September 11 (VI)

Kurt Campbell's July 2002 Arts & Ideas piece in the New York Times takes us back to December 17, 1941, ten days after Pearl Harbor, when FDR demanded the first of eight investigations into U.S. unpreparedness in the Pacific.

"Roosevelt had a major problem," said a Harvard historian. "The public outcry to hold people responsible after Dec. 7 was much, much greater than what we have seen since Sept. 11." Conspiracy theorists — among them, future GOP presidential candidate Thomas Dewey — alleged that FDR welcomed, and perhaps invited, the Japanese attack, so as to draw America into the war. The investigations — carried out largely by the president's cronies — proved otherwise.