Joseph Kennedy, father of JFK, said that in January 1941 FDR had assured him: "I have no intentions of going to war... I've said it 150 times at least"
This was a deception. By December of 1941, FDR understood full well that his policies had made an attack by Japan inevitable
This was a deception. By December of 1941, FDR understood full well that his policies had made an attack by Japan inevitable
Roosevelt had been determined to officially enter the war against Germany. Recall: in August 1941, Churchill said Roosevelt had told him that he would "wage war, but not declare it" -- in hopes of forcing an "incident" with Germany that could "justify him opening hostilities"
Hours after Japan launched the attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt convened a cabinet meeting -- and blamed Hitler for the attack. "There was no question that this was a concerted effort running over several weeks with Germany," Roosevelt said
As contemporaneously recorded by his cabinet members, Roosevelt claimed Japan had carried out the attack "under pressure from Berlin" -- because Hitler was seeking to "divert American supplies from the European theater"
In reality, upon being first told of the attack, "Hitler reacted with astonishment." His face brightened and he asked tensely, “Is the news true?"
(source: "Hitler's American Gamble: Pearl Harbor and Germany’s March to Global War" by Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman, 2021)
(source: "Hitler's American Gamble: Pearl Harbor and Germany’s March to Global War" by Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman, 2021)
Hitler then immediately rushed out of the building he was in -- "running about one hundred meters unaccompanied, without his usual cap and coat" -- to tell Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the German military, the breaking news
Keitel and others with whom Hitler spoke immediately after learning the news were all in agreement about his reaction: "the Führer was surprised — he clearly had no foreknowledge" that Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor that day
Nonetheless, for Roosevelt, an "incident" that could officially "justify him opening hostilities" against Germany -- the opportunity Churchill said Roosevelt had long sought -- had finally arrived
Roosevelt's Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, pressed Roosevelt to immediately request “a declaration of war against Germany also." Stimson stated his agreement with Roosevelt's assessment, emphasizing that "Germany had pushed Japan into this and that Germany was the real actor"
Roosevelt ultimately opted to wait for Hitler to act first -- and indeed on December 11, Hitler issued a formal declaration of war against the US. Citing, among other things, the three earlier instances of naval attacks that Roosevelt had ordered be initiated on German submarines
Though Roosevelt had opted to wait for Hitler to act first in issuing a formal war declaration, immediately after Japan launched its attack, "the administration was determined to imprint Nazi responsibility for Pearl Harbor on the American public consciousness."
The head of the new War Supplies board Roosevelt had created, Don Nelson, delivered a radio address the night of December 7 after consulting with the White House. Nelson said: "Though the attack has been made by the Japanese, it is in reality an attack on us by the Axis powers."
"We are face to face with an attack directed primarily from Berlin," Nelson announced in the radio address. New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia, appointed by Roosevelt as director of the Office of Civilian Defense, also delivered a radio broadcast that same night
In the broadcast, La Guardia announced that “Nazi thugs and gangsters” were “the masterminds” of the Pearl Harbor attack. While Congress would not formally declare war on Germany until December 11, Roosevelt immediately understood on December 7 that war with Germany had begun
Of course there are many more details I could include here. Much of the most interesting scholarship on this subject is very recent -- as mentioned above, the book used for the chronology presented in this thread was published in 2021
Reading this scholarship with a clear mind, it's increasingly difficult to imagine how anyone can seriously doubt that US entry into World War II was orchestrated by means of a shockingly brazen, deliberate, systematic campaign of official government deception
And if people still do insist on continuing to doubt this, it should raise extreme doubts about their ability and/or willingness to recognize official government deception in the present-tense
Addendum: In his 1951 memoir, the staunch non-interventionist and Socialist leader Norman Thomas wrote, "It is not to deny the guilt of the Japanese war lords to say that Roosevelt’s policy was headed toward war with Japan, and that Pearl Harbor was politically a godsend to him"
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