PEARL HARBOR: ROOSEVELT’S 9/11 ;)r "their" "PLAYBOOK" is old , tried, worn the fuck out ... aren't ya just get~in fuck~in fed up wit em HUH ? time fer em 2 go !!! ...um oh yea, nobody reads any~thin anymore ...so it will B same old same old ? till the "only" war on ...willlll B fuck~in .....u Oops ... than there will b a God hum :o
http://jimmarrs.com/news_events/news/pearl-harbor-roosevelts-911/
FALSE FLAG EVENTS DETAILED DEPT.
The anniversary of December 7, 1941, that “Day of Infamy” has rolled around once again. But by 2014, the term “infamy” can now be applied to President Franklin D. Roosevelt rather than the manipulated Japanese commanders who organized the air attack on Pearl Harbor. Here is the link to James Perloff’s excellent, if lengthy, documentation on the treasonous plot that resulted in almost 2,000 servicemen’s lives. I personally met the son of the Dutch submarine commander who tracked the Japanese fleet to Pearl Harbor. His information was relayed to Washington but nothing was done. I also recall a small newspaper clipping from the 1970s in which a former FBI agent stationed in Pearl Harbor confessed that he had learned of the attack almost a week before it occurred. Finally, in my book “Rule by Secrecy,” I wrote of the interception by German Intelligence of a private trans-Atlantic phone call between Roosevelt and Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill on November 26, 1941, in which Churchill warned the American president of the impending “surprise” attack. It is no longer a controversy — it is historic fact that the attack on Pearl Harbor was instigated at the highest levels in Washington. And, if this incenses you, just wait until you finally learn the truth about the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Jim
http://jamesperloff.com/2014/11/06/pearl-harbor-roosevelts-911/
False flags do not stand alone. They are
better understood – and more credibly explained to skeptics – when seen
in history’s context.
On the morning of December 7, 1941,
Japanese planes, launched from aircraft carriers, attacked the American
fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, sinking or heavily damaging 18 ships
(including eight battleships), destroying 188 planes, and leaving over
2,000 servicemen killed.
The next day, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt denounced this “day of infamy” before Congress, from whom he
secured an avid declaration of war.
Up until then, however, Americans had
overwhelmingly opposed involvement in World War II. They had been
thoroughly disillusioned by the First World War:
- although they had been told they would be fighting for “democracy” in that previous war, taxpayers learned from the postwar Graham Committee of Congress that they’d been defrauded out of some $6 billion in armaments that were never manufactured or delivered1;
- atrocity tales about German soldiers (such as cutting the hands off thousands of Belgian children) had turned out to be fabrications;
- the sinking of the Lusitania – the central provocation that ultimately led to the U.S. declaration of war – had been committed by Germany not to kill women and children (as propaganda claimed), but to prevent tens of tons of war munitions from reaching the European front. (Click here for a debunking of the Lusitania myth.)
When the Maine sank, the proactive Assistant Secretary of the Navy had been Teddy Roosevelt. After the 1898 Spanish-American War
he became governor of New York, and by 1901 was President of the United
States. When the Lusitania sank, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy
was his distant cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt – who likewise went on to
become governor of New York and then President.
Just as coincident: during the Lusitania
affair, the head of the British Admiralty was yet another cousin of
Franklin D. – Winston Churchill. And in a chilling déjà vu, as Pearl
Harbor approached, these two men were now heads of their respective
states.
In a 1940 (election-year) speech,
Roosevelt stated typically: “I have said this before, but I shall say it
again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any
foreign wars.”2 But
privately, the President planned just the opposite: to bring America
into the World War as Britain’s ally, exactly as Woodrow Wilson had done
in World War I. Roosevelt dispatched his closest advisor, Harry
Hopkins, to meet Churchill in January 1941. Hopkins told Churchill: “The
President is determined that we [the United States and England] 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,
no matter what happens to him – there is nothing he will not do so far
as he has human power.”3
William Stephenson, who ran British intelligence operations in the
U.S., noted that American-British military staff talks began that same
month under “utmost secrecy,” which, he clarified, “meant preventing
disclosure to the American public.”4
The President offered numerous
provocations to Germany: freezing its assets; occupying Iceland;
shipping 50 destroyers to Britain; and having U.S. warships escort
Allied convoys. Roosevelt and Churchill hoped to duplicate the success
of the Lusitania incident. But the Germans gave them no satisfaction.
They knew America’s entry into World War I had shifted the balance of
power against them, and they shunned a repetition of that scenario.
As Admiral Karl Doenitz, commander of Germany’s U-boat fleet, stated during the Nuremburg trials:
A 300 mile safety zone was even granted
to America by Germany when international law called for only a three
mile zone. I suggested mine fields at Halifax and around Iceland, but
the Fuehrer rejected this because he wanted to avoid conflict with the
United States. When American destroyers in the summer of 1941 were
ordered to attack German submarines, I was forbidden to fight back. I
was thus forced not to attack British destroyers for fear there would be
some mistake.5
After being pursued by the destroyer USS
Greer for more than three hours, the German submarine U-652 fired at
(but did not hit) the Greer. President Roosevelt bewailed this to the
American public as an unprovoked attack:
But most Americans were unmoved. Not even
another Lusitania would have motivated them to send their sons to die
in another European war.
It was going to take a whole cluster of
Lusitanias, and since this would not come from the cautious Germans, it
could only come from Germany’s Axis partner, Japan. As Interior
Secretary Harold Ickes put it in 1941: “For a long time I have believed
that our best entrance into the war would be by way of Japan.”6
This required three steps: (1) build anti-Japanese sentiment in
America; (2) provoke Japan to the flashpoint of war; (3) set up an
irresistible target to serve as a false flag.
Demonizing Japan
Americans were subjected to a stream of
propaganda depicting Japan as bent on “world conquest” even though it is
smaller than Montana. In the wartime government-produced film, Our
Enemy: The Japanese, narrator Joseph Grew (CFR) told the public the
Japanese believed it was the “the right and destiny of Japan’s emperors
to rule the whole world . . . to destroy all nations and peoples which
stand in the way of its fulfillment. . . . [Their] national dream is to
see Tokyo established as the capital of the world . . . . world conquest
is their national obsession.”
Grew neglected to mention that Japan had
been a closed isolationist country until Commodore Perry compelled them
to sign a trade agreement under threat of U.S. naval bombardment. Perry
was the father-in-law of August Belmont, the Rothschilds’ leading
financial agent in America during the 19th century.7
As proof of “Japan’s plot to conquer the
world,” the American press played up Japanese troops entering Manchuria
in the 1930s. But the fact that the Soviets had first seized Outer
Mongolia and China’s northwestern province of Sinkiang drew no notice.
As Dr. Anthony Kubek, chairman of the history department at the
University of Dallas, wrote in How the Far East Was Lost:
It was apparent to Japanese statesmen
that unless bastions of defense were built in Manchuria and Inner
Mongolia, Communism would spread through all of North China and
seriously threaten the security of Japan. . . . But the Department of
State seemed not to regard Japan as a bulwark against Soviet expansion
in North China. As a matter of fact, not one word of protest was sent by
the Department of State to the Soviet Union, despite her absorption of
Sinkiang and Outer Mongolia, while at the same time Japan was censured
for stationing troops in China.8
Dr. Kubek’s remarks highlight a policy
consistent throughout the Second World War: condemn “fascist aggression”
while tolerating – without limit – communist aggression. For example,
when the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, Britain and France
declared war on Germany. Yet when the Soviet Union invaded Poland that
same month, the West . . . yawned.
To those who might contend Japan had no
right to enter China to oppose communism, let’s remember that the United
States sent its troops around the globe to Vietnam on the principle
that stopping communism was in its national interests. By what logic,
then, could Japan not oppose communism on its doorstep? A glance at a
map shows how close communism was drawing to Japan, having methodically
enslaved all the nations embodying the Soviet Union, and it was now
boring southward into China. In sending troops to Manchuria and China,
Japan was invoking her own version of the Monroe Doctrine.
The Soviets, for their part, wanted war
between the United States and Japan, knowing that with Japan
neutralized, Communism would engulf Asia. In 1935, U.S. Ambassador to
Moscow William C. Bullitt sent a dispatch to Secretary of State Cordell
Hull:
It is . . . the heartiest hope of the
Soviet Government that the United States will become involved in war
with Japan. . . . The Soviet Union would certainly attempt to avoid
becoming an ally until Japan had been thoroughly defeated and would then
merely use the opportunity to acquire Manchuria and Sovietize China.9
Benjamin Gitlow, founding member of the U.S. Communist Party, wrote in I Confess (1940):
When I was in Moscow, the attitude toward
the United States in the event of war was discussed. Privately, it was
the opinion of all the Russian leaders to whom I spoke that the rivalry
between the United States and Japan must actually break out into war
between these two.10
Roosevelt Provokes Japan
On June 23, 1941, Interior Secretary Ickes wrote in a memo to Roosevelt:
There will never be so good a time to
stop the shipment of oil to Japan as we now have. . . . There might
develop from embargoing of oil such a situation as would make it, not
only possible but easy, to get into this war in an effective way. And if
we should thus indirectly be brought in, we would avoid the criticism
that we had gone in as an ally of communistic Russia. 11
The memo’s date is significant: the day
after Germany and her allies (Italy, Hungary, Romania, Finland and
Croatia) launched Operation Barbarossa: the invasion of the Soviet
Union.
Why did Ickes say an oil embargo would
make it “easy to get into this war”? The answer lies in an eight-point
plan of provocation toward Japan which had been previously drawn up by
Lt. Commander Arthur McCollum of Naval Intelligence. The eighth of the
eight-step plan was: “Completely embargo all U.S. trade with Japan, in
collaboration with a similar embargo imposed by the British Empire.”
McCollum’s next sentence was: “If by these means Japan could be led to
commit an overt act of war, so much the better.”12
Ickes; McCollum
What McCollum, Ickes and Roosevelt
envisioned was antagonizing Japan to the point that it would attack the
United States. And thus – in the tradition of the Maine and Lusitania –
America, as the “innocent victim of unprovoked aggression” – would go to
war. Here is how War Secretary Henry Stimson (CFR, Skull and Bones)
phrased it in his diary, after meetings with the President that autumn:
“We face the delicate question of the diplomatic fencing to be done so
as to be sure that Japan is put into the wrong and makes the first bad
move – overt move.”13 “The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot….”14
Between July 26 and August 1, 1941, FDR
seized Japanese assets in America, closed the Panama Canal to Japanese
shipping, and enacted the sweeping trade embargo that McCollum and Ickes
had urged. Britain and the Netherlands followed suit with similar
embargoes. For the Japanese, this constituted a death threat. Japan
heavily depended on imports for raw materials, for 88 percent of its oil
and 75 percent of its food.
The timing of these measures was again
significant. In July 1941, all reports indicated the Germans and their
allies were crushing the Red Army. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet
soldiers were surrendering; as they did, many shouted “Stalin kaput!”
Stalin himself was nearly paralyzed with fear. He had only fought wars
of aggression and was unprepared for defense. If Japan, Germany’s ally,
joined Operation Barbarossa from the East, Stalin would be trapped in a
vise, and communism – which was an Illuminati creation – destroyed.
Roosevelt’s trade embargo guaranteed that
Japan would not join Operation Barbarossa, but would instead turn its
attention south. No nation can prosecute war without oil. Tanks, trucks,
ships and aircraft require it. If Japan attacked Russia through
Siberia, there would be no oil to be confiscated. But there was abundant
oil to the south, in the Dutch East Indies. And Southeast Asia held
many other resources the embargo denied Japan, such as rubber, tin and
iron ore.
Why Did Japan Go to War with America?
British historian Russell Grenfell, a captain in the Royal Navy, wrote In 1952:
No reasonably informed person can now
believe that Japan made a villainous, unexpected attack on the United
States. An attack was not only fully expected but was actually desired.
It is beyond doubt that President Roosevelt wanted to get his country
into war, but for political reasons was most anxious to ensure that the
first act of hostility came from the other side; for which reason he
caused increasing pressure to be put on the Japanese, to a point that no
self-respecting nation could endure without resort to arms. Japan was
meant by the American President to attack the United States.15
Grenfell; Lyttelton
On June 20, 1944, Oliver Lyttelton,
Britain’s minister of production, said before the American Chamber of
Commerce in London: “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.”16 Why did Lyttelton make this startling accusation (for which he was later compelled to apologize)?
Following the U.S. embargo, Japan’s
representatives in Washington earnestly negotiated for the embargo’s
repeal, to no avail. On November 26, 1941, the State Department
delivered an ultimatum to Japan: sanctions would only be lifted if all
overseas Japanese troops were withdrawn to Japan. Although the ultimatum
or “Hull note” was officially credited to Secretary of State Cordell
Hull, it is now known that it was drafted by Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Harry Dexter White, a Soviet operative.
Harry Dexter White
The White/Hull ultimatum was a deliberate
catch-22. If the Japanese refused it, the embargo would continue, and
they would collapse from economic strangulation. If they complied, and
withdrew all troops from the mainland, communism would sweep Eastern
Asia (exactly as happened after the war, resulting in Communist China,
and the Korean and Vietnam wars). The Japanese were thus given a
two-headed coin: die by starvation, or die by communism. They decided to
reject both options, and fight instead.
To have any hope of success in a war
against the mighty USA, Japan would need an edge. Franklin D. Roosevelt
made sure they got one in the form of attractive bait.
The Decision to Base the Fleet at Pearl Harbor
In 1940, President Roosevelt decided that
the Pacific Fleet should be based indefinitely at Pearl Harbor in
Hawaii, instead of its usual berths on the U.S. West Coast. This was a
bad idea for many reasons:
- In the middle of the Pacific, Hawaii is surrounded by uninhabited waters, making it susceptible to surprise attack from 360 degrees. By contrast, no surprise attack could have been launched if the fleet was kept on the West Coast; assailants would have encountered innumerable commercial vessels before reaching it.
- At Pearl Harbor, the fleet was boxed together like sardines, making them ideal targets for bombers.
- In Hawaii, oil and others supplies had to be brought across 2,000 miles of the Pacific.
- Pearl Harbor lacked adequate fuel and ammunition storage facilities, dry docks, and support craft (such as tugs and repair vessels). The fleet could have been maintained on a superior war footing if kept on the West Coast.
- 37 percent of Hawaii’s population was ethnically Japanese, rendering the fleet vulnerable to espionage and sabotage.
- Basing the fleet in Hawaii would separate sailors from their families, creating morale problems.
U.S. Fleet Commander Admiral J. O.
Richardson was outraged by Roosevelt’s decision and met with him on
October 8, 1940 to protest it. Richardson presented the President with a
list of logical reasons why the fleet should not be based in Pearl
Harbor. Roosevelt could not rebut these objections and simply said that
having the fleet there would exert a “restraining influence on the
actions of Japan.”17
Richardson said: “I came away with the
impression that, despite his spoken word, the President was fully
determined to put the United States into the war if Great Britain could
hold out until he was reelected.”18
On February 1, 1941, Richardson was
relieved of his command without any explanation. Richardson met with
Navy Secretary Frank Knox to inquire about it, and related: “When I saw
the Secretary, I said, ‘In all my experience in the Navy, I have never
known of a flag officer being detached in the same manner as I, and I
feel I owe it to myself to know why.’ The Secretary said the President
would send for me and talk the matter over.” However, Roosevelt never
sent for Richardson; the only explanation the admiral ever received were
these words from Secretary Knox: “The last time you were here you hurt
the President’s feelings.”19
Roosevelt’s sole pretext for basing the
fleet in Pearl Harbor – that it would deter Japanese aggression – was
resoundingly discredited on December 7, 1941. Nevertheless, as we shall
see, Roosevelt was never held accountable for his action. All blame was
instead leveled at the Navy, especially Richardson’s successor as
Pacific Fleet Commander, Admiral Husband Kimmel, who accepted the
position believing Washington would notify him of any intelligence
pointing to a threat.
This trust proved misplaced. As
Washington watched Japan prepare for the attack, it kept Kimmel and his
army counterpart in Hawaii, General Walter C. Short, well out of its
intelligence loop.
Kimmel and Short
The False Flag Foreknown (1): “Magic”
The Japanese used a code called “Purple”
to communicate to their embassies and major consulates throughout the
world. Its complexity required that it be enciphered and deciphered by
machine. The Japanese considered the code unbreakable, but in 1940
talented U.S. Army cryptanalysts cracked it and devised a facsimile of
the Japanese machine. As the result, U.S. intelligence was reading
Japanese diplomatic messages, often on a same-day basis.
A U.S. Purple decoding machine
Copies of the deciphered texts, nicknamed
“Magic,” were promptly delivered in locked pouches to select
individuals, including President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell
Hull, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, Army Chief of Staff General George
Marshall, and the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold Stark.
Copies also went to Harry Hopkins, FDR’s shadowy advisor who held no
cabinet position.20
(It is worth digressing for a paragraph
about Hopkins, who lived in the White House; he has been aptly compared
to Woodrow Wilson’s Wall Street controller, Edward Mandell House, who
also lived in the White House. Like House, Hopkins acted as a special
emissary, paying visits to Churchill and Stalin. After the war, it was
revealed that as head of Lend-Lease, he secretly shipped both the
materials and blueprints for the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. This
was documented by Lend-Lease expediter George Racey Jordan in From Major Jordan’s Diaries. Some may find interesting John T. Flynn’s remarks in The Roosevelt Myth
on the favors bestowed upon Hopkins by British press tycoon Lord
Beaverbrook and bankster Bernard Baruch on the occasion of Hopkins’s
third wedding.)
Although Hopkins had access to “Magic” intercepts, our commanders in Hawaii did not. And what did these intercepts reveal?
- that Tokyo had ordered its Consul General in Hawaii to divide Pearl Harbor into five areas and, on a frequent basis, report the exact locations of American warships there. Nothing is unusual about spies watching ship movements – but reporting precise whereabouts of ships in dock has only one implication.
- that on November 29th (three days after the U.S. ultimatum), Japan’s envoys in Washington were told a rupture in negotiations was “inevitable,” but that Japan’s leaders “do not wish you to give the impression that negotiations are broken off.”
- that on November 30th Tokyo had ordered their Berlin embassy to inform the Germans (their allies) that “the breaking out of war may come quicker than anyone dreams.”
- that on December 1st, the Japanese had ordered all of their North American diplomatic offices to destroy their secret documents.21 (Once war breaks out, the offices of a hostile power lose their diplomatic immunity and are seized.)
In the 1970 movie Tora, Tora, Tora, a
Hollywood depiction of the events surrounding Pearl Harbor, Japan’s
ambassadors are shown presenting their message breaking relations
(meaning war) to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, after the attack on
Hawaii, and Hull reacts with surprise and outrage.
In reality, however, Hull was not shocked
at all. On the previous day (December 6), he had already read the
translated intercept of Japan’s declaration – 13 parts of the 14-part
message – as had President Roosevelt.
The False Flag Foreknown (2): East Wind, Rain
An additional warning came via the
so-called “Winds” message. A November 18th intercept indicated that, if a
break in U.S. relations was forthcoming, Tokyo would issue a special
radio warning. This would not be in the Purple code, as it was intended
to reach consulates and lesser agencies of Japan not equipped with the
code or one of its machines. The message, to be repeated three times
during a weather report, was “Higashi no kaze ame,” meaning “East wind,
rain.” “East wind” signified the United States; “rain” signified
diplomatic split (war).
This prospective message was deemed so
significant that U.S. radio monitors were constantly watching for it,
and the Navy Department typed it up on special reminder cards. On
December 4th, “Higashi no kaze ame” was broadcast and picked up by
Washington intelligence.
The False Flag Foreknown (3): Personal Warnings
During 1941, the Roosevelt administration also received several personal warnings regarding Pearl Harbor:
- On January 27th, our ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew, reported to Washington: “The Peruvian Minister has informed a member of my staff that he has heard from many sources, including a Japanese source, that in the event of trouble breaking out between the United States and Japan, the Japanese intended to make a surprise attack against Pearl Harbor with all their strength. . . .”22
- Brigadier General Elliott Thorpe was the U.S. military observer in Java, then under Dutch control. In early December 1941, the Dutch army decoded a dispatch from Tokyo to its Bangkok embassy, forecasting an attack on Hawaii. The Dutch passed the information to Thorpe, who considered it so vital that he sent Washington a total of four warnings. Finally, the War Department told him to send no further warnings.23
- The Dutch Military attaché in Washington, Colonel F. G. L. Weijerman, personally warned U.S. Army Chief of Staff George Marshall about Pearl Harbor just days before the attack.24
- Dusko Popov was a Yugoslavian double agent whose true allegiance was to the Allies. Through information furnished by the Germans, Popov deduced the Japanese were planning to bomb Pearl Harbor. He notified the FBI; subsequently FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover warned Roosevelt.25
- Senator Guy Gillette of Iowa received information from Kilsoo Haan of the Sino-Korean People’s League that the Japanese intended to assault Hawaii “before Christmas.” Gillette briefed the President, who said the matter would be looked into.26
- U.S. Congressman Martin Dies of Texas came into possession of a map revealing the Japanese plan to attack Pearl Harbor. He later wrote:
As soon as I received the document I
telephoned Secretary of State Cordell Hull and told him what I had.
Secretary Hull directed me not to let anyone know about the map and
stated that he would call me as soon as he talked to President
Roosevelt. In about an hour he telephoned to say that he had talked to
Roosevelt and they agreed that it would be very serious if any
information concerning this map reached the news services . . . I told
him it was a grave responsibility to withhold such vital information
from the public. The Secretary assured me that he and Roosevelt
considered it essential to national defense.27
Thorpe (on the left); Popov; Dies
The False Flag Foreknown: (4) Naval Intercepts
In his book Day of Deceit: The Truth
about FDR and Pearl Harbor (2000), Robert Stinnett proved, from
documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, that
Washington was not only deciphering Japanese diplomatic messages, but
naval dispatches also.
It had long been presumed that as the
Japanese fleet approached Pearl Harbor, it maintained complete radio
silence. This was not the case. The fleet observed discretion, but not
complete silence. U.S. Naval Intelligence intercepted and translated
numerous dispatches, which President Roosevelt had access to through his
routing officer, Lieutenant Commander McCollum, who had also authored
the original eight-point plan of provocation. The most significant
message was sent by Admiral Yamamoto to the Japanese First Air Fleet on
November 25, 1941:
The task force, keeping its movement
strictly secret and maintaining close guard against submarines and
aircraft, shall advance into Hawaiian waters, and upon the very opening
of hostilities shall attack the main force of the United States fleet
and deal it a mortal blow. The first air raid is planned for the dawn of
x-day. Exact date to be given by later order.28
Here is more on the interception of this message:
0:00 / 2:00
Maximizing the Risks
MSM historians have traditionally
censured the Hawaiian commanders, Admiral Kimmel and General Short, for
failing to detect the approaching Japanese carriers. What goes unsaid:
Washington denied them the means to do so.
During the week before December 7th, naval aircraft searched more than two million square miles of the Pacific29
– but never saw the Japanese force. This is because Kimmel and Short
had only enough planes to survey less than one-third of the 360-degree
arc around them, and intelligence had advised (incorrectly) that they
should concentrate on the southwest.
There were not enough trained
surveillance pilots. Many of the reconnaissance craft suffered from lack
of spare parts. Repeated requests to Washington for additional patrol
planes were turned down. As George Morgenstern noted in Pearl Harbor:
The Story of the Secret War: “While the Hawaiian air commanders were
clamoring for planes to safeguard the base, 1,900 patrol planes were
being lend-leased to foreign countries between February 1 and December
1, 1941. Of these, 1,750, or almost ten times the number which would
have rendered Oahu safe, went to Great Britain.”30
Rear Admiral Edward T. Layton, who served
at Pearl Harbor, stated: “There was never any hint in any intelligence
received by the local command of any Japanese threat to Hawaii. Our air
defenses were stripped on orders from the army chief himself. Of the
twelve B-17s on the island, only six could be kept in the air by
cannibalizing the others for spare parts.”31
Radar, too, was insufficient. And when
General Short attempted to build a radar station on Mount Haleakala,
Harold Ickes’ Interior Department withheld permission, stating that it
would harm the beauty of the landscape.32
Advance Damage Control: the “War Warning”
It was clear, of course, that once
disaster struck Pearl Harbor, there would be demands for accountability.
Washington seemed to artfully take this into account by sending an
ambiguous “war warning” to Kimmel, and a similar one to Short, on
November 27th. This has been used for years by Washington apologists to
allege that the commanders should have been ready for the Japanese.
Indeed, the message began conspicuously:
“This dispatch is to be considered a war warning.” However, it went on
to state: “The number and equipment of Japanese troops and the
organizations of naval task forces indicates an amphibious expedition
against the Philippines, Thai or Kra Peninsula, or possibly Borneo.”
None of these areas were closer than 5,000 miles to Hawaii (that is
further than the distance from New York to Moscow). No threat to Pearl
Harbor was hinted at. It ended with the words: “Continental districts,
Guam, Samoa take measures against sabotage.” The message further stated
that “measures should be carried out so as not repeat not to alarm civil
population.” Both commanders reported the actions taken to Washington.
Short followed through with sabotage precautions, bunching his planes
together (which hinders saboteurs but makes ideal targets for bombers),
and Kimmel stepped up air surveillance and sub searches. If their
response to the “war warning” was insufficient, Washington said nothing.
The next day, a follow-up message from Marshall’s adjutant general to
Short warned only: “Initiate forthwith all additional measures necessary
to provide for protection of your establishments, property, and
equipment against sabotage, protection of your personnel against
subversive propaganda and protection of all activities against
espionage.”33
Short testifies before Congress after the war:
0:00 / 3:53
On December 1, Naval intelligence sent
Kimmel its fortnightly intelligence summary entitled “The Japanese Naval
Situation.” It stated: “Major capital ship strength remains in home
waters, as well as the greatest portion of the carriers.”34 Contrast that to the diary of Captain Johann Ranneft,
the Dutch naval attaché in Washington, who was awarded the Legion of
Merit for his services to America. Ranneft recorded that on December
2nd, he visited the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). Ranneft inquired
about the Pacific. An American officer, pointing to a wall map, said,
“This is the Japanese Task Force proceeding East.” It was a spot midway
between Japan and Hawaii. On December 6th, Ranneft returned and asked
where the Japanese carriers were. He was shown a position on the map
about 300-400 miles northwest of Pearl Harbor. Ranneft wrote: “I ask
what is the meaning of these carriers at this location; whereupon I
receive the answer that it is probably in connection with Japanese
reports of eventual American action. . . . I myself do not think about
it because I believe that everyone in Honolulu is 100 percent on the
alert, just like everyone here at O.N.I.”35
Admiral Kimmel testifiying after the war:
0:00 / 1:56
Strange Activity on December 7
On the morning of the Sunday the 7th, the
final portion of Japan’s lengthy message to the U.S. government
(rupturing relations, effectively declaring war) was intercepted and
decoded. Tokyo added two special directives to its envoys. The first,
which the message called “very important,” was to deliver the statement
at 1 PM. The second directive ordered that the last copy of code, and
the machine that went with it, be destroyed. The gravity of this was not
lost in the Navy Department: Japan had a long history of synchronizing
attacks with breaks in relations (e.g., in the Russo-Japanese War of
1904-5, it had attacked Port Arthur on the same day it notified Russia
that it was declaring war). Sunday was an abnormal day to deliver
diplomatic messages — but the best for trying to catch U.S. armed forces
at low vigilance; and 1 PM in Washington was shortly after dawn in
Hawaii.
Admiral Stark, Chief of Naval Operations,
arrived at his office at 9:25 AM. He was shown the message and
important delivery time. One junior officer pointed out the possibility
of an attack on Hawaii; another urged that Kimmel be notified. But Stark
refused; he did nothing all morning. Years later, he told the press
that his conscience was clear concerning Pearl Harbor because all his
actions had been dictated by a “higher authority.”36 As Chief of Naval Operations, Stark had only one higher authority: Roosevelt.
In the War Department, where the
statement had also been decoded, Colonel Rufus Bratton, head of Army
Intelligence’s Far Eastern section, understood the message’s terrible
significance. But the head of intelligence told him nothing could be
done until Chief of Staff General Marshall arrived. Bratton tried
reaching Marshall at home, but was repeatedly told the general was out
horseback riding. The horseback ride turned out to be a very long one.
When Bratton finally reached Marshall by phone and explained the
emergency, Marshall said he would come to the War Department. Marshall
took 75 minutes to make the 10-minute drive. He didn’t come to his
office until 11:25 AM – an extremely late hour with the nation on the
brink of war. He perused the Japanese message and was shown the delivery
time. Every officer in Marshall’s office agreed these indicated an
attack in the Pacific at about 1 PM EST. The general finally agreed that
Hawaii should be alerted, but time was running out.
Marshall had only to pick up his desk
phone to reach Pearl Harbor on the transpacific line. Doing so would not
have averted the attack, but at least our men would have been at their
battle stations. Instead, the general wrote a dispatch, which was not
even marked “priority” or “urgent.” After it was encoded it went to the
Washington office of Western Union. From there it was relayed to San
Francisco. From San Francisco it was transmitted via RCA commercial
radio to Honolulu. General Short received it six hours after the attack.
Two hours later it reached Kimmel. One can imagine their exasperation
on reading it.
Despite all the evidence accrued through
Magic and other sources during the previous months, Marshall had never
warned Hawaii. To historians – ignorant of that classified evidence – it
would appear the general had tried to save Pearl Harbor, “but alas, too
late.” Similarly, FDR sent a last-minute plea for peace to Emperor
Hirohito. Although written a week earlier, he did not send it until the
evening of December 6th.37
It was to be delivered by Ambassador Grew, who would be unable to
receive an audience with the emperor before December 8th. Thus the
message could not conceivably have forestalled the attack – but
posterity would think that FDR, too, had made “a valiant, last effort.”
Marshall BUSTED
As for Marshall’s notorious “horseback
ride” which allegedly prevented him from warning Pearl Harbor in time,
that cover story was unintentionally blown by Arthur Upham Pope, in his
1943 biography of Maxim Litvinoff, the Soviet ambassador to the United
States. Litvinoff arrived in Washington on the morning of December 7th,
1941 – a highly opportune day to seek additional aid for the Soviets –
and, according to Pope, was met at the airport that morning by General
Marshall.
The Coverup
Pearl Harbor’s secrets had been
successfully preserved before the fact – but what about after? Many
people around the nation, including some vocal congressmen, demanded to
know why America had been caught off guard.
President Roosevelt said he would appoint
an investigatory commission. Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts – a
pro-British internationalist friendly with FDR – was selected to head
it. Also appointed to the group: Major General Frank McCoy, General
George Marshall’s close friend for 30 years; Brigadier General Joseph
McNarney, who was on Marshall’s staff and chosen on his recommendation;
retired Rear Admiral Joseph Reeves, whom FDR had given a job in
Lend-Lease; and Admiral William Standley, a former fleet commander. Only
the last seemed to have no obvious fraternity with the Washington set.
The Roberts Commission. L-R: McNarney, Standley, Roberts, Reeves, McCoy
The commission conducted only two to
three days of hearings in Washington. Admiral Standley, arriving late,
was startled by the inquiry’s chummy atmosphere. Admiral Harold Stark
and General Marshall were asked no difficult or embarrassing questions.
Furthermore, all testimony was taken unsworn and unrecorded – an
irregularity that, at Standley’s urging, was corrected.
The commission then flew to Hawaii, where
it remained 19 days. When Admiral Kimmel was summoned, he brought a
fellow officer to act as counsel. Justice Roberts disallowed this on
grounds that the investigation was not a trial, and the admiral not a
defendant. Because Kimmel and General Walter Short were not formally “on
trial,” they were also denied all traditional rights of defendants: to
ask questions and cross-examine witnesses. Kimmel was also shocked that
the proceeding’s stenographers – one a teenager, the other with almost
no court experience – omitted much of his testimony and left other parts
badly garbled. Permission to correct the errors – other than adding
footnotes to the end of the commission’s report – was refused.38
The Roberts Commission laid all blame for
Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian commanders: they had underestimated the
import of the November 27th warning; they had not taken sufficient
defensive or surveillance actions; they were guilty of “dereliction of
duty.” On the other hand, it said, Stark and Marshall had discharged
their duties in exemplary fashion. Remarkably, the report’s section
declaring this was first submitted to Stark and Marshall for revisions
and approval. Admiral Standley dissented with the findings but did not
write a minority opinion after being told that doing so might jeopardize
the war effort by lowering the nation’s confidence in its leaders.
Standley later called Roberts’s handling of the investigation “as
crooked as a snake.”39
Admiral Richardson, Kimmel’s predecessor as Pacific Fleet commander,
said of the report: “It is the most unfair, unjust, and deceptively
dishonest document ever printed by the Government Printing Office.”40
Roberts brought a final copy of the
report to FDR. The President read it and delightedly tossed it to a
secretary, saying, “Give that in full to the papers for their Sunday
editions.”41 The words
“dereliction of duty” were emblazoned in headlines across the country.
America’s outrage fell on Kimmel and Short. They were traitors, it was
said; they should be shot! The two were inundated with hate mail and
death threats. The press, with its ageless capacity to manufacture
villains, stretched the commission’s slurs. Even the wives of the
commanders were subjected to vicious canards.
There was great outcry for courts-martial
– which was exactly what the two officers sought: to resolve the issue
of Pearl Harbor in a bona fide courtroom, using established rules of
evidence, instead of Owen Roberts’s personal methods. The Roosevelt
administration, of course, did not desire that – in an orthodox
courtroom, a sharp defense attorney might start digging into
Washington’s secrets. So the issue was sidestepped by again invoking
security concerns due to the war effort. It was announced that
courts-martial would be held – but postponed “until such time as the
public interest and safety would permit.”
Sufficient delay would also cause the
three-year statute of limitations that applied in such cases to elapse.
But that was the last thing Kimmel and Short wanted; court-martial was
their only means of clearing themselves. Thus they voluntarily waived
the statute of limitations.
Their Day in Court
By 1944, the Allies were clearly winning
the war, and national security would no longer wash as a barrier to
courts-martial. A joint Congressional resolution mandated trials. At
last, the former Hawaiian commanders would have their day in court.
In August, the Naval Court of Inquiry
opened. A source inside the Navy Department had already tipped Kimmel
and his attorneys about the scores of Magic intercepts kept from the
admiral in 1941. One of the attorneys, a former Navy captain, managed to
get at the Department’s files, and authenticated the existence of many.
Obtaining their release was another matter. Obstruction after
obstruction appeared – until Kimmel tried a ploy. Walking out of the
courtroom, he bellowed to his lawyer that they would have to tell the
press that important evidence was being withheld.
By the next day, the requested intercepts
had been delivered – 43 in all. The admirals on the Court listened to
them being read with looks of horror and disbelief. Two of the admirals
flung their pencils down. More than 2,000 died at Pearl Harbor because
those messages had been withheld. Navy Department officers gave
additional testimony. After nearly three months, the inquiry finished.
The verdict of the Roberts Commission was overturned. Admiral Kimmel was
exonerated on all charges. Admiral Stark — who had rejected pleas of
juniors to notify Hawaii on the morning of the attack – was severely
censured.
The Naval Court of Inquiry
News of the intercepts leaked to the Army
Pearl Harbor Board, convening at the same time. The Board secured
copies of Magic from War Department files. The Board’s conclusions still
expressed modest criticism of General Short, but found overwhelming
guilt in General Marshall and his Chief of War Plans, General Gerow. Its
report bluntly concluded: “Up to the morning of December 7, 1941,
everything that the Japanese were planning to do was known to the United
States.”42
Direct criticism of the President was
forbidden to these proceedings as beyond their jurisdiction. But FDR
held ultimate responsibility for Pearl Harbor, and the warnings he had
received – some of which only later came to light – far exceeded
anything they might have dreamed.
The verdicts wrought dismay in the
Roosevelt administration. But a solution was swiftly concocted. It was
announced that, in the interest of national security, the findings would
not become public until the war’s end. (This would give Washington time
to conduct “new” investigations.) Navy Secretary Knox told the press
that the Naval Court of Inquiry had marked its conclusions “secret,” and
therefore nothing could be published. A stunned Admiral Orin Murfin,
who had presided over the Court, protested to the Secretary. It was true
that the breaking of Japan’s diplomatic code was not for public
knowledge – but, he pointed out, the Court had only marked part of its
determinations secret. Charles Rugg, Kimmel’s attorney, telegrammed Knox
demanding to know how the “innocent” verdict granted the admiral could
be deemed classified. Nevertheless, the reports were suppressed.
Damage Control
Washington now explained that it would
conduct additional investigations supplementing the courts of inquiry.
Henry Stimson picked Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Henry Clausen –
known to disagree with the Army Board findings – to carry out the War
Department’s investigation. The Navy Secretary appointed Admiral W. Kent
Hewitt. Hewitt’s role, however, was largely titular; most of the
operation was carried out by Lieutenant Commander John F. Sonnett.
The ventures were without precedent: a
major was to investigate (and overturn) a verdict rendered by generals; a
lieutenant commander was to challenge a verdict of admirals.
The game rules were reminiscent of those
of the Roberts Commission. Kimmel and his attorneys were refused
permission to attend the Hewitt Inquiry, which operated under this
directive: “Except that the testimony you take should be taken under
oath so as to be on equal status in this respect with the testimony
previously taken, you will conduct your examination in an informal
manner and without regard to legal or formal requirements.”43
Not surprisingly, witnesses who had
testified against Washington now reversed themselves. Colonel Rufus
Bratton had informed the Army Pearl Harbor Board that on December 6,
1941, he had delivered the first 13 parts of Japan’s terminative message
to General Marshall via his secretary, and to General Gerow, Chief of
the War Plans Division. Now in Germany, Bratton was flagged down on the
Autobahn by Clausen, who handed him affidavits from Marshall’s secretary
and Gerow denying the deliveries were ever made. Confronted with
denials from the Army’s highest levels, Bratton recanted, signing a new
affidavit.44
Other officers, their memories similarly
“refreshed,” retracted their statements about seeing the “Winds”
message; now, it seemed, the message never existed. These individuals
faced a dilemma. They were career military men. They knew telling the
truth would pit them against the Army Chief of Staff and end all hope of
promotion.
But one man wouldn’t bend – Captain
Laurance Safford, father of naval cryptography. Safford had overseen
that branch of naval intelligence for many years. He personally invented
some 20 cryptographic devices, including the most advanced used by our
armed forces. For his work, he was ultimately awarded the Legion of
Merit.
Safford, who had testified before the
Naval Inquiry that he had seen the “Winds” message, was confronted by
Sonnett. Safford wrote of this meeting: “His purpose seemed to be to
refute testimony (before earlier investigations) that was unfavorable to
anyone in Washington, to beguile ‘hostile’ witnesses into changing
their stories. . . .” In a memorandum written immediately after the
encounter, Safford recorded some of Sonnett’s verbal prods, such as: “It
is very doubtful that there ever was a Winds Execute [message]”; “It is
no reflection on your veracity to change your testimony”; and, “It is
no reflection on your mentality to have your memory play you tricks –
after such a long period.”45
Safford realized a colossal coverup was underway, but was not
surprised. He had already discovered that all copies of the “Winds”
message in Navy files, along with other important Pearl Harbor memos,
had been destroyed. Just four days after Pearl Harbor, Rear Admiral
Leigh Noyes, director of naval communications, told his subordinates:
“Destroy all notes or anything in writing.”46
This was an illegal order – naval memoranda belong to the American
people and cannot be destroyed except by Congressional authority.
Stories circulated of a similar information purge in the War Department.
Some files, however, escaped destruction.
The Clausen and Hewitt inquiries pleased
Washington. Equipped with fresh sophistries, the administration produced
highly revamped versions of the Army and Navy inquiry findings. The
dual Army/Navy announcement came on August 29, 1945 – the very day
American troops arrived in Japan, when a rejoicing public was unlikely
to care about Pearl Harbor’s origins. The War Secretary’s report shifted
the blame back to Short, while saying of General Marshall that
“throughout this matter I believe that he acted with his usual great
skill, energy, and efficiency.”47
It admitted the Army Board had criticized Marshall, but said this was
completely unjustified. The Navy Secretary’s statement again imputed
guilt to Kimmel, while asserting that Washington had not been negligent
in keeping him informed. It did acknowledge that Admiral Stark should
not be given a future position requiring “superior judgement.”
Consequently, Americans didn’t learn what
the original inquiries had determined. Of course, anyone wanting to
find out for himself could do so when the government released the
official record of the hearings connected with Pearl Harbor – if he
didn’t mind wading through 40 volumes.
Congress Enters the Act
Only one obstacle remained to burying
Pearl Harbor. Congress had long made noises about conducting its own
investigation; with the war over, it was sure to do so.
To nip any threat in the bud, the
administration sent a bill to both the House and Senate forbidding
disclosure of coded materials. It was promptly passed by the Senate,
whose members had never heard of Magic and had no idea that the bill
would hamstring their forthcoming investigation.
Admiral Kimmel read about the bill in the
papers. He and his attorneys notified the press and congressmen about
the measure’s implications. As a result, the House voted it down and the
Senate rescinded it.
Capitol Hill’s Pearl Harbor probe began
in November 1945, when the Joint Congressional Committee assembled. It
comprised six Democrats and four Republicans. A split along party lines
quickly emerged. The Democrats knew that, even though Roosevelt had
recently died, a Pearl Harbor scandal could devastate them at the ballot
box. But so long as all six Democrats maintained unswerving party
loyalty, a majority decision favoring the administration was inevitable.
Admiral Richardson testifies before Joint Congressional Committee
The Democrats used their edge to jockey
things their way. The counsel chosen for the committee was a Democrat
who previously served with Henry Stimson; his assistant was a former New
Dealer working for the law firm of Dean Acheson, the Under Secretary of
State. A majority vote determined what evidence the committee would
review. Several witnesses Kimmel wanted introduced were never called.
Coercion prevented others from
testifying. Major Warren J. Clear, who had warned the War Department in
early 1941 that the Japanese were planning to attack a series of islands
including Hawaii, was ordered not to appear before the committee.48
So was Chief Warrant Officer Ralph T. Briggs, the man who had
originally intercepted the “Winds” message at a United States monitoring
station. He was summoned before his commanding officer, who forbade him
to testify. “Perhaps someday you’ll understand the reason for this,” he
was told. Briggs had a blind wife to support. He did not come forward
as a witness.49
The treatment of Lieutenant Commander
Alwin Kramer was cruder. Kramer, who had been in charge of the Navy
Department’s Translation Section at the time of Pearl Harbor, and had
once testified to having seen the “Winds” message, was confined to a
psychiatric ward at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Representative Frank Keefe,
a committee Republican, learned of this and vigorously protested.50
Kramer was told that his testimony had better change or he’d be in the
ward for the rest of his life. The officer went before the committee,
but gave a confusing narrative that essentially denied existence of the
“Winds” message.
Captain Laurance Safford, however,
remained fearless in his revelations. A campaign to “nail” him was soon
evidenced among committee Democrats. Congressman John Murphy, a former
assistant DA, put him through a wringer of cross-examination. Safford’s
personal mail was read aloud before the committee in an effort to
humiliate him. Artful polemics made the captain – naval cryptography’s
most eminent man – look forgetful on one hand, vindictive toward
superiors on the other.
Safford was accused of being the only one
to believe in the “Winds” message. In fact, no less than seven officers
had acknowledged seeing it before having their memories “helped.”
Perhaps the browbeating of Safford helped inspire Colonel Otis Sadtler
of the Signal Corps. During the Clausen investigation, Sadtler had
recanted his testimony about the message. Now he came forward and
corroborated Safford. (Any doubts about the “Winds” affair have since
been dispelled. As historian John Toland reported, both Japanese
assistant naval attachés posted at the Washington embassy in 1941,
Yuzuru Sanematsu and Yoshimori Terai, have verified that the message was
transmitted on December 4th, exactly as Safford said.)51
Sadtler
The Congressional investigation battled
on for over six months. In the end, all six Democrats held to the party.
One Republican (Congressman Bertrand Gearhart) signed the majority
report, reportedly for political reasons,52
and a second, Representative Frank Keefe, signed in exchange for
modifications in the findings. An 8-2 majority decision was handed down
on Pearl Harbor assigning most of the blame to the Hawaiian commanders,
some blame to the War and Navy departments, and none at all to Roosevelt
and his civilian administration.
That was the last major official inquiry
into Japan’s attack. The lie of Kimmel and Short’s guilt was perpetuated
and Washington’s secrets sealed. Congress did conduct a “mini-probe” in
1995, at the urging of the families of General Short (died 1949) and
Admiral Kimmel (died 1968). The families hoped to restore the ranks of
their libeled, demoted fathers. The 1995 probe requested that the
Pentagon reinvestigate Pearl Harbor in light of new information.
However, on December 1, 1995, Undersecretary of Defense Edwin Dorn
concluded his own investigation with these comments: “I cannot conclude
that Admiral Kimmel and General Short were victims of unfair official
actions and thus I cannot conclude that the official remedy of
advancement on the retired list is in order.”53
Collaboration Pays
Those who cooperated with the Pearl
Harbor coverup were generously rewarded. As to the men who served with
Owen Roberts on the Roberts Commission:
- Though he had been retired since 1936, five months after signing the commission’s report Rear Admiral Reeves was advanced to full admiral for “eminent and conspicuous service in the Spanish-American war,” his gallantry discovered by Roosevelt 44 years after the fact.54
- In January 1942, the same month that he signed the commission’s report, Brigadier General McNarney was promoted to major general, and subsequently lieutenant general, full general, and after the war commanding general of American occupation forces in Germany.
- After signing the report, Admiral Standley received the Distinguished Service Medal, and the following month (April 1942) was appointed ambassador to the Soviet Union.
- Retired General Frank McCoy became chairman of the Far Eastern Commission.
As to other major figures in the coverup:
- General Marshall was made America’s first five-star general (no such designation had previously existed). Subsequently he enjoyed stints as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense.
- Brigadier General Gerow was made a lieutenant general and commander of the 15th U.S. Army.
- Lieutenant Colonel Henry Clausen, who oversaw the inquiry that revamped the findings of the Army Pearl Harbor Board, went on to spend 16 years as the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite in the Southern Jurisdiction, same position Albert Pike held. In other words, he became the highest-ranking Freemason in America. (Given that President Roosevelt was a 33rd degree Freemason, and that Marshall was a Freemason as well, it is perhaps not surprising that Clausen’s report absolved Roosevelt and Marshall of any wrongdoing. One would not be unjustified in wondering if Masonic handshakes and countersigns preceded the launching of the Clausen investigation.)
- Secretary of State Cordell Hull received the 1945 Nobel Peace Prize.
As to men who sought to tell the truth
about Pearl Harbor, such as Captain Laurance Safford, Colonel Otis
Sadtler, and Colonel Rufus Bratton, their careers did not advance.
Some postscripts
On May 25, 1999, the U.S. Senate approved
a resolution that Kimmel and Short had performed their duties
“competently and professionally” and that our losses at Pearl Harbor
were “not a result of dereliction of duty.” “They were denied vital
intelligence that was available in Washington,” said Senator William V.
Roth, Jr. Senator Strom Thurmond called Kimmel and Short “the last
victims of Pearl Harbor.”55
Former Justice Dept. official Daryl Borgquist discovered from examination of the drafts of Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech that work on it was begun on December 6,
the day before the actual attack. And from Helen E. Hamman, daughter of
Don Smith, who directed the Red Cross’s War Service before World War
II, we have the following quote which appeared in the June 2, 2001
Washington Times:
Shortly before the attack in 1941,
President Roosevelt called him [my father] 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 anticipated many
casualties and much loss; he instructed my father to send workers and
supplies to a holding area. 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 attacked within their own
borders. . . . He followed the orders of his president and spent many
years contemplating this action, which he considered ethically and
morally wrong. I do not know the Kimmel family, therefore would gain
nothing by fabricating this situation, however, I do feel the time has
come for this conspiracy to be exposed and Admiral Kimmel vindicated of
all charges. In this manner perhaps both he and my father may rest in
peace.
Pearl Harbor and 9/11
Pearl Harbor begs comparison to 9/11:
- Both events were carefully orchestrated false flags (although Pearl Harbor differed in that the attack itself was genuinely undertaken by a provoked foreign power);
- Both involved massive death and violent destruction;
- Both resulted in war and transformed American society;
- Both were followed by official commissions that concealed the truth;
- Both inspired “truthers” who were ridiculed by mainstream media because, “after all, our own government would never do that to us.”
No comments:
Post a Comment