The Us Entering World War 2
Essay by review • February 12, 2011 • Term Paper • 894 Words (4 Pages) • 1,361 Views
The U.S. Entering The War
In WWII president Roosevelt was greatly supported for his humane and fair actions taken to prevent the U.S. from entering the war. However, Several things about the events surrounding pearl harbor do seem a bit odd. Could it be that Roosevelt was only delaying war until an ample opportunity arose? Or could it be that he wasn't waiting but rather planning his own event to occur
in order to create and event that would spark much support in his decision to enter WWII. Cosidering that popular support didn't exist until after pearl harbor and that passing a bill of war through the house would have been nearly impossible pearl harbor seemed almost too convenient.
Before the betrayal at Pearl Harbor occurred, a poll was taken of the U.S. citizen's opinion about Roosevelt taking them into the war. Ninety-four percent were against the United States getting involved. If Roosevelt would have just attacked Japan first, he would have lost a great majority of the support he was receiving from the general population of the United States. All the facts lead to the very probable possibility that Roosevelt may have helped plan the attack at Pearl Harbor or at least gave the "go-ahead" to whoever did plan. It is no coincidence that half of the U.S. Navy's gunboats were reassigned to Pearl Harbor only a couple of months before the attack. Roosevelt sent all the expendable ships to Pearl Harbor and all the carriers and battleships to run drills near San Diego. Roosevelt figured that, if he was going to allow American ships to be destroyed, they might as well be the ships that are out of date and inexpensive
to replace, in comparison with some of the Navy's other ships. The attack on Pearl Harbor enraged the American commoner so much that they changed their views completely and wanted Japan to pay for the surprise attack in Hawaii. After all, the American people only knew
that negotiations were under way in Washington DC and that the U.S. was working for peace not war. They saw the attack on Pearl Harbor as an act of betrayal.
Another fact, that contributes to the possibility of Roosevelt being involved in the planning of Pearl Harbor, is that the two commanding officers at the time of the attack were acquitted, in a retrial, of all accusations of their dereliction of their duties.Therefore, there must have been some reason why they didn't worry about the incoming planes. This reason is that they had orders, from a higher ranking official, to ignore the signals. This order may have
come down from Roosevelt himself.
An interesting event, which greatly supports my thesis, that occurred even before Japan or the U.S. had entered the war, was President Roosevelt and Secretary of the State Hull instructing
Admiral William D. Leahy, then the Chief of Naval Operations, to create a war plan based on the contingency of the United States having to fight a two-ocean war. In the Pacific, against Japan, and in the Atlantic, against Italy and Germany. Why would Roosevelt have a war plan drawn up if he said he wasn't going to enter the war? It seems a bit odd, unless, of course, if he was planning on entering the war already and was just trying to find
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