It was deceptively mild, the sixth of December, though hatching calamity, a late autumn day along the Potomac.(1) The Gulf of Siam engaged FDR's antennae, the Japanese convoy steering toward Siam and Malaya. This convoy the British defenders itched to attack while it was still at sea, an action well within their rights under international law, but FDR, as was his habit, refused to commit himself. He had given the British an assurance of armed support, but such a local initiative might complicate an approach to Congress for a declaration of war. Because, so far, perhaps due to MacArthur's pigheadedness about overflying Formosa, there was no overt evidence of a move ongoing against American positions. This explained why the British ambassador came to the White House early in the evening: they were discussing ultimatums warning Japan of what would  happen if the convoy passed a certain point.  A while later FDR ducked out of a violin recital in favor of fussing with his stamp collection, with Harry Hopkins to keep him company.  Navy Lieutenant Lester Schulz came knocking on the door with the Magic pouch, containing the latest harvest from the Japanese diplomatic circuit.

The lieutenant handed FDR the text of a long argumentative screed rejecting the latest proposals of the American government, a screed destined to be presented to the State Department, and that, fairly soon. "This means war," said FDR, and passed the document to  Hopkins. When Hopkins commented that it was too bad that the U.S. couldn't strike first and prevent a surprise, FDR said in substance: "We can't do that. We are a peaceful people."At this point FDR had important clues as to what was going to happen. Magic had enabled him to share Tokyo's instructions to its ambassador in Berlin: " Say to them [the Germans] that lately England and the United States have taken a provocative attitude, both of them. Say that they are planning to move military forces intovarious places in East Asia and that we will inevitably have to counter by also moving troops. Say very secretly to them that there is extreme danger that war will suddenly break out between the Anglo-Saxon powers and Japan . . . and add that the time of the breaking out may come quicker than anyone dreams." (2)

Foreign Minister Ribbentrop had reacted by indicating that the Reich would support its ally. FDR also knew this.

So FDR was reading the situation, and as Cordell Hull had been insisting, the Japanese were clearly up to some deviltry. The president thought of contacting Betty Stark, but the admiral was at the National Theater, enjoying The Student Prince, a nostalgic relic of his youth. Paging.him would create a stir. Apparently FDR did contact Stark after he returned home, but what they concluded is not known. The night hours ticked by.

The Japanese were gambling on a ‘window of opportunity'--what they imagined was an imminent German victory over the USSR--to liquidate the feebly-held western colonies in East Asia.They anticipated that the war would go their way for a year or so and that thereafter they could defend their booty until the United States tired of the game. High priest for these sacrifices was Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, a moderate who should've known better, since he had served as an attaché in Washington and knew the American temper.

 He put his money on a well-trained carrier air force which he counted on to overwhelm the weak American fleet that had been left at Pearl Harbor.To comply with the letter while trampling on the spirit of the Geneva Convention of 1907, Tokyo planned that its Washington embassy would present the State Department with a note breaking off relations an hour or less before its planes and subs would strike the Pacific Fleet. It would happen in the early morning of December 7th, a Sunday. The presentation of the note left no time for an effective warning to Hawaii.

The high command was careful to tell the diplomats nothing about the planned Pearl Harbor strike, so that no clues appeared in the diplomatic messages for Magic to pick up.

The Japanese leaders wittingly committed their people to a long and sanguinary contest. How long and how unbelievably sanguinary they could hardly have foreseen, but immediately things began to go wrong.

The American "crippies"--the codebreakers --produced another golden egg for their masters. Around nine o'clock Sunday morning, the duplicate they had built of Tokyo's decoding machine had spit out the instructions to the Washington embassy to notify the State Department of the break-off of negotiations at one o'clock, Washington time. This came as a painful wake-up call to the staff at the embassy on Massachusetts Avenue which had reverberated to a boozy party the night before. Instructions to use only foreign service officers to type a clean copy of the note for the Americans cost hours, and when the embassy phoned for a one o'clock appointment with Secretary Hull, he put them off until one-forty-five. Now, if the attack in the Pacific went in on time, Japan was about to do what her diplomats had hoped to avoid. Blunder into violating the Geneva Convention!(3)

If the message specifying the one o'clock delivery time panicked the hung-over staff at the Japanese embassy, it had somewhat less effect on the Americans downtown. It lay in FDR's pouch. No one called it to his attention. FDR passed the morning reading the Sunday papers. Colonel Rufus Bratton was the exception. He insisted on chasing down George Marshall. Marshall wrote out a message to the Pacific commanders, with the Philippines primarily in mind. "Japanese are presenting at one p.m. eastern standard time today what amounts to an ultimatum. Also, they are under orders to destroy their code machine immediately. Just what significance the hour set may have we do not know but be on the alert accordingly. Inform naval commanders of this communication."
The message went promptly to everyone but General Short. There was static on the airwaves to Hawaii. Admiral Stark went so far as to lift the phone to call Admiral Kimmel,but decided not to get him out of bed at five o'clock. Kimmel could' ve had some precious time When FDR heard about the attack around one-thirty, he instructed Hull to say nothing about it to the Japanese ambassadors who were still uneasily cooling their heels next door in the diplomatic waiting room at State.

There was almost universal disbelief that the attack hadn't come in the western Pacific.(4)

All of which seemed odd when an attack on Pearl Harbor had been predicted by scaremongers like Homer Lea, by serious military observers on both sides of the Pacific, and most specifically and in brilliant detail in a staff study by the senior air officers on Oahu, General Frederick Martin and Admiral Patrick Bellinger, the previous April. American carrier aircraft had simulated an attack during exercises in 1938. But Yamamoto began seriously playing with the idea only after the November 1940 raid on Taranto and he benefitted from the advice of the naval attaché who had talked to the Admiralty in London. Yamamoto's fliers were as good as the Royal Navy's. They had combat experience over China, an outstanding ‘Zero' fighter plane and proficient dive-and torpedo bomber units. Nevertheless, the Japanese high command argued vigorously against Yamamoto's mad scheme and he was forced to include submarine attacks against the anchorage. He thought, correctly, as it turned out, that the subs might tip his hand. An invasion of Oahu was rejected as too ambitious and incompatible with surprise. It might compromise the main attack in southeast Asia. The strike air force was fine-tuned in simulated conditions, and secrecy ensured by restricting knowledge to the absolute minimum of naval personnel. The fleet escaped the notice of western intelligence because it observed radio discipline, formed in a Godforsaken harbor in the wintry Kurils, and crossed the Pacific through stormy latitudes avoided by steamers.

Because so much depended on knowing what ships were in Pearl Harbor and where they berthed, a well-trained naval reservist had been sent to Honolulu masquerading as a vice-consul to send back accurate reports. While he was essential to the success of the operation, he was also the weak point in its security; The Americans had broken the consular codes and should have picked up on several clues in his reports. There was no thought of jeopardizing the stealthy approach by aerial reconnaissance, until the last minute, or of involving the Japanese populace on Oahu either as informants or saboteurs. They were under intense surveillance by American agents, and of dubious loyalty to the emperor, besides. The Japanese had no one in place who could predict what the Pacific Fleet would actually be doing on the appointed day, aside from enjoying its Sunday routines.(6)

The force that struck Oahu on December 7th came from an array of six carriers, plus a pair of fast battleships, greatly exceeding in power what Kimmel could've mustered. Telltale signs that something unusual was afoot early Sunday morning were dismissed by sleepy senior officers. The Japanese planes that came screaming down on the tethered battleships and the bunched-up planes on the Oahu airfields seemed to come out of nowhere. Most of the thirty-five hundred American casualties occurred when the battleship Arizona's magazine blew up. The two attack waves, approximately 140 bombers and 40 fighters in each, sank thirty ships and sank or damaged eight battleships, besides destroying about 160 American aircraft.

With such appalling losses, the Pacific Fleet could find little comfort that its carriers had been absent on business, carrying out Washington's orders to deliver fighters to Wake and Midway to safeguard the B-17 route to the Philippines. Or that three cruiser task forces were also at sea. Or that the Japanese admiral decided not to mount a separate attack on the Pearl Harbor base and its oil tank farms. Or that he refused to hunt for and bring to battle the absent carriers, Enterprise and Lexington, that had been his main targets. Excruciating as the raid was, it could've been much worse.

Better for them had they rejected surprise in favor of forcing a pitched battle with the weaker Americans. Better, too, if the hope was that the Americans would tire of the struggle,not to infuriate them by a ‘sneak attack.'(6)

FDR learned the shocking details from Frank Knox who was on the phone with Admiral Claude Bloch and listened to him describe what he could see from the window of the Fourteenth Naval District headquarters. For all Walter Short knew, the Japanese were softening Oahu up for an invasion. He went to a full alert. Relying on ‘official sources,' the Honolulu Advertiser  rushed out an extra proclaiming that the Japanese had actually landed. Poindexter had seen a civilian cut down by a wandering antiaircraft shell in front of the governor's residence, and was wrestling with emergency measures despite the annoying presence of riflemen who dogged his every step to protect him from being kidnaped by subversives. Short called on Poindexter to turn the governorship over to him, which Poindexter did but only after ringing up Roosevelt, who told him to do what the general wanted. Over the phone, FDR could hear the noise of a plane flying low over Iolani Palace and concluded that the Japanese were mounting a third bombing attack.(7)

FDR directed that the anti-sabotage plans of the armed services be put into effect and that the Justice Department begin interning the aliens on the suspect lists--Japanese, but also Germans and Italians. Greatcoated sentries began pacing Capitol Hill and FDR personally ordered the Potomac river bridges guarded. A month later he was talking about having railroad track laid across the Memorial Bridge  Stimson kept going on about an immediate declaration of war against Germany because he among others imagined that German fliers had participated in thePearl Harbor strike, maybe even masterminded it! Congressional leaders came into the White House around nine-thirty in the evening and FDR arranged to address a  joint session. Late Sunday evening Secretary Morgenthau was huddling with his staff on controls over enemy alien assets and he told them that the president had said of the Japanese Americans that he was going to put them "in a concentration camp."(8)

FDR didn't include Germany in the short war message he read to Congress, a little masterpiece labeling December 7th "a date which will live in infamy" for an "unprovoked and dastardly attack." The nation responded with vows of vengeance and crowds of volunteers. FDR finally had the national unity that had eluded him. A few days later Hitler obliged by declaring war, after he returned to Berlin from his headquarters in East Prussia, where he had been dealing with his army's desperate plight before frozen Moscow.

No one had to tell FDR that he had a huge political problem in the events at Pearl Harbor.Texas Senator Tom Connally had already laid into Frank Knox for bragging about the Navy.

Whowas responsible for such a disaster and for all those lost lives!

The question would bedevil the administration and haunt generations unborn. Roosevelt was even accused of plotting the whole thing!

Wracked and feeling personally responsible for the Navy's defeat, Knox obtained the  president's approval to go to Hawaii for an on the spot inquiry, as the secretary said, to head off a "nasty congressional investigation."  FDR may have been somewhat reluctant.Well he might be. Knox, the red-haired Republican graduate of the world of newspaper headlines, with a habit of jumping at conclusions, was a potential loose cannon. He had no faith in many of the ranking  admirals. By the time he left for Hawaii, pointedly refusing to take along any senior professionals, he had made Stimson nervous, lest he off-load the blame on the Army. So Stimson sent off his own team: a trusted staff colonel, Charles Bundy, and Air Corps Major General Herbert Dargue, to investigate. Dargue would replace General Short. At this point blind chance took over. Weather was atrocious, and Dargue and Bundy went down in their bomber in the high Sierras on December 12th. The wreck of their plane wasn't located for months. Knox's flying boat, loaded with serum and blood for the Oahu hospitals, droned into Oahu on December 11th to a surreal landscape of wrecked aircraft and blasted hangars.(9)

Thirty-six hours saw the navy secretary on his way back, after talking to Bloch, Kimmel, Short, and Poindexter, and gathering data on the losses and what was needed to make them good.After landing in Washington, he stopped in to see Stimson before going on to the White House on the evening of the 14th. FDR went over what Knox was to say at the press conference the next afternoon. Knox admitted the unreadiness of the commanders for an air attack and the serious losses. Then he went on to charge that the attackers had been aided by "the most effective Fifth Column work of the entire war . . . with the possible exception of Norway." The shock of the attack had spread confusion among the defenders, who were bombarded with spurious reports of hostile landings,  parachute descents and mysterious signals, and spent a good deal of time chasing their  tails. At the time that Knox was on the scene these rumors were still being sorted out, but the Honolulu FBI office had already advised Hoover that there had been no sabotage. Knox saw what he expected to see, and blamed Consul-General Kita and the consular agents who Bloch and Taylor had wanted to prosecute, but Short and Stimson had been unwilling to. The role of the spy-- the bogus vice-consul-- hadn't been uncovered. Knox's animus was such that he wanted Kita executed and had to be reminded about diplomatic immunity and the American diplomats in the hands of the Japanese.

If Japanese sympathizers had really run amuck, the finger pointed at the War Department and the Army in Hawaii, which may explain why Stimson was nervous about Knox. Stimson believed in a shadowy Fifth Column. When the reports of sabotage at Pearl Harbor finally petered out, the Secretary decided that the Japanese had actually laid on a sabotage program but that it had been a "flop."(10)

Flop or not, the White House press conference fastened the myth of sabotage on the American public. The War Department, though it soon knew better, made no effective move to correct the record. Coupled with the fact of the "sneak attack," it laid the foundation for the internment of the West Coast Japanese Americans. The day after Knox's press conference FDR held one of his own, at which he said that the Fifth Column activities in Hawaii were being studied with the purpose of preventing their repetition elsewhere. But Secretary Ickes recorded that at the regular cabinet meeting on Friday the nineteenth, when Knox "raged" against Consul-General Kita, FDR directed that the Japanese aliens be removed from Oahu and concentrated on one of the other islands. That Saturday, Stimson wrote in his diary that he had called in Harvey Bundy, one of his aides, and told him to issue the orders.

Defeated commanders, even good ones, can expect to walk the plank. Knox insisted that the despondent Kimmel he interviewed at Pearl had to go in order to restore the confidence of the fleet. The post was given to Admiral William Pye until Chester Nimitz could get out to Hawaii. Pye and his subordinate Fletcher were much less resilient than Kimmel and called off an operation Kimmel had under way to relieve the Marines on Wake Island. Marshall replaced Short with an aviator, Delos Emmons. At the same time, he agreed to making Hawaii a unified command under the Navy, a belated recognition that the place had been notorious for petty Army-Navy feuds and lukewarm cooperation at best.(11)

Announcement of the sacking of Kimmel and Short came the day after the announcement of a presidential board of inquiry and tended to create the impression that the guilty parties were already identified. FDR confined the inquiry to possible derelictions of duty or errors in judgment in  the Hawaii commands. To create an air of impartiality, Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts headed the board. Roberts, a Republican appointee to the Court, had adjudicated the claims against the German government for the Black Tom sabotage. Meanwhile, Knox managed to diminish Betty Stark's influence by elevating a tough professional, Ernest King. Coupled with the austere George Marshall, who intimidated FDR, Ernie King limited FDR's opportunities for playing strategist.(12)

Backed up by a brace of admirals and generals, Roberts took testimony from the key figures involved and from interested civilians as well. Stimson gave him dinner on his return from Hawaii and learned of his alarm that so many Japanese were in the National Guard in Hawaii. As might've been expected, Kimmel and Short got the lion's share of the blame when the Roberts report was released on January 24th. The report failed to clear up the charges against the consular agents, which it could have done. Roberts went over the text with the president, who remarked, probably ruefully, that he had put the FBI on the matter of Japanese loyalty in Hawaii because he thought it could do a better job than the services. The Roberts report damped down the grumbling of FDR's political opponents. Kimmel and Short were effectively disgraced,  given no other posts. Encouraged to retire, they were left to stew in a humiliating limbo, butts for hate mail from enraged citizens.(13)

Before the president cleared everyone out and went to bed around midnight of December 7th, he was given the dismal tidings of the destruction of most of MacArthur's air force in the Philippines.(14) Unlike Oahu, the Philippines had been on alert against an air attack for weeks before Admiral Hart's duty officer sped down Dewey Boulevard  around four in the morning with news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Manila Hotel was still cleaning up after the big party thrown for General Lewis Brereton, MacArthur's air force commander, featuring the "best entertainment east of Minsky's." Most of the ranking Americans had heard about the attack shortly thereafter and Brereton was in MacArthur's office by five o'clock to get permission for a B-17 strike against Formosa.

Dick Sutherland, the chief of staff,  told Brereton that MacArthur was busy, apparently with Admiral Hart, but that he, Sutherland, would obtain authority for the raid. Five hours were to pass before he finally relayed permission.

Then a reconnaissance had to be run on the basis of which the bombers would be dispatched to strike at last light. The Japanese had been gathering their forces in Formosa for weeks and overflying the Philippines, but the Americans apparently hadn't flown much of their own reconnaissance.The assumption may have been that the Japanese would need carriers to reach the Manila area. Of course, as late as mid-November MacArthur was still dismissive of the idea of an imminent war, even though he had access to the same Magic intelligence as did Washington and read what Sutherland regularly brought him. MacArthur hadn't been happy with his air officers and Sutherland, who fancied himself as an expert on air matters, may have wished to go over the mission in detail with Brereton.

Possibly MacArthur was reluctant to act against the Japanese before they acted against the Philippine Commonwealth, never mind that he knew Hawaii was attacked. According to Alger Hiss, Hornbeck's assistant, who was in the State Department that day, MacArthur wired Washington for instructions, causing Marshall to visit State for political guidance, and complain that MacArthur should've acted on his own. Manila was told to execute the war plan. This is an unlikely story.

While awaiting orders to attack, the B-17s had been sent aloft to avoid being caught on the ground, and the defending fighters were scrambled to intercept various hostiles reported and a raid against Baguio, where Quezon had gone for a rest  The Japanese had laid on a heavy strike for the early morning, but were delayed by fog. When they arrived over Clark Field around noon, they caught fighters and bombers being refueled and most of the base at lunch. The bulk of Brereton's unlucky force was destroyed, making it easier for the Japanese to hurl their invasion forces against Luzon. Hap Arnold was absolutely infuriated. His people had been caught at breakfast in Hawaii and in Luzon, at lunch.

It was scarcely feasible to investigate the matter while MacArthur was an active commander. After the war when an inquiry could have been conducted most of the records had been destroyed, MacArthur had conveniently disremembered his opening day, and Sutherland denied Brereton's version of events, which had some evidence to back it up. MacArthur was ensconced in Tokyo, a war hero, a demigod to the defeated  Japanese, and still a Republican hopeful. On the other hand Roosevelt was dead and his disorderly Philippine policies were history.

On the West Coast, the Army's senior commander, John DeWitt,  had received the Thanksgiving Day alert at the same time as his colleagues, MacArthur and Walter Short. In contrast to the brief replies from Manila and Hawaii, DeWitt fired off a long peppy summary of his defense preparations, including a set-aside of transportation for six army battalions to handle possible subversive action. DeWitt had a deep distrust of foreigners, and looked withsuspicion not only on the West Coast Japanese but ethnic Germans and Italians as well. When the war broke out, the Japanese dispatched a number of submarines to operate off the West Coast, and for a time there was thought to be a possibility of carrier raids. This sent DeWitt's headquarters into a panic. His staff operated on the basis of frantic rumors, of which after the shock of Pearl Harbor, there was no shortage.(15)