I-China Lobby Pre-WWII, i-Israel Lobby Pre-WWIII

NguDavid Swanson

The history of catastrophically murderous and stupid warfare that the United States can memorialize on Memorial Day dates back to Day 1 and earlier, begins with the genocide of the native inhabitants of the land, the invasions of Canada, etc., and from that day to this too many deadly escapades to list.

But one way in which the U.S. government gets itself into major crusades of mass killing is by hearing what it wants to hear. It even goes to the extent of allowing top U.S. government officials, sometimes briefly out the revolving door of public “service,” to work in the pay and service of foreign nations pushing war propaganda on the U.S. public.

James Bradley’s new book is called The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in China. It’s well worth a read. For years leading up to World War II, the China Lobby in the United States persuaded the U.S. public, and many top U.S. officials, that the Chinese people all wanted to become Christian, that Chaing Kai-shek was their beloved democratic leader rather than the faltering fascist he was, that Mao Zedong was an insignificant nobody headed nowhere, that the United States could fund Chaing Kai-shek and he would use the funding to fight the Japanese, as opposed to using it to fight Mao, and that the United States could impose a crippling embargo on Japan without any Japanese military response.

For years leading up to at least the brink of World War III, the Israel Lobby in the United States has persuaded the United States that Israel is a democracy rather than an Apartheid state with rights based on religious identity. The United States, which has just derailed plans at the United Nations for a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free Middle East, and done so at the behest of nuclear Israel, has been following Israel’s catastrophic lead in Iraq, Syria, Iran, and the rest of the region, chasing the mirage of a democratic law-abiding Israel that is no more real than that of the Christian-Americanized China that eventually had the U.S. identifying the little island of Taiwan as “the real China.”

The mirage that contributed to the “new Pearl Harbor” of 911, in other words, is not entirely unlike the mirage that contributed to Pearl Harbor itself. The U.S. thinking of China as an extension of the United States, while knowing nothing about China and actually forbidding anyone Chinese from entering the country, did more harm to the world than imagining Israel as the 51st state has yet accomplished. Give it time.

Bradley’s new book, in the early sections, covers more quickly some of the same ground as his remarkable The Imperial Cruise, still very much worth reading — including the U.S. militarization of Japan and Theodore Roosevelt’s encouragement of Japanese imperialism. The new book covers, better than I’ve seen anywhere else, the history of how many of the wealthiest individuals and institutions of the East Coast United States in the 19th century got their money — including Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s grandfather’s money — by illegally selling opium in China. The opium trade led to the opium wars and to the British and U.S. attacks on and occupation of pieces of China, making use of early versions of what the U.S. now calls in most nations on earth “Status of Forces Agreements.”

The U.S. flooded China with drug dealers, traders of other commodities, and Christian missionaries, the latter far less successful than the others, converting very few people. A leading missionary admitted that in 10 years he had converted 10 Chinese people to Christianity. With an eye on Chinese and Southeast Asian trade, the United States built the Panama Canal and took over the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.  With an eye on keeping Russia away from profitable Pacific trade, President Theodore Roosevelt supported Japanese expansion into Korea and China, and negotiated “peace” between Japan and Russia while secretly consulting with Japan every step of the way. (Another echo of the Palestinian “peace process” in which the U.S. is on Israel’s side and “neutral.”) T.R. was given a Nobel Peace Prize for the deed, about which award presumably not a single Korean or Chinese person was consulted. When Woodrow Wilson refused to meet with non-white Hoh Chi Minh in Paris, he also took part in handing over to Japan the colonies previously claimed by Germany in China, enraging the Chinese, including Mao. The seeds of future wars are small but perfectly discernable.

The U.S. government slant would soon shift from Japan to China. The image of the noble and Christian Chinese peasant was driven by people like the Trinity (later Duke) and Vanderbilt educated Charlie Soong, his daughters Ailing, Chingling, and Mayling, and son Tse-ven (T.V.), as well as Mayling’s husband Chaing Kai-shek, Henry Luce who started ixesha Imagazini emva kokuzalwa kwikoloniyari e-China, kunye no-Pearl Buck owabhalayo Umhlaba olungileyo after the same type of childhood. TV Soong hired retired U.S. Army Air Corps colonel John Jouett and by 1932 had access to all the expertise of the U.S. Army Air Corps and had nine instructors, a flight surgeon, four mechanics, and a secretary, all U.S. Air Corps trained but now working for Soong in China. It was just the start of U.S. military assistance to China that made less news in the United States than it did in Japan.

In 1938, with Japan attacking Chinese cities, and Chaing barely fighting back, Chaing instructed his chief propagandist Hollington Tong, a former Columbia University journalism student, to send agents to the United States to recruit U.S. missionaries and give them evidence of Japanese atrocities, to hire Frank Price (Mayling’s favorite missionary), and to recruit U.S. reporters and authors to write favorable articles and books. Frank Price and his brother Harry Price had been born in China, without ever encountering the China of the Chinese. The Price brothers set up shop in New York City, where few had any idea they were working for the Soong-Chaing gang. Mayling and Tong assigned them to persuade Americans that the key to peace in China was an embargo on Japan. They created the American Committee for Non-Participation in Japanese Aggression. “The public never knew,” writes Bradley, “that the Manhattan missionaries diligently working on East Fortieth Street to save the Noble Peasants were paid China Lobby agents engaged in what were possibly illegal and treasonous acts.”

Ndithatha inqaku likaBradley lokuba ayisiyiyo into yokuba abalimi baseTshayina ababalulekanga, kwaye ayisiyiyo iJapan enetyala lobundlongondlongo, kodwa ukuba iphulo lokusasaza laqinisekisa uninzi lwabantu baseMelika ukuba iJapan ayinakuhlasela i-United States ukuba i-United States inqumle ioyile kwaye Isinyithi esiya eJapan-ebesiyinyani kumbono wababukeli abanolwazi kwaye iya kungqinwa ibubuxoki ngexesha leziganeko.

Former Secretary of State and future Secretary of War Henry Stimson became chair of the committee, which quickly added former heads of Harvard, Union Theological Seminary, the Church Peace Union, the World Alliance for International Friendship, the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, the Associate Boards of Christian Colleges in China, etc. Stimson and gang were paid by China to claim Japan would never attack the United States if embargoed — a claim dismissed by those in the know in the State Department and White House, but a claim made at a time when the United States had virtually no real communication with Japan.

The public’s desire to stop arming Japan’s assaults on China seems admirable to me and resonates with my desire that the U.S. stop arming Saudi Arabia’s assault on Yemen, to take one example of dozens. But talking could have preceded an embargo. Setting aside the racist and religious filters in order to see the reality on the ground in China would have helped. Refraining from the threatening moves of the U.S. Navy, moving ships to Hawaii and building airstrips on Pacific Islands could have helped. The anti-war choices were far wider than economic antagonization of Japan and non-communicative insults to Japanese honor.

But by February 1940, Bradley writes, 75% of Americans supported embargoing Japan. And most Americans, of course, did not want war. They had bought the China Lobby’s propaganda.

FDR and his Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau set up front companies and loans to Chaing, going behind the back of Secretary of State Cordell Hull. FDR, it seems, was not just catering to the China Lobby but truly believed its story — at least up to a point. His own mother, who had lived in a U.S. bit of China as a child with her opium-pushing father, was honorary chairwoman of both the China Aid Council and the American Committee for Chinese War Orphans. FDR’s wife was honorary chairwoman of Pearl Buck’s China Emergency Relief Committee. Two thousand U.S. labor unions backed an embargo on Japan. The first economic advisor to a U.S. president, Lauchlin Currie, worked for both FDR and the Bank of China simultaneously. Syndicated columnist and Roosevelt relative Joe Alsop cashed checks from TV Soong as an “advisor” even while performing his service as “objective journalist.” “No British, Russian, French, or Japanese diplomat,” writes Bradley, “would have believed that Chaing could become a New Deal liberal.” But FDR seems to have believed it. He communicated with Chaing and Mayling secretly, going around his own State Department.

Yet FDR believed that if embargoed, Japan would attack the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) with the possible result of a wider world war. Morgenthau, in Bradley’s telling, repeatedly tried to slip through a total embargo on petroleum to Japan, while FDR resisted. FDR did move the fleet to Pearl Harbor, impose a partial embargo on aviation-fuel and scrap, and loan money to Chaing. The Soong-Chaing syndicate also worked with the FDR White House to create a U.S.-funded, U.S.-trained, and U.S.-staffed air force for China to use in attacking Japanese cities. When FDR asked his advisor Tommy Corcoran to check out the leader of this new air force, former U.S. Air Corps captain Claire Chennault, he may have been unaware that he was asking someone in the pay of TV Soong to advise him on someone else in the pay of TV Soong.

Bradley says that FDR kept his Asian air war scheme secret from the U.S. public. Yet, on May 24, 1941, the ENew York Times reported on U.S. training of the Chinese air force, and the provision of “numerous fighting and bombing planes” to China by the United States. “Bombing of Japanese Cities is Expected,” read the subheadline. This may have been “kept secret” in the sense in which Obama’s kill list is secret despite appearing in the ENew York Times. It’s not endlessly discussed because it doesn’t fit well into happy little narratives. The “first draft of history” is always very selectively entered into history books that survive into future decades.

But Bradley is right that this was no secret from Japan. And he includes something I don’t remember knowing before, namely that Chennault admitted that when a ship carrying his pilots left San Francisco for Asia in July 1941, his men heard a Japanese radio broadcast boast, “That ship will never reach China. It will be sunk.” Also in July, FDR approved a Lend-Lease program for China: 269 more fighters and 66 bombers, and froze Japanese assets. All of this was part of longer and wider trends that Bradley could have developed more fully. But he offers some interesting details and a curious interpretation of them, concluding that Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson catapulted the United States into World War II by maneuvering to deny any U.S. oil to Japan for a month, beginning while FDR was off conspiring with Winston Churchill on a boat and creating what would be called the Atlantic Charter.

In Bradley’s account Hull learns of the embargo, a month in, on September 4, 1941, and informs FDR that day. But they elect to leave it unchanged as somehow undoing it would somehow be seen as allowing Japan to get “more” oil than before. The embargo had by this point been public news in Japan for a month. FDR had access to reports on Japanese news, as well as to decoded secret Japanese government communications, not to mention that he met with the Japanese ambassador in the interim. Were communications really not advanced in 1941 beyond what they were when Texas took so long to learn that slavery had ended?

In any case, when Japan saw the embargo lasting, it did not move toward moderate democracy as the China Lobby had always said would happen. Instead it became a military dictatorship. Meanwhile ixesha magazine was publicly hoping that a U.S. and British war on the side of China would persuade the Chinese to convert to Christianity. The parallel in the Israel Lobby is of course the Christian fanatics who believe that Israel is leading the way toward some magically prophesied future of desirable catastrophe.

Mayling Soong’s speech to the U.S. Congress in February 1943 rivaled Bibi Netanyahu’s of 2015 for mass adoration, delusion, and devotion to a fraudulent foreign power. The delusion would continue for generations. The Catholic Vietnam Lobby would get in on the game. The U.S. wouldn’t recognize Mao’s China until it had been reduced to making Richard Nixon its president. For the full account, I recommend Bradley’s book.

Yet I think the book has some gaps. It doesn’t seek to touch on FDR’s desire for war on Germany, nor on the value to him and his administration of a Japanese attack as the key to entering both the Atlantic and the Pacific wars. What follows I have written about before.

What Was FDR’s Game?

On December 7, 1941, FDR drew up a declaration of war on both Japan and Germany, but decided it wouldn’t work and went with Japan alone. Germany, as expected, quickly declared war on the United States.

I-FDR yayizame ukulala abantu baseMelika malunga neenqwelo zase-US kubandakanywa Greer kwaye i Kerny, eyayikunceda iinqwelo zaseBrithani zilandele i-German submarines, kodwa yiyiphi iRovelvelt eyenza ngathi yayihlaselwa ngokungasesikweni.

URovelvelt wayeqambe amanga ukuba wayenayo imbali eyimfihlo yamaNazi ukunqotshwa kweMzantsi Melika, kunye nesicwangciso seNazi esifihlakeleyo sokutshintsha zonke iinkonzo ngeNazism.

Ukususela ngoDisemba i-6, i-1941, iipesenti ezisibhozo zabasebenzi base-US abachasene nokungena kwimfazwe. Kodwa uRovelvelt wayeseqalile ukuqulunqa umgaqo-nkqubo, wenza i-National Guard, wenza i-Navy enkulu elwandle elwandle ezimbini, abathengisa abadala baseNgilani ngokutshintshiselana nokuqeshiswa kweziseko zayo eCaribbean naseBermuda, kwaye wabiza ngasese ukudala uluhlu lwazo zonke Umntu waseJapan noJapan waseMerika eUnited States.

Ngo-Epreli 28, 1941, uChurchill wabhalela ikhabinethi yakhe yemfazwe ngomgaqo ofihlakeleyo esithi: “Kungacingelwa ukuba ukungena kweJapan emfazweni kuya kulandelwa kukungena kwangoko kwelaseMelika kwicala lethu.”

Ngo-Agasti 18, 1941, uChurchill wadibana nekhabhinethi yakhe kwi-10 Downing Street. Intlanganiso yayifana nokufana noJulayi 23, i-2002, intlanganiso kwidilesi enye, imizuzu eyayibizwa ngokuba yi-Downing Street Minutes. Zintlanganiso zombini zityhila iimfihlo ze-US zokuya kwimfazwe. Kwiintlanganiso ze-1941, uChurchill watshela iikhabhinethi yakhe, ngokwemizuzu: "UMongameli uthe uthe uya kulwa kodwa akayi kuchaza." Ngaphezu koko, "Yonke into yayingenziwa ukunyanzelisa isiganeko."

Ukusukela embindini we-1930s Abaphembeleli boxolo base-US-abo bantu babenomsindo ngendlela eyiyo malunga neemfazwe zase-US zamva nje-babehamba ngokuchasene nokuchasana kwe-US ne-Japan kunye ne-US Navy yezicwangciso zemfazwe eJapan-nge-8 ka-Matshi 1939, inguqulelo yayo eyayichaza “imfazwe ehlaselayo ixesha elide ”elinokutshabalalisa umkhosi kunye nokuphazamisa ubomi bezoqoqosho eJapan.

NgoJanuwari 1941, i Umkhangisi waseJapan Uvakalise ingqumbo yakhe ngePearl Harbour kumhleli, kwaye ummeli wase-US eJapan ubhale kwidayari yakhe wathi: “Zininzi izinto ezithethwayo malunga nedolophu ukuba amaJapan, xa athe aphumla ne-United States, aceba yiya kuhlaselwa ngobuninzi ePearl Harbour. Ewe ndixelele urhulumente wam. ”

NgoFebhuwari 5, i-1941, i-Admiral yangaphambili uRicmond Kelly Turner wabhalela uNobhala weMfazwe uHenry Stimson ukuba axwayise malunga nokuhlaselwa ngokumangalisa ePearl Harbour.

As noted, as early as 1932 the United States had been talking with China about providing airplanes, pilots, and training for its war with Japan. In November 1940, Roosevelt loaned China one hundred million dollars for war with Japan, and after consulting with the British, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau made plans to send the Chinese bombers with U.S. crews to use in bombing Tokyo and other Japanese cities.

On December 21, 1940, China’s Minister of Finance T.V. Soong and Colonel Claire Chennault, the retired U.S. Army flier who was working for the Chinese and had been urging them to use American pilots to bomb Tokyo since at least 1937, met in Henry Morgenthau’s dining room to plan the firebombing of Japan. Morgenthau said he could get men released from duty in the U.S. Army Air Corps if the Chinese could pay them $1,000 per month. Soong agreed.

NgoJulayi, iBhodi edibeneyo yomkhosi wamanzi yayivume isicwangciso esibizwa ngokuba yi-JB 355 sokudubula iJapan. Umbutho ophambili ungathenga iinqwelomoya zaseMelika ukuba zihanjiswe ngamavolontiya aseMelika aqeqeshwe yiChennault kwaye ahlawulwe lelinye iqela langaphambili. U-Roosevelt uvumile, kunye nengcali yakhe e-China u-Lauchlin Currie, ngamagama ka-Nicholson Baker, "u-Madame Chaing Kai-Shek no-Claire Chennault babhala ileta ecela ukuba iintlola zase-Japan zinqunyulwe." Nokuba ibiyiyo okanye hayi ibiyinyani, yileta ibisithi: “Ndonwabe kakhulu ukuba ndinako ukunika ingxelo namhlanje uMongameli wayalela ukuba kuqhushumbe iibhombu ezingamashumi amathandathu anesithandathu e-China kulo nyaka zinamashumi amabini anesine ziziswe kwangoko. Ukwaphumeze inkqubo yoqeqesho lokuqhuba e-China apha. Iinkcukacha ngeendlela eziqhelekileyo. Ngokuhle okuphuma entlizweni eshushu."

The 1st American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Chinese Air Force, also known as the Flying Tigers (logo later designed by Walt Disney, as Bradley notes), moved ahead with recruitment and training immediately and were provided to China prior to Pearl Harbor.

Ngo-Meyi 31, 1941, kwi-Keep America Out of War Congress, uWilliam Henry Chamberlin wanikela isilumkiso esiqatha: “Ukunqumka kwezoqoqosho ngokupheleleyo eJapan, ngokomzekelo ukuyekiswa kokuthunyelwa kweoyile, kwakuza kutyhalela iJapan kwimikhosi yeAxis. Imfazwe yezoqoqosho iya kuba sisandulela semfazwe yaselwandle neyasemkhosini. ”

On July 24, 1941, President Roosevelt remarked, “If we cut the oil off , [the Japanese] probably would have gone down to the Dutch East Indies a year ago, and you would have had a war. It was very essential from our own selfish point of view of defense to prevent a war from starting in the South Pacific. So our foreign policy was trying to stop a war from breaking out there.” Reporters noticed that Roosevelt said “was” rather than “is.” The next day, Roosevelt issued an executive order freezing Japanese assets. The United States and Britain cut off oil and scrap metal to Japan, whether Acheson actually sneaked this past Roosevelt or not. Radhabinod Pal, an Indian jurist who served on the war crimes tribunal after the war, called the embargoes a “clear and potent threat to Japan’s very existence,” and concluded the United States had provoked Japan.

Ngo-Agasti 7, 1941, i Umkhangisi waseJapan Times Wabhala: "Okokuqala kwakukho ukudalwa kweSingapore, eyomelezwa kakhulu yimikhosi yaseBrithani kunye noBukumkani. Ukusuka kule ndawo, ivili elikhulu layakheka kwaye lidibaniswa neenqwelo zaseMerika ukwenza isandi esikhulu esahla kwindawo esezantsi nangasentshona ukusuka kwiiPhilippines ngeMalaya naseBurma, kunye nekhonkco ephukile kuphela kwi-peninsula yaseThailand. Ngoku kuhlongozwa ukuba kufake iincinci kwiindawo ezijikelezayo, eziya eRangoon. "

NgoSeptemba umshicileli waseJapan wavutha ukuba iUnited States yayiqalise ukuthumela ioli kwiJapan ekudlulele eRashiya. IJapan, amaphephandaba ayo athi, wayefa ukufa ngokukhawuleza "kwimfazwe yezoqoqosho."

Ngasekupheleni kukaOktobha, u-US uhlola u-Edgar Mower wayesebenza kuColonel William Donovan oye wahlola uRoosevelt. Umlambo uthetha nomntu waseManla ogama lingu-Ernest Johnson, ilungu leKhomishoni yaseMaritime, owathi wayekulindele ukuba "IJaps iya kuthatha iManila ngaphambi kokuba ndiphume." Xa uMower wathetha ngokumangaliswa, uJohnson waphendula wathi "Ngaba awuzange ukwazi iJapan iinqanawa ziye zafudukela empumalanga, mhlawumbi zihlasele iinqwelo zethu ePearl Harbor? "

Ngo-Novemba ka-3, 1941, i-ambassador yase-US yathumela i-telegram ende kwiSebe likaRhulumente ilumkisa ukuba isohlwayo soqoqosho sinokunyanzela i-Japan ukuba yenze "i-hara-kiri yesizwe." Ubhale wathi: "Ungquzulwano ngezixhobo kunye ne-United States lunokuza ngesiquphe esiyingozi."

Nge-15 ka-Novemba, i-Chief of Staff yase-US u-George Marshall uxelele amajelo eendaba ngento esingayikhumbuliyo njengo "Sicwangciso se-Marshall." Ngapha koko asiyikhumbuli kwaphela. "Silungiselela umlo ohlaselayo nxamnye neJapan," utshilo uMarshall, ecela oonondaba ukuba bayigcine iyimfihlo, ngokokwazi kwam ukuba bayenzile.

Kwiintsuku ezilishumi kamva uNobhala weMfazwe uStimson wabhala kwidayari yakhe ukuba wayedibene kwiOval Office noMarshall, uMongameli Roosevelt, uNobhala woMkhosi wamanzi uFrank Knox, uAdmiral Harold Stark, kunye noNobhala welizwe uCordell Hull. URoosevelt wayebaxelele ukuba amaJapan kungenzeka ukuba ahlasele kungekudala, mhlawumbi ngoMvulo olandelayo.

Kubhalwe kakuhle ukuba iUnited States yaphule iikhowudi zaseJapan kwaye uRovelvelt wayenokufikelela kuzo. Kwakungenxa yokuthintela into ebizwa ngokuba ngumyalezo wekhowudi omfusa ukuba uRovelvelt wafumanisa izicwangciso zaseJamani zokuhlasela iRussia. YayinguHull owavuzisa amajoni aseJapan eendaba, nto leyo eyakhokelela kuNovemba 30, 1941, umxholo owawusithi “uMeyi waseJapan Angabetha Ngempelaveki.”

Ngomvulo olandelayo nge-1 Disemba, kwiintsuku ezintandathu ngaphambi kokuba uhlaselo lufike. "Umbuzo," uStimson ubhale, "yindlela esimele sibashukumisele ngayo kwindawo yokudubula kuqala ngaphandle kokuvumela ingozi enkulu kuthi. Esi yayisisindululo esinzima. ”

Ngomhla emva kohlaselo, iCongress yavotela imfazwe. I-Congresswoman uJeannette Rankin (R., Mont.) Bema bodwa ekuvoteni akukho. Kunyaka omnye emva kokuvota, nge-8 kaDisemba ngo-1942, u-Rankin wafaka intetho kwi-DRM Record echaza inkcaso yakhe. Wacaphula umsebenzi wepropagandist wase-Bhritane owayephikisana ngo-1938 ngokusebenzisa iJapan ukuzisa i-United States emfazweni. Ucacisile ireferensi kaHenry Luce kwi ubomi Ngo-Julayi 20, i-1942, "kwiiTshayina amaShayina awayebuyisele kuyo i-Pearl Harbor." Wazisa ubungqina bokuba kwiNgqungquthela yaseAtlantic ngo-Agasti 12, 1941, Roosevelt wayeqinisekisile uChurchill ukuba iUnited States yayiza kuzisa uxinzelelo lwezoqoqosho ukuphatha eJapan. "Ndikhankanyile," u-Rankin kamva wabhala, "iSebe likaRhulumente kwiSebe likaDisemba i-20, i-1941, eyabonisa ukuba ngoSeptemba 3 unxibelelwano luye luthunyelwa eJapan ludinga ukuba lwamkele umgaqo 'wokungahambisani nendawo yePacific, 'oye wafuna ukuqinisekiswa kokungabikho kwemibuso emhlophe eMpuma. "

I-Rankin ifumene ukuba iBhodi yoKhuselo loQoqosho ifumene izigwebo zezoqoqosho ngaphantsi kweveki emva kweNkomfa ye-Atlantic. NgoDisemba 2, 1941, i ENew York Times Eqinisweni, iJapane "yayinqunywe kwi-75 yepesenti yayo yorhwebo ngokuqhelekileyo yi-Allied blockade." U-Rankin wachaza nenqaku likaLieutenant Clarence E. Dickinson, USN, NgeMigqibelo yoMgqibelo Oktobha 10, 1942, ukuba ngoNovemba 28, 1941, iintsuku ezisi-9 ngaphambi kokuhlaselwa, i-Vice Admiral uWilliam F. Halsey, Jr., (yena kwisiqubulo esithi "Bulala iJaps! Bulala iJaps!") wayinike imiyalelo kuye abanye "badonsa phantsi nantoni na esiyibonayo esibhakabhakeni size sibhome nantoni na esiyibonayo elwandle."

Jikelele uGeorge Marshall uvumelekile kwiCongress kwi-1945: ukuba iikhowudi zaphulwe, ukuba iUnited States yaqalisa izivumelwano ze-Anglo-Dutch-Amerika zokusebenzisana ngokumelene neJapane kwaye zisebenzise phambi kwePearl Harbor, nokuba iUnited States unikezelwa ngamagosa omkhosi wakhe eChina ngenjongo yokulwa phambi kwePearl Harbor.

Imemorandam ka-Okthobha ka-1940 eyenziwe ngu-Lieutenant Commander u-Arthur H. McCollum yenziwa nguMongameli Roosevelt kunye nabaphathi bakhe abaziintloko. Ibize amanyathelo asibhozo athe uMcCollum waxela ukuba angakhokelela amaJapan ukuba ahlasele, kubandakanya nokwenza amalungiselelo okusetyenziswa kweziseko zaseBritane eSingapore kunye nokusetyenziswa kweziseko zaseDatshi kwindawo ngoku eyi-Indonesia, enceda urhulumente wase-China, ethumela ukwahlulwa kwexesha elide abahamba ngenqanawa enzima ukuya kwiiPhilippines okanye eSingapore, bethumela amacandelo amabini eenkwili phantsi “kwelaseMpuma,” begcina ezona mikhosi ziphambili eHawaii, bema ngelithi amaDatshi ayayikhanyela ioyile yaseJapan, kwaye evala lonke urhwebo neJapan ngokusebenzisana noBukhosi baseBritane. .

Ngosuku olulandelayo emva kwesimemo sikaMcCollum, iSebe likaRhulumente laxelela abantu baseMelika ukuba baphume kumazwe asempuma kude, kwaye uRoosevelt wayalela ukuba iinqanawa zigcinwe eHawaii malunga nenkcaso enzima ka-Admiral James O. Richardson owacaphula amazwi kaMongameli esithi “kungekudala amaJapan aza kwenza Ukwenza ngokuchasene ne-United States kwaye ilizwe lingavuma ukuya emfazweni. ”

Umyalezo owathunyelwa ngu-Admiral Harold Stark ku-Admiral Husband Kimmel ngo-Novemba 28, 1941, wawufundeka ngolu hlobo, “UKUBA IINDAWO ZOKUHLALA ZINGANAKWENZEKA UKUTHINTELWA I-UNITED STATES INQWENELELA UKUBA I-JAPAN YENZE UMTHETHO WOKUQALA WOKUGQIBELA.”

UJoseph Rochefort, owayengumbhexeshi wecandelo lezobuntlola loMkhosi waselwandle, nowaba negalelo ekusileleni ukunxibelelana nePearl Harbour ngento eyayiza kwenzeka, wayeza kuthi kamva: “Ibixabiso eliphantsi kakhulu ukuhlawula ukumanya ilizwe.”

Ngobusuku obulandelayo emva kohlaselo, uMongameli Roosevelt wayenee-CBS News zika-Edward R. Murrow kunye noMququzeleli wezoLwazi u-Roosevelt uWilliam Donovan kwisidlo sangokuhlwa e-White House, kwaye wonke uMongameli wayefuna ukwazi ukuba ingaba abantu baseMelika bazakuyamkela na imfazwe. UDonovan noMurrow bamqinisekisile ukuba abantu bazakuyamkela imfazwe ngoku. Emva koko uDonovan uxelele umncedisi wakhe ukuba ukumangaliswa kukaRoosevelt yayingekuko kwabanye abantu ababemngqongile, kwaye yena, uRoosevelt, walwamkela uhlaselo. UMurrow akazange akwazi ukulala ngobo busuku kwaye wayehlutshwa ubomi bakhe bonke ngento awayeyibiza ngokuba "lelona bali likhulu ebomini bam" angazange alithethe.