction that neither the Navy nor the country was prepared for war with Japan:

"I believe my official letter of October 22, 1940, in regard to the dismal state of the Navy's War Plans, was probably one factor which made Stark accept with equanimity the President's urge to have me relieved.[2]"

 

[Winston]

Here's a great site which I found while looking for info about the telegram muckup.

https://miketgriffith.com/files/sixmyths.htm

Some excerpts. Not a trace of Stinnett anywhere in it:

MYTH: The fact that General Marshall’s warning message was sent via commercial telegram is no reason to suspect foul play. Marshall intended for the message to be sent via Army radio from the War Department’s message center. However, atmospheric conditions prevented radio communications between D.C. and Pearl Harbor, and so the message was sent as a commercial telegram. The choice of commercial telegram, while possibly not the best means of communication, was chosen for reasons given to the investigations.

FACT: The Army Pearl Harbor Board debunked these excuses in 1944:

The Message Center of the War Department, which is charged with the expeditious handling of messages, decided to send this vital message by commercial R.C.A. instead of War Department radio, because it could not get through on its own net. Why this message was not sent by the Navy radio, by F.B.I. radio, or by telephone, and why these means of possibly more rapid communication were not investigated, is not satisfactorily explained. The explanation that "secrecy" was paramount does not appear to apply to these means. . . .

It is to be noted in this connection that not only was the F.B.I. radio working between Washington and Honolulu on December 6-7, but that testimony shows numerous telephone conversations were conducted just after the attack, over the telephone between Washington and Honolulu...

The status of communications between Washington and Hawaii on the morning of December 7th and for 24 hours previous to that time was as follows: The Hawaiian Department had a scrambler telephone connection direct with Washington by which you could ordinarily get a message through from Washington to Hawaii in ten or fifteen minutes. After the attack on December 7, Colonel Fielder (G-2) himself talked to Washington twice on this phone and received a call from Washington on the same phone. . . .[Report of Army Pearl Harbor Board, October 20, 1944, in Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, Exhibit Number 145 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1946), pp. 139-141; Note: The Joint Committee’s report will hereafter be cited as JCC Pearl Harbor Report]

General Short noted that if Marshall “had used the scrambler phone and gotten it through in ten or fifteen minutes we would probably have gotten more of the import and a clearer idea of danger from that message and we would have had time to warm up the planes and get them in the air to meet any attack."[Report of Army Pearl Harbor Board, p. 142]

Admiral Kimmel noted Marshall’s inexcusable delay in sending the December 7 warning message and concluded that Marshall was acting in compliance with “high political direction,” i.e., FDR. He reached the same conclusion about Admiral Stark’s failure to warn him that morning as well. As the Chief of Naval Operations, Stark had the authority to call Kimmel directly. Admiral Kimmel also noted that there were no delays in messages sent between Washington and Pearl Harbor via the Navy radio system on the morning of the attack:

General George C. Marshall’s warning . . . was sent in a non-priority status by commercial circuit when he had on his desk a telephone [the scrambler phone] with a direct connection to the commanding general in Hawaii! The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold R. Stark, made no attempt to send information about the intercepts or a warning to me via the highly dependable and rapid naval communication service [the Navy radio system], which could also have been used to transmit Marshall’s message. There were no delays in the transmission of messages between Washington and Pearl Harbor over the naval communication circuit. During the interval when Marshall’s message was in transit, a routine message was received at my headquarters, decoded, and delivered within less than one hour after it was filed in the Navy Department in Washington. An urgent priority message would have been transmitted, decoded, and delivered in less than half an hour.

This lack of action on the part of the War and Navy Departments must have been in accordance with high political direction...[Husband Kimmel, Admiral Kimmel’s Story (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1955), p. 4.]

Furthermore, as the Army Pearl Harbor Board noted, Marshall’s decision to use only one means of communication to send his warning message violated fundamental military procedure:

It is important to observe that only one means of communication was selected by Washington. That decision violated all rules requiring the use of multiple means of communication in an emergency.[Report of Army Pearl Harbor Board, p. 141]

General Short also commented on this strange violation of procedure:

It is standard staff procedure and doctrine that all important or emergency messages should be sent by all available means of communication, which in this case would have included the scrambler telephones which had been frequently used between the War Department and Fort Shafter [Short’s office was located on Fort Shafter]. Col. Phillips [Short’s chief of staff] and General Marshall did confer by scrambler phone later in the day on December 7.[JCC Pearl Harbor Report, full-text version, p. 2940]

A group called the Pearl Harbor History Associates (PHHA) runs a website that purports to refute evidence of conspiracy in the Pearl Harbor case. The PHHA’s “Myths of Pearl Harbor” article notes that Marshall’s message arrived in Hawaii at 7:33 a.m., Hawaii time, 22 minutes before the attack began, and it argues that if there had been a conspiracy no warning would have been sent:

It is important to note that the message did arrive in Hawaii at 7:33 am T.H. Time, and was delayed due to the attack. Why send it at all if the conspirators didn't want to tip their hand?[“The Myths of Pearl Harbor,” https://www.ibiblio.org/pha/myths/index.html]

First off, even if the message had arrived at 7:03 instead of 7:33, it would not have been decoded and delivered to Kimmel and Short in time to do any good—because, as mentioned, it was not sent as a priority message and was not even marked as urgent. Furthermore, the time of 7:33 a.m. is the time the message was received at the RCA station in Hawaii. The message was not delivered to the signal office of the Army’s Hawaiian Department on Fort Shafter until 11:45 a.m., nearly four hours after the attack, and it was not delivered to the Hawaiian Department’s Adjutant General until 2:58 p.m., seven hours after the attack (the attack occurred at 7:55 a.m.) Incidentally, the message was filed at the War Department’s message center at 12:01, which means it took 32 minutes just to reach RCA Hawaii. But, again, even if the message had arrived at RCA Hawaii at 7:03, it would not have reached Kimmel and Short in time because it was sent at routine precedence and was not even flagged as urgent.

And it is worth asking again: Why on earth did Marshall not ensure that his crucial warning was sent as a priority message? Why was the message not even marked as urgent? Are we supposed to believe that he was so utterly clueless and incompetent that it did not occur to him to at least ensure the warning was sent as a priority transmission and flagged as urgent?

As for the argument that no warning would have been sent if there had been a conspiracy, how would Marshall have explained the failure to send any kind of a warning after he had read the decrypted 14-part Japanese diplomatic cable and its accompanying time-of-delivery message? It would have been impossible for him to explain such a decision. He had no choice but to send a warning, so he stalled and stalled as long as he dared before sending it.

Moreover, even when Marshall was informed that his message might take 40 minutes to reach Hawaii, he refused to use the scrambler phone or the Navy radio system. At around 11:55 a.m., Colonel Rufus Bratton, having just delivered Marshall’s warning to the War Department’s message center, informed Marshall that the message center had advised him that it might take 40 minutes for his warning to reach Hawaii. Even then, Marshall still refused to use the scrambler phone or the Navy radio system. Marshall told the JCC that he recognized that the 1:00 p.m. delivery time for the 14-part Japanese diplomatic cable indicated something momentous might happen at that time or shortly afterward, and he knew that 1:00 p.m. in Washington was 7:30 a.m. in Hawaii. Yet, when informed that his message might take 40 minutes to reach Hawaii, i.e., that it might not get there until 7:35 or 7:40, he did nothing. Are we really supposed to believe that Marshall thought his warning would do any good if it arrived after the 1:00 p.m. delivery time? The only rational explanation for his failure to use the Navy radio system or the scrambler phone is that he was trying to ensure that his warning would arrive too late to do any good.

MYTH: General Marshall had a very good reason for not using the scrambler phone: he feared that the Japanese would overhear his warning if he used the scrambler phone and that they would then know that at least some of their codes had been broken.

FACT: This makes no sense. Marshall could have told Kimmel and Short to put their forces on alert without saying a word about Japanese intercepts. Or, he could have used a cover story to justify the warning. For example, he could have said that an American maritime ship or a commercial aircraft had spotted Japanese naval ships northwest of Hawaii, or that an American spy in Tokyo had reported that a Japanese fleet was nearing Hawaii. These or similar obvious options would have occurred to any person of even average intelligence. It is very hard to believe they did not occur to Marshall.

Marshall also floated the ludicrous claim that another reason he decided against using the scrambler phone was that he was afraid that if the Japanese intercepted his warning they would regard the warning itself as an act of provocation![JCC Pearl Harbor Report, p. 226]

George Morgenstern, an award-winning investigative journalist who served in the Marines during World War II, did not buy Marshall’s story:

Marshall's explanation that he refrained from using the scrambler telephone for fear of causing "a leak that would embarrass the State Department" [i.e., an incident that the Japanese could misrepresent as a provocation] is illogical for at least two reasons. The first is that if the Japanese had overheard him talking to Short, they would have been left with the same two alternatives they already had in the absence of such a conversation: either to carry through the attack as planned, or to abandon it. The second is that, despite Roosevelt's caution against committing any overt act, the War Department on November 27 had issued orders which, if carried out before December 7, would almost certainly have led to hostilities.[George Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor: The Story of the Secret War (New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1947), p. 278]

Morgenstern was referring to the War Department’s November 27 order to conduct aerial reconnaissance in the Marshall Islands to confirm reports of Japanese ship concentrations there. Of course, such a reconnaissance flight could have been far more easily construed as an overt act of “provocation” than a phone call to General Short telling him to put Pearl Harbor’s defenses on alert. Senator Homer Ferguson of the 1946 Joint Committee of Congress (JCC) that investigated the Pearl Harbor attack noted this and asked Marshall, “How could the use of a telephone be considered an overt act in comparison with this flight?” Marshall dodged the question with the lame reply that “it was a matter of judgment.”[Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor: The Story of the Secret War, p. 279]

Furthermore, if the concern over avoiding action that could be interpreted as provocative was genuine, why did FDR, on December 2, personally order that three Navy vessels conduct what was obviously an unnecessary and provocative “defensive information patrol” in the Gulf of Siam, directly in the path of the Japanese naval force that was heading down the coast of Indochina? As Morgenstern noted, “This was only one of the long series of attempts by Roosevelt to create an ‘incident’ which would plunge the United States into war.”[ Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor: The Story of the Secret War, p. 302]

Oh, yeah, an example of the sort of material in the BBC documentary I linked to but no one has apparently watched is also found on this excellent web page. This is just the beginning of it as my post is too long and must be trimmed:

The 1989 BBC documentary Sacrifice at Pearl Harbor presents evidence that at least two Western intelligence services intercepted the “East Wind Rain” execute message on December 4. The documentary includes interviews with Eric Nave and Ralph Briggs, two cryptographers who were involved with the interception and processing of the “Winds” code message (Nave) and the subsequent “East Wind Rain” execute message (Briggs). The “Winds” code message explained the code words that would be used to signal war with America, England, or Russia. “East Wind Rain” meant war with America (however, some who saw it interpreted it as meaning war with both America and England).

Nave was a senior Australian cryptographer and was so renowned that he was sometimes called "the father of British code breaking in the Far East." Nave was on duty in Melbourne, Australia, when the “Winds” code message was broadcast on November 19. Nave helped transmit a copy of the message to Commodore J. W. Durnford of the Australian Navy. In 1991, Nave teamed up with James Rusbridger to write Betrayal at Pearl Harbor. Nave and Rusbridger note that the “East Wind Rain” execute message was intercepted on December 4 by Lt. Charles Dixon, a cryptographer with the New Zealand Army, at a listening post near Hong Kong:

News broadcasts from Tokyo that carried the "execute" weather forecasts were designed to be heard around the world—in Britain, Western Europe, Australia, and South America—and were repeated several times during the day of December 4. They had been easily picked up in Melbourne, and FECB [British Far East Combined Bureau] had no problem hearing them at their powerful intercept station on Stonecutters Island in Hong Kong, which could eavesdrop on everything sent by radio from Japan. . . .

Both parts of the Winds message [the code and the subsequent execute] were received by Lieutenant Charles Dixon, RNZVR [Royal New Zealand Volunteer Reserve], a code breaker stationed at Stonecutters Island in 1941. After the surrender of Hong Kong, on 25 December 1941, Dixon was a prisoner of war with other officers, including Lieutenant Cedric Brown, RNVR [Royal Naval Reserve]. Dixon told Brown of receiving both parts of the message, and how surprised he was that the Americans were caught unprepared at Pearl Harbor because of the information he had been receiving and decoding in Hong Kong on behalf of FECB, which he assumed was being passed on to the Americans. Charles Dixon died in New Zealand on 10 June 1985 at the age of seventy-seven. Cedric Brown was the senior naval officer on the C-in-C's staff in charge of codes and ciphers.[19]

Ralph Briggs was a Navy chief petty officer and a Japanese linguist stationed at the Naval Communication Station in Cheltenham, Maryland. He served as a chief watch supervisor. He reported that he personally intercepted the “East Wind Rain” execute message on December 4.

Briggs’ account is supported by a document released by the National Security Agency in 1980 (National Archives Document SRH-051). The document reveals that in 1977 the Naval Security Group interviewed Briggs regarding the execute message and that Briggs reported that he intercepted the “East Wind Rain” execute message on December 4, that he was later ordered by his superior officer not to testify to the JCC, and that he had discovered that the copies he had made of the message were missing from the station's files.[20]

 

[Peter Olivola]

I accept that others made mistakes and may have operated with the intent to incite war with Japan. You OTOH continue to stonewall my point that the failure or even deliberate actions of others doesn't exonerate Kimmel and Short. As for Salon and Stinnett, the quote in Salon was from a respected historian. Am I supposed to accept everything you quote but you get to ignore my quotes?

The sequence of failures that led to the undefended attack on Pearl Harbor indicates, more than anything else, a structural failure of large organizations. It's been repeated both in government (9/11) and business (The Penn-Central merger as a glaring example.) There is even a commonly applied epithet for the problem: Silos, the tendency for those in positions of authority to restrict communication by subordinates outside the vertical structure. As much as anything else, the internet, it was hoped, would work against that problem. It has failed, instead creating a multi faceted effort by governments and corporations to restrict individual access to information. It would be reasonable to assert that the primary motivation of any human organization is to secure and maintain the position of the individual at the top. I'm sure your extensive study of history only reinforces this.

 

[Winston]

More related to the BBC video content with zero Stinnett content:

CRYPTOGRAPHY - ONE STORY IS GOOD UNTIL ANOTHER IS REVEALED (PART TWO)

JN-25D

by Paul F. Whitman

https://corregidor.org/crypto/chs_crypto1/jn25.htm

In April-May 1941, the Americans severely restricted the distribution of their Purple decrypts as the result of their decoding a message from Tokyo to Washington on 5 May 1941 warning: "According to a fairly reliable source of information it appears almost certain the United States government is reading your code messages." As a direct consequence, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel (C-in-C Pacific Fleet) and Lieutenant General Walker C. Short (Commanding General U.S. Army, in Hawaii) were removed from the distribution list of Magic decrypts. Extraordinary as it may seem, even President Roosevelt was removed from the Magic List, and thereafter he was given suitably paraphrased summaries by the State Department. Roosevelt didn't get back on the list until 12 November 1941. But this is digression. When did the U.S. begin to decrypt JN-25? Why, in 1979, when President Carter authorized the NSA to release a mass of Japanese intercepts, was not a single JN-25 decrypt that had been read prior to 7 December 1941 released? Because OP-20-G were preoccupied with the Japanese diplomatic codes and not the Japanese Navy's operational codes, and none of the latter were ever decrypted? That's the official view. The alternative answer comes from "Betrayal at Pearl Harbor" by James Rusbridger and Eric Nave, published by Summit Books 1991, who quote from A Brief History of Communications Intelligence in the United States, written by Safford in 1952 and released into their National Archives in March 1982:

"On 1 June 1939 the Japanese Navy introduced a new type of numerical code referred to by Navy COMINT personnel as [censored] the Operations Code. [The next two lines are totally censored.] Mrs. Driscoll and Mr. Cutter spearheaded the attack and we were soon [censored] reconstructing the code.

Recovery of the [censored] keys, [the word missing here is probably additive] however, involved much more labour and required many more crypto-personnel than the earlier transposition keys. Main work of solution was undertaken at Washington [OP-20-G].

By December 1940 we were working on two systems of keys with this book; the "old" keys for code recovery and the "new" keys for current information [five lines completely censored]."

The inference from the need for more personnel appears to be that the code was more tedious than hard to crack. The Safford report continues:

"On 1 December 1941 the system [JN-25] became unreadable...this could have been a tip-off as to coming hostilities but it could have also been a mere routine change of system. After all, the code had been in use for 2½ years. Two weeks later Corregidor [Station Cast] flashed the good news that the same old code was still in use but that new keys were being used with its was the third or fourth set of keys used with this same codebook."

This passage is particularly interesting for several reasons. First, Safford is mistaken that the date when the key changes were made was 1 December, when in fact the change was made on 4 December [NSA confirmation - https://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptolog...ologic-history/pearl-harbor-review/jn25.shtml). Second, he confirms that JN-25 was broken soon after its introduction and was read throughout the two-and-a-half-year period to late 1941. And third, that the basic code remained unchanged and only the additive tables (or keys) altered.

They then cite a still censored message from Station Cast (Corregidor) on 15 December 1941 which reads:

"Com 16 to OPNAV info CINCAF. TOP SECRET - 151250. Two intercepts in [censored] plain code [December] 6 and 13 followed within a few hours by enciphered versions confirmed indicator [censored] already recovered by mathematical elimination code remains unchanged (.) Will send recoveries this system if you desire work on current period."

If Station Cast's code breakers knew that JN-25 remained unchanged then it must mean that they were reading it during the previous six month period, from 1 June 1941 through 4 December 1941.

In a memorandum Safford wrote on 17 May 1945 he stated:

"Com 16 [Station Cast in Corregidor] intercepts were considered most reliable ..not only because of better radio interception, but because Com 16 was currently reading messages in the Japanese Fleet Cryptographic System (5-number code or JN-25 and was exchanging technical information and translations with the British at Singapore [FECB]."

Taken together, these... accounts of U.S. Navy Code breaking show beyond doubt that between 1 June 1939 and 7 December 1941 some JN-25 messages were definitely decoded by the U.S. Navy. But not a single pre-Pearl Harbor JN-25 intercept or decrypt can be found in any American archive. Every single scrap of evidence relating to JN-25 between June 1939 through late November 1941 has vanished from US records.

 

[Winston]

I accept that others made mistakes and may have operated with the intent to incite war with Japan. You OTOH continue to stonewall my point that the failure or even deliberate actions of others doesn't exonerate Kimmel and Short.

I'm not entirely exonerating them. I'm just saying that most of the blame lies elsewhere. Besides, history has mostly exonerated them anyway, not just me.

As for Salon and Stinnett, the quote in Salon was from a respected historian.

I always take the time to do my own investigations when I dig and something really appears to stink, but I always apply major levels of skepticism AGAINST anything contrary to the opinions of "experts." However, as Feynman said, "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts."

Am I supposed to accept everything you quote but you get to ignore my quotes?

I'm not ignoring your comments.

The sequence of failures that led to the undefended attack on Pearl Harbor indicates, more than anything else, a structural failure of large organizations. It's been repeated both in government (9/11) and business (The Penn-Central merger as a glaring example.)

I've already stated with that in one of my first replies. Let me quote it: "I agree on 9/11 and the failure to connect so many obvious dots due to security compartmentalization, inter-agency and inter-service rivalries, and just your usual bureaucratic muck-ups and incompetence."

As much as anything else, the internet, it was hoped, would work against that problem. It has failed, instead creating a multi faceted effort by governments and corporations to restrict individual access to information. It would be reasonable to assert that the primary motivation of any human organization is to secure and maintain the position of the individual at the top. I'm sure your extensive study of history only reinforces this.

I don't disagree with that at all, but sometimes the cover-up can be more than just to hide incompetence. High level conspiracies known to very, very few and, if smart, not documented and only passed by word of mouth at high levels can exist and have existed when the stakes are incredibly high, such as bringing an unwilling country into war.

Here's what I ALWAYS start with: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's Razor

When, upon investigation, a story really begins to stink just too damned much, I dig, and do NOT just automatically accept the conclusion of this or that "expert" when there are entire volumes of evidence beyond just the particular author claimed to have been discredited.

9/11 - after MUCH personal investigation: massive bureaucratic stupidity and incompetence.

Pearl Harbor - I'm really beginning to wonder...

 

[Winston]

Here's what I believe thus far from what I've read and seen:

1. There was a goal to incite the Japanese to surprise attack; Nimitz knew or suspected this and took a pre-war desk job to avoid the inevitable scapegoating, only going to sea after the attack.
2. Richardson, one of the very best US Admirals based upon his prescient warnings who was an expert on Japanese military tactics warned, along with others in the Navy, that stationing the Pacific Fleet at Pearl would make it a sitting duck to the surprise attack he knew would be characteristic of the Japanese and was a bad idea for many other reasons. He was forced to resign.
3. When there was a warning that an attack was imminent, unbelievable levels of inaction and improper action at the very highest levels were evident, FAR beyond simple incompetence; my best guess is that they didn't want to possibly deter an attack by showing signs of being ready for it since there were known or suspected to be Japanese spies near every Pacific installation who would notice any alert; thus, since the goal in the first place was to incite a surprise attack from the Japanese, just let it happen wherever it was going to happen, but send a too-late alert to cover your a**.

 

[Winston]

This wartime leak from the Chicago Tribune immediately after the victory implying that intel intercepts allowed the victory at Midway in June, 1942 is very well covered and was secretly addressed at the time, a fact which is now documented:

Spilling the Secret – Captain Morton T. Seligman, U.S. Navy

https://www.navyhistory.org/2013/02/spilling-the-secret-captain-morton-seligman/

Breaking the code on a Chicago mystery from WWII

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news...d-jury-press-freedom-edit-20141121-story.html

Where is the full explanation of the following and the full text of the article which must have been associated with it? Anyone know? I can't find anything. The image below is from the paper's web site and that image is all that is on the paper's web site about the headline:

Honolulu Advertiser - Sunday, November 30, 1941

Japanese May Strike Over Weekend! (meaning the FOLLOWING weekend since this was a Sunday edition)

EDIT: Here to:

 

[tmacklin]

op:

 

[Winston]

The above Hawaiian headlines don't specifically say anything about Hawaii being the target. So, I searched for something similar on the front pages of the major US newspapers on and around the same date, at least at some of the ones who don't require you to damned register to do so. Nothing remotely similar thus far.

However, I did find this very interesting inner page column in the process. Searching online on keywords from it I've found absolutely nothing. The OCR version of the article missed too much text, so I pieced this thing together:

What is so very interesting is that this warning would have relied on the information being passed from the Brits to the US and there is a theory IMO much stronger that the FDR foreknowledge one that claims the Brits knew more than the Americans and simply didn't pass it along because if there was one country on the freaking planet that wanted the US in the war ASAP it was the UK.

The Chinese claim has enough names and other info in it, like dates, to follow up on. I'll see if I can find anything to back it up online. Might be very difficult just using online resources though.

 

[Peter Olivola]

Feyneman's comment applies to the physical sciences, not social sciences, of which, history is a significant example. There is so much self serving posturing from participants in historical events that their own words need to be treated with the same degree of skepticism as anything else. Winston Churchill's multi-volume tome on WWII is a prime example of the problem. I wouldn't exclude Nimitz or any other flag officer from that category.

I always take the time to do my own investigations when I dig and something really appears to stink, but I always apply major levels of skepticism AGAINST anything contrary to the opinions of "experts." However, as Feynman said, "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts."

 

[Peter Olivola]

I'm still wondering why the carriers were out of port on maneuvers but it would have been a provocation for the rest of the fleet to do so. And it isn't about the entire fleet. Enterprise was not part of the carrier maneuvers and was delayed returning by weather. Similarly, portions of the rest of the fleet could have been rotated in and out of port as part of training. The Navy's subsequent adoption of this very tactic has been in place ever since the end of WWII. This was Kimmel's failure.

What is so very interesting is that this warning would have relied on the information being passed from the Brits to the US and there is a theory IMO much stronger that the FDR foreknowledge one that claims the Brits knew more than the Americans and simply didn't pass it along because if there was one country on the freaking planet that wanted the US in the war ASAP it was the UK.

The Chinese claim has enough names and other info in it, like dates, to follow up on. I'll see if I can find anything to back it up online. Might be very difficult just using online resources though.

 

[Winston]

Feyneman's comment applies to the physical sciences, not social sciences, of which, history is a significant example. There is so much self serving posturing from participants in historical events that their own words need to be treated with the same degree of skepticism as anything else.

Just like scientists, their knowledge is limited, that knowledge being limited by no fault of their own or by confirmation bias also called "Theory Induced Blindness" by a Nobel Prize winner in Economics, something that is severely affecting ivory tower economists and central bankers worldwide right now... but that's another very long story. That's why I don't just automatically buy into "expert" conclusions when I'm sufficiently interesting in investigating for myself.

In the process of any kind of serious investigation, I apply the scientific method. Specifically this:

"It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas… If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you… On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful ideas from the worthless ones." - Carl Sagan

 

[Winston]

I'm still wondering why the carriers were out of port on maneuvers but it would have been a provocation for the rest of the fleet to do so. And it isn't about the entire fleet. Enterprise was not part of the carrier maneuvers and was delayed returning by weather. Similarly, portions of the rest of the fleet could have been rotated in and out of port as part of training. The Navy's subsequent adoption of this very tactic has been in place ever since the end of WWII. This was Kimmel's failure.

The suspicious absence of the carriers at Pearl was something I keyed in on long ago but was answered for me with entirely plausible, non-conspiratorial reasons and my attention has since shifted to everywhere but Pearl. What the poor b'stards stuck with Pearl on their hands did or didn't do is of little importance to me until something amazing comes up and causes me to shift back. I have the following from here:

https://www.thenewamerican.com/cult...pearl-harbor-hawaii-was-surprised-fdr-was-not

"The Navy has traditionally followed the rule that, when international relations are critical, the fleet puts to sea. That is exactly what Admiral Kimmel did. Aware that U.S.-Japanese relations were deteriorating, he sent 46 warships safely into the North Pacific in late November 1941 — without notifying Washington. He even ordered the fleet to conduct a mock air raid on Pearl Harbor, clairvoyantly selecting the same launch site Admiral Yamamoto chose two weeks later.

When the White House learned of Kimmel's move it countermanded his orders and ordered all ships returned to dock, using the dubious excuse that Kimmel's action might provoke the Japanese. Washington knew that if the two fleets met at sea, and engaged each other, there might be questions about who fired the first shot.

Kimmel did not give up, however. With the exercise canceled, his carrier chief, Vice Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, issued plans for a 25-ship task force to guard against an "enemy air and submarine attack" on Pearl Harbor. The plan never went into effect. On November 26th, Admiral Stark, Washington's Chief of Naval Operations, ordered Halsey to use his carriers to transport fighter planes to Wake and Midway islands — further depleting Pearl Harbor's air defenses."

But I have no idea of the validity of that claim since I see no footnote reference associated with it.

 

[Peter Olivola]

That still leaves open (if it's even valid,) the question of why the entire non carrier fleet was home ported. It isn't necessary to put the entire fleet to sea for training and it wasn't necessary to have them conduct exercises westward.

The suspicious absence of the carriers at Pearl was something I keyed in on long ago but was answered for me with entirely plausible, non-conspiratorial reasons and my attention has since shifted to everywhere but Pearl. What the poor b'stards stuck with Pearl on their hands did or didn't do is of little importance to me until something amazing comes up and causes me to shift back. I have the following from here:

https://www.thenewamerican.com/cult...pearl-harbor-hawaii-was-surprised-fdr-was-not

"The Navy has traditionally followed the rule that, when international relations are critical, the fleet puts to sea. That is exactly what Admiral Kimmel did. Aware that U.S.-Japanese relations were deteriorating, he sent 46 warships safely into the North Pacific in late November 1941 — without notifying Washington. He even ordered the fleet to conduct a mock air raid on Pearl Harbor, clairvoyantly selecting the same launch site Admiral Yamamoto chose two weeks later.

When the White House learned of Kimmel's move it countermanded his orders and ordered all ships returned to dock, using the dubious excuse that Kimmel's action might provoke the Japanese. Washington knew that if the two fleets met at sea, and engaged each other, there might be questions about who fired the first shot.

Kimmel did not give up, however. With the exercise canceled, his carrier chief, Vice Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, issued plans for a 25-ship task force to guard against an "enemy air and submarine attack" on Pearl Harbor. The plan never went into effect. On November 26th, Admiral Stark, Washington's Chief of Naval Operations, ordered Halsey to use his carriers to transport fighter planes to Wake and Midway islands — further depleting Pearl Harbor's air defenses."

But I have no idea of the validity of that claim since I see no footnote reference associated with it.

 

[Winston]

Something I made from frame captures from an otherwise useless foreknowledge video on archive.org:

Below is potentially interesting info about that headline. Joseph Leib's story might be complete BS and I find it hard to believe about the hand-off of intercepts but, hey, I have a military view of the proper handling of classified material and we've recently had a high level politician who kept on a personal server some emails so classified that the Intel IG had to be read into a special access program to be able to even see them, so what do I know about how carelessly political royals handle classified materials?

The date tie-ins with the Hawaii headlines are interesting, headlines for which I can find no other details or explanations, as is the front page ripping story from Private Paul Brown. I've emailed the editors of the current iterations of those papers to ask for more info, specifically what article text is associated with the headlines, if any.

Joseph Leib was definitely an FDR White House insider:

Joseph Leib Papers | Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum

https://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/a...lin/index.php?p=collections/findingaid&id=215

and whatever info he had on Hull that he said would "badly tarnish" Hull's legacy that he made his first appointment with Hull to confirm may have led Hull to try to "buy him off" with the scoop of the century while also allowing Hull to sooth his conscience about what he supposedly knew.:

Overview of the Hustler article:

Joseph Leib, a former New Deal bureaucrat and retired United Press News Agency newspaper correspondent, wrote an article which appeared in Hustler magazine, "Pearl Harbor: The Story the Rest of the Media Won't Tell," in which he claimed that his friend, Secretary of State Hull, had confided to him on 29 November 1941 that J. Edgar Hoover and FDR knew that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor within a few days, and that the President, over Hull's strident objections, was going to let this happen as a way to get the country into war. Hull's dilemma was that he could not reveal this openly to the press, since the White House would simply denounce him, and no one would believe him. He turned over to Lieb a document containing a transcript of Japanese radio intercepts which supposedly detailed the Pearl Harbor plan, making the reporter promise never to reveal the source. Leib rushed the story, minus the identification of Hull, to the United Press bureau, which refused to run it since it was so incredulous. But Leib did manage to persuade UP's cable editor, Harry Frantz, to transmit it on the foreign cable (remember, at the time, Hawaii was "foreign" as it was not yet a state). Although the story managed somehow to get garbled in transmission, it did create a front-page banner headline in the Sunday, 30 November, Honolulu Advertiser: JAPANESE MAY STRIKE OVER WEEKEND! Thus Leib, writing in 1983, has finally cleared up the mystery of the origins of that headline, which has always been a particularly curious part of the Pearl Harbor puzzle.

Parts of the Hustler article :

Within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was hand-correcting a speech he planned to deliver the next evening before a joint session of Congress. That draft is among my most prized possessions. In faded pencil, is the unmistakable scrawl of Roosevelt, inserting a word there, a phrase there.

The next day, the third-term President gave one of his best-remembered addresses. In his lilting, sing-song cadence, Roosevelt called the grieving nation to arms. He labeled December 7, 1941, as "a date which will live in infamy." His words were so carefully crafted and eloquent, it was difficult to believe he had managed to compose them in the haste and confusion following the attack.

In fact, the treachery of our nation's leader rivaled that of the Japanese. Roosevelt had labored on the speech for days. He knew well in advance that the Japanese were planning a sneak attack. He knew to the day, almost to the hour, when the assault on Pearl Harbor would begin. December 7, 1941, held no surprises for Roosevelt, nor for me.

A full week earlier, on November 29, I learned about the impending attack from an unlikely source - Cordell Hull, Roosevelt's own secretary of state. To put the matter into proper perspective, I should explain how and why Hull came to entrust me with the terrible secret of Pearl Harbor.

[snip]

Early in 1941 I came upon some incredible information that, if true, could have badly tarnished Hull's shining political image. Remembering his personal kindness years before, I wrote to the secretary of state and requested a private audience.

Independently, I managed to confirm the gist of the story that concerted events dating back to the beginnings of Hull's career in public life. My intention was merely to get a statement from the secretary of state and then publish the story. In a series of meetings over the following weeks Hull acknowledged the truth of what I had discovered.

The scene of our meeting in Hull's office is still etched deeply in my memory: the courtly secretary of state, hunched over in despair, sobbing and pleading with me to keep the story secret. As Hull related to me the difficult circumstances Roosevelt had placed him in, I began to understand the sorrow and anguish he had suffered. He'd had enough, I decided. I promised Hull never to reveal the information I had obtained, and I have kept that confidence to this day.

Hull told me he never forgave Roosevelt for double-crossing him in 1939; yet he remained in office, cautiously and carefully tying to hold together the fabric of U.S. foreign policy. Hull knew he was the only man in the New Deal Cabinet who had the power and stature to blow the whistle on Roosevelt's chicanery. But he remained a loyalist for the good of the nation. It was clear that war clouds were on the horizon and that a political crisis in the United States could only benefit the enemies of democracy.

It was in this volatile and uncertain atmosphere that Cordell Hull telephoned me early on Saturday, November 29, 1941, and asked me to see him in person as soon as possible. He wanted to discuss a matter of extreme importance with me, and it was a subject of such sensitivity, it could not be talked about on the phone. There was an obvious note of urgency in his high-pitched voice, and I quickly agreed.

We met outside the State Department (then housed in what is now known as the Old Executive Office Building next door to the White House), and after exchanging brief hellos, walked briskly across the street to Lafayette Park. As we sat on a bench, Hull was fidgeting nervously, betraying the emotions usually masked by his cool demeanor. Suddenly, he burst into tears, and his lanky figure shuddered.

I resisted an impulse to drape my arm around his shoulder and waited patiently for him to regain his composure. Sucking in great gasps of air, Hull began to talk. His words came slowly at first and then fairly streamed from his mouth. It was as if he could barely wait to pronounce them he was so anxious to tell the story.

I could only sit in startled silence as Hull told me Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor within a few days, and pulled from his inside coat pocket a transcript of Japanese radio intercepts detailing the plan. Recovering from my shock, I began to question him.

"Why are you telling me this?" I blurted out. "Why don't you hold a press conference and issue a warning?"

"I don't know anyone else I can trust," he replied, shaking his head. "I've confided in some of your colleagues in the past, but they've always gotten me into hot water. You've had the goods on me for months; yet you've kept your promise not to publish them. You're the only one I can turn to."

"Does the President know the Japs are going to attack Pearl Harbor?"

"Of course he does. He's fully aware of the plans. So is Hoover at the FBI. Roosevelt and I got into a terrible argument, but he refuses to do anything about it. He wants us in this war, and an attack in Hawaii will give him just the opportunity. That's why I can't hold a press conference. I'd be denounced by the White House. No one would believe me!"

(Hull's allegations about FBI complicity in the cover-up were confirmed more than a month after Pearl Harbor. A bylined article by United Press reporter Fred Mullen in the Washington Times-Herald declared, "FBI Told Army Japs Planned Honolulu Raid." The article explained that the bureau had intercepted a radio-telephone conversation on December 5, which mentioned details of the planned raid. Within hours of publication Hoover pressured the newspaper into pulling the story from its later editions.)

After exacting a promise from me never to reveal where I got the document, Hull gave me a transcript of the Japanese message intercepts. I nearly ran the few short blocks to the National Press Building on 14th Street, where I had an office. I took the elevator up to the United Press bureau and brushed past the clerks and reporters into Lyle Wilson's private office.

Wilson was a longtime friend who had used many of my stories in the past. He was also a chum of Steve Early, Roosevelt's press secretary; so I swore him to secrecy before I would reveal the purpose of my visit.

I told Wilson I had just left a high governmental official who gave me unimpeachable evidence that Pearl Harbor was about to be attacked and that Roosevelt knew all about it. Wilson was incredulous. He told me my story was simply unbelievable and refused to put it on the United Press wire. Again I made Wilson swear an oath that he would not divulge what I had told him, and I hurried out of his office.

After a frantic series of calls I finally located Harry Frantz, until recently the cable editor of United Press. Harry still had excellent connections at the bureau, and he managed to transmit the story on the UP foreign cable - but not the syndicate's main trunk line.

Though written in haste, the story as it left Washington contained all the important details of what Hull had confided to me earlier that morning. Yet, somehow, the text was garbled in transmission.

The only newspaper in the whole world to use any portion of the story was the Honolulu Advertiser. A front-page banner headline in the paper the morning of Sunday, November 30, "JAPANESE MAY ATTACK OVER WEEKEND!" A subhead noted, "Hawaii Troops Alerted".

 

[Peter Olivola]

That. That right there. That is the smoking gun of fraud. The army was not on alert at 8:00 AM, December 7, 1941 in Hawaii.

The only newspaper in the whole world to use any portion of the story was the Honolulu Advertiser. A front-page banner headline in the paper the morning of Sunday, November 30, "JAPANESE MAY ATTACK OVER WEEKEND!" A subhead noted, "Hawaii Troops Alerted".

 

[ColumbiaNX01]

It was the Japanese fault, but the USA go revenge.

 

[Frank Broughton]

It was the Japanese fault, but the USA go revenge.

Amen!

 

[Winston]

That. That right there. That is the smoking gun of fraud. The army was not on alert at 8:00 AM, December 7, 1941 in Hawaii.

Confirmation/cognitive bias showing there, friend? Methinks so.

Oh, I strongly suspect the headline is a fraud. So what? But how and by whom was it started and why? And how did it just happen to be exactly correct? Those are the questions. Why are those key and OBVIOUS questions NOT addressed ANYWHERE that I can find except for the story posted above by FDR White House insider Joseph Leib that I find hard to believe? We'll see if the papers I've contacted will bother to reply.

My thoughts:

1. The officers in charge at Pearl were obviously not informed ahead of the attack.
2. The Army was allegedly going around tearing off front pages, not because the info was classified because that would be so incredibly stupid to do, but more likely because of the desire to prevent panic and the correct and much pointed out military fear of the danger of rumors.
3. How does someone [who knows who or at what level] unofficially warn an installation so that maybe, just maybe not so many sailors go out drinking and partying hard on the evening of Saturday, Dec. 6th, 1941 to wake up on Dec. 7th with hangovers and who, having been so forewarned, might not be so confused when the bombs started dropping on Dec. 7th? Perhaps via a local newspaper tip?

This leads to my Pearl and Hawaii area scuttlebut question in my next post.

 

[Winston]

The US Marxist newsletter linked to below which was published in the months after Pearl is a great source of period US newpaper quotes refering to the terrible situation in Japan after the US/Brit embargo of their resources in July 1941 as well as quotes indicating possible leaks of Pearl attack foreknowledge and many reasons why the Japanese would absolutely, positively need to strike Pearl if they were to have any chance at all of subsequently fighting the Brit/US Navy in the Pacific, something the US authorities would have also had to have clearly known.

BTW, the paragraph below from the 1949 Chicago Tribune column I found about the supposed Chinese forewarning which in that column was attributed to a Chicago Daily News column three days after Pearl written by Leland Stone is also listed in the Marxist newsletter from early 1942, but attributed to the New York Post which also ran the same column on 10 Dec 1942, understandable since Stone was later to become a Pulitzer Prize winning war correspondent. This is the text of the 1949 column mentioning the content of Lowe's Dec 10, 1941 column:

One such report, written by Leland Stowe from Chungking only three days after the attack, was published in the Chicago Daily News, then owned by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox. Stowe asserted that the success of the attack "seems incomprehensible," especially "since United States representatives in Chungking were warned by Washington of the seriousness of the situation as early as last Friday (Dec. 5, 1941) when a code message stated that relations with Japan might be ruptured over the week-end. On Sunday evening-at least one hour before the Japanese blitz in Hawaii-an officer of the United States gun boat Tutila warned your correspondent, 'It's going to happen tonight.'"

The commies ask the logical question - how did an officer on a gunboat in the far western Pacific know that - to which I will add - as told by an officer from a small gunboat to a highly reputable war correspondent who would later win a Pulitzer Prize for his wartime work? Some kind of confirmation of the 1949 Chinese claim that this fact was known to them to which I will add may have also been the scuttlebut in China, especially to US military personnel stationed in China, since the information would not be classified material to the Chinese?

What is BADLY needed are interviews with the rapidly dying off military personnel who were on the ground in Pearl and in China to determine what the prevailing scuttlebut was prior to the Pearl attack as related to possible Japanese military moves! I have contacted via web page question forms some Pearl organizations about this.

The commie newsletter:

https://www.marxists.org/history/et...jan-feb-1942-Bulletin-of-Leninist-L-Spiro.pdf

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/united-states-freezes-japanese-assets

JULY 26, 1941 : UNITED STATES FREEZES JAPANESE ASSETS

On this day in 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt seizes all Japanese assets in the United States in retaliation for the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China.

On July 24, Tokyo decided to strengthen its position in terms of its invasion of China by moving through Southeast Asia. Given that France had long occupied parts of the region, and Germany, a Japanese ally, now controlled most of France through Petain’s puppet government, France “agreed” to the occupation of its Indo-China colonies. Japan followed up by occupying Cam Ranh naval base, 800 miles from the Philippines, where Americans had troops, and the British base at Singapore.

President Roosevelt swung into action by freezing all Japanese assets in America. Britain and the Dutch East Indies followed suit. The result: Japan lost access to three-fourths of its overseas trade and 88 percent of its imported oil. Japan’s oil reserves were only sufficient to last three years, and only half that time if it went to war and consumed fuel at a more frenzied pace. Japan’s immediate response was to occupy Saigon, again with Vichy France’s acquiescence. If Japan could gain control of Southeast Asia, including Malaya, it could also control the region’s rubber and tin production—a serious blow to the West, which imported such materials from the East. Japan was now faced with a dilemma: back off of its occupation of Southeast Asia and hope the oil embargo would be eased - or seize the oil and further antagonize the West, even into war.

About the Tutila (sic), from the Aug. 1, 1941 Examiner (Launceston, Tasmania, Australia)

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/52458279

USS Tutuila (PR-4) - note the proper spelling, not Tutila

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Tutuila_(PR-4)

"After the fall of Hankow, the Chinese moved their capital up river to Tutuila's station, Chungking. Japanese forces thus stepped up the intensity of their attacks on that city, and air raids were common occurrences during the spring, summer, and fall. Only winter bad weather prevented the Japanese from year-round heavy raids. Moored at Lungmenhao Lagoon, Tutuila bore a charmed life until 31 July 1941, when Japanese bombs landed close aboard, holing the ship at her waterline and destroying the ship's motor skimmer with its outboard motor."

 

[Peter Olivola]

Where are you going with all this?

Confirmation/cognitive bias showing there, friend? Methinks so.

Oh, I strongly suspect the headline is a fraud. So what? But how and by whom was it started and why? And how did it just happen to be exactly correct? Those are the questions. Why are those key and OBVIOUS questions NOT addressed ANYWHERE that I can find except for the story posted above by FDR White House insider Joseph Leib that I find hard to believe? We'll see if the papers I've contacted will bother to reply.

My thoughts:

1. The officers in charge at Pearl were obviously not informed ahead of the attack.
2. The Army was allegedly going around tearing off front pages, not because the info was classified because that would be so incredibly stupid to do, but more likely because of the desire to prevent panic and the correct and much pointed out military fear of the danger of rumors.
3. How does someone [who knows who or at what level] unofficially warn an installation so that maybe, just maybe not so many sailors go out drinking and partying hard on the evening of Saturday, Dec. 6th, 1941 to wake up on Dec. 7th with hangovers and who, having been so forewarned, might not be so confused when the bombs started dropping on Dec. 7th? Perhaps via a local newspaper tip?

This leads to my Pearl and Hawaii area scuttlebut question in my next post.

 

[tmacklin]

And more recently.....

https://www.ipsnews.net/2004/03/iraq-war-launched-to-protect-israel-bush-adviser/