On October 7, 1940, the Director of the Far East Section of the Office of Naval Intelligence, Lt. Cmdr. Arthur McCollum, sent an infamous memo up his chain of command that seems to recommend the United States provoke Japan into attacking US forces, thus allowing the US an excuse to enter World War II (WWII) in spite of President Franklin Roosevelt’s promise to stay out of the war.
Digging Deeper
McCollum was responsible for reading and interpreting the decoded intercepts of Japanese secret radio traffic and for monitoring the political and military situation in the Far East. In 2001 a book by Robert Stinnett, Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor, made the case that Roosevelt intentionally sacrificed the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor to a Japanese attack intentionally provoked by US actions as a pretense to allow Roosevelt to get the US into World War II. FDR knew the American people wanted to stay out of foreign entanglements and would not stand for a violation of his campaign promise to keep out of the war, so he needed a casus belli that would give him the support of the people in entering the war.
