Note the Russian Red star on these planes flying over our Alaskan territory before we got into WWII.
Posted on 08/15/2005 5:54:49 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
MOSCOW — An unidentified Japanese who spied for the Soviet Union inside the Japanese government notified the Soviet leadership in 1941 about Tokyo's policy of planning to start a war against the United States, a confidential Soviet intelligence document shows.
The report by the spy, codenamed "economist," was submitted to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Foreign Minister Viachislav Molotov on Sept 9, 1941, by Lavrenty Beria, who was the chief of the Soviet secret police. Whether Japan would start war against the United States or against the Soviet Union was a primary concern for Moscow, which was said to have wanted Japan to choose war against Washington, as the Soviets needed to focus on war against Germany. (Kyodo News)
If Japan turned its eyes towards conquest in Southeast Asia — including the U.S.-controlled Philippine Islands — and became embroiled in a war with America, then Moscow could feel secure that the Japanese would not invade Soviet Siberia, as well. And in the chaos that a general war in Asia would create, the breeding ground for communist revolutions would be expanded. To help seal this likelihood, Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Japan in April 1941.
In July 1941, a month after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, FDR's confidant, Harry Hopkins, was in Moscow meeting with Stalin, assuring the Soviet dictator of Roosevelt's intention of supplying the Red Army with as much war materiel as it was possible to provide, with no strings attached. On August 1, FDR told his cabinet that he wanted the aid flowing to Stalin immediately. "The only answer I want to hear is that it is under way," Roosevelt said to them. "Get the planes off with a bang next week."
At that very moment, Stalin's greatest and most successful spy in the Far East, Richard Sorge — who had warned Moscow in early June 1941 that Hitler would attack the Soviet Union during the third week of June, predicting the invasion almost to the day (even though at the time Stalin refused to believe it) — was using his agents to find out if Japan was planning to attack north at Soviet Siberia or south into a collision course with the United States. On October 4, 1941, Sorge, in his last message to Moscow before his arrest by the Japanese police, informed Stalin:
The American issue and the question of the advance to the south are far more important [to the Japanese] than the Northern problem [the Soviet Union]. . . . There will be war with the U.S. this month or next. . . . Japan will attack the United States, then Malaya, Singapore and Sumatra.
Stalin had this information corroborated when Soviet intelligence intercepted a November 27 message from Tokyo to the Japanese ambassador in Berlin, saying that he was to "explain to Hitler that the main Japanese efforts will be concentrated in the south and that we propose to refrain from deliberate operations in the north (i.e., Siberia)."
But even as the American aid was beginning to flow into the Soviet Union to bolster the Red Army in the face of the German attack, Stalin kept this information from his most reliable spy to himself. Better not to warn Roosevelt about Japan's war intentions and better simply to watch the unfolding of the Japanese-American war that he wanted. - LINK
Patton was right. We should have kept going to Moscow.
My image of Stalin just dropped a notch. I can't believe this!
This information (that the Japanese were not about to invade Siberia) also allowed Stalin to move the crack Siberia army under Zhukov to relieve Stalingrad, and trap von Paulus - and therefore win the war on the Eastern Front.
The question now becomes did Alger Hiss or the other communist spies in FDR's inner circle know about this as well?
My image of that world class fathead Franklin Roosevelt just dropped further.
George was always right in those matters.
Men like him don't often come into our world.
They signed a non-agression pact with them which they promptly broke.
The Japanese greatly disliked the Germans. That dislike is yet another reason the didn't re-attack Russia. Why help the Germans any more than was absolutely necessary.
In 1941 fully one third of the US Pacific Fleet was shifted to the Atlantic to support the convoying of war materiels under Lend-Lease. The director of the Lend-Lease program at the time ... one Harry "The Hop" Hopkins, known now via the VENONA Project to be Soviet "Agent No. 19" and FDR's alter ego.
There's more ... also in 1941 over 200 PBYs (Soviet "GST") were shipped to the USSR ... Pearl Harbor was screaming for them ... and got very few.
More still, under Lend-Lease, in the Spring of 1943, the US sent tens of tons of nuclear material to the USSR - including enriched uranium ...
And, at Yalta, FDR surrendered what to Stalin ... Poland, ..., etc.
There is nothing here indicating that Sorge knew the plans of Pearl Harbor or the date of an attack. The message was to assure Stalin that he could remove his Far Eastern forces to the West and reinforce his front with Germany without worrying about a Jap attack in Siberia.
How could your image of Stalin be tainted by this it could not have been very high if you know history.
The Japs also tricked Hitler into declaring war on the US, by promising Hitler they would attack the Soviet Union in turn. Of course, Japan never had any intention of doing so.
It was inevitable that we would have fought the Germans regardless, even had Hitler not declared war on the US, but how long it would have taken for us to declare war would be the question.
Note the Russian Red star on these planes flying over our Alaskan territory before we got into WWII.
I think he was being sarcastic.
"My image of that world class fathead Franklin Roosevelt just dropped further."
I NEVER liked that Socialist ever! This just reinforces my opinion of this A$$-hole!
How can your opinion of Stalin drop a notch? Isn't it already as low as it can go?
That is, Stalin went along with Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini, the whole nine yards.
I thought that the "pact" lasted two years. Not arguing, just that my memory may be rusty.
My parents, grandparents, and great grandparents were all Democrats. My children are all Republicans.
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