New docs on Pearl Harbor attack emerge

[CharveL]

Often times in history (indeed in everyday life) there are more than one convergent events and decisions that don't necessarily attribute cause and effect to only one line of reasoning.

It may be true that Roosevelt was both aware that some sort of attack was imminent and that it could be the way around the problem of getting public opinion behind a war but that does not mean either that he deliberately let PH happen.

Life is funny like that.

It seems more likely to me that they weren't expecting an attack of that magnitude given they had no idea about the clever mods the Japanese did to their torpedos for shallow water attacks, employing mini-subs, and the ability of their carrier groups to get all the way to Hawaii unnoticed.

Drawing the conclusion that Roosevelt deliberately let it happen is as logically absurd as any other conclusion although I do see it makes for more dramatic storytelling than the mundane version that he didn't really see it coming.

It could have happened that way though, who knows, I'm also not saying it didn't.

I think the whole conspiracy theory phenomenon has taken off over the last 20 odd years because society is so bombarded with movies and television that always find a way to make the impossible and unlikely scenario into a reasonable one, that when we are faced with any circumstantial evidence for the highly unlikely, we would much rather choose the more dramatic option. Perhaps subconsciously.

I think it's a similar scenario to the way rumours spread in a social circle. One person hears something and tells it with just a little extra flair and by the time it gets back around the original situation is always distorted.