Pearl Harbor Dbq

Former United States Representative, Joe Baca, states, “Pearl Harbor caused our nation to wholeheartedly commit to winning World War II, changing the course of our nation’s history and the world’s future.” What this quote purposely left out was how the United States needed a way out of the Great Depression. The only way out of the depression was war. Even with all the acts and plans Franklin D. Roosevelt put forth, none would truly turn the economy around. Pearl Harbor was an emotional time for America; however, it was also an extremely key time for the American government. They could easily put Japan in a crisis, as they did, but America acted as though they did nothing aggressive to provoke the Japanese to attack them. In this paper, There

With every option the Japanese offered America, American would ask for more. America asked for unobtainable request. When Japan would raise their offer, the United States would continue to ask for more to not allow the Japan to accept. The longer the United States would hold off from the final deal with Japan, the more likely the Japanese would commit the first strike towards war. The United States did not want to accept any of the requests. They only had one goal: war. Also, Franklin D. Roosevelt had a foreign policy to not attack unless attacked, and with no deals being made, his policy would be met (Higgs). America’s goal would eventually be met on December 7,

However, many historians have conducted research and proved that Franklin Roosevelt and the government had insight about the attack days before it took place, though they did nothing to defend for the attack, nor warn the commanders at Pearl Harbor (Perloff). To make the attack seem like an aggressive attack toward America, Roosevelt said to the American people, “I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars” (Perloff). By saying this, Roosevelt made the nation seem totally surprised that the Japanese would bomb them. This was all the government needed to fire the nation up for war with the destruction of “18 naval vessels sunk or heavily damaged, 188 planes destroyed, and over 2,000 men killed” (Perloff). James Perloff, author at New American, also states, “Before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, 88-percent of Americans were against joining the war in Europe, but after the war only 23-percent were against it.” Most of the 23-percent were of German or Japanese decent (Perloff). With all the destruction being done, Roosevelt declared war against Japan on December 8, 1941, bringing the United States into World War II with a ton of national support to avenge what was taken from them, and pulling itself out of the worst depression the nation had ever seen. The United States government had succeeded at its greatest predicament