What were the reasons for World War II? Of course, Hitler attacked Poland. On the other hand, when Stalin invaded Poland and then attacked Finland a few months later, nobody declared war on the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Hitler tried to negotiate a settlement. So what were the reasons for World War II? The Versailles “Peace Treaty” had created so many injustices in Europe that it bore within itself the seeds of a new war. One ought not neglect the colonial arms race in the Pacific between the newcomer Japan and the old European colonial powers…
By Tyler Kent ∙ July 1, 1983
Indroduction In May 1940, a 29-year-old American code clerk at the U.S. embassy in London was arrested by British authorities in his apartment. Tyler Kent was charged with having violated the British Official Secrets Act. “For a purpose prejudicial to the safety and interests of the state,” the charge stated, Kent had “obtained a document…
By Percy L. Greaves ∙ October 1, 1982
At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor by Gordon W. Prange, in collaboration with Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, McGraw Hill, 889pp, $22.95. The Pacific War, by John Costello, Rawson Wade, 742pp, $24.00. Infamy, by John Toland, Doubleday, 366pp, $17.95. The Pearl Harbor disaster marks much more than the worst…
By Percy L. Greaves ∙ December 7, 1947
Remember Pearl Harbor? Of course you do. No American will ever forget December 7, 1941. Our casualties came to 3,435 – Japan's were fewer than 100. We lost 188 planes outright – Japan 29. Our proud Pacific fleet was smashed. Eight battleships were useless. Japan lost five midget submarines. It was the greatest military and…
By Keith Stimely ∙ December 1, 1983
The latest furious round of publication and ensuing controversy about Pearl Harbor erupted at the end of 1981, and has not simmered down yet. The opening shot was the release in November that year of Gordon W. Prange’s massive At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor. Prange had been working on the…
By Percy L. Greaves ∙ December 1, 1983
Before presenting the testimony relating to December 7th, it would be helpful to review the information available to Generals Marshall, Gerow and Miles as well as Secretary of War Stimson before they left their respective offices on December 6th. There was a mounting accumulation of facts and events that could not help but create an…
By James Joseph Martin ∙ December 1, 1983
We have been solemnly assured even in our own day that gossip is part of history.[*] We find it from Thucydides to Tacitus; Suetonius' History of the Twelve Caesars is liberally seasoned with gossip. And some of the most graceful and elegant gossip ever committed to posterity is to be found in Plutarch. Apparently it…
By Percy L. Greaves ∙ December 1, 1983
Truman's quick action had two immediate effects. First, the news of Marshall's appointment completely blanketed the media publicity that Hurley had hoped would be produced by his resignation and his startling reasons for doing so. Second, it called for a change in Marshall's schedule and that of the joint Congressional Committee (JCC) investigation of the…
By Percy L. Greaves ∙ December 1, 1983
Prior to the Pearl Harbor Congressional investigation this writer had twice met Homer Ferguson. During the 78th Congress when Ferguson was a freshman Senator, I was Associate Research Director of the Republican National Committee. That sounds like a political position but essentially it was a fact-finding one – finding facts the Democrats didn't want known….
By Thomas J. Marcellus ∙ October 1, 1980
Hitler vs. Roosevelt, The Undeclared Naval War, by Thomas A. Bailey and Paul B. Ryan, The Free Press (a division of Macmillan Publishing Co.), 303pp, Hardbound, $12.95. ISBN: 02-901270-8. Two apparently major reviews are found on the back jacket of this 1979 book; one by Edward L. Beach of Run Silent, Run Deep fame, the…
By Harry Elmer Barnes ∙ July 1, 1967
Every American citizen has much more at stake in understanding how and why the U.S. was drawn into World War II than in perusing the Warren Report, its supplementary volumes, and the controversial articles and books of the aftermath, or the annals of any isolated public crime, however dramatic. However tragic and regrettable, the assassination…
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