MANZANAR Historic Resource Study/Special History Study

One of America's largest undertakings in the name of national defense during World War II was the mass exclusion and evacuation of persons of Japanese ancestry from California, the western halves of Oregon and Washington, and southern Arizona. Persons of Japanese descent were also removed from Alaska, and efforts were begun for what was initially intended to be a substantial transfer of such persons from Hawaii [1] to the mainland. [2]

Initial plans for evacuation of suspected persons from strategic areas along the Pacific front concerned enemy aliens of all three Axis nations — Germany, Italy and Japan — rather than persons of Japanese ancestry alone. Of the latter, the census of 1940 showed that, out of a total of 126,947 in the continental United States, 112,353 were living in the three Pacific states. California had 93,717 Japanese, or nearly three-fourths of the national total. Of the west coast Japanese, 40,869 were aliens who were born in Japan and were ineligible for citizenship (Issei), and 71,484 were American-born citizens, the children (Nisei) or the grandchildren (Sansei) of immigrant Japanese. A small minority, the Japanese represented less than one tenth of one percent of the total American population and less than two percent of the population in California, the state of their heaviest concentration. [3]

In early 1942 there were some 58,000 Italian and 22,000 German aliens in the Pacific states. Most of the Germans, and a large proportion of the Japanese and Italians, lived in or near major metropolitan areas in the west coast states. Many of the German aliens were recent refugees from Nazi Germany In contrast to the Germans and Italians, the Japanese in the Pacific states, and especially in California, had been the target of racial hostility and restrictive legal action since the late 19th century, a factor that unquestionably colored the measures taken against these people after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. [4]

BACKGROUND OF EXCLUSION AND EVACUATION PLANNING

A prewar agreement made the Department of Justice responsible for controlling enemy aliens in the continental United States in the event of war. During 1941, this department, primarily through its Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), scrutinized the records of prospective enemy aliens and compiled lists of those against whom there were grounds for suspicion of disloyalty. [5] Three presidential proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, dealing with the control of Japanese and of German and Italian aliens, respectively, provided the basis for immediate action against those so suspected by the Department of Justice. The proclamations authorized the Army to co-operate with the FBI in rounding up individual enemy aliens considered actually or potentially dangerous, made enemy aliens subject to apprehension and internment, restricted them in traveling, prohibited them from possessing a large number of contraband items, and designated them for possible exclusion from military zones. By December 10, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover reported that "practically all" whom he initially planned to arrest had been taken into custody: 1,291 Japanese (367 in Hawaii, 924 in the continental United States); 857 Germans; 147 Italians. In fact, however, the government continued to apprehend enemy aliens. By February 16, 1942, the Department of Justice held 2,191 Japanese; 1,393 Germans; and 264 Italians and arrests continued after that date. Many of the Japanese arrested in the early FBI sweeps were Issei leaders of Japanese American communities and their organizations. By specifically authorizing the exclusion of enemy aliens "from any locality in which residence by an alien enemy shall be found to constitute a danger to the public peace and safety of the United States," the presidential proclamations also provided a basis for evacuation on a larger scale. [6]

During the first few days after the Pearl Harbor attack a large number of reports — all later proven to be false — of enemy ships offshore surfaced on the west coast, fanning the fires of racial hysteria and wartime panic. In this atmosphere, the first proposal for mass evacuation of the Japanese developed. On December 10, a Treasury Department agent reported to Army authorities that "an estimated 20,000 Japanese in the San Francisco metropolitan area were ready for organized action." Without checking the authenticity of the report, the Ninth Corps Area staff hurriedly completed a plan for the evacuation of the purported subversives that was approved by the corps area commander. The next day the local FBI chief stopped further local action by characterizing the report "as the wild imaginings of a discharged former FBI man," but the corps area commander reported the incident to Washington and expressed the hope that "it may have the effect of arousing the War Department to some action looking to the establishment of an area or areas for the detention of aliens." His recommendation that "plans be made for large-scale internment" was forwarded to military leaders in Washington. [7]

When Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox returned to the mainland from a visit to Hawaii on December 15, he told the press, "I think the most effective Fifth Column work of the entire war was done in Hawaii with the possible exception of Norway." His accompanying recommendation for the removal of all Japanese, regardless of citizenship, from Oahu was another of a growing series of calls for mass racial exclusion. The basis of Knox's statement was never made clear, and his official report on December 16 contained no reference to fifth column activities. Instead, it described espionage by Japanese consular officers and praised the Japanese Americans who had manned machine guns against the enemy. Nevertheless, his earlier comments to the press received widespread attention in major west coast newspapers, and nothing was promptly done at the highest levels of government to repudiate Knox's initial statement or publicly to affirm the loyalty of persons of Japanese descent. [8]

In this charged atmosphere it is not surprising that General John L. DeWitt, a career soldier who had been placed in command of the Fourth Army and Western Defense Command (WDC) in 1939 with headquarters at the Presidio in San Francisco, would take a cautious, almost nervous, approach to any perceived threat of attack or disruption on the Pacific coast. Aware of the speed with which the disgraced Lieutenant General Walter Short and Rear Admiral Husband Kimmel were forced out of the military after being criticized for not adopting adequate defense measures at Pearl Harbor, DeWitt, anxious to preserve his position in the military, reacted to the rising hysteria on the west coast by recommending to General Headquarters on December 19 "that action be initiated at the earliest practicable date to collect all alien subjects fourteen years of age and over, of enemy nations and remove them to the Zone of the Interior." [9]

However, General DeWitt may have felt during December about the treatment of enemy aliens, he was firmly opposed to any evacuation of citizens. In a telephone conversation with Major General Allen W. Gullion. the Provost Marshal General, on December 26 he reacted to a recommendation by a representative of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce that all Japanese in the Los Angeles area should be rounded up:

. . . .if we go ahead and arrest the 93,000 Japanese, native born and foreign born, We are going to have an awful job on our hands and are very liable to alienate the loyal Japanese from disloyal m very doubtful that it Would be common sense procedure to try and intern or to intern 117,000 Japanese in this theater. . . . I told the governors of all the states that those people should be watched better if they were watched by the police and people of the community in which they live and have been living for years. . . . and then inform the F.B.I. or the military authorities of any suspicious action so we could take necessary steps to handle it . . . . rather than try to intern all those people, men, women and children, and hold them under military control and under guard. . . An American citizen, after all, is an American citizen. And while they all may not be loyal, I think we can weed the disloyal out of the loyal and lock them up if necessary. 10]

At this time, General DeWitt wanted the prompt issuance of clear instructions to FBI agents on the west coast that would enable them to take more effective steps to prevent sabotage and espionage. At his urging, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson conferred with Attorney General Francis Biddle, and thereafter the latter speeded up the preparation of regulations to implement the presidential proclamations of December 7 and 8. Late in December, the Department of Justice announced regulations requiring enemy aliens in the Western Defense Command to surrender radio transmitters, short-wave radio receivers, and certain types of cameras to local police stations by January 5, 1942. On December 30, DeWitt was informed that the attorney general had also authorized the issuance of warrants for search and arrest in any house where an enemy alien lived upon representation by an FBI agent that there was reasonable cause to believe that contraband was on the premises. In addition, the Department of Justice and the provost marshal general arranged to send representatives to San Francisco to confer with DeWitt in order to work out more specific arrangements for controlling enemy aliens. To centralize and expedite Army action in Washington, General Gullion arranged for DeWitt to deal directly with the provost marshal general's office on west coast alien problems, and for the latter to keep General Headquarters informed of developments. [11]

The San Francisco conference took place on January 4-5, 1942. Before the meetings, the War Department's representative, Major Karl R. Bendetsen, Chief of the Aliens Division, Provost Marshal General's office, urged DeWitt to insist on the definition of strategic areas from which all enemy aliens were to be excluded and that authority to prescribe such areas be vested in the Army. In opening the conference, General DeWitt declared his serious concern over the alien situation and his distrust in particular of the Japanese population — both aliens and citizens. Although he opposed a mass evacuation of the Japanese, he wanted full implementation of the president's proclamations. The conference ended with agreement on a plan of action providing for alien registration with the least practicable delay, FBI searches of suspected premises without warrants under guidelines stating that merely being an enemy alien would be sufficient cause for a search, and the designation of strategic areas from which enemy aliens could be barred by the attorney general, who would "entertain" Army recommendations on this score if they were accompanied by an exact description of each area. [12]

At this point, designation of restricted areas appeared to be a device to exclude only aliens, not citizens. However, some military officers began to consider broadening the definition of "enemy aliens." Accordingly, Major Carter Garver, Acting Assistant Adjutant General of the Army, wrote to DeWitt on January 8:

Upon being consulted in this connection, Admiral C. S. Freeman, Commandant 13th Naval District, recommended that all enemy aliens be evacuated from the states of Washington and Oregon; that all American [sic] born of Japanese racial origin who cannot show actual severance of all allegiance to the Japanese government be classified as enemy aliens, and lastly that no pass or temporary permit to enter these states be issued to enemy aliens. He based this recommendation on the fact that communications and industry in these states are so vital to the operations of the Naval District that any hostile activities in the two states will be a serious embarrassment. This view is also held by this headquarters.

Garver continued with language that demonstrated the increasing racial sentiments that would lead to mass evacuation:

The reputed operations of Axis spies and Fifth Columnists in Europe and the known activities of such elements during the recent Japanese attack on Hawaii clearly indicate the danger of temporizing with such a menace. It is deemed to be a certainty that any hostile operations against the Northwestern Sector will be characterized by a similar treacherous activity. From what is known of the Japanese character and mentality it is also considered dangerous to rely on the loyalty of native born persons of Japanese blood unless such loyalty can be affirmatively demonstrated. [13]

The arrangements agreed upon at San Francisco took longer to put into effect than either General DeWitt or the Justice representatives anticipated. The registration of enemy aliens was finally undertaken between February 2 and 9, and the large-scale "spot" raids that DeWitt was anxious to have launched did not get under way until the same week, so that both operations took place during the period when public agitation against the Japanese was rapidly mounting. Although DeWitt planned to fix the boundaries of restricted areas by January 9, it was January 21 before he sent the first of his lists to Washington for transmission to the attorney general. One of his principal difficulties was to reconcile the recommendations of the Navy, which by agreement were to be made through him, with the position of the Department of Justice Navy commanders wanted to exclude not only enemy aliens but also all American-born Japanese who could not show "actual severance of all allegiance to the Japanese Government." [14]

On January 21, General DeWitt recommended the exclusion of enemy aliens from 86 Category A zones in California and their close control by a pass and permit system in 8 Category B zones. Although many of the Category A areas were uninhabited or had no alien population, the implementation of this recommendation would have required the evacuation of more than 7,000 persons. Only 40 percent of these would have been Japanese aliens, and the majority would have been Italians. [15] In his letter forwarding this recommendation to Attorney General Biddle, Secretary of War Stimson observed:

In recent conferences with General DeWitt, he has expressed great apprehension because of the presence on the Pacific coast of many thousand alien enemies. As late as yesterday, 24 January, he stated over the telephone that shore-to-ship and ship-to-shore radio communications, undoubtedly coordinated by intelligent enemy control were continually operating. A few days ago it was reported by military observers on the Pacific coast that not a single ship had sailed from our Pacific ports without being subsequently attacked. General DeWitt's been confirmed by recent visits of military observers from the War Department to the Pacific coast. . . .

The alarming and dangerous situation just described, in my opinion, calls for immediate and stringent action. [16]

Actually, there had been no Japanese submarine or surface vessels anywhere near the west coast during the preceding month, and careful investigation subsequently indicated that all claims of hostile shore-to-ship and ship-to-shore communication lacked foundation. Similar recommendations for restricted areas in Arizona, Oregon, and Washington followed, and were forwarded to the Justice Department by February 3. By that date, the position of the Japanese population was under heavy attack as a result of the intensifying wartime racial hysteria, and in consequence the alien exclusion program was soon eclipsed by a drive to evacuate all people of Japanese descent from the west coast states. [17]

Me an time, racial hysteria was sweeping the Pacific states, fanned by newspaper sensationalism and nativist organizations. The Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West, for instance, saw the war as a fulfillment of everything they had feared and fought. In the January 1942 issue of The Grizzly Bear, the organization's publication, the editor emphasized the consequences of ignoring past predictions:

Had the warnings been heeded — had the federal and state authorities been "on the alert" and rigidly enforced the Exclusion Law and the Alien Land Law; had the Jap propaganda agencies in this country been silenced; had the legislation been enacted . . . denying citizenship to offspring of all aliens ineligible to citizenship; had the Japs been prohibited from colonizing in strategic locations; had not Jap-dollars been so eagerly sought by White landowners and businessmen; had a dull ear been turned to the honeyed words of the Japs and the pro-Japs; had the yellow-Jap and the white-Jap "fifth columnists" been disposed of within the law; had Japan been denied the privilege of using California as a breeding ground for dual-citizens (nisei); — the treacherous Japs probably would not have attacked Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, and this country would not today be at war with Japan. [18]

Nurtured by fear and anger at Japanese victories in the Far East following the Pearl Harbor attack and by eagerness to strike at the enemy with whom the ethnic Japanese in the United States were now identified, calls for radical government action began to fill letters to the editor and newspaper commentary. Old stereotypes of the "Yellow peril" and other forms of historic anti-Japanese agitation provided a ready body of lore to bolster this "pseudo-patriotic" cause. By the end of January 1942, the clamor for exclusion fired by race hatred and war hysteria was prominent in California newspapers, particularly those owned by the Hearst family. Henry McLemore, an influential Hearst syndicated columnist, published a particularly vicious diatribe:

The only Japanese apprehended have been the ones the FBI actually had something on The rest of them, so help me, are free as birds. There isn't an airport in California that isn't flanked by Japanese farms. There is hardly an air field where the same situation doesn't exist. . . .

I know this is the melting pot of the world and all men are created equal and there must be no such thing as race or creed hatred, but do those things go when a country is fighting for its life? Not in my book. No country has ever won a war because of courtesy and I trust and pray we won't be the first because of the lovely, gracious spirit. . . .

I am for immediate removal of every Japanese on the West Coast to a point deep in the interior. I don't mean a nice part of the interior either. Herd 'em up, pack 'em off and give 'em the inside room in the badlands. Let 'em be pinched, hurt, hungry and dead up against it . . .

Personally, I hate the Japanese. And that goes for all of them. [19]

Thus, public agitation for mass evacuation of the Japanese from the west coast began to reach significant levels during mid-January 1942, and politicians soon responded to the rising tempo and volume of demands for federal and state action. Among the first of these was a letter dated January 16 addressed by Representative Leland M. Ford of Santa Monica, California, to the Secretaries of War and Navy and the FBI director informing them that his California mail was running heavily in favor of evacuation and internment:

I know that there will be some complications in connection with a matter like this, particularly where there are native born Japanese, who are citizens. My suggestions in connection with this are as follows:

1. That these native born Japanese either are or are not loyal to the United States.

2. That all Japanese, whether citizens or not, be placed in inland concentration camps. As justification for this, I submit that if an American born Japanese, who is a citizen, is really patriotic and wishes to make his contribution to the safety and welfare of this country, right here is his opportunity to do so, namely, that by permitting himself to be placed in a concentration camp, he would be making his sacrifice and he should be willing to do it if he is patriotic and is working for us. As against his sacrifice, millions of other native born citizens are willing to lay down their lives, which is a far greater sacrifice, of course, than being placed in a concentration camp. [20]

Behind this and similar suggestions lay a profound suspicion of the Japanese population, fanned by the nature and scope of Japan's military successes in the Pacific in the months following Pearl Harbor. For example, a General Headquarters intelligence bulletin of January 21 concluded that there was an "espionage net containing Japanese aliens, first and second generation Japanese and other nations . . . . thoroughly organized and working underground." DeWitt, who feared that an enemy raid on the west coast would probably be accompanied by "a violent outburst of coordinated and controlled sabotage" among the Japanese population stated on January 24 the disingenuous assertion that would become one of the principal arguments for mass evacuation:

The fact that nothing has happened so far is more or less . . . ominous, in that I feel that in view of the fact that we have had no sporadic attempts at sabotage that there is a control being exercised and when we have it will be on a mass basis. [21]

The first official inquiry into the Pearl Harbor disaster was conducted by the Roberts Commission, appointed by the President and chaired by Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts. The Roberts Commission report, issued on January 23, 1942, had immediate effect both on public opinion and on government action. The report concluded that there had been widespread espionage in Hawaii before Pearl Harbor, both by Japanese consular agents and by Japanese residents of Oahu who had "no open relations with the Japanese foreign service." [22]

The latter charge, though proven false after the war, was especially inflammatory On January 27, General DeWitt reported after a lengthy talk with Governor Culbert L. Olson of California:

There's a tremendous volume of public opinion now developing against the Japanese of all classes, that is aliens and non-aliens, to get them off the land, and in Southern California around Los Angeles — in that area too — they want and they are bringing pressure on the government to move all the Japanese out. As a matter of fact, it's not being instigated or developed by people who are not thinking but by the best people of California. Since the publication of the Roberts Report they feel that they are living in the midst of a lot of enemies. They don't trust the Japanese, none of them. [23]

Led by representatives of the California congressional delegation who were reportedly "beginning to get up in arms" over the Japanese situation, an informal meeting that included Washington state congressmen and Justice and War Department personnel unanimously approved on January 30 a suggested program for action, which was a verbatim copy of a draft submitted by a representative of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. The recommended action program called for an evacuation of enemy aliens and "dual" citizens from critical areas, but which made no specific mention of the Japanese. In presenting the congressional program to his chief, Major Bendetsen described it as "calling for the immediate evacuation of all Japanese from the Pacific coast strip including Japanese citizens of the age of 21 and under, and calling for an Executive Order of the President, imposing full responsibility and authority (with power to requisition the services of other Federal agencies) upon the War Department." [24] He also reported the recommendations as adopted to DeWitt, who expressed general approval of them despite some technical objections. After the congressional meeting, its chairman, Representative Clarence F. Lea of California, formally presented the recommendations to the War Department.

The next day, in reflecting on these recommendations as well as a conversation he had conducted on January 29 with Earl Warren, the Attorney General of California who supported Governor Olson's proposals for removal of all Japanese from the state, General DeWitt recorded his opinion that gave evidence of his hardening attitude toward mass evacuation. He noted:

As a matter of fact, the steps now being taken by the Attorney General through the F.B.I. will do nothing more than exercise a controlling influence and preventive action against sabotage; it will not, in my opinion, be able to stop it. The only positive answer to this question is evacuation of all enemy aliens from the West Coast and resettlement or internment under positive control, military or otherwise.

DeWitt not only wanted the removal and internment of German and Italian aliens and all Japanese residents, including both aliens and dual citizens, but he also wanted all evacuees from a particular area to be moved at the same time. Action should be taken at the earliest possible date "even if they [the aliens and dual citizens] were temporarily inconvenienced." He also expressed his willingness to accept responsibility for the enemy alien program if it was formally transferred to him. [25]

In the meantime, the Department of Justice had agreed informally to accept General DeWitt's initial recommendation for restricted areas in California, and it was preparing to carry out this and other aspects of the alien control program. On January 28, it announced the appointment of Thomas C. Clark as Co-ordinator of the Alien Enemy Control Program within the Western Defense Command, and Clark commenced work the next day. On January 29, the Justice Department made its first public announcement about the restricted Category A areas that were to be cleared of enemy aliens by February 24. In a series of press releases between January 31 and February 7, the attorney general announced 84 prohibited areas in California, 7 in Washington, 24 in Oregon, and 18 in Arizona — 135 zones around airports, dams, powerplants, pumping stations, harbor areas, and military installations. In most cases, the areas were small, usually circles of 1,000 feet or rectangles of several city blocks. The Justice Department also announced twelve "restricted" areas for enemy aliens, eleven being small zones surrounding hydroelectric plants in California, but the twelfth encompassed the entire coastal strip from the Oregon border south to a point approximately 50 miles north of Los Angeles and extended inland for distances varying from 30 to 150 miles. Regulations for these restricted areas required that (1) enemy aliens remain within their places of residence between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.; (2) at all other times during the day they be found only at their place of residence or employment or traveling between those two places, or within a distance of not more than five miles from their place of residence; and (3) if found disobeying the regulations they were to be subject to immediate apprehension and internment. But the Justice Department balked at quarantining extensive populated areas, such as all of Seattle or Portland. [26]

As a result of the congressional recommendations and related developments, Attorney General Biddle asked War Department representatives to attend a meeting at his office on February 1. There he presented a draft press release to be issued jointly by the Justice and War departments, indicating agreement on all alien control measures taken to date and including the statement: "The Department of War and the Department of Justice are in agreement that the present military situation does not at this time require the removal of American citizens of the Japanese race." In the meeting, Biddle, a member of a wealthy eastern establishment family who had little sympathy for a mass evacuation program, stated that Justice would have nothing to do with any interference with citizens or a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. The War Department representatives — Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, General Gullion. and Major Bendetsen — agreed to the wording of the press release except for the sentence quoted. The meeting then adjourned, the War Department representatives withholding approval of any press release until DeWitt's views could be obtained, and until they learned the outcome of a conference at Sacramento that had been arranged for February 2 between General DeWitt, Clark, Governor Olsen, and other federal and state officials. Major Bendetsen informed the chief of staff's office that the Justice Department's proposal had also been held up because DeWitt had been provisionally recommending the evacuation of the entire Japanese population from the Pacific coastal area. In the meantime, the provost marshal general's office had formulated plans for mass evacuation and nontroop shelter for all of the west coast Japanese. In a telephone conversation immediately after the meeting with Justice representatives, Major Bendetsen reported, General DeWitt agreed to submit a recommendation for mass evacuation in writing. [27]

ore DeWitt could report the outcome of the Sacramento meeting, Secretary of War Stimson met on February 3 with McCloy, Gullion, and Bendetsen to confer about the proposed press release and the Japanese problem in general. They discussed a proposal under which military reservations would be established around large aircraft factories and some port and harbor installations, and from which everyone could be excluded at the outset until they were licensed to return. In practice, licenses would not be issued to Japanese residents or to other groups or individuals under suspicion. It appeared that under this plan citizens as well as aliens could be excluded legally without overt discrimination. [28]

During the discussion, Stimson received a record of a telephone conversation between General George C. Marshall and DeWitt in which the latter reported on the meeting in Sacramento. DeWitt stated:

I had a conference yesterday with the Governor and several representatives from the Department of Justice and Department of Agriculture, with a view to removal of the Japanese from where they are now living to other portions of the state. And the Governor thinks it can be satisfactorily handled without having a resettlement somewhere in the central part of the United States and removing them entirely from the state of California. As you know the people out here are very much disturbed over these aliens, the Japanese being among them, and want to get them out of the several communities. And I've agreed that if they can solve the problem by getting them out of the areas limited as the combat zone, that it would be satisfactory That would take them 100 to 150 miles from the coast, and they're working on it. The Department of Justice has a representative here and the Department of Agriculture, and they think the plan an excellent one. I'm only concerned with getting them away from around these aircraft factories and other places. [29]

In subsequent exchanges General DeWitt explained the details of the California officials' proposals, particularly those of Governor Olson who had been asked by federal authorities to recommend the best procedure for handling the situation. According to DeWitt, the state officials proposed to move both citizen and alien Japanese (voluntarily if possible, and in collaboration with American-born Japanese leaders) from urban areas and from along the coast to agricultural areas in the interior of the state. They wanted to do this to avoid having to replace the Japanese with Mexican and Negro farm laborers who might otherwise have to be brought into California in considerable numbers. The California officials felt they needed ten days to study the problem and develop a workable plan. By February 4, DeWitt was convinced that they could produce a plan that would be satisfactory from a defense standpoint. [30]

After the meeting with Stimson, McCloy called General DeWitt to tell him about the licensing plan and caution him against taking any position in favor of mass Japanese evacuation. The next day General Gullion told Clark that Stimson and McCloy opposed mass evacuation of the Japanese and interfering with citizens unless such action could be done legally While admitting that this point of view represented the War Department position for the moment, General Gullion offered his personal view that he did not think the proposed licensing action was going to solve the situation. On this same day, February 4, Lieutenant Colonel Bendetsen, who had just been promoted to that rank, remarked to DeWitt that he was sure that American citizens of Japanese extraction would have to be excluded from some areas. In response DeWitt remarked:

You see, the situation is this: I have never on my own initiative recommended a mass evacuation, or the removal of any man, any Jap, other than an alien. In other words, I have made no distinction between an alien as to whether he is Jap, Italian, or German — that they must all get out of Area A, that is the Category A area. The agitation to move all the Japanese away from the coast, and some suggestions, out of California entirely — is with the State, the population of the State, which has been espoused by the Governor. I have never been a body [sic] to that, but I have said, if you do that, and can solve that problem, it will be a positive step toward the protection of the coast.... But I have never said, "You've got to do it, in order to protect the coast"; ... I can take such measures as are necessary from a military standpoint to control the American Jap if he is going to cause trouble within those restricted areas. [31]

Two days earlier, on February 2, members of Congress from the Pacific states had organized informally under the leadership of their senior Senator, Hiram Johnson of California. He had appointed two subcommittees, one headed by Senator Rufus C. Holman of Oregon to consider plans for increased military strength along the Pacific coast, and the other by Senator Mon C. Wallgren of Washington to deal with questions relating to enemy aliens and the prevention of sabotage. On February 4, Brigadier General Mark W. Clark of General Headquarters and Admiral Harold R. Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations, offered testimony on the west coast military outlook at a meeting of the first of these subcommittees. At the hearings, Senator Holman summed up the situation by observing that the people of the Pacific coast states were alarmed and horrified as to their persons, their employment, and their homes. Clark observed that he thought the people were unduly alarmed. While both he and Stark agreed the west coast defenses were not adequate to prevent the enemy from attacking, they felt the chance of any sustained attack or of an invasion was nil. They recognized that sporadic air raids on key installations were a distinct possibility, but they also believed that the west coast military defenses were considerable. From the military point of view the Pacific coast had a necessarily low priority as compared with Hawaii and the far Pacific. These authoritative Army and Navy views were passed on to the Wallgren subcommittee, but they appear to have made little impression on the western congressional leaders. [32]

On the same day as the hearing, February 4, the federal government's Office of Facts and Figures completed an analysis of a hasty survey of public opinion in California. The report, written by Archibald MacLeish, concluded that "Even with such a small sample," one can infer the situation in California is serious; that it is loaded with potential dynamite; but that it is not as desperate as some people believe." The report noted that "a majority of people think that the Government (chiefly the FBI) has the situation in hand," but it did concede that between 23 and 43 percent of the population felt further action was needed. The report suggested that these people "tend to cluster in the low income, poorly educated groups, and they are the ones who are most suspicious of local Japanese in general." [33]

A contemporary Navy report described what was happening to the Japanese population in the Los Angeles area: ". . . loss of employment and income due to anti-Japanese agitation by and among Caucasian Americans, continued personal attacks by Filipinos and other racial groups, denial of relief funds to desperately needy cases, cancellation of licenses for markets, produce houses, stores, etc., by California State authorities, discharges from jobs by the wholesale, [and] unnecessarily harsh restrictions on travel including discriminatory regulations against all Nisei preventing them from engaging in commercial fishing." While expressing opposition to any mass evacuation of the Japanese, the report concluded that if practices such as those described continued there would "most certainly be outbreaks of sabotage, riots, and other civil strife in the not too distant future." [34]

DECISION FOR MASS EVACUATION

On February 4, Colonel Bendetsen addressed a lengthy memorandum to General Gullion, concluding that an enemy alien evacuation "would accomplish little as a measure of safety," since the alien Japanese were mostly elderly people who could do little harm to the American defense effort. Furthermore, their removal would inevitably antagonize large numbers of their relatives among the American-born Japanese. After considering the various alternatives that had been suggested for dealing with citizens, Colonel Bendetsen recommended the designation of military areas from which all persons who did not have permission to enter and remain would be excluded as a measure of military necessity. He rejected mass evacuation as unjustified by military necessity, but he insisted that "by far the vast majority of those who have studied the Asian assert that a substantial majority of Nisei bear allegiance to Japan; are well controlled and disciplined by the enemy, and at the proper time will engage in organized sabotage, particularly, should a raid along the Pacific Coast be attempted by the Japanese." He believed that this plan was clearly legal and recommended that it be executed via three steps: (1) issuance of an Executive Order by the President authorizing the Secretary of War to designate military areas; (2) designation of military areas upon the recommendation of General DeWitt; and (3) immediate evacuation from areas so designated of all persons to whom it was not proposed to issue licenses to re-enter or remain. Bendetsen assumed that, if military areas were established on the west coast in place of all Category A areas thus far recommended by General DeWitt, about 30,000 people would have to be evacuated. At the same time, Bendetsen's division drafted a proposal for applying the military areas scheme to the entire nation. [35]

Colonel Archer L. Lerch, the deputy provost marshal general, endorsed Bendetsen's proposals, commenting on the "deciding weakening of General DeWitt" on the issue of Japanese evacuation, which he considered "most unfortunate. He thought the plan for resettlement within California being worked out between DeWitt and state authorities savored "too much of the spirit of Rotary" and overlooked "the necessary cold-bloodedness of war." General Gullion presented a condensed version of Bendetsen's observations and recommendation to McCloy on February 5, noting that DeWitt had changed his position and appeared to favor a more lenient treatment of the American-born Japanese to be developed in cooperation with their leaders — a position he considered "extremely dangerous." A revision of his memorandum, with all reference to DeWitt deleted, became the provost marshal general's recommendation of February 6 to McCloy that immediate steps be taken to eliminate the great danger of Japanese-inspired sabotage on the west coast. Gullion advised that these steps should include the internment by the Army of all alien Japanese east of the Sierra Nevada, together with as many citizen members of their families as would voluntarily accompany them, and the exclusion of all citizen Japanese from restricted zones and their resettlement with the assistance of various federal agencies. [36]

On February 7, Colonel Bendetsen read General Gullion's memorandum to DeWitt, who expressed some enthusiasm for its recommendations but did not wish to endorse them without further study. That same day McCloy decided to send Bendetsen to the west coast "to confer with General DeWitt in connection with mass evacuation of all Japanese," a mission that would result in new and detailed recommendations from the west coast commander. [37]

In the meantime, the War and Justice departments were approaching an impasse over the area evacuations contemplated under the enemy alien control program. After agreeing informally to accept DeWitt's initial California recommendations, Justice officials balked at accepting the large Category A areas he recommended for Washington and Oregon, since they included the entire cities of Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland. The execution of this recommendation would have required the evacuation of about 10,700 additional enemy aliens and, as in the case of California, only about 40 percent of these would have been Japanese. By February 4, representatives of the Department of Justice, believing that they would have difficulty in supplying either the manpower or the internment facilities that large-scale compulsory evacuation would require, began to intimate that if there were any further Category A recommendations or if the evacuation of any citizens were to be involved, Justice would bow out and turn its evacuation responsibilities over to the War Department. [38]

At the same time, DeWitt was considering placing the entire Los Angeles area in Category A, because his air commander recommended Category A zones around 220 different installations that, when plotted on a map, virtually blanketed the metropolitan area. For similar reasons, DeWitt believed he might have to put all of San Diego in Category A. On February 7, he recommended the blanket Category A coverage of these two cities, and five days later he recommended that almost all of the San Francisco Bay area be placed in Category A. If all of General DeWitt's recommendations for Category A areas through February 12 were accepted, it would make necessary the evacuation of nearly 89,000 enemy aliens from areas along the Pacific coast — only 25,000 of whom would be Japanese. Although the concentration of the Japanese population near strategic points seemed to be sinister in itself in 1942 and was used by the War Department as one of principal reasons that made evacuation necessary, it is interesting to note that there was a greater proportionate concentration of German and Italian aliens near strategic points than there was of Japanese. General DeWitt's Category A recommendations would have affected nine-tenths of the west coast German alien population and nearly three-fourths of the Italian aliens, but less than two-thirds of the Japanese aliens. Thus, it appeared that DeWitt was counting upon the California state authorities to persuade the citizen Japanese to evacuate California's urban areas and other sensitive points along the coast. [39]

On February 9, Attorney General Biddle formally agreed to announce the Category A areas initially recommended for Arizona, California, Oregon, and Washington as prohibited to enemy aliens by February 15 or 24, with the latter date applicable to those areas that had a considerable alien population. Biddle, however, questioned the necessity of forcibly excluding German and Italian aliens from those areas and wondered why entire cities had been included in Washington and Oregon and none in California. If all of Los Angeles County was going to be recommended as a Category A area, he stated that the Department of Justice would have to step out of the picture, because it did not have the physical means to carry out a mass evacuation of this magnitude. He concluded that the Justice Department was not authorized under any circumstances to evacuate American citizens. If the Army wanted that done in particular areas for reasons of military necessity, the Army itself would have to do it. [40]

As a result of the Attorney General Biddle's position, the War Department drafted a memorandum summarizing the "questions to be determined re Japanese exclusion" for presentation to President Roosevelt. After a conference with McCloy and General Clark about the alternative courses proposed, Stimson attempted to see Roosevelt. Although too busy for a personal interview, Roosevelt and Stimson spoke on the telephone. After Stimson described the situation to the president, he found that Roosevelt "was very vigorous about it." The president told Stimson "to go ahead on the line that I had myself thought the best." According to his diary, Stimson thought the best course of action at the time was to begin as quickly as possible with the evacuation of both citizen and alien Japanese from the vicinity of "the most vital places of army and navy production." [41]

In reporting Stimson's conversation with the president to San Francisco, McCloy told Colonel Bendetsen that "we have carte blanche to do what we want to as far as the President's concerned" and that Roosevelt had specifically authorized the evacuation of citizens. McCloy said that the president had recognized that there probably would be some repercussions to the evacuation of citizens, but that what was to be done had to be dictated by the military necessity of the situation, subject only to the qualification, "Be as reasonable as you can." McCloy also told Bendetsen that he thought the president was prepared to sign an executive order giving the War Department the authority to carry out any action it decided upon. [42]

The president's decisions as reported by McCloy provided impetus to the preparation of new written recommendations by General DeWitt with the assistance of Bendetsen. These final recommendations, entitled "Evacuation of Japanese and Other Subversive Persons from the Pacific Coast," were embodied in a formal memorandum for the Secretary of War dated February 13 that was sent to General Headquarters. Having estimated that the west coast was open to air and naval attacks as well as sabotage, but without suggesting that a Japanese raid or invasion would land troops on the west coast, the general set out his military justification for requesting the power to exclude all ethnic Japanese. General DeWitt's final recommendations differed from those he had already submitted under the enemy alien control program in only one important particular: he recommended the enforced evacuation by federal authority of the American-born Japanese (Nisei) from the Category A areas already recommended by him in previous letters to the Secretary of War. In the memorandum, DeWitt, undoubtedly influenced by the growing pressures of racial hysteria that were sweeping the Pacific states, stated in unequivocal terms the racist overtones that had come to shape military policy toward evacuation:

The area lying to the west of Cascade and Sierra Nevada Mountains in Washington, Oregon and California, is highly critical not only because the lines of communication and supply to the Pacific theater pass through it, but also because of the vital industrial production therein, particularly aircraft.

In the war in which we are now engaged racial affinities are not severed by migration. The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second and third generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship, have become "Americanized," the racial strains are undiluted. To conclude otherwise is to expect that children born of white parents on Japanese soil sever all racial affinity and become loyal Japanese subjects, ready to fight and, if necessary, to die for Japan in a war against the nation of their parents. That Japan is allied with Germany and Italy in this struggle is no ground for assuming that any Japanese, barred from assimilation by convention as he is, though born and raised in the United States, will not turn against this nation when the final test of loyalty comes. It, therefore, follows that along the vital Pacific Coast over 112,000 potential enemies, of Japanese extraction, are at large today. There are indications that these are organized and ready for concerted action at a favorable opportunity. The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken. [43]

After DeWitt's memorandum was reviewed at a staff conference at General Headquarters on February 19, it was decided not to concur in his recommendations, but instead to recommend to General Mark Clark that only enemy alien leaders be arrested and interned. After conferring with Clark, General Headquarters on February 20 sent DeWitt's memorandum to the War Department through normal channels, with an endorsement that they were being "transmitted in view of the proposed action already decided upon by the War Department." The memorandum reached the provost marshal general's office "for remark and recommendation on February 24, the day after DeWitt received new instructions from the War Department that differed in many particulars from the recommendations he had submitted. [44]

In the meantime, on February 12 and 13, additional political pressures were brought to bear which favored mass evacuation. On February 12, Walter Lippman, perhaps the most influential columnist in the nation, published, from San Francisco, an article entitled "The Fifth Column on the Coast." Its major argument was for some kind of mass removal of Japanese, although the columnist laid out no blueprint:

. . . the Pacific Coast is in imminent danger of a combined attack from within and without. . . . It is a fact that the Japanese navy has been reconnoitering the coast more or less continuously. . . . There is an assumption [in Washington] that a citizen may not be interfered with unless he has committed an overt act. . . . The Pacific Coast is officially a combat zone. Some part of it may at any moment be a battlefield. And nobody ought to be on a battlefield who has no good reason for being there. There is plenty of room elsewhere for him to exercise his rights. [45]

On February 13, the Pacific coast congressional subcommittee on aliens and sabotage contributed to the growing pressures for mass evacuation by adopting recommendations that were forwarded to President Roosevelt with a covering letter signed by Congressman Lea on behalf of the entire west coast congressional delegation. The recommendations read:

We recommend the immediate evacuation of all persons of Japanese lineage and all others, aliens and citizens alike, whose presence shall be deemed dangerous or inimical to the defense of the United States from all strategic areas.

In defining said strategic areas we recommend that such areas include all military installations, war industries, water and power installations, oil fields, and refineries, transportation and other essential facilities as well as adequate protective areas adjacent thereto.

We further recommend that such areas be enlarged as expeditiously as possible until they shall encompass the entire strategic areas of the states of California, Oregon and Washington, and Territory of Alaska.

We make these recommendations in order that no citizen, located in a strategic area, may cloak his disloyalty or subversive activity under the mantle of his citizenship alone and further to guarantee protection to all loyal persons, alien and citizen alike, whose safety may be endangered by some wanton act of sabotage. [46]

On February 16, the president sent the letter and recommendations to Stimson with a memorandum that read: "Will you please be good enough to reply to Congressman Lea in regard to the enclosed letter.

The provost marshal general's office initiated a telegraphic survey among the corps areas commanders with a message on February 17. The communication read:

Probable that orders for very large evacuation of enemy aliens of all nationalities predominantly Japanese from Pacific Coast will issue within 48 hours. Internment facilities will be taxed to utmost. Report at once maximum you can care for, including housing, feeding, medical care, and supply. Your breakdown should include number of men, women, and children. Very important to keep this a closely guarded secret.

A follow-up letter explained that 100,000 enemy aliens would be involved, 60,000 of whom would be women and children, and that all were to be interned east of the Western Defense Command, "50 percent in the Eighth Corps Area, 30 percent in the Seventh, and 10 percent each in the Fourth and Sixth." [47]

Thus, by February 17, the rationale for removing the Pacific coast Japanese to areas east of the Western Defense Command rested on three principal reasons. First, since mid December, DeWitt had insisted that internment of enemy aliens ought to be outside his theater of operations. Second, some of the governments of the intermountain states had already indicated that they would not countenance any free settlement of the west coast Japanese within their borders. Third, an Army survey of existing facilities for internment in the five interior states of the Ninth Corps Area disclosed that they could not accommodate more than 2,500 people. [48]

The War Department's plan for mass evacuation took definite shape in a conference on February 17 attended by Secretary Stimson, McCloy, General Gullion, General Clark, and Colonel Bendetsen. Despite Clark's protest that any mass evacuation would involve the use of too many troops, Stimson decided that DeWitt should be instructed to commence an evacuation immediately and to the extent he deemed necessary for the protection of vital military and strategic installations. Following the meeting, it was determined that DeWitt should be allotted additional troops for evacuation purposes. [49]

That evening McCloy, General Gullion, and Bendetsen met with Justice representatives at the home of Attorney General Biddle. During the meeting, Gullion presented a draft of a proposed presidential executive order that would authorize the Secretary of War to remove both citizens and aliens from areas that he might designate. Biddle, who had opposed mass evacuation to this point, accepted the draft without argument, because President Roosevelt had indicated to him that this was a matter for military decision. After several more meetings between Justice and Army officials during the next two days, the executive order was presented to the president and signed by him late on February 19. [50] Executive Order 9066 was a sweeping, and unprecedented, delegation of presidential power to an appointed subordinate. Although its authority was used only against Japanese Americans, it was an instrument that could have affected any American. Based on a war powers act passed by Congress in 1918, the order empowered the Secretary of War and military commanders designated by him, whenever it was deemed necessary or desirable, "to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion The executive order Went on to authorize the Secretary of War "to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as my be necessary, in the judgment of the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander, and until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order." The designation of military areas in any region or locality were to "supersede designations of prohibited and restricted areas by the Attorney General under the Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941," and were to "supersede the responsibility and authority of the Attorney General under the said Proclamations in respect of such prohibited and restricted areas." All executive departments of the government were directed to assist the military in carrying out any subsequent evacuation. There was no direct mention of American citizens of Japanese descent, but unquestionably the order was directed at those Americans. Several months later, when there was talk of the War Department using the executive order to move Germans and Italians on the east coast, President Roosevelt wrote Stimson that he considered enemy alien control to be "primarily a civilian matter except of course in the case of the Japanese mass evacuation on the Pacific Coast." [51]

On February 20, the day after Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, Attorney General Biddle sent to the President's personal attention a memorandum underscoring the government's new-found unity on this decision. The memorandum represented Biddle's capitulation to the military authorities regarding the need for mass evacuation of the Japanese and justified the executive order and its broad grant of powers to the military:

This authority gives very broad powers to the Secretary of War and the Military Commanders. These powers are broad enough to permit them to exclude any particular individual from military areas. They could also evacuate groups of persons based on a reasonable classification. The order is not limited to aliens but includes citizens so that it can be exercised with respect to Japanese, irrespective of their citizenship.

The decision of safety of the nation in time of war is necessarily for the military authorities. Authority over the movement of persons, whether citizens or noncitizens, may be exercised in time of war This authority is no more than declaratory of the power of the President, in time of war, with reference to all areas, sea or land.

The President is authorized in acting under his general war powers without further legislation. The exercise of the power can meet the specific situation and, of course, cannot be considered as any punitive measure against any particular nationalities. It is rather a precautionary measure to protect the national safety. It is not based on any legal theory but on the facts that the unrestricted movement of certain racial classes, whether American citizens or aliens, in specified defense areas may lead to serious disturbances. These disturbances cannot be controlled by police protection and have the threat of injury to our war effort. A condition and not a theory confronts the nation.

After the executive order was signed, there was no further disagreement at the highest levels of the federal government. The War Department stood behind its interpretation of the facts, and the Justice Department stood behind the laws which were the foundation of the executive order. [52]

On February 21, the day after Biddle sent the aforementioned memorandum to Roosevelt, the secretary of war, in accordance with the president's request, answered the congressional letter of February 13 by assuring the west coast delegation that plans were being developed for the evacuation of the Japanese from the Pacific coast. In consultation with the Department of Justice, War Department officials also prepared a draft of legislation that would put teeth into enforcement of the new evacuation program, but did not submit it to Congress until March 9. This draft bill became Public Law 503 after brief debate, passing by a voice vote in both houses on March 19 and signed into law by President Roosevelt on March 21. Three days later, the Western Defense Command issued its first compulsory exclusion order. [53]

Between February 18 and 20, McCloy, Gullion, and Bendetsen drafted instructions for General DeWitt to guide his actions in carrying out the provisions of Executive Order 9066. The plan for evacuation embodied in the War Department's directives of February 20 differed materially from the plan recommended by General DeWitt in his memorandum of February 13. The central objective of the DeWitt plan was to move all enemy aliens and American-born Japanese out of all Category A areas in California, Oregon, and Washington that the general had recommended through February 12. Although General DeWitt had repeatedly described the Japanese as the most dangerous element of the west coast population, he also made it clear as late as February 17 that he was "opposed to any preferential treatment to any alien irrespective of race," and that he wanted German and Italian aliens as Well as all Japanese evacuated from Category A areas. His plan assumed that all enemy aliens would be interned under guard outside the Western Defense Command, at least until arrangements could be made for their resettlement. Citizen evacuees would either accept internment voluntarily or relocate themselves with such assistance as state and federal agencies might offer. Although this group would be permitted to resettle in Category B areas within the coastal zone, General DeWitt clearly preferred that they move inland. [54]

On the other hand, the central objective of the War Department plan was to move all Japanese out of the California Category A areas first, and they were not to be permitted to resettle within Category B areas or within a larger Military Area No. 1 to be established along the coast. [55] There was to be no evacuation of Italians without the express permission of the secretary of war except on an individual basis. Although the War Department plan ostensibly provided that German aliens were to be treated in the same manner as the Japanese, it qualified this intention by providing for the exemption of bona fide German refugees. This qualification automatically stayed the evacuation of German aliens until General DeWitt could determine who among them were genuine refugees. The War Department plan contemplated voluntary relocation by all types of evacuees to the maximum extent possible, with internment as necessary outside the Western Defense Command. Another major difference between the two plans was related to DeWitt's recommendation of a licensing system for Category A areas. Neither Executive Order 9066 nor the War Department's directives of February 20 required or embodied a licensing plan nor did they specify when mass evacuation would begin, where evacuees would be confined, or who would be in charge of them. [56]

The two plans exhibited other differences. General DeWitt had recommended that before any evacuation all preparations should be complete, including "selection and establishment of internment facilities in the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Corps Areas." At this time, the War Department was planning to put all internees east of the Ninth Corps Area, but its directives did not contemplate any postponement of evacuation until internment facilities were ready. General DeWitt also recommended the initial and separate internment of all enemy alien males over 14 years of age, until family units could be established in internment camps, while the War Department plan had no such provision. DeWitt's memorandum estimated that 133,000 people would be evacuated either voluntarily or by compulsion. A breakdown of this figure (based on his previous Category A recommendations) disclosed that his plan would involve about 69,000 Japanese (25,000 aliens and 44,000 American citizens), about 44,000 Italians, and about 20,000 Germans. The War Department planners apparently made no estimate of the numbers that their directives would involve, but eventually they did affect more than 110,000 Japanese residents — citizens and aliens — of the west coast states. [57]

MASS EVACUATION OF JAPANESE IN PERSPECTIVE

The general answer to the question of what reasons impelled the Army to carry out mass evacuation of Japanese residents from the west coast beginning in March 1942 is that President Roosevelt and Congress approved mass evacuation and the Secretary of War Stimson and his principal civilian assistant in this matter thought it a military necessity. On March 16, several days before the evacuation began, Stimson referred to the prospect as a "tragedy" that appeared "to be a military necessity" because large numbers of Japanese were "located in close proximity to installations of vital importance to the war effort." The following week, McCloy, after visiting the west coast, reported that there had been no cases of sabotage traceable to the Japanese population, but that "there was much evidence of espionage." Despite his assertion, however, no proven instances of espionage after Pearl Harbor among the Japanese have ever been disclosed. [58]

The most damaging tangible evidence against the Japanese was that produced by the intensive searches of their premises by the FBI from early February onward. By May, the bureau had seized 2,592 guns of various kinds, 199,000 rounds of ammunition (the major portion of the guns and ammunition were picked up in a raid on a sporting goods shop and another large supply of material was found in the warehouse of a general store owner), 1,652 sticks of dynamite, 1,458 radio receivers, 2,914 cameras, 37 motion picture cameras, and numerous other articles that the alien Japanese had been ordered to turn in at the beginning of January. Nonetheless, after assessing the evidence, Department of Justice officials concluded that the accumulated materials had negligible significance:

We have not, however, uncovered through these searches any dangerous persons that we could not otherwise know about. We have not found among all the sticks of dynamite and gun powder any evidence that any of it was to be used in bombs. We have not found a single machine gun nor have we found any gun m any circumstances indicating that it was to be used in a manner helpful to our enemies. We have not found a camera which we have reason to believe was for use in espionage. [59]

There were better if less tangible grounds for suspecting that some of the Japanese people — citizens as well as aliens — would become disloyal in the event of a Japanese invasion The Navy reported in early February 1942 that a small minority of less than 3 percent of alien and citizen Japanese were so fanatically loyal to Japan that they could be expected to act as saboteurs or enemy agents, and a somewhat larger minority might be passively disloyal, if given the opportunity. The War Relocation Authority similarly concluded that "a selective evacuation of people of Japanese descent from the west coast military area was justified and administratively feasible in the spring of 1942," although the mass evacuation that was carried out was never justified. No military estimate after December 1941 forecast even the possibility of an invasion of the west coast by the Japanese in strength, and all disloyalty among the Japanese remained passive until after their removal to relocation centers. [60]

Although little support for the argument that military necessity required a mass evacuation of the Japanese can be found in contemporary evidence, it might be contended that the co-operation of the white population of the Pacific states in the national defense effort could not have been otherwise assured. By March 1942, a large segment of that population along the coast was determined to be rid of the Japanese, at least for the duration of the war. Prewar racial antagonism and prejudice combined with wartime fears and anxieties to create formidable political and social pressure for removal. In June, McCloy explained that the nature of the sudden attack on Pearl Harbor and the apparent exposure of the west coast to enemy action left the American people "in a condition of great excitement and apprehension," which "tended greatly to inflame our people against all persons of Japanese ancestry." Several months after the evacuation had been completed, the assistant secretary commented further:

As you know, the Japanese were removed from the West Coast, first, because of the proximity of the West Coast to the Japanese theater of operations and second, because of the very large number of Japanese concentrated in that area, and thirdly, because of the fear that direct action might be taken against the Japanese as a result of the rather antagonistic attitude of the local population. [61]

The first and second points in this statement, however, are open to question since no similar removal occurred in Hawaii even though it had a considerably greater concentration of Japanese much closer to the arena of military operations despite similar evacuation planning after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The third point — that the exclusion served to protect the Nisei against vigilantism — deserves further scrutiny

Violence against ethnic Japanese on the West Coast cannot be dismissed lightly. Between Pearl Harbor and February 15, 5 murders and 25 other serious crimes — rapes, assaults, shootings, property damage, robbery, or extortion — were reported against ethnic Japanese. More violence against ethnic Japanese followed the signing of Executive Order 9066. One author has summarized the mounting violence against the Japanese in California:

During March an attempt was made to burn down a Japanese-owned hotel at Sultana. On April 13 at Del Ray five evacuees were involved in a brawl with the local constable — following which a crowd of white residents, some armed with shotguns, threatened violence to a nearby camp of Japanese Americans. On succeeding nights the windows of four Japanese stores were smashed, and similar incidents occurred in Fresno. In northern Tulare County, a group known as the "Bald Eagles" — described by one observer as a "guerrilla army of nearly 1,000 farmers" — armed themselves for the announced purpose of "guarding" the Japanese in case of emergency. A similar organization was formed in the southeast part of the county, where a large number of evacuees were concentrated. [62]

Protecting ethnic Japanese from vigilantes is a justification for the exclusion which has been repeatedly emphasized over the years. Stimson, McCloy, and Clark, for example, have each emphasized the protection against vigilantism as the reason they were willing to support the exclusion. Stimson's autobiography relied on it as a principal reason:

What critics ignored was the situation that led to the evacuation. Japanese raids on the west coast seemed not only possible but probable in the first months of the war, and it was quite impossible to be sure that the raiders would not receive important help from individuals of Japanese origin. More than that, anti-Japanese feeling on the west coast had reached a level which endangered the lives of all such individuals; incidents of extra-legal violence were increasingly frequent. [63]

This explanation, however, sounds lame in retrospect because it was not generally advanced at the time to justify the exclusion, and when it was mentioned at all, it was given as a subsidiary consideration. Had protection been on official minds at the time, a much different evacuation program would likely have been implemented. McCloy supplied the most telling rebuttal of the contention in a 1943 letter to General DeWitt:

That there is serious animosity on the West Coast against all evacuated Japanese I do not doubt, but that does not necessarily mean that we should trim our sails accordingly. . . . The Army, as I see it, is not responsible for the general public peace of the Western Defense Command. That responsibility still rests with the civil authorities. There may, as you suggest, be incidents, but these can be effectively discouraged by prompt action by law enforcement agencies, with the cooperation of the military if they even [sic] assume really threatening proportions. [64]

Thus, exclusion and evacuation of Japanese Americans from the west coast in early 1942 was the culmination of decades of anti-Asian agitation within the context of the wartime tensions engendered by the national emergency. The prejudicial propaganda of the anti-Japanese elements of society, virtually unopposed, had finally won the day. Race became synonymous with allegiance and patriotism, and the American citizen of Japanese ancestry was identified with the Japanese enemy. Under the guise of national defense, exclusion and evacuation of Japanese Americans became an end in itself, a fortuitous wartime opportunity to rid the Pacific states of their most unpopular minority group. As one Joint Immigration Committee official observed in early February, "This is our time to get things done that we have been trying to get done for a quarter of a century." The War Department and the president, through the press, western politicians, and various military leaders such as DeWitt, had been sold a bill of goods. In accepting the racist views of California's ugly past, these national leaders came to believe that the Issei and Nisei represented a threat to the military security of the west coast. They had come to the conclusion that exclusion and evacuation were justified on the grounds of military necessity, but in reality they were carrying out the long-sought program of the anti-Asian and anti-Japanese forces on the west coast. [65]

The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians that was established by Congress in 1980 "to review the facts and circumstances surrounding" Executive Order 9066 arrived at similar conclusions. After conducting extensive hearings and research, the commission stated:

The promulgation of Executive Order 9066 was not justified by military necessity, and the decisions which followed from it — detention, ending detention and ending exclusion — were not driven by analysis of military conditions. The broad historical causes which shaped these decisions were race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership. Widespread ignorance of Japanese Americans contributed to a policy conceived in haste and executed in an atmosphere of fear and anger at Japan. A grave injustice was done to American citizens and resident aliens of Japanese ancestry who, without individual review or any probative evidence against them, were excluded, removed and detained by the United States during World War II. [66]