Japan: Day of Deceit Notes

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Page 2 of Notes from

Day of Deceit, the Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor
by Robert B. Stinnett

"The number one problem for the United States, according to McCollum, was mobilizing public support for a declaration of war against the Axis powers... McCollum's proposal, triggered by the Tirpartite Pact, is the only verifiable evidence of the American policy.

In May, 1940 FDR met with Cordell Hull and Frank Knox and decided to base the U.S. Fleet in Hawaii [WPM: despite the need to protect shipping in the Atlantic from German subs]. "Their suggestion raised the immediate ire of Richardson, who began a five-month argument to return the fleet to the West Coast. He lost the battle on October 8 [1940], a day after McCollum wrote his memorandum." [14] [WPM: This would seem to argue the the McCollum memo paralleled FDR's policy, rather than initiating it.]

FDR ran on a peace platform when he ran for a third term in 1940 [WPM becoming President for Life, and for that matter Commander in Chief for life]. At the same time he talked peace to the voters, he told his staff, "Of course, we'll fight if we are attacked. If somebody attacks us, then it isn't a foreign war, is it?" [17]

Vice-Admiral James Richardson stated his military objections to stationing the fleet in Hawaii, including a lack of proper facilities like dry docks, machine shops, tugs and repair ships. He asked "Are we here as a stepping-off place for belligerent activity? " [18-19]

In 1940 the Navy already had a vast network for tracking ships in the Pacific Ocean using their radio signals, and breaking their cryptographic codes. For example, they "traced the Pacific Ocean routes taken by eight of Japan's tankers from October 1 to December 6, 1940." Most of Japan's oil was being obtained in California despite an alleged American oil embargo. [20] Two of the tankers so traced, the Kyokuto Maru and Shiriya, later became part of the Pearl Harbor strike force, and were radio-IDed again at that time. [21]

Critical to the book's argument, "During the last days of September and first week of October 1940, a team of Army and Navy cryptographers solved the two principle Japanese government code systems: Purple, the major diplomatic code, and portions of the Kaigun Ango, a series of twenty-nine separate Japanese naval operational codes used for ratio contact with warships, merchant vessels, naval bases, and the personnel in overseas posts, such as naval attachés." [21]

The public was purposefully deceived about the breaking of the codes in order to hide the truth about the Battle of Pearl Harbor. Congress was told in official investigations that the codes were not broken until 1942, but they were solved in the fall of 1940, a full year before the war began. [22] "By the end of January, 1941, President Roosevelt was on the receiving list of the Kaigun Ango, according to the White House route logs prepared by Arthur McCollum. [23]

In September, 1940, FDR proposed and Congress passed legislation that appropriated $5 billion for a two-ocean Navy that would eventually include 100 aircraft carriers [25]. [WPM: Japan maxed out at 10 aircraft carriers, when the war began, lost 4 at Midway, and never recovered] FDR believed that Republican opposition to his re-election was directed by the Axis powers. [27]

Details the Pearl Harbor leak mentioned in other books: Yamamoto circulated his plan to a number of Japanese naval officers. Someone told Ricard Schreiber, the Peruvian Minister to Japan, who told Max Bishop, Third Secretary to the US. embassy in Tokyo, who told Ambassador Joseph Grew, who told Secretary of State Cordell Hull by telegraph on January 30, 1941, who in turn passed the information to the Army and Navy. [30-31]

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