Pearl Harbor after a Quarter of a Century
Harry Elmer Barnes
VIII: How We Entered War with
Japan
Four Days before
Pearl
Harbor
“. . . Roosevelt had approved an agreement that the
United States would go to war to protect the interests and territory of
allies in the Antipodes, thousands of miles from the United States,
without even the semblance of an attack on the United States by Japan. .
. . 
The
ABCD agreement and Rainbow 5 hung like a sword of Damocles over
Roosevelt’s head. It exposed him to the most dangerous dilemma of his
political career: to start a war without an attack on the American
forces or territory . . . . He
apparently . . . had felt confident that Hitler would give him a valid
pretext for war on the Atlantic. But when Hitler had failed to provide
a suitable provocative act it became apparent that the United States
must enter the war through the back door of Japan.”
—Harry Elmer Barnes
Our
naval losses at Pearl Harbor that resulted from the surprise attack
there have become a major item in American and world history primarily
because it is almost universally believed that it was the Japanese
attack that brought the
United States into war with
Japan. Actually, the United States had been put into war with
Japan by the action of the Dutch authorities at Batavia, approved by the
Dutch government, on December 3rd, Washington time, four days before the
Japanese struck at Pearl Harbor.
Roosevelt
remarked, when, about 9:30 P.M. on December 6th, he read the first
thirteen parts of the Japanese reply to Hull’s ultimatum of November 26th, that “This means war.” He
had known by the forenoon of the 6th, if not two days earlier, that we
were already involved in war with
Japan. How this had come about requires a brief review of the
plans, arrangements and agreements whereby the United States could be
involved in war without any attack by Japan upon American territory,
forces or flag, a situation which was a repudiation of Roosevelt’s
promises to the American people and of the Democratic platform of 1940.
They were the ultimate development and implementation of Captain
Ingersoll’s visit to
Europe
in the winter of 1937-38.
Unneutral
American acts even prior to Roosevelt’s election in 1940 on the platform
of avoiding war had furnished Germany with a legitimate basis for making
war on the United States. Such were the Destroyer Deal of September,
1940, and the allotting of large quantities of arms and ammunition to
the British. Immediately following the election of 1940, plans to
involve us in war with
Japan
got under way in real earnest, in case the Axis Powers should not rise
to the bait afforded by “Lend Lease” and convoying on the
Atlantic.
These have been mentioned earlier but may be reviewed here.
Anglo-American
joint-staff conferences in Washington held from January through March, 1941, drew up general
plans for cooperation in war against the European Axis Powers and also
envisaged a containing war with
Japan. They were known as the ABC-1 plans (land and sea) and
ABC-2 (air). In April, another conference was held in
Singapore, and the Dutch were brought in more directly through ABD.
While still regarding Germany as the main immediate enemy, provisions
were also made for joint action against Japan if the latter proceeded
beyond the line 100° East and 10° North or 6° North and the Davao-Waigeo
line, or menaced British or Dutch possessions in the southwest Pacific
or independent countries in that area. This agreement between the
United States, the British and the Dutch was known as ADB. Together,
the agreements were known as ABCD. Stimson and Knox approved the ABC-1
plan for the
United
States to make it look good for the record. Although approving
them verbally,
Roosevelt
did not officially sponsor these agreements in writing and they did not
call for congressional approval. Marshall and Stark balked at ADB and
its inclusion in ABCD because it introduced political considerations in
a military program, but they had to play along with Roosevelt and did so
to the very end in early December, 1941.
When
the joint-staff conferences were over, the American military services
drew up specific war plans to implement these staff agreements ending in
ABCD. The joint Army and Navy basic war plan was known as Rainbow 5,
also usually called WPL 46 in relation to naval operation in the
Pacific. The subsidiary part that related to the operations of the
Pacific fleet under Admiral Kimmel was known as WPPac 46. It was
developed to implement the basic war plan and to coordinate the Pacific
fleet operations with the provisions of Rainbow 5 (WPL 46).
Roosevelt
apparently had indicated to Marshall and Stark that he intended to place
the basic war plans before Congress prior to their being implemented,
but whether he so intended or not, he had failed to do so when his hand
was called on December 5th and 6th. The essence of the matter is that
Roosevelt had approved an agreement that the United States would go to
war to protect the interests and territory of allies in the Antipodes,
thousands of miles from the United States, without even the semblance of
an attack on the United States by Japan. On the heels of these ABCD
agreements and the derived war plans, Admiral Stark, when promulgating
Rainbow 5 (WPL 46), sent word to his admirals in leading outposts that
the question of war was no longer a matter of whether, but of
when and where. Marshall distributed Rainbow 5 to his field
commanders, and Roosevelt unofficially approved it in May and June.
The
ABCD agreement and Rainbow 5 hung like a sword of Damocles over
Roosevelt’s head. It exposed him to the most dangerous dilemma of
his political career: to start a war without an attack on the American
forces or territory, or refusing to follow up the implementation of ABCD
and Rainbow 5 by
Britain or the Dutch. The latter would lead to serious
controversy and quarrels among the prospective allies, with the
disgruntled powers leaking
Roosevelt’s
complicity in the plan and exposing his mendacity.
He
apparently took this risk rather lightly until July, 1941, because he
had felt confident that Hitler would give him a valid pretext for war on
the Atlantic. But when Hitler had failed to provide a suitable
provocative act it became apparent that the
United States must enter the war through the back door of
Japan. When the latter had been consigned to economic
strangulation in July 1941, when the back door plan had apparently been
definitely implemented at the Argentia meeting, and when the peace
efforts of Konoye had been rejected, this agreement to start a war on
Japan without an attack on American forces or territory became a
pressing and serious political problem for Roosevelt if he wished to
have a united country behind him to support his war effort. It became
increasingly so when the Japanese began to send extensive convoys of
troops and equipment into the southwest Pacific in November. These
convoys might pass the magic line specified by the ABCD agreement, and
the Dutch, British and Australians might call his hand by invoking the
American promise to act jointly against the Japanese as envisaged in
ABCD and Rainbow 5 (WPL 46). The matter of getting a suitable Japanese
attack somewhere now became the most vital of all
Roosevelt’s
political problems. There would no longer be any serious difficulty in
inciting
Japan
to accept war, but Japan had to commit the “first overt act” and it had to be
against the
United
States.
There
was always the probability that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor
because this action had been implicit in Pacific naval strategy for
years, but a Japanese task-force attack at Hawaii involved a long ocean voyage and there was always a
possibility that it might be intercepted en route. It was this
consideration, as well as the fact that this belated plan might also
save the fleet at Pearl Harbor, which led Roosevelt to turn to his
“three small vessels” stratagem on December 1st, to which reference has
already been made several times.
Roosevelt
appears to have obtained his inspiration to set up this scheme through
reports of the menacing attitude and behavior of Japanese naval ships
toward two American Yangtse River gunboats, the Luzon and Oahu,
as they approached and passed Formosa on a voyage from Shanghai to
Manila on November 29th and 30th (Washington time). Hitherto, the
Japanese had not paid any serious attention to routine American ship
movements off the coast of Asia But on the 29th and 30th, they all but
fired on the gunboats Luzon and Oahu.
On
December 1st, immediately after his return from Warm Springs, Roosevelt
summoned Admiral Stark and instructed him to order Admiral Hart,
commander of the Asiatic fleet stationed at Manila, to select, equip and
man three “small vessels” which could move out into the path of the
Japanese task forces going southward and draw fire from Japanese planes
or ships, thus giving Roosevelt his all-important and indispensable
attack, and one that was on an American ship. The ostensible purpose of
equipping and sending out the three “small vessels,” as explained by
Stark to Hart, was to have them carry out reconnaissance operations
relative to Japanese ship movements and to reports—to act as a
“defensive information patrol.”
Admiral
Hart, as also did Stark, recognized from the outset that any such
operation for these little ships was palpably “phony.” Hart was
carrying out the needed reconnaissance and reporting the results to
Washington. For this he had suitable vessels and planes, while for
such a role the use of the three “small vessels” was nothing short of
fantastic. To retain Hart’s respect, Stark had made it clear that the
whole conception of equipping and dispatching the three “small vessels”
for reconnaissance was Roosevelt’s and not his, a fact which Mrs.
Wohlstetter characteristically conceals in her treatment of the three
“small vessels” episode.
Only
two of the “small vessels” had been made ready to sail out into the path
of the Japanese convoys and invite attack before the Japanese struck at
Pearl Harbor. To get this baiting stratagem under way promptly,
Roosevelt had Stark suggest to Hart that he might use the converted
yacht Isabel, which had been made over into the dispatch boat of
the Asiatic fleet and the Japanese had been acquainted with its identity
for some time. Hart realized that on this assignment the Isabel
was to be bait for a Japanese attack, which displeased him since the
vessel was very useful to the fleet. Yet he did not wish to seem to be
defying the President’s wishes. He sensibly solved his dilemma by
sending the Isabel out as directed but under instructions which
rendered it as unlikely as possible to be attacked and sunk by the
Japanese. These instructions were directly contrary to
Roosevelt’s plans and intentions, and Hart knew they were. The
Isabel was not even repainted before being dispatched, which assured
that the Japanese would be able to recognize it, and the sailing orders
given by Hart were such as to make it appear very unlikely to the
Japanese that it was a provocative “man-o-war.”
These
precautions may well have saved the Isabel from attack, the
Japanese recognized it and were not stupid or rash enough to fire on it.
Although out on its mission for some five days, only one Japanese plane
even buzzed the Isabel. Despite his protective directions Hart
had feared that the Isabel would be sunk, and he told the
commander when he returned that he had never expected to see him alive
again after his departure. If the Isabel episode had been
handled in the manner that Roosevelt wished and provided the maximum
provocation to trigger-happy Japanese pilots or gunners there might not
have been any attack on Pearl Harbor and the fleet there could have been saved.
The
second “small vessel,” the little schooner Lanikai, which was
commanded by Lieutenant (now Admiral) Kemp Tolley, although equipped
with a cannon and machine gun to bait the Japanese into thinking it was
a warship, had only a dilapidated radio unfit either to receive or
transmit messages. If Tolley had seen the whole Japanese fleet
assembled in front of him he could not have sent back any report.
Although Tolley at once reported its useless condition, there was no
attempt to replace his radio equipment and provide him with suitable
instruments to report his observations. The Lanikai was awaiting
dawn on December 7th to leave the entrance to
Manila
Bay
and expose itself to Japanese gunfire when news came of the attack on
Pearl Harbor
and the “small vessel” turned back. The combination of the utter lack
of usable radio equipment and the haste shown in trying to get the
Lanikai manned and sent out in the path of Japanese planes and ships
provides the best evidence of the real purpose of the “three small
vessels” scheme. The third “small vessel” had not even been selected
because of lack of time, but there is no reason to believe that it would
have been superior in nature or equipment to the Lanikai.
Roosevelt’s
timing of the three “small vessels” stratagem was, as noted earlier,
much too belated to work out as he had hoped. The order to equip and
dispatch them should have been issued at least as early as
Hull’s ultimatum of November 26th. As a result of Hart’s
sensible evasion of
Roosevelt’s
wishes, the Isabel sought to avert a Japanese attack. The
Lanikai was not able to put to sea effectively to challenge Japanese
fire before the attack on Pearl Harbor on the 7th, and, as will be shown
shortly, the United States had been already involved in war with Japan
without any attack on this country through the Dutch implementation of
the ABCD agreement and Rainbow 5 (Rainbow A-2 for the Dutch) on December
3rd, Washington time. Roosevelt gave the order concerning the three
“small vessels” as soon as the idea occurred to him, but he appears to
have forgotten the Panay incident of 1937 and he could not have
known of the menacing Japanese behavior toward the Luzon and
Oahu before the afternoon or evening of November 30th. Hence, he
could not have sent out the order to equip and dispatch the “three small
vessels” before he did on the forenoon of December 1st as soon as he
returned from Warm Springs. The brilliant and ingenious inspiration
came too late.
That
the United States was involved in war with Japan by 10:40 A.M. on the
morning of December 6th because of the British invocation of ABCD and
Rainbow 5 has been shown in detail by Charles A. Beard in his book
President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War 1941 and by George
Morgenstern in his chapter (6) in Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace.
But there was authentic evidence presented during the post-war Pearl
Harbor investigations that this country was actually involved in war
with Japan by December 3rd, Washington time, when the Dutch at Batavia,
with the approval of the home government, invoked the ABCD agreement and
Rainbow 5 (A-2) because Japanese forces had passed the line 100 East and
10 North and was thought to be threatening the Dutch possessions as well
as the Kra Peninsula and Thailand. The Dutch reported that the Japanese
might arrive within sixty hours.
This
astonishing information was revealed in the so-called Merle-Smith
message sent out of
Melbourne,
Australia, on the morning of December 5, 1941 (December 4th,
Washington time) to Generals MacArthur and Short. It is remarkable
that even most American revisionist historians have missed its full
significance. The essential facts about the message were noted by
George Morgenstern in his Pearl Harbor, published in 1947 and the
first comprehensive book on the subject, and some six years later by
Percy L. Greaves on pages 430-431 of Perpetual War for Perpetual
Peace. But Morgenstern and Greaves failed to follow through because
they accepted as valid the official statement by
Washington
that the Merle-Smith message did not reach
Washington
until 7:58 on the evening of December 7th, several hours after the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The
full import of the Merle-Smith message was first revealed by Commander
Hiles in the spring of 1967, and it was precisely mentioned and briefly
described a little later by Ladislas Farago in his book The Broken
Seal (Chapter 26) but Farago, who learned the significance of the
message from Hiles, did not develop its full significance.
Colonel
Van S. Merle-Smith was the American military attache in
Melbourne,
Australia, in December, 1941, and his aide was Lieutenant Robert H.
O’Dell. Most of our information about this Merle-Smith message comes
from the testimony of O’Dell before the Clarke Inquiry and the Army
Pearl Harbor Board in 1944, especially the testimony before Colonel
Carter W. Clarke, who allowed O’Dell to testify in straightforward
fashion. Merle-Smith had died in the interval between 1941 and 1944.
About
5:00 P.M. on Thursday, December 4th, Australian time (Wednesday,
December 3rd, Washington time), Merle-Smith and O’Dell were invited to a
conference at which were present Air Chief Marshal Charles Burnett,
commander of the Australian air force, and Commander Saom, the Dutch
liaison officer from Batavia.
Burnett
told Merle-Smith that he had received information from Vice-Admiral C.
E. L. Helfrich, commander-in-chief of the Dutch Navy in the East Indies,
that Japanese naval forces had crossed the magic line of 100 East and 10
North and were threatening the Dutch or American possessions. Commander
Saom then informed Burnett, for the special benefit of Merle-Smith, that
the Dutch authorities in Batavia had ordered the execution of ABCD, and
Rainbow 5 (A-2), the Dutch phase of Rainbow 5, which was to be invoked
only in the case of war. He further told Burnett and Merle-Smith
that the order to execute Rainbow 5 (A-2) had already gone into effect
and that the Dutch counted on the assistance of the American Navy.
Burnett then brought the conference to a close because he had to attend
an Australian War Council meeting that evening.
When
Merle-Smith returned to his office, he discussed this sensational
information with Captain Charles A. Coursey, the American naval attache
at
Melbourne, but the latter apparently declined to send any warning to
naval authorities in cooperation with Merle-Smith. If he sent one to
Hart, Kimmel or Stark it must have been suppressed and destroyed later
on. Merle-Smith remained determined to alert MacArthur and Short.
Hence, he drafted an identical message to each of them, and ordered
O’Dell to code it, which was done. At Burnett’s request by telephone
that evening the message was held up until the forenoon of December 5th,
Australian time (December 4th,
Washington time.) It was sent to MacArthur and Short by fast
cablegram about 11:00 A.M. the morning of the 5th, Australian time (4th
for
Washington). Short was requested to decode and read it and then
transmit it to
Washington. The message should have reached
Manila and
Fort
Shafter on the early afternoon of the fifth (the 4th at
Washington),
and Short could have been able to forward the message to
Washington before evening.
The
evidence indicates that the message was not decoded by Short at Fort
Shafter, possibly due to lack of trained personnel or proper code keys,
but was sent on to Washington, where it was suppressed for at least two,
and possibly three, days. It could have reached the Army Signal Corps
in Washington during the evening or night of December 4th,
Washington
time, since it was sent from Melbourne to
Hawaii at about 11:00 A.M. on December 5th, Australian time, or
December 4th,
Washington time. According to the official Signal Corps report in
Washington, however, the Merle-Smith message was not received in
Washington until 7:59 P.M. on December 7th.
Commander
Hiles has cogently pointed out that this alleged late arrival of the
Merle-Smith cable in
Washington is most probably a fraudulent evasion: “We are not dealing
here with intercepts of Japanese messages but with regular service
communications whereby such functions normally proceed promptly and in
an orderly fashion. Encoded messages from military attaches in time of
crisis such as this one do not lie around neglected unless for ulterior
purposes of no honest portent or through gross negligence.”
At
any rate, nothing in the Merle-Smith message was sent back to Short
after being decoded and read by the Signal Corps in Washington. Had it been sent back to Short in full immediately after
it should have been received and processed, it could have produced a
full alert at
Hawaii
on the early morning of the 5th, Washington time. It certainly could have been sent back to Short in
time to produce an alert during the 5th,
Washington
time, and averted the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. When O’Dell was
called to testify before the Army Pearl Harbor Board, the government only presented a paraphrase of the
original Merle-Smith message which arbitrarily changed some of the dates
and modified the content in other places. For instance, it represented
the defensive action of the Dutch and Australian planes as starting at
8:00 A.M. on the 7th, when this actually took place on December 5th,
Australian time, or December 4th Washington time. Even the original
copy of the Merle-Smith message in the Clarke Inquiry exhibits bears a
phony date for the transmission of the message from
Melbourne, giving it as December 6th when it should have been the
5th, Australian time, or the 4th
Washington time.
The
crucial and decisive news about the ominous movement of a Japanese
convoy beyond the magic line established by the ABCD agreement and
Rainbow 5 (Rainbow Plan A-2 to the Dutch in this instance) and the
defensive action of the Australian and Dutch planes, which had been
confided to Merle-Smith on the afternoon of the 4th and morning of the
5th, Australian time (3rd and 4th Washington time), definitely meant
that Holland, Great Britain and the United States were now committed to
war with Japan. The Far Eastern situation was in full conformity with
the ABCD agreement and Rainbow 5 (A-2), as confirmed by the American
“War Cabinet,” made up of Roosevelt, Stimson, Hull, Knox, Marshall and
Stark, at noon on November 28th.
The
United States, Britain and the Dutch were already discussing the
critical situation created by the obligations under ABD, ABCD and
Rainbow 5 (A-2) and the southward movement of Japanese forces even
before the Merle-Smith message could have reached Washington. At 5:30
P. M. on December 4th, Admiral Stark was advising London that the Dutch
warning of the possibility of a Japanese attack against the Philippines
and the Netherland East Indies could not be ruled out, and went on to
say: “If Dutch authorities consider some warning should be given Japan
CNO [Stark] believes that it should take the form of a declaration to
Japan that in view of the current situation Japanese naval vessels or
expeditionary forces crossing the Davao-Waigeo line would be considered
hostile and would be attacked. Communicate these views to the Admiralty
and Dutch Naval Command in London.” In discussing this statement with
Hull, Stark indicated that he had shown it to
Roosevelt
and the latter had approved it. If
Washington
had been directly and independently informed of the Australian-Dutch
action on the afternoon of December 3rd or the 4th (Washington time) before the Merle-Smith message could have arrived
there is no record of it.
The
next move to activate the understanding and actions related to ABCD and
Rainbow 5 came on the early evening of the 5th when Lord Halifax, the
British ambassador in Washington, called on Secretary Hull at his
apartment in the Carlton Hotel, and informed Hull, who had already been
well primed by Stark’s message to London on the 4th, that the British
Foreign Office believed that the time had now come for the immediate
cooperation of the British and Americans with the Dutch in defending the
Far East against the Japanese movements in the southwest Pacific
according to the ABCD agreement and Rainbow 5. Hull may have told
Halifax that Stark’s message to London, and also informing the Dutch, on
the afternoon of the 4th, approved by Roosevelt, indicated that the
latter agreed with Halifax. At any rate,
Hull
expressed his “appreciation” of Halifax’s call and information, and
Halifax left, apparently content. At least, he informed
London
that the United States would back up the implementation of the ABCD
agreement and Rainbow 5 (A-2) by the Dutch and Australians with armed
support.
London
sent this critically important information to Air Chief Marshal Sir
Robert Brooke-Popham, commander of the British forces in the Far East,
with headquarters in
Singapore. Brooke-Popham forthwith informed Captain John H.
Creighton, the American naval observer in Singapore, about the
definitive message he had received from London that the United States
was approving the Anglo-Dutch implementation of ABCD. Creighton
immediately sent the information to Admiral Hart at
Manila.
On
December 6th, two messages from the American ambassador in London, John
G. Winant, were received in Washington and were immediately put into the
hands of Roosevelt and Hull. The first reached Roosevelt and
Hull at 10:40 A.M.; and the second at 3:05 P.M. The first
called attention to the Japanese violation of the magic line in the
Far East and to the threat to the Dutch and British possessions and
independent countries in the Southwest Pacific. The second gave further
information about the menacing Japanese movements and stated that
Britain was hard-pressed for time in getting information from the United
States that was needed to be able to guarantee the protection of
Thailand, which the Dutch had reported on December 3rd might by reached
by the Japanese in sixty hours.
These
two messages confirmed the information given by Halifax to Hull on the
evening of the 5th to the effect that Britain regarded the situation in
the Far East as activating the ABCD agreement for Anglo-American-Dutch
cooperation in the Far East to repel Japan in that region. The
conditions required for cooperation and war according to ABCD and
Rainbow 5, and the decision of the
Washington War Cabinet on November 28th had all been met by the
Japanese movements.
The
crucial agreement that war against Japan had now begun in the Far East
was made in an all-important top secret conference at the White House on
the afternoon of the 6th at which Roosevelt, Hull, Halifax and Robert G.
Casey, the Australian Minister in Washington, were present. Halifax was
apparently satisfied that Roosevelt was backing up Hull’s response of
the previous evening, for he at once informed the British Foreign Office
to that effect. Indeed, there had never been any valid reason for
imagining that Roosevelt would repudiate his agreements under ABCD and
Rainbow 5, as much as he may have regretted having to enter a war before
he had an attack on either one of the three “small vessels” or on
Pearl Harbor.
As was usual in such vital situations,
Roosevelt
kept no notes or official record of this crucially significant
conference on the afternoon of the 6th.
Roosevelt
had given Halifax and Casey this confirmation without in any way
informing or consulting Congress. Although he approved the
Anglo-Dutch-Australian implementation of ABCD and Rainbow 5 that
involved war in the Far East with full American participation, he
informed Casey that he would postpone public announcement of this fact
until Tuesday, December 9th, when he would officially warn
Japan. Doubtless, this decision to delay was based on the hope
that in the interval between Saturday and Tuesday he would get the
desperately desired news of an attack on either one of the three “small
vessels” or on
Pearl Harbor.
He would have preferred the former but he got the latter.
The
first definite information given to an American representative in the
Far East that Roosevelt had confirmed the participation of the United
States in the war that was now under way after having been initiated by
the Dutch implementation of ABCD and Rainbow 5 (A-2) on Wednesday,
December 3rd, Washington time, came in the precise and conclusive
statement of Air Marshal Brooke-Popham to Captain Creighton at Singapore
to which reference has already been made. This contained
London’s
confirmation that Roosevelt had approved the Dutch and British implementation of
Rainbow 5. Captain Creighton sent this information to Admiral Hart from
Singapore on December 6th, at which time Hart was being visited by
Vice-Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, who had just been placed in command of
all British naval forces in
China. Hart showed the Creighton message to Phillips, who
immediately departed to return to
Singapore. As he left Hart’s office, the latter told him that he
would send the American destroyers then based on Borneo to aid Phillips
and the British naval forces, thus confirming the agreement that the
United States was at war in the Far East.
The
importance of the Creighton statement, in establishing the case against
Roosevelt in regard to the violation of his “sacred” promises to
“American fathers and mothers” and his repudiation of the Democratic
platform of 1940 by abandoning his assurance that this country would not
enter war without an attack on American forces, is emphasized by the
desperate effort made during the Joint Congressional Committee
Investigation of Pearl Harbor in 1945-46 to blot out the validity, if
not the very existence, of Creighton’s crucial statement that he sent to
Hart.
By
this time Admiral Hart had retired from military service and was a U.S.
Senator from
Connecticut. When Senator Ferguson pressed him about the Brooke-Popham
message before the JCC, he “passed the buck” and refused to discuss it,
stating that Creighton, who was to follow him on the witness-stand, was
the best qualified person to know the facts. Creighton was not present
but he heard about Hart’s statement, contacted Hart, and told him that
he had no knowledge whatever that any such message as that from Brooke-Popham
and allegedly forwarded by him to Hart had ever existed. Hart informed
Creighton that he had the latter’s own copy with him in a locked case
and directed that Creighton should come at once to get it for his
testimony the next day. Creighton did so and had it in his possession
when he appeared the next day before the Joint Congressional Committee.
He was compelled to produce it and admitted that it must be authentic
because it bore his code signature and was signed in
Singapore. When, even then, Creighton persisted in maintaining that
he could not recall ever having sent such a message and, if he did, his
statements therein were only a matter of hearsay, Senator Barkley,
chairman of the JCC, came to Creighton’s rescue and by devious rhetoric
was able to dismiss this critically important message as nothing more
than a rumor. It was emasculated and buried despite
Ferguson’s efforts, which were really not up to par on this
occasion. Senator Brewster might have done much better.
There
were a number of disillusioning collapses of integrity on the part of
witnesses during the post-Pearl Harbor investigations but probably no
other was as pathetic as that of Creighton. His behavior on the stand
has been exposed and castigated by Beard and Morgenstern, although they
and other fair-minded students of the affair have recognized the
tremendous pressure that seems to have been exerted on Creighton to
falsify his testimony, which may have been even greater and more
intimidating than was evident on the surface at the time when he was
testifying before the JCC. This had happened with other witnesses whose
testimony departed impressively from the facts with which they were
acquainted.
A
friend of mine, who was very familiar with military Magic and messages
and the post-Pearl Harbor investigations and was a personal friend of
Creighton, has informed me that the latter was, at the time of his
testimony before the JCC, already sadly afflicted with a serious
tropical disease contracted at Singapore that had virtually ruined his
memory. His health failed steadily and he died prematurely. Hence, it
is possible that Creighton actually could not remember the message he
had sent to Hart. In that case, his condition should have been
recognized and he should not have been subjected to the ordeal of
testifying. If this is not the explanation, then he was either
obviously intimidated or was consciously trying to put on a show to
muddle up the Brooke-Popham episode. Fortunately, it does not really
matter for other corroborative evidence we now have enables us to
complete the picture and the patterns.
While
we are discussing testimony, it may be well to call attention to the
nature of O’Dell’s testimony before the Clarke Inquiry and the Army
Pearl Harbor Board. O’Dell knew he was in on a big secret, had heard of
the Pearl Harbor investigations, and wanted to get his story into the
record. He had stirred up too much curiosity safely to be ignored. As
it turned out, it would have been better for the
Roosevelt
record to have ignored him. The Clarke Inquiry had been designed solely
to deal with the question of military Magic for General Marshall, and
O’Dell was the only witness that Clarke called who did not have some
relation with Magic, of which O’Dell knew nothing. But he could not
prudently be ignored any longer and apparently Clarke thought he would
let O’Dell testify and then leave his story to be buried in the record.
It
is quite evident that Clarke and Gibson, his assistant, were nonplussed
when O’Dell got started and poured forth like an opened floodgate,
letting more cats out of the bag than any other witness in any of the
post-Pearl Harbor investigations. He was one of the few witnesses who
did not have to be prompted or have information wormed out of him; he
could not get it out fast enough. It was vital information,
spontaneously offered and with no punches pulled, and his testimony was
dynamite for the defenders of the Administration. This is emphatically
proved by the bogus three-day delay alleged by
Washington in “receiving” the Merle-Smith message. Although it could
have reached
Washington
by the evening of the 4th, Washington time, and must have arrived by the 5th, it has been
represented as arriving at 7:58 P.M. on the 7th, hours after the attack
on
Pearl Harbor. When
the Army
Pearl Harbor
Board examined O’Dell later on the same day, they treated him far more
cautiously, and produced only the partly falsified paraphrase of the
Merle-Smith message and sought unsuccessfully to confuse O’Dell. The
Joint Congressional Committee very carefully kept O’Dell from testifying
at all, even in the light of the vital material he had revealed before
Clarke and the APHB.
When,
by the afternoon of December 6th, Roosevelt recognized that war in the
Far East was under way beyond possible recall he decided to send to the
Japanese Emperor his appeal for peace which had been discussed with
Hull and others but left unsent for some time. He summoned his
personal secretary and dictated the final revision of the message to the
Emperor which he sent off to
Hull to be dispatched to Hirohito. Both Roosevelt and
Hull
recognized and Hull openly admitted, that this was solely for the record.”
That his “record” was understandably much on Roosevelt’s mind during
the evening of the 6th is apparent from his remark to Harry Hopkins when
Lieutenant Schulz brought him the first thirteen parts of the Japanese
reply to Hull’s ultimatum at about 9:30.
It
is also highly probable that the report of the very relaxed condition of
Roosevelt
when he received the message brought by Schulz was also prepared for the
“record.” It is repeated by Farago, right on the heels of a crisp
summary of how Roosevelt had a few hours before put this country into
war, even if not attacked, in violation of his assurances to American
fathers and mothers and the 1940 platform and campaign pledges. It is
far more likely that Roosevelt’s state of mind was more like that of
Wellington who, when on the afternoon of June 18, 1815, Napoleon’s army
at the Battle of Waterloo seemed within reach of victory, looked
nervously at his watch and, according to the legend, wished “for night
or Blucher” (the Prussian general who was bringing decisive armed aid to
Wellington.) On the evening of Decmeber 6, 1941, Roosevelt was longing
for news of an attack on American forces on one of the three “small
vessels” or at Pearl Harbor. These had now exhausted the only
possibilities for a surprise Japanese attack on American forces or
territory.
The
material reviewed in this section makes all the more edifying and
illuminating Roosevelt’s remark about 9:30 on Saturday evening, after he
read the first thirteen parts of the Japanese reply to Hull: “This means war!” Before 4:00 P.M. on the preceding
afternoon, at the very latest, he must have learned that the Dutch had
unleashed the fateful chain of events that had put this country into war
on the previous Wednesday. His remark to
Hopkins that: “We have a good record” does not look so “good”
against the facts, implications and results of the Merle-Smith message.
Roosevelt’s sole responsibility for the surprise attack on
Pearl
Harbor may still be debated for years. There is little ground
for valid debate in connection with the reality and results of the
secret ABCD commitments to the Dutch and British under which he had
placed this country and would surely have immediately brought us into
active warfare with Japan even if Pearl Harbor had not been
attacked.
While
the attack on Pearl Harbor may have saved Roosevelt’s political record
at home, from the point of view of Japanese military interests it would
certainly have been far better for the Japanese to have refrained from
attacking
Pearl Harbor.
They would have gained much more from Roosevelt’s desperate
embarrassment end formidable handicaps in being involved in a war that
started in the distant East Indies without any attack on American forces
or territory or Congressional sanction than they did by sinking the
battleships at Pearl Harbor and uniting the country behind Roosevelt’s
war effort. War started under such circumstances as the invocation of
Rainbow 5 (A2) in behalf of the Antipodes could have provided a Roman
holiday for the anti-interventionist forces in the United States led by
America First.
Forward to Chapter IX
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