Reassessing The Presidency

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.

World War I and the Treaty of Versailles as Causes of World War II

The Pearl Harbor “incident” brought America into World War II, in 1941, two years after it had begun in Europe. In order to understand why World War II started in Europe, it is necessary to understand how World War I, in 1918–1919, ended. As stated earlier, World War II was actually a continuation of World War I in Europe, primarily because of the vindictive and fraudulent Versailles treaty that ended World War I. Prior to World War II, Germany attempted to revise the treaty peacefully and, after being rebuffed by the Allies, decided to revise it forcibly. A.J.P. Taylor has written the definitive work on the true origins of World War II in Europe by cutting through the myths and false propaganda presented by the Allies. He comments that:

The second World war was, in large part, a repeat performance of the first. . . . Germany fought specifically in the second war to reverse the verdict of the first and to destroy the settlement which followed it. Her opponents fought, though less consciously, to defend that settlement. . . . If one asks the rather crude question, “what was the war about?” the answer for the first is: “to decide how Europe should be remade,” but for the second merely: “to decide whether this remade Europe should continue.” The first war explains the second and, in fact, caused it, in so far as one event causes another.13

Taylor goes on to explain how the peace treaty that ended World War I was a major cause of World War II and concludes that, “The peace of Versailles lacked moral validity from the start.”14 Therefore, in order to understand the causes of World War II in Europe, we need to take a brief look at World War I and why it was fought, as well as how it was concluded by this treaty.

The entry of Great Britain into World War I was greatly influenced by the same British political and economic interests who later joined with J.P. Morgan to bring America into World War I and World War II. The story of this Anglo-American group is told by Professor Carroll Quigley from Georgetown University, who has studied its organization and its tremendous influence on British and American foreign policy throughout the twentieth century. Quigley held positions at Harvard and Princeton prior to going to Georgetown University—where, incidentally, he had a student by the name of Bill Clinton. (President Clinton has stated that Professor Quigley was one of his favorite teachers at Georgetown.) Quigley wrote a book published in 1965 that discussed the Anglo-American group and its beginnings in England in the late nineteenth century:

There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network. . . . I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960s, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. I have objected, both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies (notably to its belief that England was an Atlantic rather than a European Power and must be allied, or even federated, with the United States and must remain isolated from Europe), but in general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known.15

Quigley explained that the group started in England under the leadership of Professor John Ruskin at Oxford University and received most of its money from the imperialist Cecil Rhodes. The American contingent was consolidated initially around the House of J.P. Morgan, which helps explain Morgan’s key role in getting America into World War I to help the British. He goes on to explain that,

The original purpose of these groups was to seek to federate the English-speaking world along lines laid down by Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902) and William T. Stead (1849–1912), and the money for the organizational work came originally from the Rhodes Trust.16

Soon after Quigley published his book Tragedy and Hope, the publisher took the book out of print and destroyed the plates without consulting Quigley.17 That is probably why his next book, The Anglo-American Establishment, was much more critical of the group.18 An accurate understanding of how and why the United States got into two world wars in the twentieth century to help the British Empire cannot be obtained without reading these two books by Quigley and Rothbard’s Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy.

Quigley concludes his analysis of this Anglo-American group and its influence on world events with this sobering thought: “In foreign policy their actions almost destroyed Western civilization, or at least the European center of it.”19 Quigley also comments on the long-term significance of this group, especially the British portion thereof:

[O]ne of the chief methods by which this Group works has been through propaganda. It plotted the Jameson Raid of 1895; it caused the Boer War of 1899–1902; it set up and controls the Rhodes Trust; it created the Union of South Africa in 1906–1910 . . . it was the chief influence in Lloyd George’s war administration in 1917–1919 and dominated the British delegation to the Peace Conference of 1919; it had a great deal to do with the formation and management of the League of Nations and of the system of mandates; it founded the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1919 and still controls it; it was one of the chief influences on British policy toward Ireland, Palestine, and India in the period 1917–1945; it was a very important influence on the policy of appeasement of Germany during the years 1920–1940; and it controlled and still controls, to a very considerable extent, the sources and the writing of the history of British Imperial and foreign policy since the Boer War.20

The British were the first modern nation to make imperialism into an “art of government,” and they created their empire over several centuries by following three main aims: control of the sea, control of international banking, and control of the world’s natural resources.21 The foreign policy of the British Empire since the latter part of the sixteenth century has been to prevent the rise of any strong power on the continent, something they accomplished by forming various alliances to prevent any one power from achieving supremacy. However, with the consolidation of the German states under the leadership of Bismarck in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, an aggressive and economically powerful German nation burst forth. Thereafter, the British political and economic leadership perceived this new German nation as an extreme threat to their balance of power policy in Europe and to their dominance in the world, both economically and militarily.

Karl Helfferich, a prominent German banker and the finance minister during the war, commented in 1918 upon the economic rivalry of Germany and the British Empire, as well as the reason the British declared war in August 1914:

England’s policy was always constructed against the politically and economically strongest Continental power. . . . Ever since Germany became the politically and economically strongest Continental power, did England feel threatened from Germany more than from any other land in its global economic position and its naval supremacy. Since that point, the English-German differences were unbridgeable, and susceptible to no agreement in any one single question.22

Helfferich sadly noted the accuracy of the declaration by Bismarck in 1897: “The only condition which could lead to improvement of German-English relations would be if we bridled our economic development, and this is not possible.”23 American diplomat Henry White was instructed by his government in 1907 to meet with the appropriate British representatives in order to determine their views regarding the rising power of Germany. He met with Arthur James Balfour, who would later serve as the British foreign secretary during World War I and would become famous for the Balfour Declaration that led to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. As reported by historian Allan Nevins, White’s daughter overheard the following conversation at this meeting:

Balfour (somewhat lightly): “We are probably fools not to find a reason for declaring war on Germany before she builds too many ships and takes away our trade.”

White: “You are a very high-minded man in private life. How can you possibly contemplate anything so politically immoral as provoking a war against a harmless nation which has as good a right to a navy as you have? If you wish to compete with German trade, work harder.”

Balfour: “That would mean lowering our standard of living. Perhaps it would be simpler for us to have a war.”

White: “I am shocked that you of all men should enunciate such principles.”

Balfour (again lightly): “Is it a question of right or wrong? Maybe it is just a question of keeping our supremacy.”24

Also, by 1910, two of the new industrial powers, Germany and the United States, both had acquired strong centralized governments through their respective wars from 1861 through 1871, and this began to upset the “balance of power” in the world. Furthermore, Japan, with one of the world’s oldest monarchies and a strong centralized government, became the only country in Asia that decided to industrialize, and it shocked the world by defeating Russia in 1905. Therefore, the British political leadership perceived that their world supremacy was threatened on the continent and in both the Atlantic and the Pacific regions. From an economic standpoint, America in 1910 moved into first place in the world of manufacturing output while Germany was second and Great Britain was third.25 In addition, the rapid industrial progress that was taking place in America, Germany Japan, and the British Empire had shown the extreme importance of oil. By 1912, the United States produced more than 63 percent of the world’s petroleum, while England commanded no more than 12 percent of the oil production.26 Germany and Japan, on the other hand, had no independent, secure supply of oil.27

Great Britain’s balance-of-power policy, as applied by the British political leadership, viewed all these economic rivalries as a threat to its empire but saw Germany, which was the new strong man of Europe and which was only a short distance across the channel, as a far greater threat than either America, which was all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, or Japan, in the Pacific. The author of A Century of War concludes in his analysis of World War I that:

The British establishment had determined well before 1914 that war was the only course suitable to bring the European situation “under control.” British interests dictated, according to their balance-of-power logic, a shift from her traditional “pro-Ottoman and anti-Russian” alliance strategy of the nineteenth century, to a “pro-Russian and anti-German” alliance strategy as early as the late 1890s.”28

The British political and economic establishment did not expect the war to be as difficult or to last as long as it did and certainly did not think their “victory,” with American help, would be as debilitating and costly as it turned out to be. A.J.P. Taylor explains that, “The first World war would obviously have had a different end if it had not been for American intervention: the Allies, to put it bluntly, would not have won.”29 He states further that, “The German army had been beaten in the field. It was in retreat. But it had not been routed or destroyed. The British and French armies, although victorious, were also near exhaustion.”30 Germany had not been invaded; in fact, its army still occupied foreign territory, and although it was in retreat, it could still fight. It was, obvious, however, that with American intervention, the eventual outcome of the war was certain to cause their defeat.

In the recently published book, The Pity of War, British historian Niall Ferguson asserts that Great Britain should not have entered the European war (helping to make it a world war) and that the German government, under the kaiser, was not truly a military or economic threat to the British Empire.31 Ferguson concludes that if Britain had not entered the war, then America would not have entered, it would not have lasted so long, and it would have ended with a victory for the kaiser’s Germany. He points out that there were no binding legal ties with either Belgium or France to cause Great Britain to enter the war:

Britain’s decision to intervene was the result of secret planning by her generals and diplomats, which dated back to late 1905. . . . When the moment of decision came on 2 August 1914, it was by no means a foregone conclusion that Britain would intervene against Germany; the majority of ministers were hesitant, and in the end agreed to support [Foreign Secretary Sir Edward] Grey partly for fear of being turned out of office and letting in the Tories. It was a historic disaster.32

He further argues that, “[I]f a war had been fought, but without Britain and America, the victorious Germans might have created a version of the European Union, eight decades ahead of schedule,” and the British would have remained strong, especially financially.33 Ferguson then states that a short war won by the kaiser’s Germany would have produced a far different world for the remainder of the twentieth century, without Nazism in Germany or Communism in Russia:

With the Kaiser triumphant, Adolph Hitler could have eked out his life as a mediocre postcard painter and a fulfilled old soldier in a German-dominated Central Europe about which he could have found little to complain. And Lenin could have carried on his splenetic scribbling in Zurich, forever waiting for capitalism to collapse—and forever disappointed. . . . It was ultimately because of the war that both men were able to rise to establish barbaric despotisms which perpetrated still more mass murder.34

Ferguson closes his book by recognizing that World War I was horrible not only because of its destructiveness, but, more importantly, because it was avoidable, not inevitable. British leaders made a great error in judgment by taking Britain into the war, changing the whole course of the twentieth century:

World War I was at once piteous, in the poet’s sense, and “a pity.” It was something worse than a tragedy, which is something we are taught by the theater to regard as ultimately unavoidable. It was nothing less than the greatest error of modern history.35

Murray Rothbard agrees with Ferguson’s assessment of World War I and the great error made by Britain in entering that war, but he laments even more the great error that President Wilson made:

American entry into World War I in April 1917 prevented [a] negotiated peace between warring powers, and drove the Allies forward into a peace of unconditional surrender and dismemberment, a peace which, as we have seen, set the stage for World War II. American entry thus cost countless lives on both sides, chaos and disruption throughout central and eastern Europe at war’s end, and the consequent rise of Bolshevism, fascism, and Nazism to power in Europe. In this way, Woodrow Wilson’s decision to enter the war may have been the single, most fateful action of the twentieth century, causing untold and unending misery and destruction. But Morgan profits were expanded and assured.36

Rothbard comments further about Morgan’s direct financial interest in getting America into the war, which Morgan claimed was only to help the British:

At the moment of great financial danger for the Morgans, the advent of World War I came as a godsend. Long connected to British, including Rothschild, financial interests, the Morgans leaped into the fray, quickly securing the appointment, for J.P. Morgan and Company, of fiscal agent for the warring British and French governments, and monopoly underwriter for their war bonds in the Unites States. J.P. Morgan also became the fiscal agent for the Bank of England, the powerful English central bank. Not only that: the Morgans were heavily involved in financing American munitions and other firms exporting war material to Britain and France. J.P. Morgan and Company, moreover, became the central authority organizing and channelling war purchases for the two Allied nations.37

As we all know, hindsight is easier than foresight, but lessons should be learned from history; these lessons come by studying the political choices that were available and then by following the consequences of the choices that were made, as well as the probable consequences of the choices that were not made.38 The British decided to enter the war for very poor reasons, mainly economic, and thought that, with the French and Russians, they could defeat the Germans quickly and conclusively. This did not turn out to be the case; therefore, the British desperately sought American intervention in order to crush the German economic and military “threat” completely. Even if the British had entered the war, but without American intervention, and regardless of who the victors were, a peace treaty would have been entered into much earlier and would have been concluded on much more equal terms, with the original German government—and probably the original Russian government—still in place. In this case also, the twentieth century would have been far different without Nazism ruling Germany and probably without Communism ruling Russia.

Colonel Edward Mandell House, President Woodrow Wilson’s primary adviser, frequently visited England in 1914 and 1915 in order to discuss America’s possible entry into the war. Finally, on October 17, 1915, and in spite of his political speeches calling for neutrality, President Wilson wrote a secret letter to the leaders of the British government, offering to bring America into the war on the side of the Allies in order to cause them to win decisively. That would then allow Wilson to be the major player in dictating a permanent peace for the world.39 House appealed to Wilson’s insatiable ego by telling the president that he would be the “Savior of the World” and the new “Prince of Peace.”40 House praised Wilson’s humanitarian motives for bringing America into the war, stating that he would play the “the noblest part that has ever come to a son of man.”41

President Wilson was naive enough to believe that the only war aims of the Allies (England, France, and Russia) were those stated publicly “which included the restoration of Belgium, the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, and the annexation of Constantinople by Russia.”42 However, one of the American delegates to the Paris Peace Conference that followed World War I was a knowledgeable diplomat by the name of William C. Bullitt. He later resigned his position as a delegate in protest of Wilson’s actions at the peace conference, saying that Wilson did not understand the secret war aims of the Allies, and particularly those of the British, until the peace negotiations were all under way in regard to the Treaty of Versailles. Bullitt states the secret aims the British hoped to achieve at the peace conference:

[T]he destruction of the German Navy, the confiscation of the German merchant marine, the elimination of Germany as an economic rival, the extraction of all possible indemnities from Germany, the annexation of German East Africa and the Cameroons, the annexation of all German colonies in the Pacific south of the Equator . . . Palestine and as much of Syria as they might be able to get away from the French, the extension of their sphere of influence in Persia, the recognition of their protectorates of Cyprus and Egypt.43

Bullitt then concludes that “All of these secret war aims of the British were actually achieved in one form or another by the Treaty of Versailles.”44

The great classical liberal American writer, Albert Jay Nock, commented on World War I and the Treaty of Versailles:

The war immensely fortified a universal faith in violence; it set in motion endless adventures in imperialism, endless nationalistic ambition. Every war does this to a degree roughly corresponding to its magnitude. The final settlement at Versailles, therefore, was a mere scramble for loot.45

It was also during World War I that the British clearly recognized how important, even critical, the abundant supply of oil was, not only for industrial purposes but also for military purposes. Therefore, one of their main economic and military aims was to help free the Arabs from the rule of the Turks (the Ottoman Empire) and then to take over the Arab oil interests after the war. The British used their agent “Lawrence of Arabia” to lead the Arab revolt against the Turks. Then, during the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Versailles, the British doubled-crossed the Arabs by grabbing their oil for themselves. By 1925 the British controlled a major part of the world’s future supplies of petroleum.46 It was not until World War II that America, through the trickery of President Roosevelt, was able to grab “its share” of the Arabs’ oil that the British had taken in World War I. William Engdahl states:

They [the Rockefeller companies of the Standard Oil Group, together with the Pittsburgh Mellon family’s Gulf Oil] had secured a major stake in concessions for oil in the Middle East, above all in Saudi Arabia. Partly through the clever diplomacy of President Roosevelt and the bungling of Britain’s Winston Churchill, Saudi Arabia slipped from the British grip during the war. Saudi King Abdul Aziz gained an unprecedented Lend-Lease agreement in 1943 from Roosevelt, a gesture to ensure Saudi goodwill to American oil interests after the war.47

Engdahl also comments on the Versailles peace treaty and the League of Nations:

Britain’s creation of the League of Nations through the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919, became a vehicle to give a facade of international legitimacy to a naked imperial territory seizure. For the financial establishment of the City of London, the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of British lives in order to dominate future world economic development through raw materials control, especially of the new resource, oil, was a seemingly small price to pay.48

Engdahl further states that by 1919, after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the Persian Gulf became an “English lake.”49

Murray Rothbard points out that the first formal joining of the Anglo-American group occurred at the Versailles peace conference in Paris when:

[T]he British and U.S. historical staffs at Versailles took the occasion to found a permanent organization to agitate for an informally, if not formally, reconstituted Anglo-American Empire.

The new group, the Institute of International Affairs, was formed at a meeting at the Majestic Hotel in Paris on May 30, 1919.50

Rothbard continues by revealing the heavy representation of the House of Morgan in this Anglo-American group. He also points out that the intense economic and political warfare between the Morgan and the Rockefeller interests, which began in the early years of the twentieth century eventually ceased and that they joined forces to become the main leaders of the American portion of this group just before World War II.51

It is important to recall that, after World War I, a better informed and more realistic President Wilson admitted to the American people that World War I had not been an idealistic and humanitarian war to “make the world safe for democracy,” nor had it been the “war to end all the wars.” He toured the U.S. to try to influence public opinion to pressure the U.S. Senate to approve the Treaty of Versailles and to have the United States join the League of Nations, which the Senate wisely failed to do. Near the end of the tour, the discouraged president made a speech in St. Louis, Missouri, on September 5, 1919, wherein he abandoned his lofty statements and confessed to the American people what the real purpose of the war had been:

Why, my fellow-citizens, is there any man here, or any woman—let me say, is there any child here, who does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry? . . . This war, in its inception, was a commercial and industrial war. It was not a political war.52

The complete injustice of the Treaty of Versailles is a story that most British and American historians refuse to tell and one that very few of the American and British public know. In fact, the modern liberal line today, which is completely fallacious, is that World War II resulted mainly from the failure of the U.S. Senate to ratify the treaty and the failure of America to join the League of Nations. However, the true story of the Versailles treaty is very different and teaches an important lesson of history as we shall see.

President Wilson, after injecting America into World War I, promised the Germans that a peace treaty would be effected with America as the leader of the conference and that the terms would be equitable and would not demand punitive war payments from Germany. The treaty, he promised, would allow self-determination for people throughout Europe so they could select their own governments. America, France, and the British entered into a pre-armistice agreement with Germany on November 5, 1918, with America and its Allies agreeing to make peace on the basis of President Wilson’s famous Fourteen Points.53 This promise proved to be fraudulent, and instead, a vindictive treaty was forced on Germany. A.J.P. Taylor describes the coercive measures, applied primarily by the British:

There were other measures of coercion than the renewal of the war and occupation of German territory. These measures were economic—some form of the blockade which was believed to have contributed decisively to Germany’s defeat. The blockade helped push the German government into accepting the peace treaty in June, 1919. . . . The negotiations between Germany and the Allies became a competition in blackmail, sensational episodes in a gangster film. The Allies, or some of them, threatened to choke Germany to death.54

After the signing of the formal armistice on November 11, 1918, the fighting stopped, but the British blockade of Germany continued, thereby causing the death by starvation of eight hundred thousand Germans, and resulting in a much-justified hatred of the Allies.55 It was mainly the continuation of this naval blockade for six months after the war ended that forced the Germans into signing the unfair treaty.

The Treaty of Versailles divested Germany of its colonial possessions, allowing the British to expand their control in Africa to fulfill Cecil Rhodes’s dream of an all-British route from Cairo to the Cape by taking the German colonies under the “mandate” in 1919. Most important, from a future political standpoint, it deprived Germany of any military defense by reducing the maximum number of its armed forces to only one hundred thousand men, which could hardly defend Germany from its traditionally hostile neighbors, especially the French and now Soviet Russia. The treaty prohibited Germany from having any airplanes, submarines, heavy artillery, or tanks. Germany had scuttled its own high-seas fleet under the waters of Scapa Flow to prevent its capture while the British retained the world’s largest navy. The French, through the treaty, required the demilitarization of the Rhineland west of the bank of the Rhine which bordered on France, thereby keeping an open, undefended access to Germany’s industrial heart in the Ruhr. France also maintained on Germany’s border a great army, which was considered one of the world’s finest.56 In complete violation of Wilson’s Fourteen Points, which called for self-determination, more than three million Germans were forcibly included in the country of Czechoslovakia and six million in Austria.57 Furthermore, the treaty saddled Germany with the complete war guilt by branding her as the country that started the war, a conclusion which she did not agree with or accept.58 Another great injustice done to Germany in the treaty is the one that became the immediate cause of World War II. The treaty carved a wide path, or “corridor,” through Germany from Poland to the German seaport city of Danzig, the strip of land that was taken from Germany in order to give Poland an outlet to the sea. The corridor completely separated East Prussia from the remainder of Germany, and the League of Nations took over the government of Danzig, declaring it a “Free City.” Half a million German citizens within Danzig and the corridor suddenly became subject to the government of Poland, in complete violation of Wilson’s promise of self-determination.59 Finally, another great injustice was the creation of the huge debt for reparation payments or damages caused to the Allies, which was imposed on Germany in complete violation of Wilson’s promises and the pre-armistice agreement. William Engdahl states:

In May 1921, the Allied Reparations Committee met and drew up what was called the London Ultimatum, the “final” payments plan demanded of Germany. It fixed Germany’s Reparations Debt to the victorious Allies at the astronomical sum of 132 billion gold Marks, an amount which even British reparations expert, John Maynard Keynes, said was more than 3 times the maximum which Germany could possibly pay.60

Taylor comments about the reparation payments, which lasted for thirteen years, from 1919 to 1932: At the end the French felt swindled; and the Germans felt robbed. Reparations had kept the passions of war alive.”61 He comments further: “Reparations counted as a symbol. They created resentment, suspicion, and international hostility. More than anything else, they cleared the way for the second World war.”62

Germany had been totally betrayed by America and the Allies in the peace negotiations. Delegate Bullitt commented upon the German reaction to the treaty:

The Treaty of Versailles was delivered to the Germans on May 7, [1919]. The President of the National Assembly at Weimar, upon reading it, remarked, “it is incomprehensible that a man who had promised the world a peace of justice, upon which a society of nations would be founded has been able to assist in framing this project dictated by hate.” The first German official comment on the treaty was made on May 10, 1919. It stated that a first perusal of the treaty revealed that “on essential points the basis of the Peace of Right, agreed upon between the belligerents, has been abandoned,” that some of the demands were such as “no nation could endure” and that “many of them could not possibly be carried out.”63

Many of Wilson’s advisers told him not to participate any further in the treaty negotiations and advised him to use his financial leverage over France and England to cause them not to enforce such a vindictive treaty against Germany. Wilson refused and continued to state publicly that he thought the treaty would be revised later by the League of Nations in order to make it fair.64 Bullitt recounts that Wilson stated to Professor William E. Dodd later, “I ought not to have signed; but what could I do?” Bullitt then concludes, “He [Wilson] seems to have realized at times that the treaty was in truth a sentence of death for European civilization.”65

William Bullitt resigned from the Paris Peace Conference and wrote a letter of resignation to President Wilson dated May 17, 1919, which contained the following statement:

But our government has consented now to deliver the suffering peoples of the world to new oppressions, subjections, and dismemberments—a new century of war. And I can convince myself no longer that effective labor for “a new world order” is possible as a servant of this Government.66

Delegate Bullitt went on to state that this treaty would:

[M]ake new international conflicts certain. It is my conviction that the present League of Nations will be powerless to prevent these wars, and that the United States would be involved in them by obligations undertaken in the covenant of the league and in the special understanding with France. Therefore the duty of the Government of the United States to its own people and to mankind is to refuse to sign or ratify this unjust treaty, to refuse to guarantee its settlements by entering the League of Nations, to refuse to entangle the United States further by the understanding with France.67

The Treaty of Versailles destroyed Germany’s form of government, again violating Wilson’s promise of self-determination, and created instead the puppet-like democratic Weimar Republic, which virtually assured continued political convulsions within Germany itself. This unpopular government, which was enforcing the treaty against Germany’s interests, was finally overthrown by Hitler’s murderous Nazi movement, which won its power through the democratic and constitutional process with two main commitments: to fight communism and to end the unfair and vindictive treaty. Although the payments stopped in 1932, just before Hitler took office in 1933, the injustice of the payments had been a major part of his campaign. He continued to campaign against the remainder of the treaty after taking office and stated: “My programme was to abolish the Treaty of Versailles. . . . No human being has declared or recorded what he wanted more often than I. Again and again I wrote these words—the Abolition of the Treaty of Versailles.”68 After gaining power, Hitler repeatedly petitioned the Allies to revise the treaty either to allow Germany to restore at least the equality of defense in military personnel and equipment with the other nations or to call for total disarmament by everyone. The Allies refused both offers.69 Hitler then acted unilaterally to keep his promise to the German people by disregarding the treaty’s limitations on Germany’s defense and he rearmed Germany, first only to an adequate defensive position.

Hitler made one peace offer in 1936 that would have provided European security for the British and the French. He offered to agree that there would be no territorial claims in Europe, thereby accepting the German losses of territory in the treaty. He even proposed a twenty-five-year pact of nonaggression with all Western powers except Russia. Hitler had always maintained that the only war he wanted was with communism and Soviet Russia. In response to this peace offer, the British asked a few questions for further definitions but then refused to reply, and the French never replied at all.70 A.J.P. Taylor comments on Hitler’s foreign policy as follows:

There was one element of system in Hitler’s foreign policy, though it was not new. His outlook was “continental,” as Stresemann’s had been before him. Hitler did not attempt to revive the “World Policy” which Germany had pursued before 1914; he made no plans for a great battle-fleet; he did not parade a grievance over the lost colonies, except as a device for embarrassing the British; he was not even interested in the Middle East—hence his blindness to the great opportunity in 1940 after the defeat of France. . . . He did not wish to destroy the British Empire, nor even to deprive the French of Alsace and Lorraine. In return, he wanted the Allies to accept the verdict of January 1918; to abandon the artificial undoing of this verdict after November 1918; and to acknowledge that Germany had been victorious in the East. This was not a preposterous program. Many Englishmen, to say nothing of Milner and Smuts,71 agreed with it even in 1918; many more did so later; and most Frenchmen were coming round to the same outlook.72

There has been much criticism of the Munich Pact as appeasement, but Taylor comments:

Only those who wanted Soviet Russia to take the place of Germany are entitled to condemn the “appeasers”; and I cannot understand how most of those who condemn them are now equally indignant at the inevitable result of their failure.73

Britain’s reason for appeasement was primarily caused by the sense of guilt on the part of the political and economic interests identified by Rothbard and Quigley as the British portion of the Anglo-American Establishment, because they were the principal authors and beneficiaries of the unfair Versailles treaty. This British group, usually called the Milner Group, negotiated the treaty and virtually controlled British foreign policy during World War I and thereafter. They were willing for Hitler to set aside much of the treaty on a piecemeal basis, which would allow Germany to reclaim certain territory in Europe. However, the Milner Group would not give up its economic gains received through the treaty. These British leaders especially wanted Hitler to rearm to a sufficient extent so that he could prevent Russian Communism from taking over Europe, but they wanted it done unilaterally by Hitler without their specific agreement, because that might reflect badly on their “wisdom” in negotiating the original treaty.

The real irony of the beginning of World War II is that it started over Danzig and the Polish Corridor question, which both the British and French political leaders found to be the most indefensible part of the treaty and one which most needed to be revised peacefully. Hitler made numerous offers to the Allies and to Poland for settlement of the corridor question, one being to take Danzig back and letting the people inside the corridor remain subjects of the Polish government. Another offer was to let the people within the corridor vote on which government they wanted. The British and the French, who were formal allies of Poland, pushed the Poles to accept these offers from Hitler.74 Britain and France also requested that President Roosevelt push the Poles to accept Hitler’s offers, but Roosevelt refused even to discuss the matter with Poland’s representatives.75 The Polish government arrogantly refused even to reply to these offers, and Hitler finally attacked Poland on September 1, 1939. Because of their treaty obligations, France and England then declared war against Germany on September 3 but refused to assist Poland in any way. Hitler had not expected the British and French to go to war over a treaty provision that they knew and declared to him to be completely unfair to Germany and to her people located in Danzig and the corridor. Taylor comments on this irony:

In this curious way the French who had preached resistance to Germany for twenty years appeared to be dragged into war by the British who for twenty years preached conciliation. Both countries went to war for that part of the peace settlement which they had long regarded as least defensible. . . .

Such were the origins of the second World war, or rather the war between the three Western Powers over the settlement of Versailles; a war which had been implicit since the moment when the first war ended. . . . Great Britain and France did nothing to help the Poles, and little to help themselves. The European struggle which began in 1918 when the German armistice delegates presented themselves before Foch in the railway-carriage at Rethondes, ended in 1940 when the French armistice delegates presented themselves before Hitler in the same carriage. There was a “new order” in Europe; it was dominated by Germany.76

It is both ironic and noteworthy that Germany and Soviet Russia attacked Poland in September 1939 but that France and England only declared war against Germany while the Soviets became the allies of Britain and America thereafter. The final irony at the end of World War II was that Poland was not saved from tyranny at all but was simply transferred from German domination to that of Soviet Russia.

The French and British war on Germany was called “the phony war” because there was little activity on either side. However, in April and May of 1940, the Germans shocked the world by defeating the French in about thirty-five days of combat and drove an Allied army of 335,000 men, who were mostly British, to the beach at Dunkirk where they were hopelessly trapped.77 Hitler gave orders to allow the helpless British army to escape in order to demonstrate dramatically that he had no quarrel with the British and desperately wanted to negotiate a treaty with them. He thought that a massacre at Dunkirk would inflame British public opinion and preclude a settlement with them. However, Winston Churchill became prime minister on May 10, 1940, and not only did he refuse to negotiate, but he immediately initiated bombing raids on German cities and civilians. War propaganda by the Allies, including America, has always stated that Hitler started the bombing of cities with his attack on the British city of Coventry, but the records now clearly indicate that Churchill initiated this.78 Taylor, the British historian, comments on this propaganda by stating that there was “almost universal belief that Hitler started the indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whereas it was started by the directors of British strategy, as some of the more honest among them have boasted.”79 During the summer of 1940, after the bombing of civilians in German cities by the British, Hitler again tried desperately to reach a settlement with Churchill, but Churchill flatly refused to negotiate. It was not until November 1940 that Hitler retaliated by bombing British civilians and cities that were not military targets, such as Coventry.80

Therefore, we see that one of the main causes of World War II in Europe was the vindictive Versailles treaty and the failure of the Allies to revise it peacefully in the interim period between the wars. However, the Allies continued their parade of injustice at the Nuremberg war trials after World War II. One of the charges contained in count two was “crimes against peace,” which was interpreted to mean that Germany had violated the Versailles peace treaty. The initial unfairness of the treaty was considered irrelevant and inadmissible testimony; this effectively prevented Germany from explaining any of her actions from 1919 to 1939, and prohibited her from showing the attempts to revise the treaty peacefully. At the trials, the Allies made it appear that Germany was simply an unprovoked aggressor against the peaceful powers of Europe, just as the war guilt clause of the Versailles treaty branded the Germans with sole responsibility for the outbreak of World War I.

None of this explanation for the cause of World War II should absolve Hitler for his murderous domestic policy. As Taylor points out, it was not Hitler’s foreign policy that was evil; in fact, it was understandable and just, up to a point. Instead, it was Hitler’s evil domestic policy, which resulted in the deaths of twenty-one million innocent, unarmed men, women, and children killed during the war after Hitler had taken total control of the German government. Although Hitler achieved his office in a democratic and constitutional manner by promising to revise the Versailles treaty and oppose communism, after he obtained office, he went beyond Bismarck’s consolidation of the states into a nation by abolishing all the states and creating a strong, totalitarian government. He finally declared himself dictator. As Taylor states:

He changed most things in Germany. He destroyed political freedom and the rule of law; he transformed German economics and finance; he quarrelled with the Churches; he abolished the separate states and made Germany for the first time a united country. In one sphere alone he changed nothing. His foreign policy was that of his predecessors, of the professional diplomats at the foreign ministry, and indeed of virtually of all Germans. Hitler, too, wanted to free Germany from the restrictions of the peace treaty; to restore a great German army; and then make Germany the greatest power in Europe from her natural weight.81

Hitler’s domestic policy, however, was again proof of Lord Acton’s famous phrase, “All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” There is no question that Hitler ranks as one of the most evil murderers in all history, but he still ranks third behind Soviet Russia’s Stalin and Mao of Communist China. Stalin was personally responsible for more than forty-two million murders of innocent men, women, and children from 1929 to 1953, and the Soviet Empire itself ranks as the greatest political tyranny the world has ever known, with a total of sixty-two million murders of its own citizens from 1917 until 1987.82 Mao ranks number two behind Stalin because as the Chinese dictator from 1923 to 1976, he murdered more than thirty-seven million of his own people.83 One of the bizarre results of World War II was that it enhanced the two great Communist powers of Russia and China and destroyed the three most anticommunist governments: Germany, Japan, and Italy. World War II made the world much safer for communism and, thereby, more at risk to tyranny.

Finally, in regard to World War I and America’s intervention, it is important to note that two of the key players in that war were also important figures in World War II. Franklin Roosevelt served in the Wilson administration as assistant secretary of Navy, and Winston Churchill played a much more significant role in the British government as the first lord of the Admiralty. Churchill’s role in the Lusitania incident is remarkable, and this event became one of the major “reasons” Wilson used to bring America into World War I.

Just prior to World War I, the Cunard steamship company in England had received a government subsidy in order to build the Lusitania, which was the world’s fastest ocean liner. This subsidy allowed the government to participate in the design of the ship, which included a secret compartment where weapons and ammunition could be stored aboard ship. This subsidy further allowed the British government to take over full control of this ship during wartime. Colin Simpson, in his explosive 1972 best-seller, The Lusitania, gives the details of how the British, primarily through the actions of Churchill, used the sinking of the Lusitania to bring America into World War I to help defeat Germany.84 When the Lusitania sank, more than one hundred Americans lost their lives.85 On this fateful voyage, the British Admiralty, under Churchill’s leadership, changed captains, substituting Captain William Turner for the usual captain. As the Lusitania drew near to its final destination, orders came from the British Admiralty to the military escort ship, the Juno, to abandon its usual mission, thereby leaving the ocean liner without protection from submarines. The Lusitania was not told that it was now alone, nor was it told that a German submarine was directly in its path—a fact known by the Admiralty. Finally, the Admiralty ordered Captain Turner to reduce his speed, thereby making the Lusitania an easy target for torpedoes.

At the hearing held in England following this disaster, Captain Turner was made the scapegoat and found guilty of negligence, just as the American commanders at Pearl Harbor would later be made scapegoats for that disaster in World War II.

World War II and British Influence on American Foreign Policy Prior to Pearl Harbor

Britain learned the hard way in World War I that it could not preserve and protect its empire without having the United States, with its economic and military strength, to help fight its wars to ultimate victory. The British openly sought American aid in advance of the European war that started in September 1939. On June 10, 1939, King George VI and his wife, Queen Mary, came to America and visited the Roosevelts at Hyde Park. According to King George’s biographer, Roosevelt, in private conversations with the king, secretly promised the king full American support for the British Empire. Roosevelt agreed to set up a zone in the Atlantic to be patrolled by the U.S. Navy, and the king’s notes show that Roosevelt intended to sink German U-boats and await the consequences. The biographer of King George VI, John W. Wheeler-Bennett, concludes that these agreements served as the basis for the destroyer deal as well as for the Lend-Lease Agreement made much later.86

Another very important matter, related directly to secret conversations between Roosevelt and Churchill before America entered the war, is known as the “Tyler Kent Affair.” Tyler Kent, a code clerk in the American Embassy in London, intercepted coded communications between Roosevelt and Churchill, who at that time was merely the first lord of the Admiralty. The code was supposed to be used only by the American Embassy in communications with the president and diplomats back in Washington. In other words, in violation of proper protocol, the president of the United States was not communicating with the head of the British government but was secretly negotiating with Churchill, who would not become prime minister for several months. Tyler Kent became concerned about the fact that these conversations revealed secret plans by which America was to be brought into the war in violation of the U.S. Constitution without a declaration of war by Congress. Scotland Yard learned that Kent had discussed these decoded messages with, and possibly showed them to, Captain Archibald Ramsay, who was a member of the British Parliament and known to be unsympathetic to the jingoistic Churchill.

Churchill became prime minister in May 1940 and immediately ordered the arrest of both Kent and Ramsay. The American government (Roosevelt) could have asserted diplomatic immunity for Kent and thereby prevented his trial but instead conspired with the British government (Churchill) to waive that immunity and allow Kent to be tried secretly in a British court. Kent was found guilty of violating the British Official Secrets Act of 1911 and was placed in a British prison, where he remained for seven years and was not allowed to return to America until after World War II ended. Tyler Kent’s information concerning the secret plans of Roosevelt and Churchill to bring America into the war, if revealed to the American people through a public trial in Britain, would have proved at least embarrassing to Roosevelt’s administration and may even have led to his impeachment. Churchill also wanted the matter kept from the British people, therefore Ramsay, even though he was a member of Parliament, was held at Brixton Prison without any charges or a trial and was not released until September 1944. On the morning following his release from prison, he resumed his seat in the House of Commons and remained there until the end of that parliament.87

Another important matter to consider for the background of the Pearl Harbor story relates to a close personal friend of Winston Churchill, a Canadian citizen by the name of William Stephenson, who later became known by his code name, Intrepid. The full story of how Intrepid helped Churchill and Roosevelt drag America into World War II can be seen in three books: A Man Called Intrepid, The Quiet Canadian, and the very recent Desperate Deception.88 One of Intrepid’s agents was Ian Fleming, the author who popularized this secret British agency in novels and movies about James Bond.

Stephenson had made millions through the military-industrial complex of Great Britain during World War I, and it was at this time he became a close personal friend of Churchill. When Churchill became prime minister in May 1940, a year and a half before Pearl Harbor, he immediately arranged for financing from the royal family and, without any knowledge of Parliament, established a secret organization headed by Stephenson to be located rent-free in Rockefeller Center in New York.89 Roosevelt had full knowledge of and was in agreement with this, but the U.S. Congress knew nothing of this deceitful action. The primary purpose of this organization was to help Roosevelt and Churchill bring America into the war through false propaganda, the creation of false documents, and whatever other means were necessary, apparently even including the murder of an American citizen who had established a supply of oil for Germany—a completely legal business relationship at the time.90 Roosevelt stayed in constant contact with Intrepid primarily through an American lawyer by the name of Ernest Cuneo, whose code name was Crusader.91

Two false documents used by Intrepid were important in bringing America and Germany into the war against each other. First, Intrepid provided a false map that knowingly was used by Roosevelt in a national radio speech to the American people on October 27, 1941.92 This document allegedly was obtained from a German spy and purported to show Hitler’s secret plans for an invasion of South America, thereby demonstrating an imminent danger to America. Intrepid also created a false document that was put into Hitler’s hands as an allegedly stolen secret plan of the American government.93 It was received by Hitler on December 3, 1941, and purported to show Roosevelt’s secret plans to make a preemptive strike against Germany without a declaration of war by the U.S. Congress. This document played a role in Hitler’s decision to declare war against America on December 11, 1941, which surprised almost everyone except Roosevelt, Intrepid, and Churchill.

Intrepid also provided ammunition to attack Roosevelt’s political enemies, such as Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford, by creating false information that made it appear they were Nazi sympathizers.94 Also, he launched a concerted effort that eventually destroyed the political career of a very distinguished Congressman, Hamilton Fish, who represented Roosevelt’s district and who had opposed almost all of Roosevelt’s foreign policy ideas on interventionism.95 Intrepid exercised heavy influence over popular political writers like Dorothy Thompson, Walter Winchell, and Walter Lippman.96

It is important here to interrupt the story about Intrepid to discuss Lippman’s views and the British group he worked with to influence America’s entry into the war. The immense value of Walter Lippman to the British as a propagandist is clearly shown in David Gordon’s excellent study of false war propaganda in general, and his case study of Lippman in particular.97 Lippman argued that America should intervene in World War II because Germany was clearly a “menace” to the British Empire, and he concluded that since America’s interests were “equated” with the British, Germany was equally a threat to America. Gordon points out that Lippman was the most influential American political commentator from 1930 through 1950 but that he did not manifest his real intentions until after World War II ended. In a short volume entitled Isolation and Alliances, which appeared in 1952, Lippman wrote about the American and British alliance:

We were on the right course, as I see it, during the war—specifically, between 1942 and 1945. . . . During those years we had a close partnership, one might call it an organic alliance, which managed the business of war and peace in the Western world—managed it for what we have come to call the Atlantic Community.98

Lippman wanted a partial repeal or reversal of the American Revolution and the establishment of at least a permanent alliance with the British Empire. Gordon concludes that:

Lippman, like Woodrow Wilson, had a hidden agenda. For this foremost columnist, the aim was not world government based on universal principles. Rather, it was a permanent union of the United States and Britain.99

Professor Carroll Quigley tells us that the British portion of the Anglo-American Establishment was very much in control of the intelligence and propaganda activities of the British government in America, with two of the British members of the Milner Group—Lord Lothian and Lord Halifax—serving as ambassadors to America. Quigley points out how significant this group was just prior to World War II:

Of even greater significance was the gathering of Milner Group members and their recruits in Washington. The Group had based most of their foreign policy since 1920 on the hope of “closer union” with the United States, and they realized that American intervention in the war was absolutely essential to insure a British victory. Accordingly, more than a dozen members of the Group were in Washington during the war, seeking to carry on this policy.100

Intrepid, who was obviously working for the Milner Group as a propaganda specialist, influenced Roosevelt even to the point that most of Roosevelt’s important speeches on foreign policy were first cleared with Intrepid before they were actually given, so that the British agent could edit and revise them.101 Also, Intrepid’s agency became intimately involved in changing the results reached by Gallup polls.102 Furthermore, Intrepid and his organization helped rig the Republican Party nomination for Wendell Willkie, whose foreign policy stance was almost identical to that of Roosevelt, thereby removing foreign policy as an issue in Roosevelt’s bid for an unprecedented third term.103 Intrepid’s agency created false passes for a large number of Willkie supporters to come into the convention hall and chant for him throughout the convention, and they cut off the microphone for Herbert Hoover’s speech.104

Intrepid’s agency neutralized the opposition from Michigan Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, who was a Republican and a staunch opponent of an interventionist foreign policy, thereby removing a strong potential threat to Roosevelt’s reelection. The British provided three mistresses to Vandenberg, and then the senator’s opposition to Roosevelt was compromised by the threat of disclosure.105 Vandenberg later became a staunch interventionist and even helped President Harry Truman launch America into the cold war after World War II.

Intrepid followed the example first set by Sir William Wiseman, head of the British Secret Service in America during World War I, who had played a major role in getting the U.S. into that war. Wilson’s adviser, Colonel House, “habitually permitted Sir William Wiseman . . . to sit in his private office in New York and read the most secret documents of the American Government. House’s father and mother had both been English.”106

Pearl Harbor

Now we turn to how America got into World War II at Pearl Harbor, events that propelled Franklin D. Roosevelt to “greatness.” Roosevelt has always been ranked by “court historians” next to Lincoln as either the second or third greatest president in American history, and this is due primarily to his involvement in World War II. Roosevelt struggled mightily to get America into the war by provoking “incidents” with both Germany and Japan, but it was the “surprise” attack at Pearl Harbor that finally did the trick. As will be shown, this attack was no surprise to Roosevelt and his key advisers in Washington. In fact, was it provoked by Roosevelt and his policies.

Background Specific to Pearl Harbor

In 1932, as a part of the annual maneuvers, it was documented by American naval planners that if there ever was a war with Japan, the Japanese would strike the Pacific Fleet wherever it was located. It was realized then that Pearl Harbor created a very vulnerable target for a surprise attack by aircraft carriers.107 The studies revealed that, in order to prevent such an attack, a large contingent of American aircraft would be needed for a 360-degree surveillance, which would stretch out for long distances in order to provide sufficient warning to prevent disaster. The Japanese were very familiar with the findings of this naval maneuver in 1932; in fact, the Japanese patterned their attack of December 7, 1941, on the various studies done by the Americans concerning their own weaknesses.

In January 1940, Roosevelt ordered the Pacific Fleet transferred from its home base at San Diego to Pearl Harbor, with very little air cover or support.108 On May 7, 1940, it was announced that the entire fleet would remain in Pearl Harbor indefinitely, which was a radical departure from American naval policy. Roosevelt further weakened the fleet by transferring many of its ships to the Atlantic to assist in delivering supplies and ammunition to the British and to try to provoke the Germans into firing the first shot against America.109 Admiral James O. Richardson, commander of the Pacific Fleet, was so strongly opposed to these ridiculous orders that he made a personal visit to the White House to protest to Roosevelt, telling him that key naval officers were losing confidence in the president. As a result of this meeting, Roosevelt removed Richardson from command and placed Admiral Husband E. Kimmel in control.110

The American people had become very disillusioned over being misled into World War I by President Wilson and were decidedly against entering another European war. Therefore, as Roosevelt sought to be elected to an unprecedented third term, he had to campaign for reelection as a peace candidate, as Wilson had before World War I. On September 11, 1940, Roosevelt stated, “We will not participate in foreign wars and we will not send our army, naval or air forces to fight in foreign lands outside of the Americas, except in case of attack.”111 Later, on October 30 in Boston, he told American mothers and fathers, “Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars. I have said this before but I shall say it again.”112 Two months after this promise, in early January 1941, he sent Harry Hopkins, his alter ego, to London to deliver a much different message. This secret message was just like the one President Wilson’s alter ego, Colonel House, delivered to the British government on January 16, 1916, to promise American entry into World War I. Roosevelt made the same promise to the British. We now know through Churchill that on this visit, Hopkins reported to the prime minister the following:

The president is determined that we shall win the war together. Make no mistake about it. He has sent me here to tell you that at all costs and by all means he will carry you through . . . there is nothing that he will not do so far as he has the human power.113

Later, Roosevelt and Churchill held a meeting, which became known as the Atlantic Conference, and released a statement in August 1941 called the Atlantic Charter. The British archives were opened on this subject in 1971, and soon thereafter, in January 1972, The New York Times reported that Churchill had told his war cabinet, upon his return from the Atlantic Conference with Roosevelt, the following statement which was recorded in the cabinet minutes:

If he [Roosevelt] were to put the issue of peace and war to Congress, they would debate it for months. . . . The president had said he would wage war but not declare it, and that he would become more and more provocative. If the Germans did not like it, they could attack American forces.114

Churchill also reported that a decision had been made that the U.S. Navy would escort the British ships across the Atlantic, and the minutes of the British cabinet meeting contained these words from Churchill,

The president’s orders to these [United States Navy] escorts were to attack any [German] U-boat which showed itself, even if it was 200 or 300 miles away from the convoy. . . . The president made it clear that he would look for an incident which would justify him in opening hostilities,115

After America had actually entered the war, Churchill made a speech to the House of Commons on January 27, 1942, reflecting on the secret plans that he and Roosevelt had for America to come into the war, which is what they had discussed at the Atlantic Conference in August of 1941: “It has been the policy of the cabinet at almost all cost to avoid embroilment with Japan until we were sure that the United States would also be engaged.”116 Soon thereafter, on February 15, 1942, Churchill told the House of Commons:

When I survey and compute the power of the United States and its vast resources and feel that they are now in it with us, with the British commonwealth of nations all together, however long it lasts, till death or victory, I cannot believe that there is any other fact in the whole world which can compare with that. This is what I dreamed of, aimed at, and worked for, and now it has come to pass.117

We now have the recollections of Churchill’s son, Randolph, who relates that he had a conversation with his famous father before America entered the war, and he asked his father how he was going to win the war. Churchill told his son, “I shall drag the United States in.”118

One member of Churchill’s war cabinet, Captain Oliver Lylleton, who was the British production minister, was well aware of the secret maneuverings of Churchill and Roosevelt to get America into the war, and he stated in a speech in London on June 20, 1944: “America provoked Japan to such an extent that the Japanese were forced to attack Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty on history ever to say that America was forced into war.”119 A member of the Roosevelt cabinet, Harold L. Ickes, stated, “For a long time I’ve believed our best entrance into the war would be [vial Japan . . . [which] will inevitability lead to war against Germany.”120

In his excellent book on Pearl Harbor, George Morgenstern devotes an entire chapter to an analysis of the secret agreements made primarily between Churchill and Roosevelt before America entered the war. He also points out that the Dutch were included, mainly because of their oil resources in the Pacific. Roosevelt had secretly committed America to a war in the event the British and Dutch oil interests were put at risk by the Japanese, who desperately needed oil.121 The military plan drawn up to carry this out, called “Rainbow Five,” and this amounted to a commitment by Roosevelt to protect British, Dutch, and Chinese economic interests.122 This secret agreement actually became public on December 6, 1941, but its significance was lost in the Pearl Harbor news the next day.123 This secret agreement had been in place for eight months before Pearl Harbor, but it was never put into a formal treaty or even an executive agreement. It was simply an oral commitment by Roosevelt which had been committed into a definite written war plan for the Army and Navy. The plan had actually been approved in Washington by Secretary of Navy Frank Knox on May 28, 1941, and by Secretary of War Henry Stimson on June 2, 1941.124

Another close associate of Roosevelt and a frequent administration spokesman, Senator Claude Pepper of Florida (whose nickname was “Red” Pepper because of his leftist leanings), stated in an interview in Boston on November 24, 1941, that the United States was not far from a shooting war with Japan and that “we are only waiting for Japan to cross a line before we start shooting. I don’t know exactly where that line is . . . and I am not sure the president knows exactly where it is, but when they cross it we’ll start shooting.” Pepper added that “actual declaration of war is a legal technicality, and such technicalities are being held in abeyance as long as those brigands [the Japanese] continue in force.”125 Pepper was obviously aware to some extent of the “Rainbow Five” plan.

It was Secretary of War Stimson, however, who revealed after the war Roosevelt’s secret wish of getting the Japanese to fire the first shot. In a statement to the congressional committee investigating the attack at Pearl Harbor, Stimson said, in looking back:

If war did come, it was important, both from the point of view of unified support of our own people, as well as for the record of history, that we should not be placed in the position of firing the first shot, if this could be done without sacrificing our safety, but that Japan should appear in her true role as the real aggressor. . . . If there was to be war, moreover, we wanted the Japanese to commit the first overt act.126

Stimson’s diary entry of November 25, 1941, thirteen days before Pearl Harbor, describes a meeting of the cabinet at the White House:

There the president . . . brought up entirely the relations with the Japanese. He brought up the event that we were likely to be attacked, perhaps [as soon as] next Monday, for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning and the question was what we should do. The question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.127

Provocations by Roosevelt

After the war had started in Europe in September 1939, but before America entered the war, Roosevelt committed numerous provocative acts in an attempt to create an incident that would involve America in the war to help the British.128 One of the most provocative acts addressed to Germany was the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941, which was a virtual declaration of war. Roosevelt’s action of sending fifty destroyers to England was clearly intended to provoke the Germans, and to aid the British.129 In regard to provoking the Germans, one critic has stated:

Many have found Roosevelt’s behavior on the eve of America’s intervention in World War II especially reprehensible. Edward S. Corwin and Louis W. Koenig protested that, in the destroyer deal, “what President Roosevelt did was to take over for the nonce Congress’s power to dispose of property of the United States . . . and to repeal at least two statutes,” while Senator William Fulbright accused Roosevelt of having “usurped the treaty power of the Senate” and of having “circumvented the war powers of the Congress.” His detractors point out that six months before Pearl Harbor, on shaky statutory authority, the president used federal power to end strikes, most notably in sending troops to occupy the strike-bound North American Aviation plant in California; and that in the same period he dispatched American forces to occupy Iceland and Greenland, provided convoys of vessels carrying arms to Britain, and ordered U.S. destroyers to shoot Nazi U-boats on sight, all acts that infringed Congress’s warmaking authority.”130

Also unknown to the American people was the fact that Roosevelt put an American airplane with an American commander at the service of the British Admiralty to assist in tracking down the German warship Bismarck. Roosevelt commented to his speech writer, Robert Sherwood, that if it was found out he had done this, he would be impeached.131 Roosevelt tried to use conflicts that he intentionally provoked between U.S. Navy ships and German submarines in the Atlantic as causes for America’s entry into the war. On September 4, 1941, the USS Greer, was attacked by a German submarine off the coast of Iceland. The Greer had provoked the attack, but the president lied to the American people, stating that the ship was only carrying American mail to Iceland and was attacked without warning in international waters. The truth came out shortly thereafter when Admiral Harold Stark, chief of naval operations, disclosed that the Greer had actually been giving chase to the German submarine for more than three hours; the sub finally turned and fired two torpedoes at the Greer, which responded with depth charges.132 Another incident is described as follows:

A few weeks later another American warship, the USS Kearny, was attacked and damaged by a German submarine. On October 27 the president told the country: “We have wished to avoid shooting. But the shooting has started. And history has recorded who fired the first shot. In the long run, however, all that will matter is who fired the last shot. America has been attacked.”

When the truth of the Kearny incident finally came out, it became clear that Germany had not fired the first shot at all. Like the Greer, the Kearny had sighted the German sub and fired first. The result was that the American people refused to become inflamed by the incident. Thus when the first American ship, the USS Reuben James, was actually sunk on October 30, the president did not make much of it.133

These efforts to provoke the Germans into firing the first shot were unsuccessful because, more than anything else, Hitler wanted to avoid a war with America.

Roosevelt also tried to provoke the Japanese into firing the first shot, and eventually he was successful. An absolutely sensational book, and maybe the most important ever written on Roosevelt’s role in the Pearl Harbor attack, was published in 2000.134 The author, Robert Stinnett, a veteran of the Pacific war during World War II, devoted seventeen years to researching this subject. The book shows beyond any reasonable doubt that Roosevelt was directly involved in provoking the Japanese into firing the first shot at Pearl Harbor, that he was responsible for almost all of the critical military information being withheld from the Pearl Harbor commanders, and that he immediately launched a cover-up to make them the scapegoats while he pretended to be surprised and blameless. Stinnett states:

By provoking the attack, Roosevelt accepted the terrible truth that America’s military forces—including the Pacific Fleet and the civilian population in the Pacific—would sit squarely in harm’s way, exposed to enormous risks. The commanders in Hawaii, Admiral Husband Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter Short, were deprived of intelligence that might have made them more alert to the risk entailed in Roosevelt’s policy, but they obeyed his direct order: “The United States desires that Japan commit the first overt act.” More than 200,000 documents and interviews have led me to these conclusions. I am indebted to the Freedom of Information Act and its author, the late Congressman John Moss (D-Cal.) for making it possible for me to tell this story.135

Stinnett discovered the crucial document concerning Roosevelt’s provocation in the personal files of Lieutenant Commander Arthur H. McCollum in 1995. The document reveals the eight-step plan Roosevelt used to cause the Japanese to fire the first shot. At Roosevelt’s request, McCollum prepared the document, which is dated October 7, 1940, and McCollum and Roosevelt met at the White House immediately thereafter to discuss the same.136 Stinnett relates how Roosevelt adopted the plan step by step. The plan set out the eight steps as follows:

A. Make an arrangement with Britain for the use of British bases in the Pacific, particularly Singapore;

B. Make an arrangement with Holland for the use of base facilities and acquisition of supplies in the Dutch East Indies;

C. Give all possible aid to the Chinese Government of Chiang-Kai-shek;

D. Send a division of long-range heavy cruisers to the Orient, Philippines, or Singapore;

E. Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient;

F. Keep the main strength of the U.S. Fleet, now in the Pacific, in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands;

G. Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for undue economic concessions, particularly oil; and

H. Completely embargo all U.S. trade with Japan, in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed by the British Empire.137

Lieutenant Commander McCollum commented at the end of the plan, “If by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better.”138

The recurring theme in American history is that certain ships are offered by presidents as bait to get the enemy to fire the first shot.139 Stinnett comments on this as follows:

Roosevelt’s “fingerprints” can be found on each of McCollum’s proposals. One of the most shocking was Action D, the deliberate deployment of American warships within or adjacent to the territorial waters of Japan. During secret White House meetings, Roosevelt personally took charge of Action D. He called the provocations “pop-up” cruises: “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.” Admiral Husband Kimmel, the Pacific Fleet commander, objected to the pop-up cruises, saying: “It is ill-advised and will result in war if we make this move.”140

Admiral Kimmel was notified by the chief of naval operations on July 25, 1941, to be prepared to send a carrier-load of fighter planes to Russia which had been attacked by Germany in June 1941. Kimmel objected very strongly because he thought this would provoke the Japanese to fire the first shot and start a war and also because it would sacrifice a carrier and its airplanes. The idea finally was dropped.141 Roosevelt also ordered separate suicide missions for three small ships based in the Philippines. With American captains and Filipino crews, these vessels, each of which carried at least one gun, were to sail at different times toward Japan in an effort to draw Japanese fire, but the Japanese refused the bait.142

Roosevelt continued to follow the McCollum plan in all respects and, on July 25, 1941, he ordered all Japanese assets in the United States frozen, thus effectively ending all trade between the countries. This freezing order, in conjunction with an identical one from the British and Dutch, effectively cut off all oil from Japan that left them with approximately one year’s supply in reserve at the time of Pearl Harbor and with no prospects for new supplies.143

The Japanese were aware that Roosevelt and Churchill were trying to provoke a war between America and Japan as a “back-door” entry into the European war. Japanese Ambassador Nomura in Washington sent a coded message to Tokyo on August 16, 1941, two days after the announcement of the Roosevelt-Churchill Atlantic Charter Conference, which was decoded by the U.S. as follows: “I understand that the British believe that if they could only have a Japanese-American war started at the back door, there would be a good prospect of getting the United States to participate in the European war.”144 The Japanese, in an unprecedented diplomatic move following the Atlantic Conference between Roosevelt and Churchill, offered to send Prince Fumimaro Konoye, the prime minister, and a member of the royal family to America to negotiate personally with Roosevelt in a desperate effort to preserve peace. Roosevelt flatly refused such a meeting, thereby causing the downfall of the moderate, peace-seeking Konoye government, which was then replaced by Tojo’s militant jingoistic government.145 Furthermore, Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull, in their negotiations with Japanese diplomats, presented ultimatums requiring Japan to get out of China completely, knowing that the Japanese would not accept those terms.146 Japan was finally placed in the position of choosing either to lose the war without even fighting—basically because all of its oil supplies and essential war materials had been cut off—or gamble that a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor would cripple the American naval forces and cause America either to negotiate a peace treaty or to be so weakened that she would be unable to win a war in the Pacific.

Information Withheld by Roosevelt and Marshall

The extreme deceit of the Pearl Harbor attack is revealed further by the fact that Roosevelt and his key advisers in Washington had a tremendous amount of information that clearly pointed to Japan’s intentions of launching a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor many days in advance and with plenty of time to either prevent the same or prepare for the event, but they withheld most of it from the Pearl Harbor commanders. Both Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter C. Short, the military commanders at Pearl Harbor, had been promised in writing by their respective chiefs of service that all information pertaining to their posts, regardless of the source of the information, would be delivered immediately from Washington to them directly. In fact, Admiral Kimmel made a special trip to Washington in June 1941 to meet with Admiral Harold R. Stark, chief of naval operations, requesting this pledge to get the information. Stark, in turn, gave his absolute assurance that all information would be passed along.147

On January 27, 1941, the American ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew, sent the following dispatch to Washington:

My Peruvian colleague told a member of my staff that he had heard from many sources including a Japanese source that the Japanese military forces planned, in the event of trouble with the United States, to attempt a surprise mass attack on Pearl Harbor using all of their military facilities. He added that although the project seemed fantastic the fact that he had heard it from many sources prompted him to pass on the information.148

Admiral Stark relayed this information to Admiral Kimmel but reported that it was only a rumor and that he should put no stock in it.149 The fact that “a rumor” was reported clearly led Admiral Kimmel to believe he was receiving all the information available to his superiors in Washington.

Prior to Stinnett’s book, it was known that certain Japanese spies were sending messages to Japan stating the location and activity of the ships in Pearl Harbor. Also, it was known that American cryptographers had solved the purple, or diplomatic, code of the Japanese. However, the critical information about the attack was in the naval or military code of the Japanese, and Stinnett discovered these secret messages that were known to Roosevelt and withheld from the Pearl Harbor commanders and the American public for more than fifty years. Stinnett states “The truth of Pearl Harbor is found in the Naval Codes, not in the diplomatic codes.”150 The American cryptographers broke the naval or military code of the Japanese in October 1940.151

Some of the most startling revelations made by Stinnett show that, contrary to prior assertions made in sworn testimony at congressional hearings, the Japanese fleet that set out for Pearl Harbor on November 25, 1941, did not maintain radio silence up through December 7, 1941. In fact, American cryptographers were decoding the military communications and sending them directly to Roosevelt; through directional radio finders, they were able to determine the exact location of the fleet all the way through their fateful journey. Roosevelt ordered all ships out of the North Pacific Ocean when he learned that the Japanese forces were in that area, and he did this to prevent any discovery of the Japanese presence there. Stinnett reports:

Navy officials declared the North Pacific Ocean a “Vacant Sea” and ordered all U.S. and allied shipping out of the waters. An alternate trans-Pacific route was authorized through the Torres Strait, in the South Pacific between Australia and New Guinea. Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner, War Plans officer for the United States Navy in 1941, explained the reasoning with a startling admission: “We were prepared to divert traffic when we believed that war was imminent. We sent the traffic down via Torres Strait, so that the track of the Japanese task force would be clear of any traffic.” On November 25, the day that the Japanese carrier force sailed for Pearl Harbor, Navy headquarters sent this message to Kimmel and San Francisco’s Twelfth Naval District:

ROUTE ALL TRANSPACIFIC SHIPPING THRU TORRES STRAITS. CINCPAC AND CINCAF PROVIDE NECESSARY ESCORT REFER YOUR DISPATCH 230258.

The order was dispatched about an hour after Admiral Nagumo’s carrier force departed Hitokappu Bay and entered the North Pacific.

The “vacant sea” order dramatizes Admiral Kimmel’s helplessness in the face of Roosevelt’s desires. The admiral tried on a number of occasions to do something to defend Pearl Harbor, based on Rochefort’s troubling intercepts. Exactly two weeks prior to the attack, Kimmel ordered a search for a Japanese carrier force north of Hawaii. Without White House approval, he moved the Pacific Fleet into the North Pacific Ocean in the precise area where Japan planned to launch her carrier attack on Pearl Harbor. But his laudable efforts came to naught. When White House military officials learned Kimmel’s warships were in the area of what turned out to be the intended Japanese launch site, they issued directives that caused Kimmel to quickly order the Pacific Fleet out of the North Pacific and back to its anchorages in Pearl Harbor.152

Stinnett reports further that:

At the time, of course, Kimmel did not know of Washington’s eight-action policy. If McCollum’s action policy was to succeed in uniting America, Japan must be seen as the aggressor and must commit the first overt act of war on an unsuspecting Pacific Fleet, not the other way around. FDR and his highest-level commanders gambled on Japan committing the first overt act of war, and knew from intercepted messages that it was near. An open sea engagement between Japan’s carrier force and the Pacific Fleet would have been far less effective at establishing American outrage. Japan could claim that its right to sail the open seas had been deliberately challenged by American warships if Kimmel attacked first.153

Stinnett further shows how Roosevelt ordered Kimmel’s ships around like they were on strings:

On orders from Washington, Kimmel left his oldest vessels inside Pearl Harbor and sent twenty-one modern warships, including his two aircraft carriers, west toward Wake and Midway. Those were strange orders, for they dispatched American forces directly into the path of the oncoming Japanese fleet of thirty submarines. The last-minute circumstances that moved the warships out of Pearl Harbor were discussed during the 1945–46 Congressional inquiry. Members wondered whether the sorties were genuine efforts to reinforce Wake Island and Midway or merely ploys to move all the modern warships from the Pearl Harbor anchorages prior to the attack so they would not be hit by the First Air Fleet. . . . With the departure of the Lexington and Enterprise groups, the warships remaining in Pearl Harbor were mostly twenty-seven-year-old relics of World War I.154

Prior to Stinnett’s book, a British code-breaker published a book entitled Betrayal at Pearl Harbor.155 This sensational book states that on or about November 25, 1941, the British were able to overhear the Japanese military commands relating to a large military operation, including aircraft carriers, battleships, and other vessels that were leaving Japanese waters headed to Hawaii. The book’s co-author, Captain Eric Nave, personally passed this information—which clearly indicated the Japanese were headed for a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor—directly to Churchill. The book is inconclusive, however, as to whether Churchill actually relayed this message to Roosevelt.156 Prior to the Stinnett book, a book by former CIA director William Casey, entitled The Secret War Against Hitler, states:

As the Japanese storm began to gather force in the Pacific, the most private communications between the Japanese government and its ambassadors . . . were being read in Washington. Army and Navy cryptographers having broken the Japanese diplomatic cipher, were reading messages that foretold the attack. The British had sent word that a Japanese fleet was steaming east toward Hawaii.157

Some of the most important information that was never passed along to Kimmel and Short and was never even available to them to use in their own defense were the “bomb plot” messages of September 24, 1941, and thereafter.158 Japanese spies in Hawaii regularly were reporting the positions of all ships in Pearl Harbor and this information drastically increased the week before the attack, even including information that ships were not moved. A grid system was set up so that they could tell the position of the ships within that system—a clear indication that an air attack was a strong probability.159

Admiral Kimmel, in his own book that was published before it was known that the Japanese military orders had been intercepted, stated that key information was withheld from him and that he thought the bomb plot messages were probably the most essential pieces of military information that should have been communicated to him:

The deficiencies of Pearl Harbor as a fleet base were well known in the Navy Department. In an interview with Mr. Roosevelt in June 1941, in Washington, I outlined the weaknesses and concluded with the remark that the only answer was to have the fleet at sea if the Japs ever attacked.

I accepted the decision to base the fleet at Pearl Harbor in the firm belief that the Navy Department would supply me promptly with all pertinent information available and in particular with all information that indicated an attack on the fleet at Pearl Harbor. . . .

The care taken to keep the commander-in-chief of our Asiatic Fleet and the British in London informed of Japanese intentions while withholding this vital information from our commanders at Pearl Harbor has never been explained. . . .

The Navy Department thus engaged in a course of conduct which definitely gave me the impression that intelligence from important intercepted Japanese messages was being furnished to me. Under these circumstances a failure to send me important information of this character was not merely withholding of intelligence. It amounted to an affirmative misrepresentation. I had asked for all vital information. I had been assured that I would have it. I appeared to be receiving it. . . . Yet, in fact, the most vital information from the intercepted Japanese messages was withheld from me. This failure not only deprived me of essential facts. It misled me.

I was not supplied with any information of the intercepted messages showing that the Japanese government had divided Pearl Harbor into five areas and was seeking minute information as to the berthing of ships of the fleet in those areas, which was vitally significant.160

Admiral Kimmel testified under oath that “Had we been furnished this information as little as two or three hours before the attack, which was easily feasible and possible, much could have been done.”161

At the time of the Pearl Harbor congressional hearings in 1945–1946, the only code the investigators knew that the Navy had broken was the diplomatic code. Much testimony was taken regarding what information was known in Washington by Roosevelt and Marshall concerning the diplomatic code and what was not passed along to Admiral Kimmel and General Short.162 One of these important messages was that the Japanese indicated that if they were not able to secure a peace agreement with the Americans by November 26, 1941, things would automatically go into operation, indicating that an attack would occur after that point. This was not delivered to the military commanders at Pearl Harbor.163

Another critical diplomatic code interception received in Washington and not delivered to Pearl Harbor was called the “winds execute” message, which was received during the night of December 3, 1941. Captain Laurence F. Safford received and translated the message to mean “War with America, War with England, and Peace with Russia.”164 The written evidence of the “winds execute” message mysteriously disappeared from Navy files before the first congressional investigation, but Captain Safford was absolutely certain of the receipt and content of the message and was certain that it was delivered to President Roosevelt immediately.165

Finally, the code interceptors received and translated a fourteen-part message from the Japanese government to its diplomats in Washington, D.C.; the first thirteen parts were received on December 6, 1941.166 The first part of this message was delivered about 9:15 P.M. to Lieutenant Lester R. Schulz at the White House, and he immediately took the locked pouch containing the message to Roosevelt. Harry Hopkins, of course, was also present, and Schulz heard Roosevelt state to Hopkins, “This means war!” Hopkins then replied, “It’s too bad we can’t strike the first blow and prevent a surprise.” Roosevelt replied, “No, we can’t do that. We are a democracy and a peaceful people. But we have a good record!”167

There is a great deal of controversy about what transpired between this point and the actual bombing the next morning. However, Captain Edward L. Beach’s recent book, Scapegoats, addresses the issue of why the fourteen-part message was not delivered to the Pearl Harbor commanders. He references the new evidence concerning a meeting at midnight at the White House on December 6, which lasted until approximately 4:00 A.M. on December 7. According to Beach’s book, James G. Stahlman, a close friend of Secretary of Navy Frank Knox, said that Knox told him he attended this meeting, along with Secretary of War Henry Stimson, General Marshall, Admiral Stark, Harry Hopkins, and Roosevelt. The purpose was to discuss the message already received and to review the fourteenth part of the message, which was expected to be delivered at any moment but did not come while the meeting was taking place. Stahlman did not report that Secretary Knox informed him about the actual content of the discussions, but one is led to surmise what occurred by the actions of the parties after their meeting during the early morning hours of December 7.168 This particular decoded message has been called the “delivery message” which informed the Japanese diplomats that the fourteenth part of the message must be delivered to Secretary of State Hull on December 7 no later than 1:00 P.M. Washington time—which was dawn, Pearl Harbor time. The intent of the Japanese was to give notice to the American government that an attack was going to be made on Pearl Harbor just before the attack actually occurred, so that they could never be accused of launching a surprise attack. The fourteenth part was late in being delivered to Hull, but of course, the key people in Washington—especially Roosevelt and Marshall—had full knowledge of all the decoded messages before this, so the attack was clearly no “surprise” to them.

When Admiral Stark arrived at his office at 8:00 A.M. on December 7, he was met by Rear Admiral Theodore S. Wilkinson and Commander Arthur McCollum. These two officers had with them the first thirteen parts of the message and stated that they were waiting to receive the “delivery message,” which arrived while they were meeting with Stark. Wilkinson indicated that it was absolutely imperative that Admiral Stark get on his scrambler telephone and issue a warning first to Admiral Kimmel in Pearl Harbor and then to Admiral Thomas C. Hart in Manila.169 The scrambler telephone was an instrument that allowed direct and immediate contact between the parties, but the message was scrambled so it could not be intercepted and understood; however, at each end, it was unscrambled and immediately understood. Kimmel would have received this warning at 3:00 P.M. Pearl Harbor time, and that would have given him sufficient time to either prepare for or prevent the surprise attack. According to these witnesses, Stark picked up his scrambler telephone and hesitated for a long period of time, then put the phone down and instead tried to call President Roosevelt. The White House operator stated that the president was unavailable! The witnesses then stated that Stark tried to reach General Marshall, who was not in his office, and all witnesses agreed that Stark did nothing at all after that for the next few hours, until Marshall finally returned his call.170

The transcript of the Joint Congressional Committee hearings in 1945–1946 shows that General Marshall testified he had been riding his horse during the early morning hours of December 7, and that he did not arrive at his office until about 11:00 A.M. at which time he was given the complete, fourteen-part message by two of his most senior intelligence officers, Brigadier General Sherman Miles and Colonel Rufus Bratton. Marshall also had a scrambler telephone on his desk that would have allowed him to make a direct call to General Short, but instead of making the call he slowly and deliberately read through the message while both Miles and Bratton frantically tried to tell him about the crucial delivery message and the time limitation of 1:00 P.M. Washington time. Finally, with the office clock showing nearly noon, Marshall wrote out a warning message in pencil in nearly illegible handwriting and then told Miles and Bratton that the message was to be sent to Admiral Kimmel on a nonpriority basis. The message, therefore, went by normal Western Union telegram and arrived at Kimmel’s office after the attack had occurred.171 General Marshall then returned the call to Admiral Stark, who had been waiting for about two hours to talk with him.

Admiral J.O. Richardson, the original commander at Pearl Harbor who was relieved by Roosevelt, wrote his memoirs in 1956 but delayed publication until 1973, a year after his friend Admiral Stark died and a year before Richardson’s own death.172 He gave his opinion that Stark and Marshall were under orders from President Roosevelt not to warn Kimmel and Short. Elsewhere Richardson has written:

I am impelled to believe that sometime prior to December 7, the president had directed that only Marshall could send any warning message to the Hawaiian area. I do not know this to be a fact and I cannot prove it. I believe this because of my knowledge of Stark and the fact that his means of communications with Kimmel were equal to, if not superior to those available to Marshall for communication with Short. He made no effort to warn Kimmel on the morning of December 7, but referred the matter to Marshall.173

Captain Beach has also written:

Richardson stated that he was positive that there had been “some directive from higher authority” that only Marshall was to make any such call, but he believed Stark should have done it anyway, and he never forgave him. Richardson was clearly outraged, and the entire Navy would have been also, had it known.174

The obvious question is, why would President Roosevelt not want Marshall and Stark to communicate the warnings to General Short and Admiral Kimmel at Pearl Harbor? During the Joint Commission hearings, Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan questioned General Short about what he thought would have happened had the commander at Pearl Harbor been notified of the impending attack. General Short testified:

There would have been a very excellent chance that they would have turned back. . . . That would have been the tendency, because they would have felt, or they would be sure, that they would take heavy losses. Surprise was the only opportunity they had to succeed.175

The conclusion seems obvious: Roosevelt did not want to take a chance on the Japanese backing off from firing the first shot, and therefore he gambled that the losses would not be too heavy if the Japanese achieved total surprise. Unlike Lincoln at Fort Sumter, where no injuries or deaths occurred as a result of the South firing the first shot, Roosevelt suffered immense damages with his gamble.

Secretary of War Henry Stimson recorded in his diary the relief from the anxiety over the question of how to get into the war by the fact that the Japanese had now bombed Pearl Harbor. He wrote that at 2:00 P.M. on Sunday, December 7, he received a telephone call from the president informing him that the Japanese were bombing Pearl Harbor. He confided in his diary, “We three [Hull, Knox, and Stimson] all thought that we must fight if the British fought. But now the Japs have solved the whole thing by attacking us directly in Hawaii.”176 Stimson also wrote in his diary:

When the news first came that Japan had attacked us my first feeling was of relief that the indecision was over and that a crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people. This continued to be my dominant feeling in spite of the news of catastrophes which quickly developed. For I feel that this country united has practically nothing to fear; while the apathy and divisions stirred up by unpatriotic men had been hitherto very discouraging.177

Morgenstern’s editorial comment at this point about Stimson’s diary entry is, “In other words, Stimson’s view was that it was patriotic to go to war for the British and Dutch empires, and unpatriotic to try to stay at peace.”178 Stimson was clearly stating the viewpoint of the American portion of the Anglo-American Establishment, which now was the combined Morgan and Rockefeller interests.179 Murray Rothbard comments on the merger of the Morgan and Rockefeller efforts for the purpose of getting America into World War II:

During the 1930s, the Rockefellers pushed hard for war against Japan, which they saw as competing with them vigorously for oil and rubber resources in Southeast Asia and as endangering the Rockefellers’ cherished dreams of a mass “China market” for petroleum products. On the other hand, the Rockefellers took a non-interventionist position in Europe, where they had close financial ties with German firms such as I.G. Farben and Company, and very few close relations with Britain and France. The Morgans, in contrast, as usual deeply committed to their financial ties with Britain and France, once again plumped early for war with Germany, while their interest in the Far East had become minimal. Indeed, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Joseph C. Grew, former Morgan partner, was one of the few officials in the Roosevelt Administration genuinely interested in peace with Japan.

World War II might therefore be considered, from one point of view, as a coalition war: the Morgans got their war in Europe, the Rockefellers theirs in Asia.180

Roosevelt knew that if Japan entered the war, Germany would soon follow. One of the diplomatic messages intercepted by the Americans on November 29, 1941, was a conversation between the Japanese ambassador and Von Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister, in which Ribbentrop stated, “Should Japan become engaged in a war against the United States, Germany, of course, would join the war immediately.”181 On the night of December 7, 1941, after the bombing, Roosevelt summoned his cabinet members and congressional leaders to the White House to discuss the Pearl Harbor attack. He said to the assembled group that, “We have reason to believe that the Germans have told the Japanese that if Japan declares war, they will too. In other words, a declaration of war by Japan automatically brings.”182 The president was interrupted at this point and did not finish his sentence, but this comment indicates clearly that he was familiar with the Japanese code intercepts and knew that an attack by Japan would open the back door to a war with Germany, and that was Roosevelt’s real intention.

Roosevelt’s defenders have maintained that adequate warnings were sent to the Pearl Harbor commanders by his administration in Washington. The following warnings were sent and are summarized by Morgenstern as follows183:

1. On October 16, 1941, Kimmel received a message that a new cabinet had been formed in Japan and that war between Japan and Russia was a strong possibility. It was also stated that a possible war by Japan could occur with the U.S. and Britain.

2. On November 24, 1941, Admiral Kimmel received word that successful negotiations were doubtful and to look for a possible attack by Japan on the Philippines or Guam.

3. On November 25, 1941, there was a message which hardly constituted a warning at all.

4. On November 27, 1941, the message stated “consider this dispatch a war warning.”184 It speculated that the likely targets for Japan would be the Philippines, the Kar Peninsula or Borneo. The message specifically stated to take precautions against sabotage, which caused the airplanes to be moved to the middle portion of the airfield to guard against sabotage, but this made them an easy target to be bombed on December 7.

5. Finally, a second warning on November 27, 1941, stated that the negotiations with Japan had ended.

This message included a specific statement that, “the United States desires that Japan commit first overt act.“It also instructed Kimmel that they should not make any movements or demonstrate actions which might “alarm the civil population.”185

It is obvious in comparing these warnings with all of the information that was known in Washington, but was not communicated to the Pearl Harbor commanders that Roosevelt did not want to destroy the surprise element and thereby take the chance that the Japanese would call off the attack and not fire the first shot. He needed to comply with his campaign promise that he would not go into a foreign war unless attacked first. He needed to comply with his commitment to Churchill and the British that he would get into the war against Germany by some means, even if it required going through the “back door” by having a war with Japan.

Cover-up

One of the first actions Roosevelt took after asking Congress for a declaration of war was to form a commission that was limited in its scope to the investigation of what happened at Pearl Harbor to allow the surprise attack to succeed with such disastrous results. The directions to the committee specifically excluded any investigation of what went on in Washington, D.C.186 This commission held secret hearings in Pearl Harbor; neither Commander Kimmel nor Short was allowed to submit any evidence or confront any witnesses, and they were completely denied due process. The commission concluded that these two commanding officers, Kimmel and Short, were solely at fault for the lack of preparation that caused the debacle. President Roosevelt had both of them reduced in rank and forced them to resign in disgrace.187

Stinnett reports the following reaction by the admiral who preceded Kimmel at Pearl Harbor: “Admiral James Richardson condemned the findings. ‘It is the most unfair, unjust and deceptively dishonest document ever printed by the government printing office. I cannot conceive of honorable men serving on the commission without greatest regret and deepest feelings of shame.’”188

It was not until Stinnett’s book was published that it was learned that the official cover-up began before the commission even began its work. Stinnett reports:

The key evidence of what really happened began to be concealed as early as December 11, 1941, only four days after the attack. The first step in the clean-up came from Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes, the Navy’s Director of Communications. He instituted the fifty-four-year censorship policy that consigned the pre-Pearl Harbor Japanese military and diplomatic intercepts and the relevant directives to Navy vaults. “Destroy all notes or anything in writing,” Noyes told a group of his subordinates on December 11.189

Stinnett shows how the cover-up continued even after the war:

Two weeks after Japan surrendered in August 1945, the Navy blocked public access to the pre-Pearl Harbor intercepts by classifying the documents TOP SECRET. Even Congress was cut out of the intercept loop. The Navy’s order was sweeping; it gagged the cryptographers and radio intercept operators who had obtained the Japanese fleet’s radio messages during the fall of 1941. Fleet Admiral Ernest King oversaw the censorship. He threatened imprisonment and loss of Navy and veteran’s benefits to any naval personnel who disclosed the success of the code-breaking. . . .

When the congressional investigation into the Pearl Harbor attack began on November 15, 1945, Americans believed they would be given full details on breaking the Japanese code prior to the attack. Witnesses introduced intercepts into evidence and read decrypted messages to the senators and representatives of the Joint Committee. It was a total sham. None of the details involving the interception, decoding, or dissemination of the pre-Pearl Harbor Japanese naval messages saw the light of day. Only diplomatic messages were released. Republicans suspected a stranglehold but could not pierce King’s gag order.190

It was not until May 1999, almost fifty-eight years later, that the U.S. Senate held another hearing and tried to rectify this grave injustice inflicted by President Roosevelt upon these capable career officers by making them the scapegoats for the “surprise attack” on Pearl Harbor. A Senate resolution posthumously restored their full rank and declared that both men had performed their duties “completely and professionally” and that the Japanese attack was “not a result of dereliction of the performance” of their duties.191 The U.S. Senate further made an extremely important finding:

Numerous investigations following the attack on Pearl Harbor have documented that then Admiral Kimmel and then Lieutenant General Short were not provided necessary and critical intelligence that was available, that foretold of war with Japan, that warned of imminent attack, and that would have alerted them to prepare for the attack, including such essential communiques as the Japanese Pearl Harbor Bomb Plot message of September 24, 1941, and the message sent from the Imperial Japanese Foreign Ministry to the Japanese Ambassador in the United States from December 6–7, 1941, known as the Fourteen-Part Message.192

The Senate did not know about the sensational revelations in Robert Stinnett’s book, which was published after the hearings. Perhaps someday the American people will finally understand that the real reason the day of December 7, 1941, will “live in infamy” will be because their president had become an “imperial president” who betrayed the American servicemen at Pearl Harbor and badly misled the U.S. Congress and the American people into an unnecessary war.

Stinnett’s book reveals the ugly truth of the crimes, if not treason, of President Roosevelt and leaves no doubt about how Roosevelt provoked the Japanese into firing the first shot and how he withheld essential information from his Pearl Harbor commanders that would have allowed them either to prevent the attack or protect themselves. The book further shows the massive cover-up instigated by President Roosevelt. It further shows the sinister conspiracy instigated by the president and carried out by his military and civilian subordinates to make Admiral Kimmel and General Short the scapegoats by diverting the attention away from the political intrigue in Washington. The book confirms that the power of the presidency and the executive branch has led to deceit and corruption the depths of the worst caesars of Rome. The Roosevelt supporters are now reduced to the erroneous, ridiculous, and evil Machiavellian defense that the end—(war with Germany—justified the means—provoking the Japanese to fire the first shot by sacrificing the men and ships at Pearl Harbor.193

Conclusion:

Comparison of Lincoln and Roosevelt

At this point, it is interesting to compare Lincoln and his activity in causing the “enemy” to fire the first shot, as was shown in my earlier essay with Roosevelt’s similar activity Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., a well-known American “court historian,” has written the definitive defenses for both Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt regarding their reprehensible behavior in causing their respective unnecessary American wars. He clearly documents the unconstitutional behavior of both and offers great praise for the same. He attempts to justify the actions of both presidents on grounds that they were acting during a “crisis” pertaining to the “survival of the American government,” and that their unconstitutional actions were thereby made “necessary.” Schlesinger has stated that “Next to the Civil War, World War II was the greatest crisis in American history.”194 His defense of these two “great” presidents is as follows:

Roosevelt in 1941, like Lincoln in 1861, did what he did under what appeared to be a popular demand and a public necessity. Both presidents took their actions in light of day and to the accompaniment of uninhibited political debate. They did what they thought they had to do to save the republic. They threw themselves in the end on the justice of the country and the rectitude of their motives. Whatever Lincoln and Roosevelt felt compelled to do under the pressure of crisis did not corrupt their essential commitment to constitutional ways and democratic processes.195

Schlesinger, however, recognizes the terrible precedents that were created by these presidents’ violations of the clear Constitutional restrictions on their office:

Yet the danger persists that power asserted during authentic emergencies may create precedents for transcendent executive power during emergencies that exist only in the hallucinations of the Oval Office and that remain invisible to most of the nation. The perennial question is: How to distinguish real crises threatening the life of the republic from bad dreams conjured up by paranoid presidents spurred on by paranoid advisers? Necessity, as Milton said, is always “the tyrant’s plea.”196

Let us add to John Milton’s statement a more specific warning by William Pitt in his speech to the House of Commons on November 18, 1783: “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants.”197

Finally, it is instructive to compare the circumstances for Lincoln at Fort Sumter with those for Roosevelt at Pearl Harbor. In neither case was there an actual “surprise” attack by the enemy. In fact, there was an extended period of time, many months prior to the “first shot,” in which both Lincoln and Roosevelt had ample opportunity to attempt to negotiate with the alleged “enemy,” who was desperately trying to reach a peaceful settlement. In both cases, the presidents refused to negotiate in good faith. Lincoln sent completely false and conflicting statements to the Confederates and to Congress; even refused to talk with the Confederate commissioners. Roosevelt also refused to talk with Japanese Prime Minister Konoye, a refusal that brought down the moderate, peace-seeking Konoye government and caused the rise of the militant Tojo regime. Both Lincoln and Roosevelt repeatedly lied to the American people and to Congress about what they were doing while they were secretly provoking the “enemy” to fire the first shot in their respective wars. Both intentionally subjected their respective armed forces to being bait to get the enemy to fire the first shot.

Also, a comparison of circumstances clearly shows that both Lincoln and Roosevelt had ample opportunity to present their arguments and the question of war to Congress as the Constitution clearly required them to do. In fact, Congress in both cases was desperately trying to find out what the presidents were doing, and in both cases the presidents were hiding evidence from them. In Lincoln’s case, Congress probably would not have declared war for either the real reasons Lincoln went to war or for those he used only for propaganda. Similarly, Roosevelt could have presented the question of war to Congress and attempted to persuade Congress and the American people that we needed to join Soviet Russia and Great Britain to fight tyranny in Germany. This might have been embarrassing to the Roosevelt administration in light of the fact that Congress may not have wanted to declare war and join with Soviet Russia, which was already one of the greatest tyrannies the world had ever known, while Germany was Russia’s main enemy. A majority in Congress surely were aware of the dangers of Communism, while Roosevelt never seemed to grasp the total evil of Stalin or Communism. Roosevelt gave Stalin everything he wanted throughout the war and referred to this mass murderer as “Uncle Joe.” The wartime conferences at Teheran and Yalta clearly demonstrated Roosevelt’s complete and secret capitulation to Communism in Russia and China.198

Before World War II started in Europe in 1939, it was widely known that Stalin had already murdered more than ten million innocent, unarmed people, three million of whom were Russian peasants he killed between 1928 and 1935. Communism believed that private property was the main source of evil in the world, and therefore he took the privately owned land from these self-sufficient people.199 Also, in the period from 1936 through 1938, Stalin murdered millions more during his reign of terror after the “show trials,” purging from the Communist Party those he thought were disloyal.200 Hitler, on the other hand, before 1939, and primarily from June to July 1934, had murdered fewer than one hundred in his purge of the Storm Troopers.201 This is not to defend Hitler, or to deny that he was evil, but comparison of these two murderers and tyrants (as Stalin and Hitler were known in the period from 1939 to 1941), shows that Roosevelt could hardly have asked Congress to declare war and to join with Stalin and Communism, yet still argue that he was fighting a noble war against tyranny.

Private Enterprise Compared with Free Enterprise

Another interesting comparison of the situations affecting the decisions of Lincoln and Roosevelt is that economic interests of an elite few played a major role in the decisions of both presidents to instigate a war. It is doubtful that either Lincoln or Roosevelt would have wanted to disclose the influence of these economic interests to the public in a congressional hearing where the question of war was to be decided upon. The study of the history of wars indicates that economic factors have always played a major role in starting wars, but rarely are these economic factors disclosed to the public as the reasons.

Many businessmen and bankers believe in private enterprise but do not believe in free enterprise. In Lincoln’s case, the private-enterprise capitalists wanted Lincoln to have a war in order to prevent the South from establishing a free-trade zone with a low tariff. They wanted Lincoln to protect their special interests by keeping the tariff high, while still forcing the South to remain in the Union to pay the tax. These types of people want a partnership between private enterprise and the government, which is the essence of fascism and the cause of many wars. In the case of Roosevelt, he was greatly influenced, even controlled at times, by the Anglo-American Establishment that was composed of prominent businessmen and bankers who owned or represented large economic interests, both domestically and globally. They also wanted a partnership with government to protect their private businesses and economic interests, especially from formidable industrial and commercial competitors like Germany and Japan. Today the economic establishment in America is much larger than just the Morgan and Rockefeller interests but is just as active in trying to influence government, especially the foreign policy primarily through the president to further their economic interests.

Ludwig von Mises made a clear distinction between private enterprise and free enterprise. Mises wanted a complete separation of the economy from the government, just like separation of church and state, which meant no regulation or control by the government but also no partnership with or help from the government, either economically or militarily. In the free-enterprise system, if any business or any bank wants to transact business globally, it must do so at its own risk and without the help of the government. There would be no foreign aid, especially no aid to prop up dictators in order for them to do business with any particular economic interests. There would be no war in order to create a devastated area like Bosnia or Yugoslavia that needs to be rebuilt by American businesses who have the political influence to get these foreign contracts. Mises thought that separation of the economy from the government was necessary in order to produce peace rather than war.

A major contribution of Mises and the Austrian School of economics is to show that government intervention and regulation of the economy is the actual cause of the boom and bust cycles, while a free market is very stable and self-correcting in a short period of time. Furthermore, Mises showed that coercive monopolies are created by government and not by the free market. Therefore, the economy does not need government regulation or control to stabilize it and will function better by being completely separated.

Mises’s other recommendation, seen in the following statement, is to reduce the size and power of the central government in general in order to protect individual liberty:

Durable peace is only possible under perfect capitalism, hitherto never and nowhere completely tried or achieved. In such a Jeffersonian world of unhampered market economy the scope of government activities is limited to the protection of the lives, health and property of individuals against violence or fraudulent aggression.202

Mises goes on to state that:

All the oratory of the advocates of government omnipotence cannot annul the fact that there is but one system that makes for durable peace: a free market economy. Government control leads to economic nationalism and thus results in conflict.203

This complete separation of the economy and the government is what Mises meant by “perfect capitalism,” which promotes peace and prosperity rather than war and welfare.

Foreign Influence—The Anglo-American Establishment

In Roosevelt’s case, a foreign government clearly influenced and literally worked secretly and directly with him to cause the U.S. to enter World War II in complete violation of President Washington’s warning in his Farewell Address against allowing the influence of foreign governments to control American policy. This is still a major problem today with America’s foreign policy. American political leaders have not only ignored President Washington’s warning about the dangerous influence of foreign powers, but they have also ignored his excellent advice that we should avoid permanent entangling alliances, such as the United Nations and NATO. Washington advised us to have as little political connection with other governments as possible, while having trade relationships with all and without preferential status. Mises and President Washington are not advocating isolationism; they are advocating global trade with all nations.

President Washington warned emphatically against getting involved in the quarrels of Europe. Under President Clinton, the U.S. readopted the Wilsonian foreign policy of crusading throughout the world as its policeman by disguising imperialism with the term “humanitarianism,” a policy that involves American armed forces in matters which have no relationship to real American interests or the defense of the American people and their homeland. Many members of Congress are now calling for the draft again in order to have enough soldiers to be the world’s policeman. Charles Beard, the famous historian, warned that we would lose our freedom if we adopted a policy of “perpetual war for perpetual peace,”204 and it was one of our Founders, James Madison, who warned that, “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”205 War necessarily concentrates political power into the hands of a few—especially the president—and diminishes the liberty of all.

Reclaiming the Dream of Our Founders

If Americans are to reclaim the dream of our Founders and have peace and prosperity instead of war and welfare, we must understand the ideas and institutions that promote those conditions. Americans must appreciate and adopt the free-enterprise system and reject the private-enterprise system. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, we have been on a collision course with disaster by following political leaders who got elected and maintained their power through the war and welfare system of politics. Americans will never reclaim the dream of their Founders if presidents like Lincoln and Roosevelt are held up as examples of “great” presidents. We must impeach those presidents who ignore that the Constitution grants the warmaking power exclusively to Congress, and certainly impeach those who mislead Congress into a declaration of war with false information.

Americans need to oppose and destroy the “imperial presidency” because of what it has already done and will do to our country and to our individual freedom. The first step toward that goal is to recognize Presidents Lincoln and Roosevelt for what they really were: American Caesars.

Shortly before the attack in 1941, President Roosevelt called him [Smith] to the White House for a meeting concerning a Top Secret matter. At this meeting the president advised my father that his intelligence staff had informed him of a pending attack on Pearl Harbor, by the Japanese. He [FDR] anticipated many casualties and much loss; he instructed my father to send workers and supplies to a holding area . . . on the West Coast. When he protested to the president, President Roosevelt told him that the American people would never agree to enter the war in Europe unless they were attack[ed] within their own borders. . . . He followed the orders of the president and spent many years contemplating this action which he considered ethically and morally wrong.

Borgquist reports that the Red Cross records indicate a substantial supply of personnel and medical equipment was sent by the Red Cross to Hawaii shortly before the Pearl Harbor attack.

A huge monument has been erected in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the “greatness” of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. On the monument is a quotation from Roosevelt—“I hate war”—indicating falsely to the public that he was a president who sought peace rather than war. It is the ultimate example of false propaganda that is being perpetrated upon the American people. We learn from the investigation of the Pearl Harbor matter that after the attack ended, some of the crew of the battleship Oklahoma were still alive and trapped inside the hull of the partially sunken ship. The survivors outside could hear the trapped men knocking against the hull with metal objects desperately seeking rescue, but no rescue was possible (Beach, Scapegoats, p. 111). A recording should be made to duplicate their desperate sounds and have it played every hour at the Roosevelt Memorial to remind Americans of the treachery of their commander-in-chief.

• 1Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Imperial Presidency (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973).
• 2Forrest McDonald, The American Presidency: An Intellectual History (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994).
• 3President Washington is invariably ranked with Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt as the three greatest presidents in these polls of the professional historians, which speaks volumes about the political persuasion of a large part of this profession.
• 4Ralph Raico, “The Rise, Fall, and Renaissance of Classical Liberalism—Part I” Freedom Daily (August 1992): 11.
• 5Felix Morley, The Foreign Policy of the United States (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951), p. 4.
• 6This was first noted in two popular magazines at the time, the New Republic and Nation which both supported their ideas. See Dwight D. Murphey, Liberalism in Contemporary America (McLean, Va.: Council for Social and Economic Studies, 1992).
• 7Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, deluxe 2nd ed. (New York: New World Dictionaries/Simon and Schuster, 1979), p. 334.
• 8David Conway, Classical Liberalism: The Unvanquished Ideal (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995); see also another excellent history and analysis of classical liberalism in Great Thinkers in Classical Liberalism, vol. 1, The Locke-Smith Review, Amy H. Sturgis, ed. (Nashville, Tenn.: LockeSmith Institute, 1994).
• 9Conway, Classical Liberalism, p. 8.
• 10Ibid., p. 25.
• 11Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education and San Francisco: Cobden Press, 1985).
• 12See the classic work by Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy, The State (New York: Free Life Editions, 1973).
• 13See Joan Kennedy Taylor, ed., Liberty Against Power: Essays by Roy A. Childs, Jr. (San Francisco: Fox and Wilkes, 1994).
• 14Charles T. Sprading, ed., Liberty and the Great Libertarians: Anthology on Liberty, A Handbook of Freedom (New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, 1972), p. 82.
• 15Antony Jay, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 193 (emphasis added).
• 16Christopher Hollis, The American Heresy (New York: Minton, Balch, 1930), p. 38.
• 17Sprading, ed., Liberty and the Great Libertarians, p. 53.
• 18Ludwig von Mises, Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1969), pp. 46–47.
• 19Yohann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin as quoted by F.A. Hayek in The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek, vol. 10, Socialism and War: Essays, Documents, Reviews, Bruce Caldwell, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), p. 175.
• 20John V. Denson, ed., The Costs of War: America’s Pyrrhic Victories, 2nd ed. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1999), app. 1, p. 496; see also Essays in the History of Liberty: Selected Writings of Lord Acton, J. Rufus Fears, ed. (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Classics, 1985), p. 365.
• 21See Christopher Hollis, The American Heresy, cited earlier. This is an excellent study of American history which concludes that the Jeffersonian theory of a limited central government and States’ rights ended with the Civil War and was replaced by Hamilton’s ideas of big government in partnership with big business, which was solidified into place by Woodrow Wilson who led America into World War I.
• 22Richard E. Welch, Jr., The Presidencies of Grover Cleveland (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988), pp. 118, 129.
• 23Ibid., pp. 83, 88, 93.
• 24Ibid., p. 147.
• 25Ibid., pp. 147, 207.
• 26Garet Garrett, “The Revolution Was” in The People’s Pottage (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, [1953] 1993), p. 55.
• 27Ibid.
• 28Louis Fisher, Presidential War Power (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), p. 42.
• 29H.D. Rickover, How the Battleship Maine was Destroyed (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Navy, 1976), p. 91.
• 30Welch, The Presidencies of Grover Cleveland, p. 145.
• 31Ibid., p. 147.
• 32Ibid., p. 211.
• 33For the same opinion, see David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, “Gold Democrats and the Decline of Classical Liberalism, 1896–1900,” The Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy vol. 4, no. 4 (Spring 2000): 555–71.
• 34The interested student may want to consult the following works analyzing the Harding and Coolidge administrations: Eugene P. Trani and David L. Wilson, The Presidency of Warren G. Harding (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1977) and Robert Sobel, Coolidge: An American Enigma (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1998).
• 35Schlesinger, The Imperial Presidency, p. 208.
• 36Ibid., p. 212.
• 37Edward S. Corwin, Total War and the Constitution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947), p. vii.
• 38Ibid., p. 16.
• 39Hughes served in numerous public offices including Governor of New York, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Secretary of State and as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1930 to 1941. Woodrow Wilson barely defeated him for the presidency in 1916.
• 40Corwin, Total War and the Constitution, p. 2; see also Schlesinger, The Imperial Presidency, p. 93 (emphasis added).
• 41Corwin, Total War and the Constitution, pp. vii and viii.
• 42Ibid., p. viii.
• 43Fisher, Presidential War Power, p. 90.
• 44See Garry Wills, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment, Images of Power in Early America (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984).
• 45John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage (New York: HarperPerennial, 1964), pp. 132–58. Also for a very favorable and thorough analysis of the amazing career of Andrew Johnson, including his presidency and his subsequent return to the U.S. Senate, see Lloyd Paul Stryker, Andrew Johnson: A Study in Courage (New York: Macmillan, 1929).
• 46For an excellent analysis of the disastrous consequences of Franklin Roosevelt’s alliance with the bloody dictator Josef Stalin, see Amos Perlmutter, FDR and Stalin: A Not So Grand Alliance, 1943–1945 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993).
• 47Wythe Holt, “The Judiciary Act of 1789,” in The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, Kermit L. Hall, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 472–74.
• 48Adams, History of the United States, vol. 1, pp. 174–75.
• 49Edmund Pendleton, “The Danger Not Over,” October 5, 1801, reprinted in Life and Letters of Edmund Pendleton, 1734–1803, David John Mays, ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967), pp. 695–99.
• 50Ibid., p. 698.
• 51Ibid., p. 695.
• 52Ibid., pp. 698–99.
• 53Adams, History of the United States, vol. 1, pp. 173–74.
• 54Ibid., p. 177.
• 55For an excellent short discussion of Tucker and his edition of Blackstone, see St. George Tucker, View of the Constitution of the United States: With Selected Writings, Clyde Wilson, ed. (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 1999), pp. vii–xvii.
• 56Adams, History of the United States, vol. 2, pp. 398–99.
• 57Quoted in ibid., vol. 2, pp. 401–02.
• 58Ibid., pp. 402–03.
• 59M.E. Bradford, “Samuel Chase: Maryland Vesuvius,” in Against the Barbarians and Other Reflections on Familiar Themes (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992), pp. 110–12.
• 60Adams, History of the United States, vol. 2, pp. 451–66.
• 61Ibid., p. 463.
• 62Ibid.
• 63Jefferson to William Branch Giles, April 20, 1807, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, p. 1175.
• 64Adams, History of the United States, vol. 1, pp. 174, 176, 178.
• 65Jefferson to P.S. Dupont de Nemours, January 18, 1802, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, pp. 1099–1101.
• 66Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, March 29, 1801, ibid., pp. 1088–89; Jefferson to C.F. de C. Volney, February 8, 1805, ibid., p. 1158; Jefferson to Barnabas Bidwell, July 5, 1806, ibid., p. 1163.
• 67Jefferson to Gideon Granger, August 13, 1800, ibid., p. 1078.
• 68Jefferson, “Second Inaugural Address,” ibid., p. 519.
• 69Jefferson, “Sixth Annual Message,” December 2, 1806, ibid., p. 529.
• 70Ibid., p. 530.
• 71Ibid.
• 72Jefferson to Joel Barlow, February 24, 1806, ibid., p. 1160.
• 73Jefferson, “Eighth Annual Message,” November 8, 1808, ibid., p. 549 (emphasis added).
• 74Jefferson, “Eighth Annual Message,” ibid., p. 549.
• 75Malone, Jefferson the President: Second Term, 1805–1809, p. 510; Adams, History of the United States, vol. 1, p. 205.
• 76Malone, Jefferson the President: Second Term, p. 556.
• 77Jefferson, “Proclamation of April 19, 1808,” Annals of Congress (1808–09), p. 580.
• 78Adams, History of the United States, vol. 2, pp. 1111–13.
• 79Ibid., pp. 1112–13.
• 80Jefferson to Gideon Granger, August 13, 1800, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, p. 1079.
• 81Gallatin to Jefferson, December 18, 1807, quoted in Adams, History of Jefferson’s Second Administration, vol. 2, pp. 1043–44.
• 82Condy Raguet, “On the Principles of Free Trade,” Free Trade Advocate (January 1829): 2.
• 83Adams, History of the United States, vol. 2, p. 1116.
• 84Adams, History of the United States, vol. 2, p. 1081; Malone, Jefferson the President: Second Term, pp. 512, 515.
• 85John Randolph referred to the Republican desire to incorporate Canada during his famous speech on Gregg’s Resolutions in March 1806, quoted in Russell Kirk, John Randolph of Roanoke (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Press, 1978), p. 326; see also Malone, Jefferson the President: Second Term, pp. 427, 508–09. Ten days after the United States Congress declared war on Great Britain, Jefferson expressed the hope that his countrymen would invade and conquer Canada and thus “strip her [Great Britain] of all her possessions on this continent.” Jefferson to General Thaddeus Kosiusko, June 28, 1812, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, p. 1265. A year and a half later, he repeated his desire that the American army would “remove them [the British] fully and finally from our continent.”
• 86Jefferson to Madame de Tesse, December 8, 1813, ibid., p. 1316.
• 87Jefferson to Dr. Thomas Leib, June 23, 1808, ibid., pp. 1188–89.
• 88Jefferson remarked thus on his program:
• 89Adams, ibid., pp. 1204–07.
• 90See Adams’s summary of these meetings, ibid, pp. 1209–13.
• 91Ibid., pp. 1210–11.
• 92Ibid., pp. 1213–14.
• 93Ibid., p. 1215.
• 94Ibid., pp. 1214–15.
• 95Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, February 2, 1816, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, p. 1381.
• 96Jefferson, “First Inaugural Address,” ibid., p. 494.
• 97Jefferson to Gideon Granger, August 13, 1800, ibid., pp. 1079–80.
• 98Hamilton to Bayard, January 15, 1801, quoted in Adams, History of the United States, vol. 1, pp. 188–89.
• 99John Taylor to James Monroe, October 26, 1810, quoted in Richard Ellis, Jeffersonian Crisis: Courts and Politics in the Young Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 235.
• 100Quoted in Kirk, John Randolph of Roanoke, p. 92.
• 101Ibid., p. 212.
• 102Stampp, And the War Came: The North and the Secession Crisis, 1860–1861, p. 282.
• 103Tilley, Lincoln Takes Command, p. 219 (emphasis in the original).
• 104Ibid., pp. 223–24 (emphasis added).
• 105Jefferson Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (Nashville, Tenn: William Mayes Coats, 1996), vol. 1, p. 284.
• 106Ramsdell, “Lincoln and Fort Sumter,” p. 280.
• 107Tilley, Lincoln Takes Command, p. 230 (emphasis in the original).
• 108Ibid.
• 109Ibid., p. 231.
• 110Ibid., p. 233.
• 111Catton, The Coming Fury, p. 297.
• 112Tilley, Lincoln Takes Command, p. 263.
• 113Foote, The Civil War, pp. 47–48.
• 114Perkins, Northern Editorials on Secession, p. 716.
• 115Ibid., pp. 718–19 (emphasis in the original).
• 116Ibid., pp. 711–13 (emphasis in the original).
• 117Ibid., pp. 706–08 (emphasis in the original).
• 118Foote, The Civil War, p. 50.
• 119James G. Randall, Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), p. 50.
• 120Tilley, Lincoln Takes Command, p. 288.
• 121Ibid., p. 265.
• 122Ramsdell, “Lincoln and Fort Sumter,” pp. 284–85.
• 123Tilley, Lincoln Takes Command, p. 227 (emphasis added).
• 124Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. 1, pp. 292–95 (emphasis in the original).
• 125Ibid., pp. 297. Also, see explanation of Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, A Constitutional View of the War Between the States (Harrisonburg, Va.: Sprinkle Publications, 1994), vol. 2, pp. 34–36, 349. For another compact and reasonable interpretation of Lincoln’s first shot maneuver, see Stampp, And the War Came, pp. 263–86.
• 126Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “War and the Constitution: Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt,” in Lincoln The War President: The Gettysburg Lectures, Gabor S. Boritt, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 155–56; Also for other details of Lincoln’s unconstitutional conduct see James G. Randall, Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln.
• 127Tilley, Lincoln Takes Command.
• 128Ramsdell, “Lincoln and Fort Sumter,” p. 285.
• 129Tilley, Lincoln Takes Command, p. 152.
• 130Ramsdell, “Lincoln and Fort Sumter,” p. 286.
• 131Ibid.
• 132Ibid.
• 133Ibid., pp. 287–88 (emphasis added).
• 134Ibid., p. 288.
• 135Masters, Lincoln, the Man, p. 418 (emphasis added).
• 136Boritt, “War Opponent and War President,” in Lincoln, the War President: The Gettysburg Lectures, Gabor S. Boritt, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 190–91. Also, for a more full explanation of Lincoln’s attack on President Polk, see Masters, Lincoln, the Man, pp. 97–98.
• 137Mark E. Neelly, Jr., The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 213 (emphasis in the original).
• 138Boritt, ed., “War Opponent and War President,” p. 191.
• 139Ibid. (emphasis in the original).
• 140Fareed Zakaria, From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s World Role (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 48.
• 141J. Rufus Fears, ed., Essays in the History of Liberty, Selected Writings of Lord Acton (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 1985), vol. 1, p. 363.
• 142Ibid. (emphasis added).
• 143Ibid., p. 366.
• 144Carl N. Degler, “The United States and National Unification,” in Lincoln, the War President: The Gettysburg Lectures, Gabor S. Boritt, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 106.
• 145Randall, Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln, p. 57.
• 146Forrest McDonald, The American Presidency (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994), p. 400.
• 147Neally, Jr., The Fate of Liberty, pp. 10, 23.
• 148Christopher N. May, In the Name of War: Judicial Review and the War Powers Since 1918 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 19.
• 149Bart Rhett Talbert, Maryland: The South’s First Casualty (Berryville, Va.: Rockbridge, 1995), pp. 59–66 (emphasis added).
• 150John A. Marshall, American Bastile: A History of the Illegal Arrests and Imprisonment of American Citizens in the Northern and Border States, on Account of Their Political Opinions, During the Late Civil War (Wiggins, Miss.: Crown Rights, [1881] 1998), pp. 645–46.
• 151Masters, Lincoln, the Man, p. 411.
• 152Degler, “The United States and National Unification,” pp. 92–93.
• 153Ibid., pp. 95–96.
• 154Ibid., p. 102.
• 155Ibid., p. 103.
• 156Ibid., pp. 107–08.
• 157Ibid., p. 108.
• 158Charles L.C. Minor, The Real Lincoln: From the Testimony of His Contemporaries, 4th ed. (Harrisonburg, Va.: Sprinkle Publications, 1992), p. 256.
• 159Stig Forster and Gorg Nagler, eds., On the Road to Total War: The American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification, 1861–1871 (Washington, D.C.: German Historical Institute and Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 71.
• 160Ibid.
• 161Degler, “The United States and National Unification,” p. 102.
• 162Ibid., p. 106.
• 163Ibid., p. 109.
• 164Ibid., p. 108 (emphasis added).
• 165See the excellent book by Frank Van der Linden, Lincoln: The Road to War (Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum Publishing, 1998), p. 329, where the author supports this general conclusion but fails to recognize the tariff issue which caused Northern political and economic interests to demand a war to prevent Southern secession.
• 166Beach, Scapegoats, pp. 87–109.
• 167Ibid., p. 89.
• 168Ibid. (specifically for the letter of Stahlman, see pp. 203–05).
• 169Ibid., p. 95.
• 170Ibid.
• 171Ibid., pp. 96–97.
• 172Richardson, On the Treadmill to Pearl Harbor.
• 173Quoted by Beach, Scapegoats, p. 201.
• 174Ibid., p. 96.
• 175Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, p. 259.
• 176Ibid., p. 308 (emphasis in original).
• 177Ibid., p. 309.
• 178Ibid.
• 179Stimson was a close associate of the Morgan interests, a Wall Street lawyer and a protégé of Morgan’s personal attorney, Elihu Root. He served as secretary of war for Presidents Taft and Franklin Roosevelt and as secretary of state under Herbert Hoover. See Rothbard, Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy, p. 18.
• 180Ibid., pp. 27–28 (emphasis in original).
• 181Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, p. 189.
• 182Ibid., p. 298.
• 183Ibid., pp. 223–42.
• 184Ibid., p. 225.
• 185Ibid., p. 226.
• 186Ibid., p. 41; Roosevelt appointed Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts as chairman of this commission. Justice Roberts had made a speech at Madison Square Garden on August 19, 1941, advocating America’s entrance into the war as a means of achieving world government which he strongly supported.
• 187Ibid., pp. 38–50; and see Beach, Scapegoats, pp. 113–17. This is almost the same scenario that occurred with Captain Turner of the Lusitania in World War I, who was blamed for the disaster and made the scapegoat, thereby diverting the attention away from Churchill and the British government.
• 188Stinnett, Day of Deceit, p. 255.
• 189Ibid.
• 190Ibid., pp. 256–57.
• 191See Roth Amendment No. 388 to the Defense Authorization Act passed by the United States Senate for the 106th Congress, First Session May 25, 1999, and the Senate Congressional Record for May 24, 1999, Sec. 582, p. S 5879.
• 192Ibid., Senate Congressional Record, p. 5878.
• 193A new revelation of the treachery of Roosevelt has been disclosed in The Washington Times section entitled “Inside the Beltway” for the April 22, 1999 issue. This newspaper report refers to an article by Daryl S. Borgquist, a Justice Department media affairs officer. The article, Advance Warning: The Red Cross Connection,” appears in the May-June 1999 issue of Naval History magazine, published by the U.S. Naval Institute at Annapolis, Maryland. Borgquist points out that a Mrs. Helen E. Hamman wrote a letter to President Clinton, dated September 5, 1995, when she heard that the families of Admiral Kimmel and General Short were trying to clear their names in the Pearl Harbor matter. She reported that she was the daughter of Mr. Don C. Smith who died in 1990 at the age of 98. Mr. Smith directed the War Service for the Red Cross before World War II, and he informed his daughter during the 1970s that he had worried for years about the fact that he had been called to the White House shortly before the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 and had a personal meeting with President Roosevelt. The letter of Mrs. Hamman states the following account of the meeting:
• 194Schlesinger, The Imperial Presidency, p. 116.
• 195Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “War and the Constitution: Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt” in Lincoln, the War President: The Gettysburg Lectures, Gabor S. Boritt, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 174 (emphasis added).
• 196Ibid., p. 176 (emphasis added).
• 197John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, Emily Morrison Beck, ed., 14th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), p. 496.
• 198George N. Crocker, Roosevelt’s Road to Russia (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1959); and for an explanation of Roosevelt’s delivery of China to the communists, see Anthony Kubek, How the Far East Was Lost: American Policy and the Creation of Communist China, 1941–1949 (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1963); see also Perlmutter, FDR and Stalin.
• 199Rummel, Death by Government, p. 10; see also Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
• 200Rummel, Death by Government, p. 10; see generally Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purge of the Thirties (New York: Macmillan, 1968).
• 201Rummel, Death by Government, pp. 111–22.
• 202Ludwig von Mises, Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1969), p. 284 (emphasis added).
• 203Ibid., p. 286.
• 204Harry Elmer Barnes, ed., Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, p. viii.
• 205James Madison, “Political Observations,” Letters and Other Writings of James Madison (1795) (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1865), 4, pp. 491–92; also see further quotations from Madison in John V. Denson, “War and American Freedom” in The Costs of War: America’s Pyrrhic Victories, John V. Denson, ed., 2nd ed. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1999), pp. 6–11.