Category: History

Excerpt from Herbert Hoover’s “Freedom Betrayed.” This is from chapter 83 (Aftermath of Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Japan), 566-568.

“The use of the Atomic bomb on Japan has continued to stir the American conscience as well as the conscience of thinking people elsewhere in the world. Attempts have been made to justify the use of this terrible weapon. However, American military men and statesmen have repeatedly stated its use was not necessary to bring the war to an end. Quotes from some of these statements follow,

On August 29, 1945 the AP reported,

‘Secretary of State … Byrnes challenged today Japan’s argument that the atomic bomb had knocked her out of the war.

He cited what he called Russian proof that the Japanese knew that they were beaten before the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Foreign Commissar Vyacheslaff M. Molotov informed the American and British at the Postsdam conference, Mr. Byrnes said, that the Japanese had asked to send a delegation to Moscow to seek Russian mediation of the end of the war — an act that  Mr. Byrnes interpreted as proof of the enemies defeat.’

On September 20, 1945, Major General Curtis Lemay, who directed the air attack on Japan, stated to the AP,

‘The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war … The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians coming in and without the atomic bomb.’

There was present at this interview two American Generals who were engaged in action against Japan — General Barney Giles, and Brigadier General Emmett O’Donnell — both of who agreed with Lemay.

In an AP interview in Washington on October 5, 1945, Admiral Chester Nimitz said he was convinced that the end of the war would have been the same without the atomic bomb or the entry of Russia into the war. He re-emphasized this in an address to Congress the same day saying:

‘The atomic bomb did not win the war against Japan. The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war….’

In an interview with Newsweek, November 11, 1963, former President Eisenhower declared,

‘that he had opposed dropping the bomb for two reasons: First, the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country to be the first to use such a weapon.’

Admiral William D. Leahy, in his book says,

‘…. It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagaski was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

It was my reaction that the scientists and others wanted to make this test because of the vast sums that had been spent on the project…’

It is desirable for the record also to call attention to the observations on the dropping of the bomb by other leaders at the time. Lord Hankey, a member of the British War Cabinet states:

‘… The leaders of the Western Allies decided at Potsdam in July, 1945, to resort to the ultimate expedient of the Atom bomb. It was a strange and risky decision. They knew that the bomb was the most cruel and deadly weapon that had ever been produced, and that it effects would fall indiscriminately on civilian and military targets. They knew that Japan had already approached Russia with a view to peace discussions. They knew that Russia was on the point of declaring war on Japan. Yet in this fatuous fight for a phrase, they would not pause to seek some more normal means of obtaining the terms they needed, nor would they wait to learn the effect of the Russian declaration of war.

   There is no published evidence to show that they even inquired  whether the use of the bomb was consistent with international law…. 

    … If the enemy had solved the atomic problem and used the bomb first, its employment would have been included in the allied list of war crimes, and those who took the decision or who prepared and used the bomb, would have been condemned and hanged.'”

 

 

In his book “Freedom Betrayed,” former US President Herbert Hoover collects sources that reinforce his contention that the FDR administration manipulated Japan into providing casus belli so that the US could enter the War both in Europe and in the Orient. Put directly, Hoover contends that the FDR administration wanted the Japs to give the US justification in plunging the Nation into a war, that up till the time of Pearl Harbor, American had been vociferously opposed to. These sources are taken from pages 306-310 of Hoovers work. I will also give the sources that Hoover quotes from.

Source #1 — Minority Report from the 1945 Congressional Pearl Harbor investigation established in 1945.

[Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack:] Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor attack, 79th Congress, 2d Session, Senate Document No. 244 [United States Government Printing Office, Washington: 1946].

The minority report of the committee was filed by Senators Homer Ferguson (R) of Michigan, and Owen Brewster (R) of Maine.

“In the diplomatic documents, exhibits, and testimony before the Committee there is a wealth of evidence which underwrites the statement that the tactics of maneuvering the Japanese into ‘the position of firing the first shot’ were followed by high authorities in Washington after November 25, 1941….”

Source #2 — Admiral Robert A. Theobald — Commander of the Destroyer Division at Pearl Harbor

“Diplomatically, President Roosevelt’s strategy of forcing Japan to war by unremitting and ever increasing diplomatic-economic sanctions pressure, and by simultaneously holding our Fleet in Hawaii as an invitation to a surprise attack, was a complete success … One is forced to conclude that the anxiety to have Japan, beyond all possibility of dispute, commit the first act of war, caused the President and his civilian advisers to disregard the military advice which would somewhat have cushioned the blow.”

Rear Admiral Robert A. Theobold, U.S.N. (ret). The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor (The Devin Adair Company, New York: 1954), p. 5.

Source #3 — Admiral William H. Standley — Member Owen J. Roberts Commission

“The ‘incident’ (Pearl Harbor) which certain high officials in Washington had sought so assiduously in order to condition the American public for war with the Axis powers had been found….

Admiral William H. Standley, U.S.N. Ret., “More About Pearl Harbor,” in U.S. News and World Report, April 16, 1954.

Source #4 — “Pearl Harbor: The Story of the Secret War.” An exhaustive study of the Pearl Harbor attack by George Morgenstern

“… given the benefit of  every doubt … all of these men [the high authorities in Washington] still must answer for much. With absolute knowledge of war they refused to communicate that knowledge, clearly, unequivocally, and in time, to the men in the field upon whom the blow would fall ….

Pearl Harbor provided the American war party with the means of escaping dependence on a hesitant Congress in taking a reluctant people into war ….

Pearl Harbor was the first action of the acknowledged war, and the last battle of a secret war upon which the administration had long since embarked. The secret war upon which the administration had long since embarked. The secret war was waged against nations which the leadership of this country had chosen as enemies months before they became formal enemies by a declaration of war. It was waged also, by psychological means, by propaganda, and deception against the American people…. The people were told that acts which were equivalent to war were intended to keep the nation out of war. Constitutional processes existed only to be circumvented, until finally, the war making power of Congress was reduced to the act of ratifying an accomplished fact.”

George Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor: The Story of the Secret War (The Devin-Adair Company, New York: 1947), pp. 328-330.

Source #5 — William Henry Chamberlin, “America’s Second Crusade.”

“It is scarcely possible, in light of this [Admiral Stark’s testimony regarding President Roosevelt’s October 8, 1941 order to American warships in the Atlantic to fire on German ships] and many other known facts, to avoid the conclusion that the Roosevelt Administration sought the war which began at Pearl Harbor. The steps which made armed conflict inevitable were taken months before the conflict broke out.”

William Henry Chamberlin, America’s Second Crusade (Henry Regnery Company, Chicago: 1950), p. 353. 

Source #6 — George F. Kenann –Distinguished Diplomat of note

“… a policy carefully and realistically aimed at the avoidance of war with Japan … would certainly have produced a line of action considerably different from that which we actually pursued and would presumably have led to quite different results.”

George F. Kenann, American Diplomacy, 1900-1950 (The University of Chicago press, Chicago: 1951), p. 82.

Source #7 — Captain Russell Grenfell — British Historian

“No reasonably informed person can now believe that Japan made a villainous, unexpected attack on the United States. An attack was not only fully expected but was actually desired. It is beyond doubt that President Roosevelt wanted to get his country into the war, but for political reasons was most anxious to ensure that the first act of hostility came from the other side; for which reason he caused increasing pressure to be put on the Japanese, to a point that no self respecting nation could endure without resort to arms. Japan was meant by the American President to attack the United States. As Mr. Oliver Lyttelton, then British Minister of Production, said in 1944, ‘Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war.”

Captain Russell Grenfell, R. N., Main Fleet to Singapore (The Macmillan Company, New York: 1952), pp. 107-108.

All of this strikes me as important to note on this Memorial day 2015. American have been lied to over and over again about our involvement in Wars. This same type of story could be told about how Lincoln manipulated the South in providing Causus belli in a war he desperately desired. This same type of story could be told about how Woodrow Wilson manipulated us into WW I. This same type of story could be told about how Lyndon Johnson false flagged us into the Vietnam War. Over and over again through the centuries our leadership has lied to us in order to propagandize us into war. “Weapons of Mass Destruction” anyone? Memorial day is a day to grieve that our sons have been spent in support of these liars and mass murderers. Our nations warrior dead believed in the ideals of fighting for liberty and home. They are not to be faulted. The fault lies upon those who deceived an all too often willingly gullible American public in joining in a war lust that should have never been.