"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor"
- Rebuilding America's Defenses
Project for a New American Century (PNAC)
October 2000
"This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of a military disaster whose name has become synonymous with surprise—the attack on Pearl Harbor. Interestingly, that "surprise attack" was preceded by an astonishing number of unheeded warnings and missed signals. Intelligence reports warned of "a surprise move in any direction," but this made the Army commander in Honolulu think of sabotage, not attack. People were reading newspapers in Hawaii that cited promising reports about intensive Japanese diplomatic efforts, unaware that these were merely a charade.
An ultra-secret code-breaking operation, one of the most remarkable achievements in American intelligence history, an operation called "Magic," had unlocked the most private Japanese communications, but the operation was considered so secret and so vulnerable to compromise that the distribution of its product was restricted to the point that our field commanders didn’t make the "need-to-know" list. And at 7 a.m. on December 7th, at Opana radar station, two privates detected what they called "something completely out of the ordinary." In fact, it was so out of the ordinary that the inexperienced watch officer assumed it must be friendly airplanes and told them to just forget about it.
Yet military history is full of surprises, even if few are as dramatic or as memorable as Pearl Harbor. Surprise happens so often that it’s surprising that we’re still surprised by it. Very few of these surprises are the product of simple blindness or simple stupidity. Almost always there have been warnings and signals that have been missed--sometimes because there were just too many warnings to pick the right one out, sometimes because of what one scholar of Pearl Harbor called "a poverty of expectations"—a routine obsession with a few familiar dangers.
This expectation of the familiar has gotten whole governments, sometimes whole societies, into trouble. At the beginning of the last century, the British economist Norman Angell published a runaway best seller that must have drawn the attention of professors and cadets of West Point at that time. Angell argued that the idea that nations could profit from war was obsolete. It had become, as he titled his book, The Great Illusion. International finance, he argued, had become so interdependent and so interwoven with trade and industry that it had rendered war unprofitable.
Perhaps the simplest message about surprise is this one:
Surprise is good when the other guy can’t deal with it. Let us try never to be that other guy."
- Winston Churchill washes his hands
September 20th 1941
William Forbes-Sempill (Master of Sempill) & Squadron-Leader Frederick Joseph Rutland (Rutland of Jutland)
Capt. Sempill showing a Gloster Sparrowhawk to Admiral Togo
Heihachiro, 1921.
7 December 1941.
Winston Churchill : Patron Saint of NeoConservatives & Humanitarian Bombers from Spike EP on Vimeo.
"You will ask - 'What is our policy?'
I will say - 'It is to wage WAR!!' "
Gore Vidal on 'The New Pearl Harbour', 9/11, Timothy McVeigh, Lincoln and more.. (2006) from Spike EP on Vimeo.
"Well, we were expecting to be hit, but we were expecting an attack to come in the Phillipines, or Midway, or somewhere in that area...."
- Elanor Roosevelt to Gore Vidal
"I went up to my father's bedroom. He was standing in front of his basin and was shaving with his old fashioned Valet razor. He had a tough beard, and as usual he was hacking away.
"Sit down, dear boy, and read the papers while I finish shaving:" I did as told. After two or three minutes of hacking away, he half-turned and said: "I think I see my way through." He resumed shaving.
I was astounded, and said: "Do you mean we can avoid defeat? (which seemed credible), or beat the bastards?" (which seemed incredible).
He flung his razor into the basin, swung around, and said: "Of course I mean we can beat them."
Me: "Well I'm all for it, but I don't see how you can do it."
By this time he had dried and sponged his face and turning around to me, said with great intensity:
"I shall drag the United States in." "
Randolph Churchill,
remembering the morning of 18th May, 1940,
quoted in Their Finest Hour, edited by Martin Gilbert.
"You ask, what is our policy?
I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us..."
- Winston Churchill, May 1940
"The world is full of the most damnedable lies about me, and the damnedable thing is that most of them are true..."
- Sir Winston Churchill, date unknown
"It is most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores in the hope especially of embroiling the United States with Germany . . . . For our part we want the traffic — the more the better; and if some of it gets into trouble, better still."
- First Sea Lord Winston Churchill,
Telegram to the Chairman of the Board of Trade,
May 1915
"It must be remembered that at this time Churchill was the war leader, Father only the president of a state which had indicated its sympathies in a tangible fashion. Thus, Churchill still arrogated the conversational lead, still dominated the after-dinner hours. But the difference was beginning to be felt.
And it was evidenced first, sharply, over Empire.
Father started it.
“Of course,” he remarked, with a sly sort of assurance, “of course, after the war, one of the preconditions of any lasting peace will have to be the greatest possible freedom of trade.”
He paused. The P.M.’s head was lowered; he was watching Father steadily, from under one eyebrow.
“No artificial barriers,” Father pursued. “As few favored economic agreements as possible. Opportunities for expansion. Markets open for healthy competition.” His eye wandered innocently around the room.
Churchill shifted in his armchair. “The British Empire trade agreements” he began heavily, “are—”
Father broke in. “Yes. Those Empire trade agreements are a case in point. It’s because of them that the people of India and Africa, of all the colonial Near East and Far East, are still as backward as they are.”
Churchill’s neck reddened and he crouched forward. “Mr. President, England does not propose for a moment to lose its favored position among the British Dominions. The trade that has made England great shall continue, and under conditions prescribed by England’s ministers.”
“You see,” said Father slowly, “it is along in here somewhere that there is likely to be some disagreement between you, Winston, and me.
“I am firmly of the belief that if we are to arrive at a stable peace it must involve the development of backward countries. Backward peoples. How can this be done? It can’t be done, obviously, by eighteenth-century methods. Now—”
“Who’s talking eighteenth-century methods?”
“Whichever of your ministers recommends a policy which takes wealth in raw materials out of a colonial country, but which returns nothing to the people of that country in consideration. Twentieth-century methods involve bringing industry to these colonies. Twentieth-century methods include increasing the wealth of a people by increasing their standard of living, by educating them, by bringing them sanitation — by making sure that they get a return for the raw wealth of their community.”
Around the room, all of us were leaning forward attentively. Hopkins was grinning. Commander Thompson, Churchill’s aide, was looking glum and alarmed. The P.M. himself was beginning to look apoplectic.
“You mentioned India,” he growled.
“Yes. I can’t believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy.”
“What about the Philippines?”
“I’m glad you mentioned them. They get their independence, you know, in 1946. And they've gotten modern sanitation, modern education; their rate of illiteracy has gone steadily down. . . .”
“There can be no tampering with the Empire’s economic agreements.”
“They’re artificial. . .”
“They’re the foundation of our greatness.”
“The peace,” said Father firmly, “cannot include any continued despotism. The structure of the peace demands and will get equality of peoples. Equality of peoples involves the utmost freedom of competitive trade. Will anyone suggest that Germany’s attempt to dominate trade in central Europe was not a major contributing factor to war?”
It was an argument that could have no resolution between these two men. . . .
“Mr. President,” he cried, “I believe you are trying to do away with the British Empire. Every idea you entertain about the structure of the postwar world demonstrates it. But in spite of that” — and his forefinger waved — “in spite of that,we know that you constitute our only hope. And” — his voice sank dramatically— “you know that we know it. You know that we know that without America, the Empire won’t stand.”
Churchill admitted, in that moment, that he knew the peace could only be won according to precepts which the United States of America would lay down. And in saying what he did, he was acknowledging that British colonial policy would be a dead duck, and British attempts to dominate world trade would be a dead duck, and British ambitions to play off the U.S.S.R. against the U.S.A. would be a dead duck.
Or would have been, if Father had lived."
Churchill admitted, in that moment, that he knew the peace could only be won according to precepts which the United States of America would lay down. And in saying what he did, he was acknowledging that British colonial policy would be a dead duck, and British attempts to dominate world trade would be a dead duck, and British ambitions to play off the U.S.S.R. against the U.S.A. would be a dead duck.
Or would have been, if Father had lived."
- Eliot Roosevelt, "As He Saw It"
Richard Burton vs. Churchill from Spike EP on Vimeo.
O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!
My tables—meet it is I set it down
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain—
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.
Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 105–109
“In the course of preparing myself…I realized afresh that I hate Churchill and all of his kind. I hate them virulently. They have stalked down the corridors of endless power all through history… What man of sanity would say on hearing of the atrocities committed by the Japanese against British and Anzac prisoners of war, “We shall wipe them out, everyone of them, men, women, and children. There shall not be a Japanese left on the face of the earth”? Such simple-minded cravings for revenge leave me with a horrified but reluctant awe for such single-minded and merciless ferocity.”
- Richard Burton, 1974
"It is most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores in the hope especially of embroiling the United States with Germany . . . . For our part we want the traffic — the more the better; and if some of it gets into trouble, better still."
- First Sea Lord Winston Churchill,
Telegram to the Chairman of the Board of Trade,
May 1915
Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan Red, also known as the Atlantic Strategic War Plan, was a plan for the United States to make war with the British Empire (the "Red" forces).
It was developed by the United States Army following the 1927 Geneva Naval Conference; and approved in May 1930 by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of Navy and updated in 1934–35.
In 1939 it was decided that further planning was no longer applicable but that the plan be retained.
Canada (Crimson), Great Britain, Northern Ireland and Newfoundland (Red), British Raj (Ruby), Australia (Scarlet), New Zealand (Garnet), Ireland - by that time no longer part of the British Empire (Emerald), and other parts of the British Empire (Pink-not part of the plan), United States (Blue).
Stalin glared at Elliott and said, "You don't know why?"
Elliott replied, "No!"
Quickly, Stalin responded, "Don't you know who killed your father?"
Roosevelt-shocked-answered, "No."
Stalin rising from his chair, continued, "Well, I'll tell you why I have not invited her here. As soon as your father died, I asked my ambassador in Washington to go immediately to Georgia with a request to view the body."
Stalin believed that if Gromyko could see the body he would confirm that the cerebral hemorrhage that had caused his death had caused extensive discoloration and distortion.
"Elliot responded that he knew nothing about that and then Stalin said, "Your mother refused to permit the lid of the coffin to be opened so that my ambassador could see the body." Adding "I sent him there three times trying to impress upon your mother that it was very important for him to view the President's body. She never accepted that. I have never forgiven her."
This forced Elliott to ask this last question, "…but why?"
Stalin took a few steps around the office, and almost in a rage roared, "They poisoned your father, of course, just as they have tried repeatedly to poison me."
"They, who are they," Elliot asked
"The Churchill gang!" Stalin roared, "They poisoned your father, and they continue to try to poison me…the Churchill gang!"
The Strange Deaths of President Harding : Tarpley - Britain's Silent War Against the US from Spike EP on Vimeo.
"The destabilisation of President Harding bears an uncanny similarity to the British-directed Whitewatergate operations against President Clinton..."
Harding was the first US President to visit Canada, specifically British Columbia - one week later he was dead; poisoned.
He had just visited the British Empire's strategic railheads at Vancouver and Winnipeg.
This is a stout picture of a hard old man, aged sixty as the book begins -- emerging from a political wilderness to fight a war with a toughness that appalled men even half his age. "Some chicken, some neck!" was his famous epigram at Ottawa at the end of 1941. He applied it to Britain; this book applies it to him.
Irving is one of the world's most widely read dissident historians: unwilling to rely on published biographies or histories, he cuts across fresh ploughed country, searching in unlikely places for the bare rock of history: diaries, files, and private papers. When Irving offers new theories, sometimes adventurous ones, these are never demolished. "Churchill," he concludes in this book, "was a man who destroyed two empires, one of them the enemy's."
DAVID IRVING was born in Essex, England, in 1938, son of a Navy officer, father of four teenage daughters. After unorthodox education in London University and a Ruhr steelworks his first book, The Destruction of Dresden, became a beststeller in 1963. He applied the same research methods to other controversial works: his biographies of Hitler and Rommel are the best known. Using primarily original documents and diaries, Irving's conclusions often differ startlingly from accepted views. He began researching this Churchill biography in 1976. "
