Hey Bart:
I was SO DISGUSTED by
LIBERAL professor and author Thomas Fleming's book "ROOSEVELT'S WAR" that
I did a 5-page, single space
term-paper on the subject... and had enough info
left out to write an ENTIRE VOLUME on the subject in rebuttal.
Fleming's thesis was that NOT ONLY did Roosevelt KNOW about the Japanese attack plans in advance (and thereby ALLOW the attack on Pearl); but Fleming also states that Roosevelt SINGLE-HANDEDLY made the war drag on longer by holding out for UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER of the Germans and Japs. That is, many American boys would have been SAVED had that traitorous Roosevelt simply ALLOWED a NEGOTIATED end to the war... leaving the German High Command (if not Hitler himself!) in command!
And the sad part is, Fleming is an EXCELLENT Historian, his book "Liberty!" about the American Revolution truly demonstrates that "a picture is worth a thousand words" - the illustrations and photos are so amazing, and the text so concise, that they can really transport a reader back to the days when Ben Franklin (for example) disowned his son, so inflammed were American passions during that often terrible civil war (the Revolution).
Well, to make my research-story short, the story is pretty simple: Aware of the horrors of Japan's invasion of Manchuria and "the Rape of Nanking" (among many other beastly Japanese aggressions, including the invasion and slaughters in Korea), Roosevelt decided to DEPLOY the US Navy Pacific Fleet FROM San Diego TO Pearl Harbor as a sort of warning to Japan that the US fleet WOULD be SERIOUS about defending the Pacific. Admiral ____ was contemptous of this deployment (Roosevelt's plan) and ran kicking and screaming to Congress to have the deployment reversed, and to have the Pacific Fleet maintained at San Diego. So, Roosevelt FIRED HIM, and replaced him with Admiral Kimmel.
REGARDLESS of what Roosevelt did or did not know about Japan's tactical plans, KIMMEL's RESPONSIBILITY was to see to the competence and survival of his command. AND IF he knew ANY naval history, he (kimmel and EVERY OTHER US NAVAL OFFICER) would have known that THREE DIFFERENT FLEETS have been caught in harbor by enemey fleets, and destroyed there. AND ONE OF THOSE ATTACKS was by the US Navy on the Spanish Fleet at Manila Bay! Which, being half-way around the world in 1896, was MORE of a "surprise" than Japan's Pearl attack would be a half a century later. The second instance would be... JAPAN's attack on the Russian Fleet at Port Arthur! (1904) Which was also an "UNPROVOKED ATTACK" by Japan!
As if these two precedents don't demonstrate the Navy's OWN serious failures of command (NOT to be placed at the feet of Roosevelt, who had other things to do besides baby-sit the Fleet!) the THIRD case really shows up Admiral Kimmel's arrogance, inattention, and command failures: and that would be the battle of Taranto Harbor, 11 Nov. 1940... almost exactly a year and two weeks before Pearl Harbor was attacked!
This attack, which "virtually put the Italian fleet out of WWII for good" featured a surprise night-time attack by OBSOLETE, wood-and-cloth BIPLANE British carrier torpedoe bombers - the ever-after famous "Fairy Swordfish."
IF the United States could attack the Spanish Fleet in Manial Bay (half way around the world) in 1896... and IF the Japanese would SURPRISE the Russian Fleet at Port Arthur in 1904... and IF the Italian Fleet was put out of commission by a SURPRISE British carrier attack in November of 1940.. then NO MATTER WHAT President Roosevelt did or did not do, IT WAS THE NAVY's ULTIMATE RESPONSIBILITY to PAY ATTENTION and safeguard this vital national asset. Roosevelt HAD EVERY RIGHT to station the fleet at Pearl... and having itself pulled off a surprise attack on the Spanish less than 50 years earlier, the Navy had no call to blame Roosevelt for anything.
And as to Fleming's "Irish-isolationist, British-hating" theory that Roosevelt was RESPONSIBLE for BOTH Pearl Harbor AND a US "failure" to seek a mediated end to the war against the Nazis..
well, WHAT THE HELL was Roosevelt SUPPOSED to do... let Japan invade ALL of Asia, and LET Hitler hold on to Europe and Eastern Europe..???
The single best source of the US Fleet move to Pearl is contained in the biography of Admiral Nimitz, who confides that he was offered the Pacific command before Adm. Kimmel, but turned it down so as to avoid admirals senior to him hating him for "jumping seniority." Roosevelt doesn't get credit for alot of things... including financing the "Manhatten" A-bomb project, when word of this "fantastic stunt" at a time American boys were dying on shoe-string supply lines in Guadalcanal, New Guinea, and elsewhere might have gotten him impeached... but the ONE THING that demonstrates Roosevelt's genius was that he had the intelligence and foresight to skip Nimitz, Marshall, and Eisenhower over dozens of senior officers...
THAT is the legacy of foresight and determination (by FDR, Truman, and Johnson) that THIS generation of Democrats is selling down the river to the moronic george and his right-wing crew of lying lynch-mobincompetents...
ljbk