Editing Earl Warren (section)

===Internment of Japanese Americans===
[[File:Woodland, California. Evacuees of Japanese ancestry are boarding a special train for Merced Assembl . . . - NARA - 537818.jpg|thumb|Japanese-Americans in [[Woodland, California]] board a train headed for an internment camp. Warren was a major proponent of Japanese-American internment as Attorney General and Governor of California. ]]
[[File:Granada Relocation Center, Amache, Colorado. A general all over view of a section of the emergency . . . - NARA - 539071.jpg|thumb|[[Granada Relocation Center]], one of ten [[Internment camp|internment camps]] where Japanese-American civilians were detained during World War II]]
After [[World War II]] broke out in Europe in 1939, foreign policy became an increasingly important issue in the United States; Warren rejected the [[United States non-interventionism|isolationist]] tendencies of many Republicans and supported Roosevelt's rearmament campaign. The United States entered World War II after the Japanese [[attack on Pearl Harbor]] in December 1941.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=112–114}} Following the attack, Warren organized the state's civilian defense program, warning in January 1942 that "the Japanese situation as it exists in this state today may well be the [[Achilles' heel]] of the entire civilian defense effort." He became a driving force behind the [[internment of Japanese Americans|internment of over one hundred thousand Japanese Americans]] without any charges or due process.{{sfn|White|1982|pp=69–71}}

Though the decision to intern Japanese Americans was made by General [[John L. DeWitt]], and the internment was carried out by federal officials, Warren's advocacy played a major role in providing public justification for the internment.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=120–123}} In particular, Warren had claimed that Japanese Americans had willfully infiltrated "every strategic spot" in California coastal and valley counties, had warned of potentially greater danger from American born ethnic Japanese than from first-generation immigrants,<ref name=weglyn30>{{cite book |title=Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps |publisher=William Morrow & Company |location=New York |last=Weglyn |first=Michi Nishiura |authorlink=Michi Weglyn|year=1976 |pages=30–31, 37–38|isbn=978-0688079963}}</ref> and asserted that although there were means to test the loyalty of a "Caucasian" that the same could not be said for ethnic Japanese.<ref name=weglyn38>{{cite book |title=Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps |publisher=William Morrow & Company |location=New York |last=Weglyn |first=Michi Nishiura |authorlink=Michi Weglyn|year=1976 |page=38|isbn=978-0688079963}}</ref><ref name=white/>  Warren further argued that the complete lack of disloyal acts among Japanese Americans in California to date indicated that they intended to commit such acts in the future.<ref name=hosokawa288>{{cite book |title=Nisei: the Quiet Americans|publisher=William Morrow & Company |location=New York |last=Hosokawa |first=Bill |authorlink=Bill Hosokawa|year=1969|page=288|isbn=978-0688050139}}</ref>  Later, Warren vigorously protested the return of released internees back into California.<ref name=weglyn154>{{cite book |title=Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps |publisher=William Morrow & Company |location=New York |last=Weglyn |first=Michi Nishiura |authorlink=Michi Weglyn|year=1976 |page=154|isbn=978-0688079963}}</ref><ref name=white/>

By early 1944, Warren had come to regret his role in the internment of Japanese Americans, and he eventually approved of the federal government's decision to allow Japanese Americans to begin returning to California in December 1944;{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=157–159}} however, he long resisted any public expression of regret in spite of years of repeated requests from the Japanese American community.<ref name=weglyn31>{{cite book |title=Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps |publisher=William Morrow & Company |location=New York |last=Weglyn |first=Michi Nishiura |authorlink=Michi Weglyn|year=1976 |pages=31, 299|isbn=978-0688079963}}</ref><ref name=white/>

In a 1972 [[oral history]] interview, Warren said that "I feel that everybody who had anything to do with the relocation of the Japanese, after it was all over, had something of a guilty consciousness about it, and wanted to show that it wasn't a racial thing as much as it was a defense matter."{{sfn|White|1982|p=76}} When during the interview Warren mentioned the faces of the children separated from their parents, he broke down in tears and the interview was temporarily halted.{{sfn|White|1982|page=77}} In 1974, shortly before his death, Warren privately confided to journalist and former internee Morse Saito that he greatly regretted his actions during the evacuation.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Saito |first=Morse |date=June 3, 1974 |title=Warren 'Regrets' His Role in 1942 Evacuation |pages=1 |work=Hokubei Mainichi Newspaper}}</ref>

In his posthumously published memoirs, Warren fully acknowledged his error, stating that he

{{blockquote|since deeply regretted the removal order and my own testimony advocating it, because it was not in keeping with our American concept of freedom and the rights of citizens... Whenever I thought of the innocent little children who were torn from home, school friends, and congenial surroundings, I was conscience-stricken... [i]t was wrong to react so impulsively, without positive evidence of disloyalty. |''The Memoirs of Earl Warren'' (1977)<ref name=white>{{cite journal |title=The Unacknowledged Lesson: Earl Warren and the Japanese Relocation Controversy |author=G. Edward White |journal=[[Virginia Quarterly Review]] |date=Autumn 1979 |pages=613–629 |url=http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1979/autumn/white-unacknowledged-lesson/ |access-date=May 12, 2012 |archive-date=November 11, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131111205244/http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1979/autumn/white-unacknowledged-lesson/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>}}