Abstract
The December 7, 1941 attack by Imperial Japan on Pearl Harbor, which brought America into World War II, occurred during a period of falling happiness in the U.S. Congress when the highly depressive Franklin D. Roosevelt was the President. This chapter examines the various theories concerning the American culpability for the success of the Japanese attack and concludes that the correct one is the orthodox view that the attack caught the U.S. completely by surprise, due to the U.S. underestimation of Japan’s resolve. Although a potential comparator could be the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) which are sometimes likened to Pearl Harbor, a discussion of 9/11 is well beyond the scope of this book, which deals with inter-state conflicts and not asymmetric ones between states and terrorist groups.
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Notes
- 1.
Henry C. Clausen and Bruce Lee, Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement (New York: Crown Publishers, 1992).
- 2.
Frank P. Mintz, Revisionism and the Origins of Pearl Harbor (New York: University Press of America, 1985).
- 3.
Isabel Leighton (ed.), “Pearl Harbor Sunday: The End of an Era” in The Aspirin Age, 1919–1941 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1949), p. 490.
- 4.
First Amended Petition to Report Federal Crimes Concerning 9/11 to Special Grand Jury by The Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry, July 30, 2018, pp. 28–29. Available at: https://lawyerscommitteefor9-11inquiry.org/download/lc-doj-first-amended-petition/.
- 5.
Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, Volume III, The Lowering Clouds, 1939–1941 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954), pp. 552–568.
- 6.
Ibid., pp. 557–558.
- 7.
R.J.C. Butow, The John Doe Associates: Backdoor Diplomacy for Peace, 1941 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974).
- 8.
Butow, “How Roosevelt Attacked Japan at Pearl Harbor—Myth Masquerading as History” Prologue, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Fall 1996), National Archives, Washington, DC, p. 3.
- 9.
Henry Lewis Stimson Diaries, November 25, 1941, Yale University Library Manuscripts and Archives, microfilm edition, roll 7, vol. 36, pp. 48–49.
- 10.
Butow (1996, p. 4).
- 11.
Charles A. Beard, President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War, 1941 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), pp. 574–575.
- 12.
Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, vol. 2 (New York: Macmillan, 1948), pp. 1086–1087.
- 13.
Hearings Before the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, Congress of the United States, 79th Congress, 1st Session (hereinafter “Pearl Harbor Hearings”), pt. 2, pp. 613–615 (corrected pt. 11, p. 5309).
- 14.
Hull, p. 1074; Intercept of Tel. No. 812, November 22, 1941, Pearl Harbor Hearings, pt. 12, p. 165.
- 15.
Intercept of Tel. No. 83, September 24, 1941, transl. October 9, Pearl Harbor Hearings, pt. 12, p. 261.
- 16.
Intercept of Tel. No. 253, December 6, 1941, transl. December 8, Pearl Harbor Hearings, pt. 12, p. 269.
- 17.
Intercept of Tel. No. 902, December 6, 1941 (Parts 1 to 13) and December 7, 1941 (Part 14) (sent in English, decrypted on day of receipt), Pearl Harbor Hearings, pt. 12, pp. 239–245.
- 18.
Testimony of Commander Lester R. Shulz, Pearl Harbor Hearings, pt. 10, pp. 4659–4672.
- 19.
October 26, 1940, July 23, 1942 and December 10, 1945. (The last of these was his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, which was presented on his behalf by the U.S. Ambassador to Norway since Secretary Hull was ill and unable to attend the ceremony in person.)
- 20.
James Bradley, “Diplomacy That Will Live in Infamy” The New York Times (Op-Ed), December 5, 2009. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/opinion/06bradley.html.
- 21.
Ibid.
- 22.
Ibid.
- 23.
Ibid.
- 24.
Ibid.
- 25.
Ibid.
- 26.
“Primary Speeches, Addresses and Essays by Theodore Roosevelt”. Available at: http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trspeeches.html.
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Jenkins, P.S. (2019). Pearl Harbor. In: War and Happiness. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14078-6_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14078-6_10
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