well I don't think there's much conspiracy theory going on frankly: this is just further evidence that the US Government was aware of the threat of a Japanese attack.
The situation was dramatically simple: after the horrors of WW1, isolationism was the running policy, but by 1929 the price of such choice was having horrible effects on the US economy. Roosevelt was aware that the only way of boosting the economy was to join the war effort, but was also aware that the American public opinion wouldn't have been happy with their country declaring war on not clear grounds. They needed a pretext, and they probably deliberately ignored all the intelligence related to a possible attack. They probably expected something like a sunken ship or similar stuff, not such a large scale attack, but whichever the case, that was enough of a reason to wage war against Japan, and automatically its allies.
I think there's no "conspiracy theory" going on, it's a theory believed and accepted by most historians, and which is gathering more evidence.. unfortunately historians are not the public opinion, so yes, it might sound a tad unpopular among the average, flag waving US population, but that's how things are.
Truth is that even if they found a tape with Roosevelt's voice which said "hey, we're just gonna provoke the Japs with an embargo and then wait for them to retaliate so we have an excuse for a war", a lot of people wouldn't still believe it..
Last edited by Sternjaeger II; 12-02-2011 at 11:13 AM.
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