Chapter Four

THE SCAPEGOATS

IN THE excitement and confusion on December 7, 1941, it was not immediately noticed that the leaders of the Roosevelt administration were frantically scurrying about proving their surprise and injury, shouldering the blame for the disaster at Pearl Harbor away from themselves. Events were moving too fast for citizens to detect that the disengaging tactics of the politicians were far more successful than had been those of the Pacific fleet.

Chapter Five

THE BASING OF THE FLEET

WHY, AND at whose command, was the Pacific fleet based at Pearl Harbor, within reach of the air striking arm of the Japanese navy?

Chapter Six

BLUEPRINT FOR DEFEAT

THE FLEET suffered a crushing disaster on December 7, 1941, but the Japanese attack produced one unexpectedly advantageous result. With eight battleships knocked out, the fleet was forced to rely on carriers and fast cruisers. The change which the battleship admirals had rejected nine years before after Adm. Yarnell’s simulated carrier attack on Oahu was thrust upon them by circumstances. At the time, however, few high officers viewed the matter in this light.

Chapter Seven

BACK DOOR TO WAR

FOR YEARS before Pearl Harbor Mr. Roosevelt had talked of peace. For months he had schemed for war. His deeds belied his words. These are some of the things he said, and some of the things he did:

At Chautauqua, New York, August 19, 1936, he said, “I hate war.”1

At the dedication of the Chicago Outer Drive bridge on October 5, 1937, he proposed a “quarantine” of aggressors.2

Chapter Eight

A, B, C, D’s

AMONG THE most important of the President’s decisions was to consummate secret war alliances with the British and Canadians in the Atlantic and with the British and Dutch in the Pacific. News that the United States was a partner in a full-blown war alliance before a shot had been fired burst upon the American people on December 6, 1941, one day before the Pearl Harbor attack.

Chapter Nine

MEETING AT SEA

AS EARLY as February, 1941, Prime Minister Churchill had begun to press Mr. Roosevelt to take the lead in deterring Japan from seizing British possessions in the Far East. He besought the President then to “instil in Japan anxiety” that any Japanese move toward Singapore would mean war with the United States.1 To the Atlantic conference in August he brought renewed proposals that Roosevelt throw down the gauntlet to Japan.

Chapter Ten

THE LAST OF THE JAPANESE MODERATES

WITH PREPARATIONS for war cut and dried, and the war itself already fairly under way in the Atlantic, diplomatic negotiations supposed to preserve peace in the Pacific went on in Washington. Ambassador Grew, in a moment of optimism some two months before the Pearl Harbor attack, had given a description of the mission of diplomacy. After reviewing America’s differences with Japan, he said:

Chapter Eleven

DIPLOMACY FOR D-DAY

DESPITE THE accession of Gen. Tojo and a military government, all hope was not yet lost. Tojo started the war and has been brought to dock as a war criminal, but he was not installed as premier with the purpose of embarking upon a conflict with the United States which would end in the ruin of Japan.

Chapter Twelve

MAGIC

DIPLOMATIC NEGOTIATIONS, as often as not, serve to mask the real motives and the real intentions of the governments conducting them. On any point of issue, the governments which are parties to a dispute endeavor to conceal their real aims by invoking language which will present them in the most favorable light and emphasize their passionate dedication to justice and international morality. This generality undoubtedly applies to both the United States and Japan in their discussions in Washington between February and December, 1941.

Chapter Thirteen

THE WRITING ON THE WALL

ALTHOUGH DIPLOMATIC exchanges continued in Washington up to the very moment of the December 7 attack, and even beyond it, they became hopeless after Secretary Hull’s submission of his proposals of November 26, and apparently were so regarded in the State Department even before that. On November 22, for instance, Ballantine asked Nomura and Kurusu the rhetorical question whether it were not the duty of every politician to “strive for peace up to the day before war is found to be unavoidable.”1