When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, they attacked the territorial outpost of a colonial rival. (In 1941 Hawaii was not yet a State of the Union.) It gave the U.S. the long-sought pretext to enter World War II. But did the attack on Pearl Harbor come as a surprise, or did the Roosevelt administration have ample pre-warning, which it deliberately ignored in order to maximize the ensuing casualties and, thus, also the public’s outrage and support for entering the war? Revisionists claim precisely this: Admiral Husband Kimmel, commander of the Navy units in Hawaii, was deliberately kept in the dark about intelligence gathered by the Roosevelt administration which showed that the Japanese, driven into a corner by various boycotts and blockades, were about to strike…
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 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…
By Joseph Bishop ∙ April 1, 2010
The further one seriously studies history, and particularly the World War Two period, the more striking is the disconnect between what is popularly believed and what actually happened. Perhaps the reading public continues to shrink, not only in the United States but around the world, while information and opinion are generally retrieved from television and…
By John Weir ∙ March 1, 2002
On Sunday, December 7, 1941 the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked American Naval forces docked in Hawaii. President Roosevelt addressed the nation on the radio condemning the “sneak attack” with a speech now known to have been written a day before the Japanese bombs started to drop. Americans, the majority of whom didn't want to fight…
By James Joseph Martin ∙ October 1, 1985
Table of Contents Opinions and Opinion Makers in the U.S.A. Winston Churchill as a Factor Influencing Americans at the Outset, June 1941 Initial Reaction of Interventionist Spokesmen and Press to the Soviet Entry into the European War Some Diplomatic and Economic Straws in the Wind The Roosevelt Administration and Press Supporters Lean Toward Aid at…
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