Munson Report
The Report on Japanese on the West Coast of the United States, often called the Munson Report, was a 25-page report written in 1941 by Curtis B. Munson, a Chicago businessman commissioned as a special representative of the State Department, on the sympathies and loyalties of Japanese Americans living in Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States, particularly California. Munson's report was submitted to the White House on November 7, 1941, exactly one month before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
By fall 1941, it was increasingly apparent that Japan and the
top secret Japanese military codes, and a September 24, 1941 message indicated that Pearl Harbor was a possible target of a Japanese attack. President Franklin D. Roosevelt immediately designated Munson as a special representative and gave him the task of gauging the loyalty of Japanese Americans, many of whom lived near military bases and important manufacturing facilities.[1]
Munson toured Hawaii and the
Cabinet officials, including Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, Attorney General Francis Biddle, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull
.
On February 5, 1942, Stimson sent a copy of the Munson Report to President Roosevelt, along with a memo stating that
internment of Japanese Americans, was signed on February 19. It is possible that Roosevelt only read the memo, and not the report itself.[4]
Notes
- ^ Leslie T. Hatamiya, Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and the Passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (1994). Stanford, p. 10.
- ISBN 978-0688079963.
- ISBN 978-0688079963.
- ^ Nancy R. Bartlit and Everett M. Rogers, Silent Voices of World War II: When Sons of the Land of Enchantment Met Sons of the Land of the Rising Son (2005), p. 143-133.
See also
- C. B. Munson, "Japanese on the West Coast," published as chapter 6 in Asian American Studies: A Reader (editors Jean Yu-wen Shen Wu and Min Song), Rutgers University Press, 2000.
- "C.B. Munson's "Report and Suggestions Regarding Handling the Japanese Question on the Coast," Dec. 20, 1941.." Densho Encyclopedia. 17 Jul 2015. <https://encyclopedia.densho.org/sources/en-denshopd-i67-00005-1/>.