last note was sung. The telegraph from Washington had been too late. It arrived at headquarters in Oahu around noon (Hawaiian time), four long hours after the first bombs were dropped. There is no

On November 30, 1941 a message was intercepted and decoded that stated "Japan, under the necessity of her self-preservation and self defense, has reached a position to declare war on the United States of America." At a Cabinet meeting on December 5, this conversation took place between Secretary of the Navy Knox and President Roosevelt.

Knox: I think we ought to tell everybody just how ticklish the situation is. We

The next day December 7, 1941, the day of the attack, President Roosevelt still could have warned Hawaii. He had received a Fourteen Part Message that stated that Japan was declaring war and would attack Pearl Harbor at 1 P.M. Washington time or dawn at Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt had plenty of time to warn Hawaii of the attack. The United States government refused to use the scrambler phone on his desk, refused to send a warning by the fast, more secure Navy system. The government knew it would take 30 or 40 minutes by Army radio. Roosevelt was satisfied because that meant he had delayed enough so the warning wouldn't reach Pearl Harbor until after the 1 PM Washington time deadline. The warning was in fact sent commercially without priority identification and arrived 6 hours late. This message reached all other addressees, like the Philippines and Canal Zone, in a timely manner.

The war might have been inevitable but the attack on Pearl Harbor could have been prevented. The United States had deciphered many Japanese codes. One of these codes was the Purple Code; the top Japanese diplomatic machine cipher that used automatic telephone switches to separately and differently enciphers each character sent. It was cracked by 331 men of the Army Signal Intelligence Service.

mistake in thinking that entering World War II was inevitable for the United States. However, is it unrealistic to think that the bombing of Pearl Harbor could have been prevented? Did President Franklin D. Roosevelt know that the bombing was going to occur? Could the loss of 2403 United States soldiers, 18 ships, including 5 battleships, and 188 planes been averted? Did an additional 1,178 soldiers have to be wounded?

Knox: Well, you know Mr. President, we know where the Japanese fleet is?

Japan began their seizure with southern Indochina. (They already controlled northern Indochina.) The United States was in strict opposition to Japan's plans, and began their reaction with an embargo on the shipment of oil to Japan. Oil was necessary to keep Japan's technology and military progressing. Without it, Japan's industrial and military forces would come to a stop in only a short time. Japan's government viewed the oil embargo as an act of war.

against Japan only forced the Japanese into making the decision whether to stop fighting or continue their advance. However, the U.S. stipulated that if the Japanese would just stop fighting China and halt their advance into Indochina, they would resume the flow of oil to Japan at least in quantities that would provide for civilian use. There is a major difference between an embargo and actual fighting. An embargo simply stops a country from gaining materials it needs so long as they do not comply with regulations set down by another nation. While the Japanese could see this embargo as a hostile act by the United States, it does not count as an act of war since war by its nature involves the destruction of targets or the killing of troops. Certainly an embargo can be lifted and it would be as if nothing had happened, but once fighting starts and lives are lost, the world order will never agai be the same. Second, an embargo is not an act of war because it does nothing to the !

Another code was J-19. This was the main Japanese diplomatic codebook. This columnar code was cracked. Also cracked was JN-25 - The Japanese Fleet's Cryptographic System, a.k.a. 5 number code. JN stands for Japanese Navy, introduced June 1, 1939. This was a very simple old-type code

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Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)