16 Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the First Shot: A Study of Deceit and Deception John V. Denson

The question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.[1]

World War II is the favorite war of modern liberals and neoconservatives who worship both a large, activist central government and an interventionist foreign policy. Part of the mythology that surrounds this war is that it was the “last good war.” It was a “just” war because it was defensive. Despite President Roosevelt’s supreme efforts to keep America neutral regarding controversies in Europe and Asia, the Japanese launched an unprovoked surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, thereby “forcing” America into the fray. It was also a “noble” war because America fought evil tyrannies known as Nazism in Germany and fascism in Italy and Japan. The fact that Stalin and Soviet Russia were our allies and that we aided them with their oppression of millions of people during the war and thereafter is ignored.[2] Finally, the advocates of the “last good war” say the Americans were generally united in their patriotic efforts to support the war. This helped to make us a great nation with a strong centralized government in Washington, D.C., which propelled America into an international leadership position as the world’s policeman, thereby bringing “stability” to the world. World War II and the United States’ participation have become patriotic myths to the American public, and all questioning of the official version of these events is discouraged, even viciously condemned, by the political, intellectual, and media establishment.[3]

This author will argue, however, that President Roosevelt desperately wanted and sought a war. He not only provoked the Japanese into firing the first shot at Pearl Harbor, but he was ultimately responsible for withholding vital information from the Pearl Harbor military commanders which, if conveyed to them, probably would have prevented the surprise attack altogether.

Unlike the story in the previous chapter, “Lincoln and the First Shot,” where there was no official investigation of the Fort Sumter “incident,” there were ten official investigations into the debacle at Pearl Harbor to see how such a tragedy could occur, killing nearly three thousand American servicemen, wounding thousands more, and causing massive damage to our Pacific Fleet. Many scholars, writers, and politicians who have studied the evidence gathered by these investigations have found, in fact, that President Roosevelt provoked the Japanese; that he withheld critical information from the commanders at Pearl Harbor; and that he misled the American people and Congress. Nevertheless, these Roosevelt admirers continue to defend and even praise him for his deceitful conduct. Typical of such apologists is Professor Thomas Bailey, a Stanford University historian of diplomatic relations, who declares:

Franklin Roosevelt repeatedly deceived the American people during the period before Pearl Harbor. . . . If he was going to induce the people to move at all, he would have to trick them into acting for their best interests, or what he conceived to be their best interests. He was like the physician who must tell the patient lies for the patient’s own good. . . . The country was overwhelmingly noninterventionist to the very day of Pearl Harbor, and an overt attempt to lead the people into war would have resulted in certain failure and an almost certain ousting of Roosevelt in 1940, with a consequent defeat for his ultimate aims.[4]

The same Professor Bailey quotes Congresswoman Claire Booth Luce, who was also the wife of media mogul Henry Luce, as saying Roosevelt “lied us into war because he did not have the political courage to lead us into it.”[5]

To address the defense of Roosevelt made by Professor Bailey requires a thorough discussion on allowing the president of the United States to become a virtual dictator, and that is not the focus of this chapter. Bailey’s defense of Roosevelt sacrifices all the safeguards provided by the Constitution and the democratic process, which try to prevent the executive branch from having control over starting American wars. The Founding Fathers intended that only Congress should have the right to declare war and explicitly deprived the president of any war-making power in the Constitution. History, and especially English history, which was well-known by our Founders, clearly demonstrates that the king, or a few people in the executive branch, cannot be trusted with war-making powers.[6]

To study an event in history, such as the “surprise attack” at Pearl Harbor, it is necessary to study the ideas and events which preceded it, because history is like a seamless piece of cloth. The Pearl Harbor story is tied directly to British influence going back to World War I, and the British accomplishment of bringing America into that war. There are numerous books on the subject of this “surprise attack,” but they differ in their conclusions on whether Roosevelt provoked the attack, whether he withheld information from the Pearl Harbor commanders, and whether Churchill and Roosevelt conspired to get America into the European war through the “back door” of a war first between America and Japan. However, all the books with which this author is familiar on the subject of Pearl Harbor primarily examine the period of time from early 1939 through December 7, 1941. One cannot truly understand and appreciate the story of Pearl Harbor without seeing it as a part of the period starting in 1914 with America’s entry into World War I and coming up through 1946 to the Pearl Harbor congressional investigations. World War II was actually a continuation of World War I and therefore, needs to be studied as one war which had a recess of twenty years, from 1919 to 1939.

Many people simply refuse to believe that President Roosevelt would conspire secretly with Winston Churchill to bring America into World War II by putting the Pacific Fleet at risk in Pearl Harbor to carry out this plan. If you only look at the period from 1939 to 1941, you do not get the complete picture. The picture becomes clear only when you recognize the tremendously powerful political and economic forces at work in both the British Empire and America that caused Great Britain to enter World War I and then later got America into that war. Key British members of this same group, which has now become known as the Anglo-American Establishment, also practically wrote the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I. This unfair treaty led directly to the resumption of war in 1939 between Germany, France, and Great Britain, and that evolved into World War II. There are many events which Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt could not have brought about acting on their own to bring America into these two wars; but with both the public and secret participation of the powerful Anglo-American Establishment, America was dragged into these European wars against the wishes of the vast majority of American citizens. There is a well-established pattern by this Anglo-American group from World War I to Pearl Harbor, and the Pearl Harbor story fits into this pattern like a hand into a glove. In order to tell the Pearl Harbor story one must begin with World War I.

Another point needs to be made here. The “court historians”—or establishment journalists and historians whose main roles are to serve as both the progenitors and guardians of the political and patriotic myths of the nation, as well as protectors of the political leaders and special interest groups involved—accomplish their purpose by denigration and dismissal of any adverse explanation or exposure of these myths.[7] In most cases the court historians dismiss a refutation of the myth by simply stating that it is just another “conspiracy theory.” They tend to explain most controversial historical events with their “lone nut” theory. While the court historians can’t explain Pearl Harbor with the “lone nut” theory, they do dismiss the version related herein as merely another “conspiracy theory.” They also attempt to explain the Pearl Harbor story by stating that the very nature of the Japanese people is that they are treacherous and vicious and have a long history of “surprise attacks,” which is really only a reference to their surprise attack on Port Arthur in their victory over Russia in 1905.

First, to tell the Pearl Harbor story, we need to recall the original ideas of our Founders regarding America’s foreign policy—ideas which we have completely repudiated in the twentieth century. The original American foreign policy, which began with President George Washington and continued for one hundred years thereafter, is well stated in Washington’s Farewell Address in 1797, which contained this prescient advice:

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government. . . .

The Great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign Nations is in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. . . .

Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence therefore it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships, or enmities. . . .

Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European Ambition, Rivalship, Interest, Humor or Caprice?

’Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent Alliances, with any portion of the foreign world.[8]

Murray Rothbard wrote a brilliant essay about American foreign policy and its change to interventionism at the end of the nineteenth century, expressly repudiating Washington’s advice. This first put America at odds with the worldwide British Empire and its economic interests in our hemisphere in Venezuela over a boundary dispute:

The great turning point of American foreign policy came in the early 1890s, during the second Cleveland administration. It was then that the U.S. turned sharply and permanently from a policy of peace and non-intervention to an aggressive program of economic and political expansion abroad. At the heart of the new policy were America’s leading bankers, eager to use the country’s growing economic strength to subsidize and force-feed export markets and investment outlets that they would finance, as well as to guarantee Third World government bonds. The major focus of aggressive expansion in the 1890s was Latin America, and the principal Enemy to be dislodged was Great Britain, which had dominated foreign investments in that vast region.[9]

The leading investment bank in America at that time was the House of J.P. Morgan, which had tremendous influence over some members of the Cleveland administration, if not Cleveland himself. Rothbard continues:

Long-time Morgan associate Richard Olney heeded the call, as Secretary of State from 1895 to 1897, setting the U.S. on the road to Empire. After leaving the State Department, he publicly summarized the policy he had pursued. The old isolationism heralded by George Washington’s Farewell Address is over, he thundered. The time has now arrived, Olney declared, when “it behooves us to accept the commanding position . . . among the Power[s] of the earth.” And, “the present crying need of our commercial interests,” he added, “is more markets and larger markets” for American products, especially in Latin America.[10]

This new foreign policy, which was announced, if not implemented, during the Cleveland administration, led directly to McKinley’s Spanish-American War in 1898 and to America’s acquisition of a foreign empire in Asia, thereby repudiating the traditional American foreign policy.

At the turn of the twentieth century, as America started its new interventionist foreign policy, the British Empire was the largest the world had ever known. The Industrial Revolution began in England, and, therefore, the British became the first nation to acquire all of the advantages of industrialization, including the creation of massive amounts of new wealth. A.J.P. Taylor, a prominent British historian, comments on how Britain became and remained a great world power for more than three centuries:

Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a great war, the only way of remaining a Great Power is not to fight one, or to fight it on a limited scale. This was the secret of Great Britain’s greatness so long as she stuck to naval warfare and did not try to become a military power on the continental pattern.[11]

Through limited wars and military actions, the British had acquired numerous colonies throughout the world. It was perceived that these possessions were necessary for industrial development, to secure these colonies’ natural resources and to provide markets for the manufactured products of the British economy. These basic factors of British and American political and economic development set the stage for World War I and America’s entry into that war.

Neither World War I nor World War II was inevitable or necessary especially from an American perspective; they were caused primarily by bad political choices that were greatly influenced by very large economic interests of a small number of politically powerful people. In fact, the entire twentieth century, in regard to the issues of war and peace, has been greatly influenced, if not controlled, by this Anglo-American group, which represents some of the world’s most important economic interests. This group has supported the idea in America of a bipartisan foreign policy that causes little debate or discussion of the issues relating to foreign policy or to war and peace, and it has supported the concept of the “imperial presidency,” which has given the president almost unlimited power over foreign policy. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., in his book The Imperial Presidency, discusses the origins of the American bipartisan foreign policy, pointing out that it started when President Roosevelt put Republicans in his cabinet but that it became a dominant policy under President Truman. He points out that Senator Robert A. Taft strongly opposed both Roosevelt and Truman in this regard:

“There are some who say that politics should stop at the water’s edge,” Senator Robert A. Taft had said in 1939. “. . . I do not at all agree. . . . There is no principle of subjection to the Executive in foreign policy. Only Hitler or Stalin would assert that.” Taft retained that belief after the war. In January 1951 he called the bipartisan foreign policy “a very dangerous fallacy threatening the very existence of the Nation.”[12]

This Anglo-American group is not a dark, illegal conspiracy, although it does try to withhold its ultimate aims from public scrutiny. These people, or their minions, are openly active in American and British politics by holding elective offices and holding cabinet positions in their respective governments. Their financial contributions and political propaganda are immensely effective. They fully support the private-enterprise system, or private ownership of property and the means of production, but they strongly oppose the free-enterprise system advocated by Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian School of economics. The free-enterprise system proposes the complete separation of the economy from the government, whereas the private-enterprise system advocates a partnership between government and the economic interests involved, thus providing many economic and military benefits to businesses. This Anglo-American group has little difficulty with a controlled economy. That is part of the price they pay for this partnership, because they have such immense political influence that they actually use this governmental power to deter their less politically-positioned competitors.