did the president know and not warn about the attack at pearl harbor?

Question

my mom said he knew they were coming but said nothing

Answer 1

The military knew there was an attack coming - but they thought it would more likely be in the Philippines and not at Pearl Harbor. US intelligent did realize that an attack might occur but as every movie on the subject has shown accurately - the message got there too late. Even if it had arrived on time - it is not certain how the Army and Navy commanders in Pearl Harbor would have reacted, but the idea that FDR let it happen is ludicrous. If his intention was to get us into the war he could have done it without us loosing the Pacific Fleet's battleships. The whole idea is pretty nuts.

Answer 2

Good question. Prior to 1941, we did not have a Central Intelligence Agency that we have today. Various military departments collected information. Nobody was responsible for correlating the information that was collected and reporting it to the president and congress. It is quite possible that some branch of the government picked up on the Japanese intent to attack Pearl Harbor and reported it. But that didn't necessarily give it credibility. Roosevelt may very well have caught word of it from one source, but not others, and therefore ignored it. Or he could have decided to do nothing to get us into the war. And even now that we have the CIA, they still don't seem to be able to effectively communicate. It appears that some sectors of the FBI and CIA knew enough about the terrorists to suspect an attack on our soil. Hence, 9/11. And even though we had the capability to send the military out to intercept the planes that flew right into the towers, those military planes never left the ground.

Answer 3

The Japanese code had been broken and it was thought that the attack would occur on the Sunday before it actually occurred. Pearl Harbor was notified of this wrong date and the possibility of an attack. When the mistaken date was discovered an attempt was made to notify the military at Pearl Harbor. Due to a problem with communications, the message never got through in time. I believe the president knew but his administration was not able to notify the military at Pearl Harbor in time. This is explained rather well in the book “Day of Infamy” which was made into the movie “Tora Tora Tora”.

Answer 4

I just saw a documentary about FDR on the History Channel & they brought this up. Apparently FDR REALLY wanted to get the US into WW II. But many Americans were reluctant to get into another war in Europe after WW I. So there was some secret correspondence between Churchill and the president and FDR did as much as he could to get supplies to Great Britian, but still stay neutral ("lend-lease"program with Britain in the early days of World War II). I think this conspiracy theory came about because there is so much proof that Roosevelt wanted us in the war. He just needed a good excuse. Pearl Harbor was that excuse.

But did he know about Pearl Harbor before hand? I don't think so and many of the people who knew FDR that were in the documentary didn't believe he'd let something like that happen just to enter the war.

Answer 5

The answer is 'Yes' the US Government did know.
Examination of information released since the War has revealed that there was considerable intelligence information available to US and other nations' officials. It was the failure to process and use this information effectively that has led some to invoke conspiracy theories rather than a less interesting mix of mistake and circumstance. The US government had nine official inquiries into the attack – the inquiry by Secretary of the Navy Knox (1941), the Roberts Commission (1941–42), the Hart Inquiry (1944), the Army Pearl Harbor Board (1944), the Naval Court of Inquiry (1944), the Hewitt investigation, the Clarke investigation, the Congressional Inquiry (1945–46) and the top-secret inquiry by Secretary Stimson authorized by Congress and carried out by Henry Clausen (the Clausen Inquiry) (1945).

It is important to note that investigators prior to Clausen did not have the security clearance necessary to receive the most sensitive information and that some of those questioned were put in a difficult spot of having to lie under oath to protect secrets they were charged with. Clausen reported that even though he had a letter informing witnesses that he had the necessary clearance, he was repeatedly lied to until he produced copies of top secret decrypts, proving that he indeed had the proper clearance.

The top-secret information that Clausen collected was not declassified until the mid-1980s and not published until 1992, when Clausen wrote his own account of the investigation. This has led to the propagation of misinformation as authors refer back to older documents that have information that has been superseded and corrected.

Answer 6

Definite: higher ups in the US Naval Command knew the Empire of Japan intended to attack a "major US naval base in the Pacific theater" i.e. Pearl. It is unknown or at least unproven whether they ever told FDR of this or not.
However, as far as proving if FDR intended to enter WWII, the answer to that is an emphatic YES!!!. He had already started the lend-lease program with Britain. He knew Britain needed the US industrial infrastrucutre to supply the Allies with large numbers of mechanized weapons and vehicles. Also, because FDr received a letter written by Enrico Fermi and other physicists and signed by Einstein, the Manhattan Project was created/founded/started on December *6th*, 1941. This was created in order to prevent Hitler and the Nazis from developing their own "atomic device".

Answer 7

There are many books for both sides of this argument. Most think that FDR did not know about the attack on Pearl before it happened. Many thought that it would happen in the Philippians so that is why there were so many troops there and supplies.

Answer 8

And yet wasn't Roosevelt a democrat? And Truman (democrat) for Korea? Kennedy and Johnson (both democrats) for Vietnam? And people bash Bush. Didn't Clinton know about the first bombing of the World Trade Center beforehand in 1993, the Murrah building in Oklahoma, and the bombing of the military housing in Egypt?

Answer 9

FDR probably suspected that Japan would DECLARE war but not when or that they would pull a sneak attack at Pearl Harbor.
Odd how conspiracy theories seem to fulfill some sort of need in some people.

Answer 10

Thats ridiculous, the president never would of let that happen without even a warning to the soldiers stationed there