MANZANAR Historic Resource Study/Special History Study

INITIAL PROCLAMATIONS TO IMPLEMENT THE EXECUTIVE ORDER

Executive Order 9066 empowered the Secretary of War or his delegate to designate military areas to which entry of any or all persons would be barred whenever such action was deemed militarily necessary or desirable. On February 20, 1942, the day after President Roosevelt signed the order, Secretary Stimson wrote to General DeWitt delegating authority to implement the order within the Western Defense Command and setting forth a series of specific requests and instructions. American citizens of Japanese descent, Japanese and German aliens, and any persons suspected of being potentially dangerous were to be excluded from designated military areas. Everyone of Italian descent was to be omitted from any plan of exclusion, at least for the time being, because they were "potentially less dangerous, as a whole." DeWitt was to consider redesignating the Justice Department's prohibited areas as military areas, excluding Japanese and German aliens from those areas by February 24 and excluding "actually" suspicious persons as soon as practicable." Full advantage was to be taken of voluntary exodus. People were to be removed gradually to avoid unnecessary hardship and dislocation of business and industry "so far as is consistent with national safety." Accommodations for the evacuees were to be established before the exodus, with proper provision for housing, food, transportation, and medical care, and evacuation plans were to include protection for evacuees' property. [19]

On February 23, Colonel Bendetsen arrived in San Francisco to serve as a liaison officer between DeWitt and Assistant Secretary of War McCloy and to help in the execution of the War Department directives. With his assistance, DeWitt drafted and obtained War Department approval of his first public proclamation for the evacuation program and an accompanying press release, both of which were issued on March 2. Public Proclamation No. 1, announced as a matter of military necessity the establishment of Military Areas Nos. 1 and 2. Military Area No. 1 included the approximate western half of Washington, Oregon, and California and the southern half of Arizona. All portions of those states not included in Military Area No. 1 were placed in Military Area No. 2. The proclamation also established a number of zones; Zones A-I through A-99, which included a strip about fifteen miles wide running the entire length of the coast and along the Mexican border, were primarily within Military Area No. 1, while Zone B constituted the remainder of Military Area No. 1. The proclamation noted that in the future people might be excluded from Military Area No. 1 and from Zones A-2 to A-99 and that the designation of Military Area No. 2 did not contemplate restrictions or prohibitions except with respect to the designated zones. In this proclamation, for the first time, restrictions were applied not only to "any Japanese, German or Italian alien" but also to "any person of Japanese ancestry." All such persons residing in Military Area No. 1 who changed their residence, were required to file a form with the post office. Finally, the proclamation expressly continued the prohibited and restricted areas designated earlier by the Attorney General. [20]

In the press release accompanying his first proclamation, DeWitt stated that orders would eventually be issued "requiring all Japanese, including those who are American born, to vacate all of Military Area No. 1." He added that those "Japanese and other aliens who move into the interior out of this area now will gain considerable advantage, and in all probability will not again be disturbed." Only after the Japanese had been excluded would German and Italian aliens be evacuated, and some of these would be entirely exempt from evacuation. [21]

DeWitt issued Public Proclamations Nos. 2 and 3 during the next several weeks. Public Proclamation No. 2, issued March 16, established four military areas covering the states of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Utah and listed 933 additional prohibited zones. [22] Public Proclamation No. 3, issued on March 24 and effective on March 27 affected the daily lives of Japanese Americans directly, instituting a curfew regulation requiring all enemy aliens and "persons of Japanese ancestry" to be in their homes between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. The proclamation provided that "at all other times all such persons shall only be at their place of residence or employment or travelling between those places or within a distance of not more than five miles from their place of residence." They could continue to move out of the military area if they did so during noncurfew hours. [23]