Monday, September 07, 2015

Fractured History- AHEM



                                           


After war was declared on Japan in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to issue an executive order that allowed  regional military commanders to designate "military areas" from which "any or all persons may be excluded." The worry, of course, were the 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the Pacific coast that posed a threat; relocating them to the interior would isolate that threat.  His wife Eleanor, however, argued that what he proposed was blatant racism, and threatened to publicly lobby against him (and, supposedly, reveal that he had been banging her girl friends).  He relented.

So it was that when the Chicago Tribune published, in June 1942, that we had broken the Jap naval code,  Japanese agents quickly alerted agents in California who relayed the information to Japan.  The US never recovered, and was forced in 1945 into negotiations that resulted in the loss of our Pacific bases, including the Phillipines and Hawaii. 


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

All 50 states? Cowboys and isis!
Tim

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