Pearl Harbor

by Steven M. Gillon

  The memory of Franklin Roosevelt’s decisive leadership in the wake of the attacks on Pearl Harbor shadowed George W. Bush in the weeks and months following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. That evening, after returning to the White House, Bush scribbled in his diary, “The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today.”

  President Bush was not alone in drawing parallels between the two attacks. “This is the second Pearl Harbor. I don’t think that I overstate it,” said Nebraska Republican senator Charles Hagel. Newspaper headlines across the country screamed “INFAMY!” recalling FDR’s description of Japanese treachery on December 7, 1941. “This is our generation’s Pearl Harbor,” observed a writer in the New Republic.11

  The United States confronted a very different crisis in 2001, but the Bush administration was eager to draw parallels between past and present. “In the 21st century, freedom is again under attack,” he declared on Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day in 2006, “and young Americans have stepped forward to serve in a global war on terror that will secure our liberty and determine the destiny of millions around the world. Like generations before, we will answer history’s call with confidence, confront threats to our way of life, and build a more peaceful world for our children and grandchildren.”12

  There can be no doubt that Franklin Roosevelt, and the generation that he inspired, created a more democratic and peaceful world. Whether the generation leading the nation today can achieve the same goals remains to be seen. The effort to link the modern struggle against terrorism with the fight against fascism reveals that both in history and in memory, Pearl Harbor remains a day that will truly live in infamy.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I could not have written this book without the support of the University of Oklahoma and the History Channel, the dedication of skilled archivists, the insights of many colleagues and scholars, and the encouragement of friends.

  At the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, my thanks to chief archivist Robert Clark, who possesses a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of the collection and a seemingly limitless supply of patience in dealing with pesky researchers. David Woolner, senior fellow and resident historian for the Roosevelt Institute, read a draft of the manuscript and provided many constructive comments. Mike Sampson offered valuable resources from the archives of the United States Secret Service.

  A number of people read the manuscript at various stages and offered helpful comments. My mentor, James T. Patterson, read the manuscript with extraordinary care, offering his usual blend of gentle encouragement, detailed criticism, and thoughtful commentary. At Basic Books, the talented editor Lara Heimert guided the project from beginning to end. She made this a much better book. My friend Gary Ginsberg volunteered to read the manuscript and, as always, offered encouragement, suggestions, and support.

  Dr. Matthew Miller of the Harvard School of Public Health tracked down sources that helped me to understand medical practices for dealing with sinus infections in the 1940s. Dr. Jordan S. Josephson, director of the New York Nasal and Sinus Center, was especially helpful and shared with me his considerable knowledge of sinus infections and how physicians have treated them over the years.

  A number of research assistants helped along the way. Anthony Carlson, Eric England, and Doug Miller—all graduate students in history at the University of Oklahoma—copied articles, combed through newspapers, and read early drafts. At the FDR Library, Geraldine Hawkins tracked down a handful of documents.

  At the History Channel, Nancy Dubuc and David McKillop commissioned a two-hour special based on the book and placed it in the capable hands of Emmy Award–winning producer Anthony Giacchino.

  This book is dedicated to Abbe Raven. Every once in a while, if you are lucky, you meet someone special who manages to change your life. For me, Abbe has been one of those special people. I first met her around eighteen years ago when she was the head of programming for a fledging network called the History Channel and I was an assistant professor of history at Yale University. Although I lacked both experience and talent, she decided to put me on the air, hosting a show, His-toryCenter , which ran for the next eight seasons. Since then, she has provided me with a world of new opportunities and experiences that I never could have imagined. Her career has also blossomed. After managing the History Channel, she took over A&E before being named president and CEO of AETN.

  While Abbe has many remarkable qualities, what I find most unique has been her ability to climb the corporate ladder while still managing to keep her feet, and her ego, planted firmly on the ground. She skillfully balances the tough decisions of corporate governance with an instinctive compassion and ingrained empathy for her employees. Despite being surrounded by the trappings of success, she has retained her humility, her principles, and, most importantly, her ability to laugh at herself. She is devoid of pretense, but blessed with a rare generosity of spirit. I am grateful to be a beneficiary of that generosity.

  NOTES

  Preface

  1 “Nation’s Full Might Mustered for All-Out War,” Newsweek, December 15, 1941, 15.

  2 The “back door” theory, like most conspiracy theories, fails the test of logic. It assumes that the President of the United States, along with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Harold Stark, knowingly risked the lives of thousands of servicemen in pursuit of a policy option that could easily have been achieved by other, less costly, means. Roosevelt did not need to sacrifice his Pacific Fleet to inflame public opinion. The nation would have been aroused to fight had the commanders been fully prepared and the damage less extensive. Also, it was by no means clear that the Japanese attack on an American military base in Hawaii would have allowed FDR to lead the nation into the European war. Had Hitler not declared war on the United States, FDR would likely have been forced to focus all of America’s resources on defeating Japan, leaving Britain to fend for itself against Germany. Although it defies the rules of common sense and lacks evidence, the “back door” theory refuses to go away. For an excellent discussion of the theory and why it persists, see Emily S. Rosenberg, A Date Which Will Live: Pearl Harbor in American Memory (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 34–52.

  3 Harold I. Gullan, “Expectations of Infamy: Roosevelt and Marshall Prepare for War, 1938–41,” Presidential Studies Quarterly (Summer 1998): 510–522.

  4 Max Hastings, Winston’s War: Churchill, 1940–1945 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), 165.

  5 Ibid.

  6 Grace Tully, FDR: My Boss (New York: Scribner’s, 1949), 257.

  7 The “disaster of Pearl Harbor,” concluded the Joint Congressional Committee, “was the failure . . . of the Army and the Navy to institute measures designed to detect an approaching hostile force, to effect a state of readiness commensurate with the realization that war was at hand, and to employ every facility at their command in repelling the Japanese.” Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., document 244, final report, pt. 5, Conclusions and Recommendations (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), 251.

  Chapter 1

  1 Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York: Enigma Books, 2008), 161; “Draft Article on FDR,” Box 10, Marguerite A. (“Missy”) LeHand Papers, Tully Archive, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.

  2 Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 17; William Seale, The President’s House: A History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 2:971.

  3 “Draft Article on FDR”; Seale, President’s House, 987.

  4 Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 160; Seale, President’s House, 984–985; Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 34.

  5 Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 34; Seale, President’s House, 986.

  6 Hugh Gregory Gallagher, FDR’s Splendid Deception (Arlington, VA: Vandamere Press, 1994), 91–92.
<
br />   7 “Roosevelt Appeals Direct to Emperor as Japan Masses More Men, Proclaims Crisis Is at Hand,” Washington Post, December 7, 1941, 1; “Roosevelt Appeals to Hirohito,” New York Times, December 7, 1941, 1; “Navy Is Superior to Any, Says Knox,” New York Times, December 7, 1941, 1.

  8 Frank Freidel, “FDR vs. Hitler: American Foreign Policy, 1933–1941,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 3rd ser. (1987): 25–43.

  9 Ibid., 39.

  10 Ibid., 25–43.

  11 Jean Edward Smith, FDR (New York: Random House, 2008), 434; Freidel, “FDR vs. Hitler,” 25–43.

  12 Freidel, “FDR vs. Hitler,” 25–43.

  13 Harold I. Gullan, “Expectations of Infamy: Roosevelt and Marshall Prepare for War, 1938–41,” Presidential Studies Quarterly (Summer 1998): 510–522.

  14 Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 61–62.

  15 David F. Schmitz, Henry L. Stimson: The First Wise Man (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2001), xiii–xv.

  16 Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 380.

  17 Ibid., 187.

  Chapter 2

  1 Jean Edward Smith, FDR (New York: Random House, 2008), 291–292.

  2 Admiral Harold Stark, Hearings Before the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 79th Cong., 1st sess., pt. 32, Navy Court of Inquiry, August 7, 1944, and August 17, 1944 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), 28, 283–285.

  3 Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 265.

  4 Ibid., 266.

  5 J. E. Smith, FDR, 510.

  6 Ibid., 511.

  7 Ibid., 512–513.

  8 Francis Biddle, In Brief Authority (New York: Doubleday, 1962), 180; J. E. Smith, FDR, 525; Conrad Black, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom (New York: Public Affairs, 2003), 337; Harold I. Gullan, “Expectations of Infamy: Roosevelt and Marshall Prepare for War, 1938–41,” Presidential Studies Quarterly (Summer 1998): 510–522; Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Rendezvous with Destiny (New York: Little, Brown, 1990), 108.

  9 Cordell Hull, Hearings Before the Joint Committee, 1st sess., pt. 2, 409, 413.

  10 J. E. Smith, FDR, 516.

  11 Ibid., 518.

  12 Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 302–303.

  13 J. E. Smith, FDR, 518–523.

  14 Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 272.

  15 Ibid.

  16 Hearings Before the Joint Committee, pt. 19, exhibit 160, “Remarks of the President,” December 7, 1941, 3503.

  17 J. E. Smith, FDR, 525; “Day of Infamy,” Time, December 2, 1991, 30.

  18 Testimony of Cordell Hull, Hearings Before the Joint Committee, 1st sess., pt. 2, 432.

  19 Ibid., 433.

  20 J. E. Smith, FDR, 526–527.

  21 Testimony of Honorable Henry L. Stimson, Hearings Before the Joint Committee, Army Pearl Harbor Board, 1st sess., pt. 29, September 26, 1944, 2070; J. E. Smith, FDR, 526–530.

  22 http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/hrstark.htm.

  23 Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 309; Testimony of Admiral Harold R. Stark, Hearings Before the Joint Committee, 1st and 2nd sess., pt. 5, 2122–2124, 2316–2321.

  24 Ibid., 2124–2125.

  25 Rufus Bratton, Hearings Before the Joint Committee, 1st sess., pt. 29, Army Pearl Harbor Board, September 30, 1944, 2442, 45; Hull, Hearings Before the Joint Committee, 441.

  26 Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., document 244, appendix D, “The Last Hours” (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), 427.

  27 Gordon W. Prange, December 7, 1941: The Day the Japanese Attacked Pearl Harbor (New York: Wings Books, 1991), 12–13.

  28 Ibid., 28.

  Chapter 3

  1 Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York: Enigma Books, 2008), 4–5.

  2 Ibid., 5.

  3 Robert E. Sherwood, “Harry Hopkins,” New Republic, February 11, 1946, 180; Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 4.

  4 William Seale, The President’s House: A History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 2:991.

  5 Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 95–96.

  6 Ibid., 136; Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 88.

  7 Geoffrey C. Ward, “A (White) House Divided,” American Heritage (October 1994); Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 6.

  8 Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., document 244, appendix D, “The Last Hours” (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), 434–435; Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 309–310; Stanley Weintraub, Long Day’s Journey into War: December 7, 1941 (New York: Dutton, 1991), 108–109.

  9 Admiral Harold Stark, Hearings Before the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 79th Cong., 1st sess., pt. 32, Navy Court of Inquiry, August 7, 1944 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), 28.

  10 Gordon W. Prange, December 7, 1941: The Day the Japanese Attacked Pearl Harbor (New York: Wings Books, 1991), 31.

  11 Ibid., 33.

  12 Testimony of Rear Admiral John R. Beardall, United States Navy, Hearings Before the Joint Committee, 2nd sess., pt. 11, 5283–5284; Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., document 244, appendix D, “The Last Hours,” 436; Weintraub, Long Day’s Journey into War, 183; Bratton, Hearings Before the Joint Committee, Army Pearl Harbor Board, September 30, 1944, 1st sess., pt. 29, 2344–2345.

  13 Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 429.

  14 Ibid., 337.

  15 Weintraub, Long Day’s Journey into War, 34–35; Frank E. Beatty, “The Background of the Secret Report,” National Review, December 13, 1966, 1261.

  16 Statement by Henry L. Stimson, Former Secretary of War, Hearings Before the Joint Committee, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., pt. 11, March 1946, 5440–5441.

  17 Bratton, Hearings Before the Joint Committee, Army Pearl Harbor Board, September 30, 1944, 1st sess., pt. 29, 2346–2347; Bratton, Hearings Before the Joint Committee, 2nd sess., pt. 9, 4517.

  18 Prange, December 7, 1941, 60–61; Weintraub, Long Day’s Journey into War, 185–186.

  19 In his testimony before the Joint Congressional Committee, Bratton said, “General Miles and I both said that we were convinced it meant Japanese hostile action against some American installation in the Pacific at or shortly after 1 o’clock that afternoon.” Bratton, Hearings Before the Joint Congressional Committee , 2nd sess., pt. 9, 4518.

  20 Weintraub, Long Day’s Journey into War, 212; Stark, Roberts Commission, http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/pha/roberts/roberts.html, 1082; Stark, Hearings Before the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, Navy Court of Inquiry, 136; Bratton, Hearings Before the Joint Committee, Army Pearl Harbor Board, 2346–2347.

  21 Prange, December 7, 1941, 247–248; Weintraub, Long Day’s Journey into War, 220–221.

  22 David Brinkley, Washington Goes to War (New York: Random House, 1999), 86.

  23 Earl Rickard, “Henry L. Stimson: The Ever-Present Presence,” World War II (July–August 2004): 22–24.

  Chapter 4

  1 Dan Van der Vat, Pearl Harbor: The Day of Infamy—an Illustrated History (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 22–25.

  2 Jean Edward Smith, FDR (New York: Random House, 2008), 531.

  3 Ibid., 531–532.

  4 Van der Vat, Pearl Harbor, 20; “The Attack on Pearl Harbor,” USS Arizona Preservation Project, 2004, http://www.pastfoundation.org/Arizona/PearlHarborAttack.html.

  5 Van der Vat, Pearl Harbor, 21–22.

  6 Ibid., 23.

  7 J. E. Smith, FDR, 533–534.

  8 Gordon W. Prange, December 7, 1941: The Day the Japanese A
ttacked Pearl Harbor (New York: Wings Books, 1991), 84.

  9 Van der Vat, Pearl Harbor, 60; Prange, December 7, 1941, 88–90.

  10 Prange, December 7, 1941, 108.

  11 Ibid., 108–109.

  12 Van der Vat, Pearl Harbor, 80; Prange, December 7, 1941, 109–110.

  13 Prange, December 7, 1941, 120; “Day of Infamy,” Time, December 2, 1991, 30.

  14 http://www.military.com/Resources/pearlharbor.htm.

  15 Robert S. LaForte and Ronald E. Marcello, eds., Remembering Pearl Harbor: Eyewitness Accounts by U.S. Military Men and Women (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1991), 19.

  16 Prange, December 7, 1941, 118–119.

  17 “The Attack on Pearl Harbor,” USS Arizona Preservation Project.

  18 Ibid.

  19 David Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt’s America and the Origins of the Second World War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001), 166. The figures on American casualties are supplied by the National Park Service: http://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/18arizona/18arizona.html.

  Chapter 5

  1 Stanley Weintraub, Long Day’s Journey into War: December 7, 1941 (New York: Dutton, 1991), 238; Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., document 244, appendix D, “The Last Hours” (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), 439; Gordon W. Prange, December 7, 1941: The Day the Japanese Attacked Pearl Harbor (New York: Wings Books, 1991), 248.

  2 “Memorandum: December 7, 1941,” Harry Hopkins Papers, Box 6, Folder 19, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center.

  3 Fred Blumenthal, “The White House Is Calling,” Washington Post, July 7, 1957; “December 7 in DC Chapter,” Gordon Prange Papers, Box 12, Special Collections, University of Maryland Library (UML).

  4 Prange, December 7, 1941, 252–253; “Conference with Grace Tully,” December 15, 1970, Prange Papers, Box 20, UML.