Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order

Episode 2: The Jitters

Date: December 1, 2025
Host: Rachel Maddow
Production: Ms. NOW

Episode Overview

Main Theme:
Episode 2, “The Jitters,” explores the climate of chaos and paranoia on the U.S. West Coast after Pearl Harbor, spotlighting how military leaders’ personal fears, incompetence, rumors, and racist ideologies fueled the push to remove and incarcerate Japanese Americans. The episode zeroes in on the characters of General John DeWitt and his ambitious aide Carl Bendetsen, tracking how unchecked authority and false intelligence combined to justify a disastrous and unconstitutional executive order.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Immediate Aftermath of Pearl Harbor: Coastal Terror and Suspicion

• Wartime Attacks Spur Panic
  • Interviews with merchant ship captains about Japanese submarine attacks just off the California coast further stoked public fear.
  • Rachel Maddow narrates: "There’s acute awareness that our Pacific coast is vulnerable to this Pacific power, Japan, that has just horrifically demonstrated its capacity to cross that ocean and hit us here at home." (02:15)
• Escalation
  • After December 1941, occasional attacks on shipping escalate to a Japanese sub shelling California’s shore in February 1942 (04:14–04:30).

2. Leadership in Crisis: General John DeWitt’s “Jitters”

• Erratic and Paranoid Conduct
  • DeWitt’s staff describe him as "jittery" and guilty of "amateur imaginings."
  • He frequently spread false reports: phantom air raids, uprisings by Japanese Americans, Japanese fleets just offshore, all untrue.
  • Maddow: "It did kind of seem like Lieutenant General John DeWitt’s screws might have come a little loose." (05:05)
  • Subordinate’s diary: "[DeWitt] a jackass."
• Why Was He In Charge?
  • Despite mismanagement, as a career military man he remained the point person for Western Defense Command.

3. Enter Carl Bendetsen: The Right Hand Man with a Racial Agenda

• Ambition Meets Chaos
  • Army lawyer Carl Bendetsen joins as DeWitt’s aide; quickly rises through the ranks.
  • He is "cool, logical," and strategically ambitious but "a bad, bad fellow" and "the architect of the program of forced removal and imprisonment." (11:03, 22:42)
• Ruthless Policy Planning
  • Bendetsen drafts new policies for mass removal and indefinite detention, eliminating due process even for American citizens.
  • “He was not just a cipher... What a dreadful man.” (12:05)

4. Government Responses: Resistance from the Justice Department

• Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act

  • Non-citizen Japanese residents could not naturalize, making them uniquely vulnerable to detention.
  • Immediate FBI sweeps arrest thousands of Japanese community leaders.
  • Personal testimonies from Japanese American family members highlight the terror and confusion:
    • "They told my father to get dressed and come with them... he didn’t come back." (17:18, 18:14)

• Justice Department Insists on Due Process

  • Edward Ennis oversees implementation at Justice and ensures arrestees receive individual hearings.
    • "A minimum program was required which sought what wartime security was necessary without becoming 100% patriots at the expense of the alien enemy population..." (19:45)

5. Army Pushes for Mass Incarceration Without Process

• Bendetsen’s Plan for Racial Removal
  • Policy would forcibly relocate all Japanese Americans from the West Coast, regardless of citizenship, on racial grounds with no hearings or appeals.
  • "Carl Bendetsen’s plan would eliminate not only any idea of individuated justice, it would also eliminate the distinction between Japanese Americans who were U.S. citizens and those who were not." (21:58)
• Weaponizing DeWitt’s Prejudice
  • DeWitt’s own anti-Black and anti-Asian bigotry is established—he refuses Black units, opposes Asian Americans serving even in segregated units, and states, "a Jap’s a Jap." (25:57)
  • DeWitt and Bendetsen feed wild, already-debunked conspiracy theories to the public and politicians, fueling public hysteria.

6. Facts vs. Fear: The Ringle Report’s Suppressed Truth

• Naval Intelligence Officer Ken Ringle
  • Fluent in Japanese, deeply familiar with Japanese American communities.
  • His research finds no threat—"Japanese Americans might be our best defense against that kind of threat." (35:05)
  • Bendetsen refuses to meet with Ringle or consider his findings.
• Desperation to Stop a Catastrophe
  • Ringle pens the Ringle Report, warning: "The entire Japanese problem has been magnified out of its true proportion largely because of the physical characteristics of the people... it should be handled... on an individual and not on a racial basis." (36:43–37:04)

7. Showdown at the Attorney General’s Living Room (43:15–48:48)

• High-Stakes Confrontation
  • Key officials—AG Biddle, Justice lawyers Ennis and Rowe, and Bendetsen—meet in Biddle’s home.
  • War Department brings a draft of what will become Executive Order 9066.
  • Justice lawyers argue it’s unconstitutional. Biddle offers no support, having already agreed to go along with the Army.
  • Maddow: "Bendetson and DeWitt’s false claims... were being derided inside the government... but still, it became clear that day... that DeWitt and Ben Debson were going to get their way on this." (47:21)
  • Emotional impact: Justice lawyers "beside themselves," "angry and hurt," with Ennis near tears.
  • Ennis: “Perhaps the greatest violation of civil liberties in the United States.” (48:30)

8. Aftermath and Consequences

• Fateful Timing
  • Ringle’s report reaches the White House two days after the living room meeting—too late, as FDR signs Executive Order 9066 that same day.
    • "My father was haunted all his life... he felt an inadvertent betrayer of the Japanese Americans." (49:17)
• The Cost
  • Maddow: "What was going to happen on the streets of the United States... Carl Ben Dtsen and John DeWitt’s America was coming. And it would be every bit as bad as they had feared." (49:35)
  • Testimony: “My mother said in her diary, I wonder if today’s the day they’re going to line us up and shoot us.” (50:17)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with timestamps)

• On DeWitt’s fitness for command:

  • "DeWitt and his headquarters staff suffered from, quote, amateur imaginings." (05:20)
  • “He thought DeWitt had, quote, gone crazy.” (05:20)

• On Bendetsen’s role:

  • “This fellow Bendetz was a bad, bad fellow.” (11:40)
  • “He was a guy of real ability... The cool, you know, logical mind.” (11:07, 11:08)
  • “Carl Bendeson was absolutely the architect of the program of forced removal and imprisonment.” (22:42)

• On the logic of mass removal:

  • Bendetsen’s memo: "The Japanese race is an enemy race. Racial affinities are not severed by migration... there is no ground for assuming that any Japanese, though born and raised in the United States, will not turn against this nation." (32:11–33:24)

• On the Army's evidence:

  • Historian: “The army had absolutely no intelligence at all. They didn’t know bullshit on anything.” (33:24)

• On the missed intervention:

  • Frank Abe: “My father was haunted all his life that he should have... he felt an inadvertent betrayer of the Japanese Americans, in spite of his best efforts.” (49:17)

• On the trauma of arrest:

  • “They told my father to get dressed and come with them... he didn’t come back.” (17:18)
  • “My mother said in her diary, I wonder if today’s the day they’re going to line us up and shoot us.” (50:17)

Key Timestamps

• Wartime attacks & public panic: 01:00–04:30
• Profile of DeWitt & office chaos: 05:05–11:00
• Carl Bendetsen introduced: 10:20–12:05
• Alien Enemies Act enforcement & family arrests: 14:12–19:13
• Push for mass incarceration: 20:59–25:57
• DeWitt’s explicit racism: 25:14–26:10
• Wild rumors debunked: 26:42–28:57
• Bendetsen systematizes race-based policy: 29:22–33:24
• Ken Ringle’s report & ignored warnings: 33:24–38:06
• Attorney General’s living room showdown: 43:15–48:48
• Enactment of Executive Order 9066: 44:45–47:21
• Emotional fallout of decision: 48:30–50:17

Conclusion

“The Jitters” exposes the dangerous blend of anxiety, racism, bureaucratic dysfunction, and unchecked ambition that led to the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans. Through vivid archival testimony, internal government debate, and personal stories of those affected, Maddow meticulously lays out how a radical, unnecessary, and unconstitutional policy took effect—when wiser, fairer voices went ignored or unheard. The episode foreshadows the devastation to follow and highlights the lasting personal and collective scars from “perhaps the greatest violation of civil liberties in the United States.” (Edward Ennis, 48:30)

Next Episode Teaser:
The story continues with the harrowing experiences of Japanese Americans forced behind barbed wire, not knowing their fate, and fearing the worst.

For more information and resources, visit the show's official site at Ms. NOW / Burn Order.