Throughout time there have always been instances in which people disagree about what actually happened. In history it may be as simple as two different accounts of an event or as complex as a government manipulating documents in order to keep the real truth from getting out. When a person raises the question if President Franklin Roosevelt knew about an impending Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor and chose to give a limited warning in order to have the American people ready to go to war, two schools of thought emerge. One side will believe that Roosevelt did this, and the other side will not. It has long been a controversy that Franklin D. Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor prior to and chose not to give a warning with details to the Naval officers
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In the article, “Pearl Harbor: Hawaii Was Surprised: FDR Was Not,” the idea that Franklin Roosevelt knew details about Japan’s plans through cracking a code in order to read Japanese messages was discussed. Continuing in the same piece of literature, Japan used a very complex code, “Purple,” to communicate with all of their ambassadors and diplomats throughout the world about military plans. The article declares that the American cryptanalysts eventually figured out weaker parts of the code which expanded to the full code. The work continues to explain that this allowed the United States of America to know every military message Japan would send out to the consulates (Perloff). So the American government had access to Japan’s important upcoming dates. After the code was translated into English, it was given to the President and other military planners. One message that President Roosevelt received was from “November 25 [and the] message read: ‘...the task force, keeping its movements strictly secret and maintaining close guard against submarines and aircraft, shall advance into Hawaiian waters, and upon the very opening of hostilities shall attack the main force of the United States fleet in Hawaii...’” (Stinnett). That guarantees that President Roosevelt not only knew about an attack from Japan was …show more content…
According to James Perloff, the author of “Pearl Harbor: Hawaii Was Surprised: FDR Was Not,” one of the several occasions that Roosevelt received intel on what the Japanese were intending to do was through Dusko Popov. Perloff reports that Popov was a double agent that was sent to observe and provide information on Pearl Harbor, and eventually came to the conclusion that Pearl Harbor was the target of an upcoming attack. Perloff relays that after reaching this resolution, Popov “...Fully reported this to the FBI in New York. J. Edgar Hoover later bitterly recalled that he had provided warnings to FDR about Pearl Harbor…” (Perloff). This is yet another reason why President Roosevelt knew about the impending strike from Japan. Furthermore Roosevelt gained one more pre warning from other government personnel. Ambassador Grew from the United States of America had a trustworthy informant that told him of a surprise attack that the Japanese were planning so “Grew sent dire warnings to the White House that an attack on Hawaii was a very real possibility,” (Stinnett). Human intelligence warned Roosevelt at least twice about Hawaii becoming a target to the Japanese and about a potential attack threatening the naval
In the article, “Pearl Harbor: Hawaii Was Surprised: FDR Was Not,” the idea that Franklin Roosevelt knew details about Japan’s plans through cracking a code in order to read Japanese messages was discussed. Continuing in the same piece of literature, Japan used a very complex code, “Purple,” to communicate with all of their ambassadors and diplomats throughout the world about military plans. The article declares that the American cryptanalysts eventually figured out weaker parts of the code which expanded to the full code. The work continues to explain that this allowed the United States of America to know every military message Japan would send out to the consulates (Perloff). So the American government had access to Japan’s important upcoming dates. After the code was translated into English, it was given to the President and other military planners. One message that President Roosevelt received was from “November 25 [and the] message read: ‘...the task force, keeping its movements strictly secret and maintaining close guard against submarines and aircraft, shall advance into Hawaiian waters, and upon the very opening of hostilities shall attack the main force of the United States fleet in Hawaii...’” (Stinnett). That guarantees that President Roosevelt not only knew about an attack from Japan was …show more content…
According to James Perloff, the author of “Pearl Harbor: Hawaii Was Surprised: FDR Was Not,” one of the several occasions that Roosevelt received intel on what the Japanese were intending to do was through Dusko Popov. Perloff reports that Popov was a double agent that was sent to observe and provide information on Pearl Harbor, and eventually came to the conclusion that Pearl Harbor was the target of an upcoming attack. Perloff relays that after reaching this resolution, Popov “...Fully reported this to the FBI in New York. J. Edgar Hoover later bitterly recalled that he had provided warnings to FDR about Pearl Harbor…” (Perloff). This is yet another reason why President Roosevelt knew about the impending strike from Japan. Furthermore Roosevelt gained one more pre warning from other government personnel. Ambassador Grew from the United States of America had a trustworthy informant that told him of a surprise attack that the Japanese were planning so “Grew sent dire warnings to the White House that an attack on Hawaii was a very real possibility,” (Stinnett). Human intelligence warned Roosevelt at least twice about Hawaii becoming a target to the Japanese and about a potential attack threatening the naval