美国国家公共电台 NPR No, FDR Did Not Know The Japanese Were Going To Bomb Pearl Harbor

No, FDR Did Not Know The Japanese Were Going To Bomb Pearl Harbor 

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Seventy-five years ago tomorrow, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, destroying much of the U.S. fleet and drawing America into World War II.

It did not take long for the conspiracy 2 theories to spread, including one that continues today alleging 3 that President Franklin Roosevelt knew of the attack beforehand and used it to steer 4 public opinion in favor of going to war. It's World War II era fake news, as NPR's Quil Lawrence reports.

QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE 5: The history of the attack is clear. There are even a few veterans left who saw it happen.

EARL SMITH: I was on the USS Tennessee. And we couldn't fire our guns because West Virginia was leaning over against us. So they put me on a motor launch and let me go out and wrestle 6 the bodies out of the flame.

LAWRENCE: Earl Smith was 93 years old when he recorded this eyewitness 7 account. The day before, he'd played a baseball game with sailors from the U.S. Arizona and the West Virginia.

SMITH: And the next day, every one of the Arizona players and half of the West Virginia ball club were killed.

LAWRENCE: The day after Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed Congress.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy 8, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately 9 attacked by naval 10 and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

LAWRENCE: Roosevelt had been pushing for intervention 11 in Europe against the Nazis 12 for years. Historians debate whether he wanted to join the war against Japan. Conspiracy theorists debate what FDR knew and when he knew it in scary books and documentaries all over the internet.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Did President Roosevelt know in advance? And has a government-led cover-up continued to this day?

ROB CITINO: There is not a shred 13 of evidence that President Roosevelt knew about an attack on Pearl Harbor.

LAWRENCE: Rob Citino is senior historian at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. He says the FDR-knew conspiracy never dies.

CITINO: It's ridiculous, but it's evergreen 14. It never stops. My students - over 30 years, there'd always be somebody in class - Roosevelt knew all about it.

LAWRENCE: Jean Edward Smith wrote a biography of Roosevelt. He says the intercepted 15 intelligence that might have warned the president never made it to him or the U.S. fleet.

JEAN EDWARD SMITH: He was totally caught off guard by it. The record is clear. There was no evidence that the Japanese were moving toward Pearl Harbor that was picked up in Washington.

LAWRENCE: That's not to say the White House wasn't expecting some kind of attack from Japan, maybe against U.S. bases in the nearby Philippines. Roosevelt had been tightening 16 the screws - strong economic sanctions on Japan - to hinder the Japanese conquest of China. Historian Rob Citino says FDR figured sanctions would work.

CITINO: Sanctions are better than war, if you have time to let them apply and if there's somebody sensible on the other side. He was wrong in that assessment 17. Pearl Harbor was kind of unintended consequences for both sides.

LAWRENCE: The U.S. didn't think Japan would attack, and Japan didn't think the U.S. had the stomach to rebuild its navy then launch a bloody 18 fight, island by island, across the Pacific.

Citino says it's bad assumptions and poor intelligence like this that start wars - things that, in hindsight, look so obvious that the conspiracy theories outlive the eyewitnesses 19 to the battle. Quil Lawrence, NPR News.