by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
PaulCraigRoberts.org
In November, 1944, US Secretary of War, Henry Stimson snapped to the US Secretary of the Treasury that he was worn out “from working the last two weeks on the Pearl Harbor report to keep out anything that might hurt the President.” — Churchill’s War, Vol. II
December 7, 2020. Today is the 79th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the event that brought the US into the war against Germany and Japan. Eight American battleships were sunk or put out of action, and about 3,600 American sailors were killed or wounded.
Washington needed scapegoats, and Admiral Husband Kimmel and General Walter Short were saddled with the blame for American unpreparedness for the Pearl Harbor attack. As time passed circumstantial evidence came to light that President Roosevelt knew of the attack and permitted the devastation in order that the American people would be so outraged by the attack as to give up their resistance to being dragged into another European war. The controversy continued for some years. I am unsure that it was ever resolved.