Charley - You posted "I still find it hard to believe that key players in FDR's administration were aware that the raid was about to happen, and then let it happen (hoping that it would not be too devestating) to manipulate public opinion into supporting war against Germany and its allies."

They did not know the Pearl Harbour raid was about to happen.

What they did know was that a war was about to happen, and that Japan would attack somewhere. The places that Japan might most reasonably have been expected to attack were: the Phillipines, Hong Kong, Malaya, and other portions of Southeast Asia, and the Dutch possessions (now called Indonesia).

I seriously doubt that anyone in the US government believed the Japanese had the skill and organizational ability to hit not only ALL of those places, but ALSO Pearl Harbour! No one had ever conducted a comparable aircraft carrier operation over such a vast distance of ocean.

That the Japanese managed to do it (flawlessly) was, by the standards of the time, absolutely remarkable.

Therefore, I think FDR's people were nothing short of astounded by the massive air raid on Pearl Harbour, although they were certainly expecting Japan to strike in a number of other places closer to Japanese waters.

The Americans had a rather low opinion of the expertise and quality of the Japanese forces prior to the opening of hostilities...God knows why! Claire Chennault (of the American Volunteer Group/Flying Tigers in China) had been telling them for some time that the Japanese had extremely modern and formidable aircraft squadrons, but no one seemed to be listening. Call it complacency...or the arrogance of a white race just not taking a yellow race seriously...which was pretty typical back then.

- LH