Franklin Roosevelt`s Decision - World War 2

Pearl Harbor : A Date of Infamy

Yesterday , Dec . 7 , 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan

The United States was at peace with that nation and , at the solicitation of Japan , was still in conversation with the government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific

Indeed , one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu , the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his

colleagues delivered to the Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message . While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations , it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack

On December 7 , 1941 , a date of infamy according to FDR , the Japanese launched an attack on the U .S . naval base in Pearl Harbor on Hawaii 's island of Oahu . The attack destroyed 18 ships and almost 200 planes and caused about 3 ,700 American casualties . The attack was a complete surprise to the U .S . government , but some historians , especially revisionists , believe that

1 ) FDR intentionally lured the Japanese into attacking the U .S . by provoking them

2 ) He knew that the target was Pearl Harbor

President Franklin D . Roosevelt wanted to enter the war in Europe , but the problem was the mood of the country . These anti-war views were shared by 80 percent of the American public from 1940 to 1941 . Though Germany had occupied most of Europe , Americans did not want to get involved with Europe 's War ' Revisionists argue Roosevelt was convinced that luring Japan into an attack on the U .S . was the sole choice he had in 1941 to overcome the powerful non-interventionist movement led by aviation hero Charles Lindbergh . Furthermore , some revisionists believe that Japan 's military plans were obtained in advance by the United States FDR and that he even knew the target would be Pearl Harbor but tried to conceal the information from the Hawaiian military commanders . Historians will never know for sure what was on FDR 's mind , and it may be true that FDR lured the Japanese into attacking the U .S . so that it would give him the excuse to join the war but to claim that he knew that when and where the attack was going to take a place is nothing more than falsification or distortion of the facts

Some conspiracy theorists even dare to claim that FDR wanted war not because he wanted to fight Germany , but because he wanted to hide the failure of the New Deal in to turn people 's attention away from the New Deal to the war . They even go on further by stating that FDR was a traitor to the nation before the war , and he surely forced us into war to save his commie friends in the Soviet Union . It may be true that...