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I'd have to read up a little on it to find out, if thats even possible, what exactly sparked the memo. I can tell you that McCollum, who was born in Nagasaki, was the head of the Far East desk of the Office of Naval Intelligence which handled all the intercepted and decoded Japanese intelligence. He was uniquely qualified to see what an evil empire was developing there, something which nobody should deny. Rape of Nanking/ Bataan Death March (after the fall of the Philipines)etc... many many atrocities.
The thing that folks try to link, successfully I think, is that FDR was actually concerned with getting the US into the war allied with Britain, for the sake of the British Empire, not the Far East. He, the theory goes, set up Japan since they were the only Axis Power capable of hitting the US. The defenders of Imperial Japan can only cling to one thread, their behavior in many ways reflected that of the European colonizers, who we bailed out. Stinnett is unique in that he fully supports FDR, this wasn't the book he intended to write but its the one the facts support.
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