Does Anyone Still Believe FDR Was Right to Blame Kimmel and Short?

Does anyone here still believe that FDR was justified in placing all the blame for Pearl Harbor on Admiral Kimmel and General Short?

Over the last two decades, most historians who specialize in the Pacific War have concluded that Kimmel and Short were treated very unfairly, and that their actions were reasonable given the information they had at the time and given the vast amount of intelligence that was withheld from them.

You don't have to believe that FDR allowed Pearl Harbor to happen to acknowledge that FDR treated Kimmel and Short very unfairly. You don't have to believe in a Pearl Harbor conspiracy to acknowledge that, either because of incompetence or blunders, Washington officials failed to relay vital intelligence to Kimmel and Short.

Here are the best books that defend Kimmel and Short, that condemn FDR for scapegoating them, but that do not argue for a conspiracy:

Summers, Anthony and Robbyn Swan. A Matter of Honor: Betrayal, Blame, and a Family's Quest for Justice. New York: Harper Books, 2016. Summers and Swan use newly discovered material, among other sources, to destroy the traditionalist arguments against Kimmel and Short.

Gannon, Michael. Pearl Harbor Betrayed: The True Story of a Man and a Nation Under Attack. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2001. A methodical debunking of the case against Kimmel and Short.

Beach, Edward. Scapegoats: A Defense of Kimmel and Short. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1995. Beach was a retired Navy captain and a historian. He was also the author of the famous novel Run Silent, Run Deep.

 

This is the depth of Mike's idiocy...he asks one question - Blame?, but answers another - treated unfairly?

Were Kimmel & Short to blame? Yes, unquestionably. They were the ones in charge, they were the ones responsible, they are the ones to blame.

Were Kimmel & Short treated unfairly? Yes, unquestionably. MacArthur got the CMOH for losing the Philippines, while Kimmel & Short were essentially cashiered

 

A politician's job is to take the credit and distribute the blame. FDR shifted the spotlight from his own actions. For politicians, accountability is what others get.

 

I'm just trying to see if there are any diehard traditionalists here, and to see how much of a time warp this forum represents.

 

LOL! You cite the Dorn Report???!!! Oh my goodness. The Dorn Report is a total joke, an abject piece of nonsense. If you ever do manage to crack open your mind on the subject, you might read Summers and Swan's book A Matter of Honor.

The fact that you would cite the Dorn Report in 2022 shows that you are at least 20 years behind the information curve. The Dorn Report was a joke when it was released. It is a shameful embarrassment now.

First off, there is a big difference between "blame" and "responsibility." Second, you are using a dubious definition of "responsibility," one that is far more expansive than how it has usually been defined. In most cases, I am responsible for my kids' actions, but I not to blame for them. Command responsibility is not a blanket doctrine that ignores the circumstances.

You guys should change the name of this forum to The Forum that Time Forgot.

 

Time warp...2 years less 1 month, almost to the day...
Why not "besiege" Japan? - Page 13 - Axis History Forum

 

Yes, you are, it is called poor parenting, after all you raised them...You don't blame the President, he had no part in raising your kids...Well, maybe you would, but I wouldn't.

NEWS FLASH! MIKE'S KIDS ARE A-HOLES, HE BLAMES FDR.

Sounds rather stupid, don't you think?

 

I, for one, like the title "The Forum that Time Forgot"

 

So we have here a tiny band of true believers, a tiny band of people who still believe, in spite of all we now know, that FDR was justified in blaming Kimmel and Short, that the Roberts Commission got it right. Apparently you folks don't realize that most scholars, the substantial majority of scholars, who have written about Pearl Harbor over the last 20 years have concluded that Kimmel and Short were not to blame because so much vital intelligence was withheld from them, because Washington led them to believe that the preparations they reported making were acceptable (e.g., Marshall to Short), and because FDR and Marshall failed to send a timely warning on the morning of 7 December even though they had ample time to do so and could have done so simply by using the scrambler phone.

And, yes, folks, do go read that thread in the Axis Forum, especially my subsequent replies after Takao's response. Takao's arguments in his reply do not even refute my points, but repeat timeworn traditionalist talking points, such as Takao's lame dismissal of the USSBS findings. Here, too, you guys apparently don't know that the vast majority, the overwhelming majority of scholars who specialize in Japan's surrender have long since agreed with the USSBS and have also, using newly discovered Japanese materials, documented that it was the Soviet invasion that caused Japan to surrender, not the atomic bomb. See, for example, the letter that dozens of scholars sent to the Smithsonian Institution regarding the Enola Gay exhibit.

 

Apparently you don't realise that most scholars, even the vast majority of scholars you keep writing about, are the ones you've cherry-picked to support your hypothesis.
While we are at it: Where are you with the evidentiary passages from the Hoover-Ladd memos that you were asked for?