The Pittsburgh Press (December 2, 1945)
History repeating –
Investigation of Pearl Harbor is clearly political
By E. T. Leech, The Pittsburgh Press editor
Former Secretary of State Cordell Hull never seemed so human as when he told the Pearl Harbor Committee: “The Japs were off on the attack, and nothing would stop them unless we laid down like cowards – and we would have been cowards.”
The austere and ailing Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has loomed in the public mind as a statuesque figure, towering above other statesmen, was boiling mad. To express himself adequately, he said that “religious-minded” persons would have to leave the room.
His anger was refreshing.
For here we are, just before the fourth anniversary of Pearl Harbor – “that day of infamy” – and the investigating committee designed to find what happened on that particular occasion seems trying at times to show that we prodded and harassed Japan into war.
It is almost unbelievable that this effort should have come so soon after the close of hostilities. As I recall it, a longer time elapsed after the First World War before the isolationist, anti-preparedness group started out to belittle and assail our motives for engaging in it.
Self-conviction
A good job of self-conviction was done after World War I.
A very considerable number of citizens became convinced that we didn’t belong in that war; that we virtually forced our way into it, and that the perils we saw and the ideals we espoused in 1917 were phony.
That view colored our foreign relations and military policies for years. We retired into our shell and refused to see what was happening in the rest of the world, or to take any part in influencing events. We destroyed the strength we had built up and resigned ourselves to military impotency. We refused to train men, build warships or fortify vital island possessions.
We paid for that policy at Bataan, Corregidor, Wake Island, Guam and many other places.
Thousands of brave Americans died miserably and without a chance because of it.
And, too late, we learned that the German beast hadn’t changed its spots – and that the Japanese was even worse.
“…nothing would stop them unless we had laid down like cowards – and we would have been cowards,” said Mr. Hull.
The dead of Bataan and Corregidor said the same thing by their deeds.
Story untold
Thus far the Pearl. Harbor Committee has devoted itself to almost everything except what happened on December 7, 1941 – and why it happened. The hearing almost has become a trial of American foreign policy, an effort to convict ourselves of unnecessary participation in the war.
The real story of Pearl Harbor – the fixing of blame for our lack of preparation and failure properly to utilize such military and naval power as were concentrated in Hawaii on that day – still remains to be told.
There is every reason why responsibility for that crushing defeat should be firmly fixed. But, instead, the hearing has developed into a fishing expedition designed to embarrass those who controlled American policy in the days before the attack.
The reason is obvious. It is clearly political. It is an effort to discredit the late President Roosevelt, as a part of 1948 campaign strategy.
Certain Republicans have become so used to staking all their political efforts on assailing Mr. Roosevelt that they don’t seem to be able to realize he won’t be running again.
It is another outstanding example of purely negative politics. It is aimed not at uncovering mistakes so that we can avoid them in the future, and thereby become stronger, but merely at discrediting the opposition. And in this instance, it is doubly-negative – for the chief target of the attacks is gone.
1945 tragedy?
The truth about Pearl Harbor should be revealed.
That truth should make us stronger in the future, by helping us to avoid the mistakes of the past.
But if, instead, the inquiry leads to another effort to convict ourselves of unnecessary war; if it furnishes aid and comfort to a new isolationist movement; if it helps the apostles of weakness and unpreparedness – then to the tragedy of Pearl Harbor of 1941 will be added another tragedy of the Pearl Harbor inquiry of 1945.
Republican leaders should beware lest they become parties to this new tragedy. If they do, it surely will lead them to new political defeats.
In their anxiety to dig up something on Mr. Roosevelt, they may become involved in associations that are politically dangerous.
One of my friends, a businessman of lifelong Republican convictions who makes no pretense to writing ability, summed up the Republican program perfectly the other day in a single sentence: “Avoid taking a position on any controversial issue; dig up all the dirt possible on Roosevelt, and hope that Truman makes some mistake so big he can’t be elected.”
This seems to summarize the situation. It lies at the foundation of some of the Pearl Harbor questioning.
But it’s a policy that can easily backfire – for on the fourth anniversary of Pearl Harbor a lot of Americans still will believe with Mr. Hull that the Japs were on the make and that we either had to stand up to them or lie down like cowards.