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From: stanwyck@ihuxr.UUCP (Don Stanwyck)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: WWII and Pearl Harbor
Message-ID: <927@ihuxr.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-Feb-84 14:34:54 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxr.927
Posted: Thu Feb 23 14:34:54 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 24-Feb-84 02:19:53 EST
References: <5825@uiucdcs.UUCP> <697@ihuxq.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 44

John Hobson mentioned the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 

>>	(when, as you recall, the Japanese attacked the US Pacific
>>	Fleet without a declaration of war).

and Carl Crigney(?) (uok!crigney) responded:

>>	The Japanese intended to declare war *just before* the
>>	attack, but delays in decrypting the declaration and
>>	delivering it made it late.

John then made 2 points:
	1.  No priority on delivery to our fleets, and
	2.  Intentional simultaneous delivery of message/bombs by Japan.

I wish to make a couple points.

    The Japanese were not unprovoked.  During the preceeding months we had
    been fighting them in China without a declaraton of war;  We had used
    our naval vessels to blockade their harbors - even their civilian fishing
    boat harbors;  And the navy knew of the weakness of Pearl Harbor more
    than two years before the attack, had run a fake attack against it, and
    the plans for that fake attack were then deliberately leaked to the 
    Japanese.

    FDR was no dummy.  He knew our economy needed the war, and he felt a
    real need to get into the Europeon front.  He knew the US population
    was strongly against war, and he needed a single act which would turn
    the tide of public opinion.  He thus provoked the Japanese into action,
    and provided them (deliberately or otherwise) with the means to carry
    out that action.

NOTE please! i am not suggesting for a moment that FDR was justified in his
actions, or that the provocation justifies the Japanese action.  I am merely
saying it took place, and may be a mitigating circumstance in how I feel about
the incident.

-- 
 ________
 (      )					Don Stanwyck
@( o  o )@					312-979-3062
 (  ||  )					Cornet-367-3062
 ( \__/ )					ihnp4!ihuxr!stanwyck
 (______)					Bell Labs @ Naperville, IL