The McCollum Memo

It was on this day in 1940 (you will notice this is more than a year before the Pearl Harbor battle) that the McCollum memo first appeared in the United States. The basic content of the memo was an 8-point plan on how the United States could provoke the Empire of Japan into committing an "overt act of war" that would give the American people a justification for entering World War II on the side of the Allies. It should also be kept in mind that this is a matter of historical record, not some bizarre conspiracy theory. It is also a simple matter of fact that the United States eventually adopted every point of the eight outlined in the memo in order to encourage Japan to strike the first blow against the United States. This was because, at the time, the American people were staunchly opposed to staying out of World War II. Even so far as America was concerned about the war, the focus was on Europe and not East Asia. The memo itself states that the American people would never support entering the war unless one of the Axis powers, in this case Japan, could be forced into striking the first blow. This would arouse the anger of the public and allow the President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, to take the country to war with the full support of the American people. The eight points were:

1. To gain British permission for the USA to use British bases in the Pacific and Asia, especially Singapore.
2. To gain Dutch permission for the USA to use Dutch bases and resources in Indonesia.
(one should remember at this point that at this same time the USA was protesting over Japan making use of French bases in Indochina -while the USA was planning to do the same thing)
3. To dramatically increase American support for the Chinese forces of Chiang Kai-shek.
4. To send a division of heavy cruisers to The Philippines or Singapore.
5. To send two divisions of submarine to East Asia.
6. To move the U.S. Pacific fleet to Hawaii.
7. To insist that the Dutch give no cooperation to Japan and not allow Japan to buy any oil from them.
8. To insist that the British join America in a total trade embargo of Japan to cut of all resources.

Obviously, by building up American military forces in East Asia, supporting the Republic of China and enlisting Britain and The Netherlands into an anti-Japanese front while cutting Japan off from all vital natural resources the overall strategy was to force Japan into striking the first blow against the United States when there would be (they thought) ample military forces in the region to attack Japan. Of course, what no one was expecting was that Japan would be able to wipe out most of the U.S. Pacific fleet in that initial attack. It also shows that FDR was being utterly dishonest when he feigned surprise and outrage at the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. His administration had done everything possible to encourage just such an attack, additionally, as we have already covered, FDR had ordered a first bombing strike against Japan. The big difference was that when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor it was an attack on military forces and bases only whereas the American plan was for the fire-bombing of Japanese cities where there were high concentrations of civilians. Given all of this evidence, which is all part of the historical record and undisputed, it is absurd to attempt to portray the Empire of Japan as the aggressor in the war that followed.