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The Attack Of Pearl Harbor

Decent Essays

Over the years, there are many questions relating to the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941. The main question is was the attack of Pearl Harbor provoked or was it an act of miscalculations? Some say President Franklin Roosevelt provoked the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor, others say that government officials did not interpret the Japanese warnings incorrectly. First, many historians believe that President Roosevelt and government officials provoked the Japanese government to attack Pearl Harbor. When World War II first started, the United States initial policy was Isolationism and Neutrality. Many did not want to get involved in the war because World War I was a failure, the Great Depression and the idea that Wall Street via capitalism tricked the United States into the war. The Neutrality Act was developed to make sure that we were to stay out of the war. Provisions of the act included that no group, company, or individual can sell weapons of war to any country at war and no United States citizens are allowed to sail on a ship of a country at war. This idea of Neutrality was abandoned when the Lend-Lease Act came into play. This act allowed the United States to sell, lend or lease weapons to Great Britain with the promise that they will pay the United States back once the war was over. Many Isolationists saw this as a way to get closer with the Allies; but a wide majority of Congress enacted the bill. To ensure that the weapons would “cross the pond”

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