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 as 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 United States would become enveloped in conflict. Munson was assigned the task of gauging the loyalty of Japanese Americans, many of whom lived military bases and important manufacturing facilities. Munson toured Hawaii and the Pacific Coast and interviewed Army and Navy intelligence officers, military commanders, city officials, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Munson found that "There is no Japanese problem on the West Coast," concluding that there was "a remarkable, even extraordinary degree of loyalty among this generally suspect ethnic group." The Munson Report was circulated to several 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. Despite this, Executive Order 9066, ordering the internment of Japanese Americans, was signed in 1942.