# Did FDR Will and Allow Pearl Harbor? Srdja Trifkovic's Take on the Conspiracy Theory **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 30, 2008, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197 "2008-12-30T10:31:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/21 "2008-12-30T22:00:29Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Didn’t the planes on the ground airfields in fact provide some measure of defense? > > I think the carrier argument is pretty silly, but I’m not sure that’s the point that dooms it. The policy of the Navy at the time (and it still is) is for the air wing to fly off the ship, and land at a nearby airfield (in the case of Oahu, the Navy used Ford Island, Barbers Point, and Kaneohe Bay fields.) if the ship is going to stay inport for more than a couple days. This way, the squadron can still fly training missions, naval recon missions, SAR missions, or whatever, while the carrier is docked. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/22 "2008-12-31T03:08:31Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Was there really an attachment to the Philippines in popular sentiment sufficient to turn public opinion so quickly? Greater than the sympathy for Great Britain? > > Indeed. To quote my OP, “If the goal was a Japanese attack, why leave the Navy unprepared? Wouldn’t the Japanese attack either way?” In 1941 the Phillipines were a U.S. commonwealth. An attack on the Phillipines would have been just as much an attack on the U.S. as Pearl Harbor. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/23 "2008-12-31T05:47:18Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Was there really an attachment to the Philippines in popular sentiment sufficient to turn public opinion so quickly? Greater than the sympathy for Great Britain? You have to remember that at the time the Philippines were seen the great jewel in the US colonial empire. Wrested from the evil Spanish and given all the advantages of benign American assistance (please ignore the Philippine Insurrection). And it was about to be christened as a new nation, and a full member in the American Commonwealth. Compared to that Hawaii was a nothing little territory that just happened to have a nice port. The US killed over a million Filippinos to bring the benefits of civilization to them… I highly doubt they were going to just let the Japanese take over. Not to mention, as **toadspittle** already has, there were over 20,000 US servicemen stationed there at the time including a full US army division, 120+ fighters and bombers, and the 60+ ships of the USN Asiatic Fleet. Even if the US could ignore the Filippinos, the Bataan death march was going to get the public riled up. ---
**Author:** ![Kokopilau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Kokopilau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kokopilau)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/24 "2008-12-31T18:14:50Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Actually the carriers were sent away delivering combat aircraft to forward bases in preparation for a possible Japanese attack. The exact sort of thing a president bent on allowing us to get ambushed would NOT have done. Plus, at least one carrier (the Enterprise) was supposed to be in port at Pearl Harbor on December 7th. She was returning from deliverg aircraft to the base on Wake Island when a storm delayed her journey enough that she just barely missed being there for the attack (but was still close enough to actually launch planes that were caught up in the attack). Pretty clever of those conspirators to arrange a freak Pacific storm like that to keep one of the few American carriers existing at the time from being struck at Pearl Harbor. Especially given the still-primitive nature of weather forecasting. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/25 "2008-12-31T19:00:52Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > Don’t aircraft carriers need to be moving to provide enough additional windspeed to get planes in the air? Having the carriers in port would just have made things worse. I was going to make exactly this point. Even modern jets benefit from the carrier steaming into the wind during flight ops. WW-II vintage aircraft would benefit from a much larger %age of thier take-off and landing speeds. Not to mention that a crowded enviroment like Pearl Harbor would present lots of fairly tall obsticals just after takeoff and on short final. It is bad enough when a plane blows a takeoff or landing and ends up in the drink, but much worse if it splats into a friendly distroyer. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/26 "2008-12-31T20:16:51Z")
FDR wanted to fight the Nazis, not the Japanese. FDR’s policies in the Pacific were a tightrope between reigning in Japan’s desire to expand and provoking Japan into a war. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/27 "2008-12-31T20:43:51Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > Some people favour the conspiracy theory of history and some people prefter the cock up theory… > > Take the American carriers. They were both sent out from Pearl Harbour in late November. To Trifkovic, this was a cunning plan to reduce fighter cover over Hawaii. It’s possible he’s correct, but consider the other possibilities > > There were 60 or 70 shore based fighter aircaft at Pearl Harbour. They were no match for the 300+ Japanese aircraft. Would another 50 aircraft have faired better?.. The fighters based at Wheeler (near Pearl Harbor) weren’t very useful–because of a cock up. (From [an account](http://www.acepilots.com/usaaf_welch.html) of 2 fighter pilots who _did_ get off the ground–from a more distant air field.) > [@](#): > > … The vast majority of Army Air Force fighters at Wheeler were parked in neat rows on the main flightline; although war with Japan appeared imminent, it was decided that the possibility of sabotage from the ground presented a greater threat than a potential air attack, and it was easier to guard them while parked in neat rows than dispersed on the airfield perimeter. Thus when the Japanese carrier-based sneak attack against Pearl Harbor and Wheeler and Hickam Fields came on the morning of December 7, 1941, the majority of the Army Air Force fighter force was easily destroyed on the ground… ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/28 "2008-12-31T20:55:20Z")
FDR had an oil embargo on the Japanese as a result of Japanese aggression throughout Asia. Relations with Japan were strained. Japan engaged in a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and a bit later the Philippines, both of which were highly successful. The US did not know in advance of these attacks, although if radar was interpreted correctly, we might have gained a few minutes notice, but that would not likely have done any good. Of course, the attacks on the Philippines should have been anticipated in light of what happened at Pearl. Was FDR trying to goad Japan? We will never know. He confided in nobody, not even Henry Hopkins about what was going on in his head. I think he was trying to embargo Japan economically and knew there was some risk of war, which was probably a bit distant. The Navy’s precautions were for war, but they were proven to be the wrong thing to do by events. There was no “Hirohito likely to attack US targets with carrier based planes next month” memo, so by conservative standards, who let Bush off completely with “Bin Ladin determined to attack US with hijacked planes next month” (or whatever), the conservatives can finally shut up with their conspiracy theories. But they won’t. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2009, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/29 "2009-01-01T02:55:52Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Of course, the attacks on the Philippines should have been anticipated in light of what happened at Pearl. They were anticipated. The U.S. planes sortied as soon as word reached them, presuming (reasonably) that the japanese would time their attacks to coincide so that one attack would not alert the other defenders. Unfortunately for the U.S., the Japanese attack force was grounded on Formosa (the name at the time) by a heavy fog and was not able to launch as scheduled. When the fog burned off, the Japanese launched their attack, just in time to catch a lot of the U.S. planes returning to base to refuel, having flown a useless CAP against an enemy that was not yet on the way. = = = = = > [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > There was no “Hirohito likely to attack US targets with carrier based planes next month” memo, so by conservative standards, who let Bush off completely with “Bin Ladin determined to attack US with hijacked planes next month” (or whatever), the conservatives can finally shut up with their conspiracy theories. But they won’t. Nothing in this thread requires that it be hijacked into an acrimonious squabble over current politics. If you have a need to link WWII to the Iraq War, open a new thread. [/Modding] ---
**Author:** ![edivincison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@edivincison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edivincison)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/30 "2009-01-05T02:00:29Z")
No contributor to this thread has so far come up with the most plausible argument in support of the conspiracy hypothesis about Pearl Harbor _(not conspiracy theory, which would mean the analysis of the nature of conspiracy itself)_. The Americans were indeed in need to create an alibi to drop the first two atomic bombs in history, in order to dissuade Staline to use his advantage of proximity to precede them in the conquest of Europe _(alas, not the salvation)_. The invasion and conquest of Europe was necessary to create the backstage for the subsequent installment of Israel as the official homeland for the Jews, whereas actually the Hebrew State was predestined to become a strategic stronghold near the Arab petrol fields. Hence massive immigration into Israel would have jeopardized the military vocation of Israel (extrapolating from this, the reader may get a clue about the strategic goal of the Shoah… and about those who must have stood behind Hitler). 60 years later, the military role of Israel may have to be considered as virtually no more sustainable, and I would not be surprised if Obama’s promise to support Israel were to turn out as an electoral lie… ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/31 "2009-01-05T02:16:02Z")
> [@edivincison](#): > > No contributor to this thread has so far come up with the most plausible argument in support of the conspiracy hypothesis about Pearl Harbor _(not conspiracy theory, which would mean the analysis of the nature of conspiracy itself)_. > > The Americans were indeed in need to create an alibi to drop the first two atomic bombs in history, in order to dissuade Staline to use his advantage of proximity to precede them in the conquest of Europe _(alas, not the salvation)_. > > The invasion and conquest of Europe was necessary to create the backstage for the subsequent installment of Israel as the official homeland for the Jews, whereas actually the Hebrew State was predestined to become a strategic stronghold near the Arab petrol fields. > > Hence massive immigration into Israel would have jeopardized the military vocation of Israel (extrapolating from this, the reader may get a clue about the strategic goal of the Shoah… and about those who must have stood behind Hitler). > > 60 years later, the military role of Israel may have to be considered as virtually no more sustainable, and I would not be surprised if Obama’s promise to support Israel were to turn out as an electoral lie… 1. Why should Roosevelt and the Zionists want a war in the Pacific? Wouldn’t they have been better off creating a pretext to go directly to war in Europe? 2. Why drop the bomb on Japan? Wouldn’t dropping it on Germany have been more effective? 3. Why establish Israel as a strategic location when the country now known as Pakistan was still part of the British Empire? For that matter, since all of Palestine was under British protectorate, why establish a state of Israel at all? 4. What the hell does Obama have to do with this discussion? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/32 "2009-01-05T02:17:04Z")
> [@Frostillicus](#): > > FDR was Assistant Secretary of the Navy for eight years during Wilson’s administration. He absolutely LOVED the navy. No way does he deliberately allow Japan to destroy our Pacific Fleet so as to have an excuse to enter WWII. This has always been, I think, the most telling criticism of the “FDR knew Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked” revisionist glurge. To suspect that he decided to allow the Pacific Fleet to just absorb a massive sneak attack is sheer lunacy. There was no way FDR could have done any kind of cost-benefit analysis about acceptable losses from a Japanese attack if he had known it was coming, since he had to expect he might lose the entire fleet, and perhaps with it, the war in the West. And if it had later come out that he knew ahead of time and had done nothing, he would have been impeached in a heartbeat. ---
**Author:** ![edivincison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@edivincison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edivincison)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/33 "2009-01-05T03:04:26Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > 1. Why should Roosevelt and the Zionists want a war in the Pacific? Wouldn’t they have been better off creating a pretext to go directly to war in Europe? > > 2. Why drop the bomb on Japan? Wouldn’t dropping it on Germany have been more effective? > > 3. Why establish Israel as a strategic location when the country now known as Pakistan was still part of the British Empire? For that matter, since all of Palestine was under British protectorate, why establish a state of Israel at all? > > 4. What the hell does Obama have to do with this discussion? #2: Think of how many Americans have German ancestors! (this answers #1). #3: Pakistan is too far away from the oil fields of Iraq and has no access to the Mediterranean. As to why establish a state of Israel at all: the original Jews (those of which Israel has never counted more than 20%) are Semites, hence Arabs, whereas those greedy of Arab petrol were white Jews with so far fetched semitic origins that they could by no ways justify any territorial claim in Palestina. The territory to install Israel could not be gained otherwise than by force! #4: This: Obama has announced the end of the realm of the falcons who are mainly represented by the Bush dynasty and their consorts, encompassing a period covering Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima/Nagasaki, the Shoah, 9/11, London, Madrid, Iraq (and a few other crimes they may have sponsored). It is now 4:00 am in Switzerland… ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/34 "2009-01-05T03:22:16Z")
Time you were in bed. ---
**Author:** ![Snnipe\_70E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/35 "2009-01-05T03:28:28Z")
I will come back and read through this completely but here is something to think about. ``` Part of the embargo was not to ship scrap steel to Japan. But the bill establishing the the embargo defined scrap steel as any piece of steel over 6 feet in lenght. Steel is cut into pieces under 6 feet. ``` Japan had a history of breaking relationship with a country just before or at the same time as attacking. FDR and the war department knew that Japan was going to break relations with the US On December 7th. the US had been reading Japan’s codded messages for a long timme, In fact US intellegance had decoded the message to Japan’s embecy faster than their diplomats could. Add to this Dolittle in 1936 tried to worn the Navy that they could be attacked at Pearl by demenstrating a mock attack. The logical 1st attacks for Japan to make were the Philipeans, Midway, or Pearl. The Navy sent Halsey to deliever airplains to china (I believe it Was China) to the carriers were out of Pearl on December 7th. The plains should have gone by cargo or other means, using carriers as cargo transports? Until Dec 8th, 1941 the US Navy was a Battleship Navy, After the attack it bacame a carrier Navy. There was a sinking of a Japanesse sub out side pearl before the attack and it did not raise a general alarm. There were radar contacts that did not raise an alarm. There were other insidents that should have put the cmplete fleet on alert, but did not. ON December 7th there large groups that believed we should stay out of the war. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/36 "2009-01-05T03:38:12Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > 1. FDR did everything he could short of actually going to open war to hurt the Japanese and the Germans. In particular by refusing to sell oil to Japan he knew he was depriving them of an essential resource that their war machine needed. In every sense of the word FDR **was** doing things that a reasonable person might expect to provoke a declaration of war. This almost certainly true, that the US’s treatment of Japan before Pearl Harbor was what provoked them to an act of war. However, it’s misleading to suggest that FDR did this simply as a provocation. It was a response to Japan’s invasion of mainland China. It can be argued that it was essentially anti-Asian racism that brought much of this about: Japan was acting as its role models–the US and Britain–had taught them: you need resources, you invade a weaker country. Unfortunately, while this was acceptable behavior for the US and Britain, it was deemed unacceptable behavior by Japan. (Hence my charge of racism.) When Japan invaded China for oil, the UN (AFAIK)–led by the US and Britain–called for a further embargo. It’s one theory that the Japanese were so offended by this outrageous hypocrisy, as they saw it–plus the reports of anti-Asian racism in America–that it led to Pear Harbor. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/37 "2009-01-05T04:13:32Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > Time you were in bed. It’s about time for the nice lady to come by with the cart full of medicine… ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/38 "2009-01-05T04:27:38Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > It’s about time for the nice lady to come by with the cart full of medicine… Let’s leave the personal shots for the Pit. ---
**Author:** ![Snnipe\_70E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/39 "2009-01-05T04:50:37Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > I have a problem with this part - if the carriers had been left in port, they would have been taken out just like the rest of the ships. I don’t think a carrier could provide air defense against a surprise attack any more than the planes on the runways of the ground airfields did; I would expect a carrier would be much easier to disable than an airbase with multiple large runways. Yamamoto wanted the carriers above everything else. He knew if he could not sink them then the attack may yeild the case of winning the battle but loosing the war. ---
**Author:** ![Snnipe\_70E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197/40 "2009-01-05T04:53:10Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Didn’t the planes on the ground airfields in fact provide some measure of defense? > > I think the carrier argument is pretty silly, but I’m not sure that’s the point that dooms it. Very little because they were not on any kind of alert. The Army planes were destroyed on the ground. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-fdr-will-and-allow-pearl-harbor-srdja-trifkovics-take-on-the-conspiracy-theory/479197.md?page=3)