Karl Bendetsen - Architect of Japanese American Internment

Architect of Japanese American Internment

In the hours following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested a number of leaders in the Japanese American communities in Washington, Oregon and California. While the government was worried that these leaders had been involved in anti-American activity on behalf of the Empire of Japan, eventually, all were cleared of any wrongdoing.

However, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in early 1942, which authorized military commanders to designate "exclusion zones", "from which any or all persons may be excluded" for reasons of military security.

Following that authorization, Bendetsen (he had changed his name by this time) developed a plan by which all persons of Japanese ancestry, whether foreign-born alien or American-citizen "non-alien," were forced to leave the three West Coast states and southern Arizona. He then pressured Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt to accept his plan, rather than the less-restrictive one which DeWitt had originally intended.

Initially, only the western parts of the coastal states were designated "Exclusion Zone 1," and many Japanese Americans moved to the eastern portions of their home states, while several thousand moved to other states. Bendetsen would later call this "voluntary relocation," though the moves were done at the orders of the government. Then, the government announced that the coastal states were "Exclusion Zone 2," and prohibited Japanese Americans from leaving either Exclusion Zone. Only those who had moved to other states escaped being rounded up and confined in makeshift "assembly centers" (mostly horse stalls at racetracks and fairgrounds),then later internment in relocation centers.

While Bendetsen and other supporters of internment cited military necessity (and continue to do so), reports by the FBI and by the Office of Naval Intelligence had stated that not only were vast majority of Americans of Japanese ancestry loyal, but likewise their parents (who had been denied American citizenship) were loyal to the United States and held no allegiance to Japan.

Bendetsen also ordered that any person, no matter their age, who had "one drop of Japanese blood" were to be interned. This included the removal of infants from orphanages and the transportation of hospital patients, a number of whom died when their care was cut off. He would later claim that the orders were not so broad-sweeping, though even Military Intelligence Service officers of Japanese ancestry were forced to leave California.

Throughout the rest of the war, Bendetsen and DeWitt opposed army orders that soldiers of Japanese ancestry be allowed to enter the coastal states while on leave or on military assignment. The reason for opposition was primarily political, and the fear of ridicule when the soldiers had proven patriotic Americans while the government had spent millions of dollars to put those soldiers' families behind barbed wire.