Was FDR to blame for Pearl Harbor?

Thanks for your thoughtful post. You actually had something substantial to post besides lofty opinion. While I'm still not convinced that Stinnet's book is faulty, I will comment no further on the subject. It’s really useless, endless debate.

Unlike some on this forum, I understand that I DO NOT know everything. There is a lot of people on this forum that have a tremendous amount of knowledge on all aspects of the war. I wish to learn and benefit from that vast store of expertise. Especially the WWII vets on here like yourself.


I have the utmost respect for all of our men who served in the war. The last thing I want to do is to seem disrespectful of their sacrifice.

 

The only thing I've gotten used is you being a Smart _ _ _

 

No. Of course not. I think the reason the Americans weren't better prepared was because of that one admiral,when the radar station reported the Japanese planes coming, but the admiral thought it was some B-17s

 

Oops my bad

 

As always, Clint, you defuse unpleasantness by presenting well researched fact.

OpanaPointer, if I've not mentioned it before, long before I or you joined the Forum, I'd been appreciative of the original documents you have made available to serious researchers. And I of course continue to appreciate all that you share.

 

Why would FDR be responsible for the bombing of my homestate?

 

I'm glad you asked that question. FDR was looking for a way of getting into a war with Germany, to help his buddy, Winston Churchill. He had hoped the US Navy's neutrally patrol, would provide a big enough
incident, to persuade, the American People and Congress, a war against Germany was necessary, but as of Dec 7, 1941, it had not.

Meanwhile, FDR was pursuing a backdoor way, of getting into the war with Germany he wanted. In 1994, The McCollum Memo (date Oct 7, 1940), was declassified. The memo is written documentation, of what
many historians had been saying for years. That FDR, basically forced
Japan into a corner, that would lead to war. A war the US Military was not ready to fight, but would win after a while, do to our large industrial base an other factors.

FDR also had to get by his campaign promise, "not send our boys off to fight a foreign war". History has been kind to FDR, because any excuse to get into WW2, and stop the Nazis, was a good excuse. Now after all
these years, the truth about FDR's manipulations has finally come out.

I think it was Henry Kissinger who said "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" FDR was no exception to this axiom!

 

Actually if you research it enough you will find that the forcing was done by elements of his administration. He hoped to hold off until we were ready in mid 42. Indeed up until 7 Dec the indications were that that might indeed have been the case.

 

Where do get this idea, "The Republicans in Congress insisted on the oil embargo". Everyone else understands, the oil, scrap metal embargos,
was done by the Roosevelt admin.

What FDR did with the embargoes and sanctions, before US entry into
WW2, was very skillfull, political manipulation of The Neutrality Act.
Enforcing the Act is some situations and not others. The Neutrality Act
was passed by Congress, that's true. But it was constantly manipulated
by the Roosevelt administation, to help nations that would become our allies.

For instance, Lend-Lease was preposterous, the US was never going to get paid back, for the stuff sent to England or Russia.

 

Yes, and the McCollum memo was enacted and inforced by the administration. NOT the republicans in congress.

 

I don't think so. Certainly they had a hand in it, maybe even were the driving force behind it, but they had a lot of support.

Not really. The embargoes and sanctions had little or nothing to do with the Neutrality Act and pretty much everything to do with Japan's behavior in China. Indeed it seems to have been something of a distraction from Europe where Roosevelt considered Germany to be the more serious problem.

??? The whole point of Lend-Lease was we got leases on bases for "lending" the equipment.

 

The Lend-Lease arrangements were "bundled" in with the later Marshall Plan (ERP), and were repaid (at 2% interest) in the early years of this century (2005?) by Great Britain. Those to the former USSR were put on "hold" during the cold war, but re-instated during the Glastnos period so that the USSR could qualify for both IMF and USA loans.

The arrangement for the Lend-Lease debt was agreed to, and a schedule set up. However the USSR ceased to exist shortly thereafter; and the CIS then accepted the L/L debt, then when that Confederacy came to an end the Russian state assumed the debt, and has (I believe) paid it off as well.

The other 42 nations who received L/L paid off their debts years ago, in fact most of them had been paid before the end of the fifties.

You are simply mistaken on this as well as other portions of your posts "DogFather". If you are going to worry about old debts, it would be more realistic to complain about the unpaid WW1 debts, only Finland repaid that debt to the US.

And while the UK dutifully pays off its World War II debts, those from World War I remain resolutely unpaid. And are by no means trifling. In 1934, Britain owed the US $4.4bn of World War I debt (about £866m at 1934 exchange rates). Adjusted by the Retail Price Index, a typical measure of inflation, £866m would equate to £40bn now, and if adjusted by the growth of GDP, to about £225bn.

"We just sort of gave up around 1932 when the interwar economy was in turmoil, currencies were collapsing," says Prof Harrison.

Nor were we alone. In 1931, US President Herbert Hoover announced a one-year moratorium on war loan repayments from all nations so the international community could properly discuss what it was going to do.

These loans remain in limbo. The UK Government's position is this: "Neither the debt owed to the United States by the UK nor the larger debts owed by other countries to the UK have been serviced since 1934, nor have they been written off."

See:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4757181.stm