Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy - Ludwig von Mises ...

Joint Congressional Committee, Pearl Harbor Attack: Part 3 737
Had the president “personally” given him, Stark, the order
to send the dispatch concerning these vessels? Stark said he had
discussed with the president
where this [ Japanese] expedition going south was likely to hit.
His [the president’s] thought was the Kra Peninsula. . . . Th e
Philippines was a possibility and . . . the East Indies, and just
where it would go we did not know and these three small vessels
were to assist in that determination. . . . [Y]ou will see where
the president put them they were well placed to get information
either positive or negative and it was for that reason and
for the reasons as stated in the dispatch, to get information,
that he directed that be done. . . . He says “to form a defensive
information patrol; to accomplish a purpose which is to observe
and report by radio Japanese movements in the West China
Sea and Gulf of Siam,” and then he himself designated where
those vessels were to be placed and they were well placed for
the purposes for which he wanted them. . . . I simply think that
he thought that was additional precautions. He was intensely
interested in every move at that time, as we all were. 12
Of course, one cannot know what FDR had in mind in issuing
this directive; it may have been out of concern for his commitments
to the British and Dutch; he may have been trying to
do what Stimson had suggested at FDR’s “War Cabinet” meeting,
November 25, to “maneuver them [the Japanese] into the
position of fi ring the fi rst shot without allowing too much danger
to ourselves.” 13 Few would be killed or wounded by a shot fi red
on such a minimally-equipped “U.S. man-of-war.” Yet it might
be incident enough to call for U.S. military intervention against
the Japanese.
the message ordering these vessels to sea; he felt the order might have been a
refl ection on his overfl ight reports. (PLG 1962 interview of Hart.)
12 Joint Committee, Pearl Harbor Attack, part 5, pp. 2190–91.
13 Ibid., part 11, p. 5433, Stimson’s diary entry of November 25, 1941.