The Week Before Pearl Harbor (1963)

This is another of the interesting older books on Pearl Harbor. It's also one of them that support the idea that the US had ample warning, in various forms, of an impending surprise Japanese attack. It starts off by saying that, on December 1 of 1941, Secretary of State Cordell Hull warned FDR of the “imminent danger of a Japanese attack.”

Joseph Grew, Ambassador to Japan, wrote in his diary in 1940: “there is a lot of talk around town...that the Japanese, in case of a break with the United States, are planning to go all-out in a surprise mass attack on Pearl Harbor.”

One of the contributing factors to the war was when the US and England froze Japanese assets, imports and exports, and subjected all financial transactions to government licensing. Japan need certain raw materials, and “American and British economists agreed that Japan would be bankrupt within six months.”

If you were the leader of a country and you felt that other countries were conspiring to drive your country into bankruptcy, then isn't it logical that you would consider desperate measures against them?

On November 26, 1941, Stimson wrote in his diary about a meeting with FDR and said that the President thought it was likely that the US would be attacked by Japan, and perhaps as early as the following Monday. “The question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.” This is cited by those who believe that FDR wanted the US in the war and was willing to use Pearl Harbor as bait for a Japanese attack.A Captain Ellis M. Zacharias was commander of a heavy cruiser. In March of 1941 he had stopped at Pearl Harbor and he visited with Admiral Kimmel. He also knew the Japanese ambassador personally. He said that, if Japan were to attack Hawaii, it would be from the northwest, and that the air attack would begin on a weekend and probably a Sunday morning. He suggested air patrols be used at least out to 500 miles to help prevent a surprise attack, but he was told that Pearl Harbor didn't have the personnel or material to do that.

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