What Was Then - A Book Review: DAY OF DECEIT

DAY OF DECEIT
A Book Review by K C Stapleton
Updated 11/05/03 09:42 GMT

LINCOLN
MEN IN WHITE HATS
WHO SHOT JFK?

President Roosevelt signing the declaration of war against Japan

President Roosevelt signing the declaration of war against Japan

DAY OF DECEIT

The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor
A TOUCHSTONE BOOK - Published by Simon & Schuster New York

by Robert B. Stinnett

At a certain point Conspiracy Theories cross a line between hotly contested claims, and common knowledge. No matter how many arguments a subject may have generated in the beginning when rumors first began to circulate, you may know that after a cooling off period even those who screamed the loudest and angriest will sooner or later shrug their shoulders and adopt an "of course I knew it all along attitude." While the facts are no longer contested, no one seems interested in discussing who was wrong, or who was right. Perhaps that's why Conspiracy Theory's are so popular--no one is keeping score.

I had a hard time approaching Stinnett's book I knew a survivor of Pearl Harbor, and he had related a fact to me that I had never been able to substantiate. He had told me that the day of the attack he and several other men had gone to the Radar Operators and questioned them about the events leading up to the attack. He told me they stated they had been relieved of duty early that morning, after making a report of seeing objects on the radar that might have been planes. No movie, no book, and certainly no textbook ever repeated this claim, which had left me with a nagging doubt. Never for a second did I doubt the honesty of the survivor, but I began to doubt the clarity of my own memory. This doubt was aggravated by a pressing need to know the truth, as I'm certain it had nagged at the survivor as well. He confided in me that he had felt that Franklin D. Roosevelt not only had advanced warning about the attack, but also had in fact deliberately suppressed that information.

Stinnett waded through what must have been a mountain of Military Intelligence documentation and correspondence, which was only recently released to compile this well written book. Peeling back layer after layer of inconsistency in the official story of how the "surprise attack" could have happened Stinnett provides clear proof that needed intelligence was kept from the commanders serving at Pearl. The Japanese radio code was in fact broken, spies had been discovered in the near by city, key facts were known right down to the day and possible timing of the attack. Again and again these facts were hidden, dismissed, or ignored by the Commander and Chief. Stinnett also gives the most reasonable suggestion of what motive the highest levels of the United States government might have had to deliberately allow the attack: to provoke a nation disillusioned by World War I and the Great Depression into wanting a war they had resisted fighting. The Japanese would supply the two things needed to ensure that, outrage by U. S. citizen's at a surprise attack on America, and a desire for vengeance at the loss of life the attack caused.

To this day some may be horror stricken at the suggestion that Roosevelt a beloved and much admired President would use the lives of his own troops for the purposes of propaganda, others will no doubt jump to his defense by saying that had we not entered the war at that time Germany and Japan would have had an upper hand in a conflict which was inevitable.

So detailed is Day of Deceit that by using eye-witness and first hand accounts of what went on in the hours leading to the attack I finally have an explanation and a much needed confirmation of the facts as related to me. The Radar Operators had in fact called in a sighting of what they believed to be planes flying close to the harbor, and the reasons behind they're having been dismissed.

Regardless of what you believe happened December 7th 1941 at Pearl Harbor I recommend this book. As I said right or wrong, in this argument few are still around to be keeping score.


Comment Forum - Post your comments here	Send Page To a Friend

	RELATED STORIES FROM THE INTERNET:
	Remembering Pearl Harbor - National Geographic
	PEARL HARBOR 41 - Information & Discussion of " The day of infamy"

	SOURCES
	PHOTO OF FDR - Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information Collection (Library of Congress). Photograph by OWI. No. 17109-ZD