An Interesting Historical Contrast.

I heard an interesting historical contrast the other day. When Dewey was running for President against Roosevelt during WWII, he received some information that indicated that Roosevelt knew in advance about the attack on Pearl Harbor.* General Marshall asked him not to use the information because it would hurt the war effort. As such Dewey did not use the information. Considering that Democrats are already accusing Bush of knowing about 9/11, It is somewhat useless to ask if democrats today would show the same restraint.

BTW, Roosevelt launched is reelection campaign at Pearl Harbor, and had a campaign button with his picture and the words “I remember Pearl Harbor.”

*This information later turned out the be untrue. Having read the transcripts of the Japanese cables that the US had decoded and FDR read, and the discussion of the cabinet meetings leading up to the attack, I do not believe that Roosevelt had advance warning, despite some seemingly incriminating statements (at one point in Nov, a cabinet member asked, ‘how do we get Japan to attack us.’) There is no doubt in my mind that Roosevelt knew war was coming, and that the Japanese would be launching the war in early December. But I do not believe that he had specific knowledge of the attack, or that it would be at Pearl Harbor. Rather they suspected that the attack would come in the Philippines.