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might not have attacked Pearl Harbor, or, if they had, they would have been repulsed. But in “defending” Pearl Harbor perfectly, we should simply have left undefended some other point, say, the North Atlantic or the South Atlantic. For there is no conceivable way of having a perfect defense everywhere at once against a coalition of enemies who have been promised that they will be allowed to strike the first blow. The only perfect defense is to seek out the enemy and destroyhim; that is the only method of defense which protects all placesequally and thoroughly*,• * •The delusion of the passive defensive is almost always accompanied by the American myth that nature has conferred some kind of magical immunity on American territory. Though continental United States has been invaded from overseas, though the Western Hemisphere has repeatedly been invaded and occupied, we have found it almost impossible to believe that itcould ever happen again, provided our defense's” were strong enough. At Pearl Harbor “the commanders and their subordinates, without exception,” were convinced that they would not be attackq^i while they were inside this strongly defendedbit of American territory.This blind faith in our invulnerability seems to be the explanationof the absolutely astounding fact, only faintly alluded to in the Roberts report, that with war imminentseventy-five naval vessels were inside Pearl Harbor. Yet just to show how the delusion persists, alreadyre'Stis lis ch or:h «-3Uillalr’shate r.ms,50ts■hto1/m-l-roISg1-r-l-s•csctcThe delusion that ws are nev-•r attacked, but that we only get into wars by intervening accounts for the tremendousstrategic miscalculation atWashington, that whila war wasimminent, it would almost certainly begin with an attack onthe Philippines, Thai or the Kra peninsula (north of Singapore) or possibly Borneo. Here we see Washington, even that part of it which has been most alert in trying to awaken the people, caught by the same universal error, which all of us shared, that Japan would notmake war directly on the United Slates because all our wars are interventions which we can prepare for and decide upon at our own leisure.There is little doubt that the warn#gs from Washington were inadelt;late because what Washington exited was a Japanese attack on ilaya and the Netherlands Indies while we made up our minds whether we should intervene. That, no doubt, was the final reason, over and above the myth of American territorial security, why so much of the Pacific fleet was inside Pearl Harbor instead of at sea seeking out tfie enemy, and why the planes were lined up on the airfields prepared for reasons of internal security, against sabotage but not for war, and why Washington, believing that the fleet would at its leisure someday gather itself together to moveagainst Japan, did not follow up its warnings to see what had been donejfljL warningsPearl Harbor is the mirror of the national weaknesses which we mustovercome completely, or we shal3 See L IP PM A NN—Pe ge ElevendhsetsI;s,ftmeasures to insure better co-operation in the future. What happened at Pearl Harbor was due to “errorsof judgment” But the errors of judgment were due to a false doctrine which has paralyzed the judgment of the whole nation to such a degree that no one, not even the most farsighted, can for an instant be self-righteous and talk as if he had been altogether free of its destructive influence.It is the doctrine of the passive defensive: the doctrine that “national defense” consists in being prepared to repel attack; second, that the United States is geographically invulnerable; third, that the -1 only way in which the United y I States could get into war is by “intervention,” that is, by deliberately seeking out war somewhere else These are the beliefs, held in some .•degree by virtually all of us which blinded Kimmel and Short, which obscured and weakened the warnings from Washington and caused the disaster at Pearl Harbor.The doctrine of the passive defensive, which the people, theCongress and the Administration imposed upon the armed services demanded that they should sit still, but be forever cm the alert guarding all vulnerable points and watching allthe approaches, while the enemy picked the time, the place and the manner of his attack.No armed force can ever be adequately prepared for such an assignment. For it presents the enemy with the initiative, and with the guaranty that he may use sur-tj prise but that he will never be surprised. It follows that the enemycan always be stronger at the time and the olace of the attack thanThus, in spite of the fact that a year ago the War and Navy Departments had in correspondence with General Short and Admiral Kimmel exhibited “a deep concern respecting the probability” of an air raid on Pearl Harbor, “nevertheless in I there had been among the responsible commanders and their subord-at I inates, without exception, a convic-?nJtion, which persisted up to Dec. 7, 1941, that Japan had no intention 1_ |.of making any such raid.”Moreover, il is plain from the Roberts report that the Navy Department in Washington, while it expected war and warned Admiral Kimmel, did not itself expect the attack on Pearl Harbor. The bulletin of the director of Naval Intelligence, dated Dec. 1, 1941, told the fleet that the deployment of Japanese naval force was to the southwards. Commenting on the bulletin, the Roberts reportadds due to lack of information indicating that the bulk of Japanese carriers were at sea(Naval Intelligence) concluded they were in home ports.While this does not relieve General Short and Admiral Kimmel of their responsibility, it does show that we shall not have gotten to thebottom of the matter and have be-! there are Senators hinting darklygun to deal with the basic cause of that if only the whole Atlantic the disaster, merely by punishing had beenthe commanders and by taking i beenmg 01 the warnings received and the measures necessary to comply with the orders given them . . .resulted largely from a sense of security due to the opinion prevalent in diplomatic, military, and naval circles, and in the public press, that any immediate attack by Japan would be in the Far East.”
Newspaper Details
Huron Evening Huronite
Huron, South Dakota, US
Thu, Jan 29, 1942
Page 4
Full Page
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Anonymous
USA 05 Oct 2018
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