Rating: 
Summary: Informed Politics Not a Synonym for Deceit
Review: If the reader can ignore the inflammatory title of this book, she will find much good information about the political climate and world events leading up to the "Day of Infamy."One would think our knowledge that President Roosevelt used politics to prepare the US for an inevitable war would enhance our opinion of his leadership. Did FDR know that Japan was going to attack US interests? An easy, "yes." It is clear that the President may have been surprised only by the location and the intensity of the first Japanese strike. But is this really a shocking insight? Read this book for facts about FDR's time but form your opinions by paying attention to world events and using commone sense!
Rating: 
Summary: Decades of disinformation
Review: It would seem the rumours on this issue are now settled by this important book whose evidence of prior knowldege, more deliberative use of that knowledge, of the preparations and finally attack of the Japanese on Pearl Harbor is hard to question. I think the mind of the reader and the mind of the politician may fail to intersect properly, therefore a simple reading of the data is indicated, prior to jumping to conclusions about Roosevelt and Churchill. Condemnation and/or justification are too glib in both cases.
I am none the less struck by the powers of propaganda of the American system. It succeeds where ruthless tyrants become textbook cases of ideological brainwashing.
Important and essential info.
Rating: 
Summary: The whole unvarnished truth on Pearl Harbor
Review: More than 60 years have passed since Japanese attacked American naval base but its memory continues to haunt the country.This is a major work of revisionistic history.It contains explosive revelations and is also devastating indictment of FDR.Author questions and contradicts much of what has been written on Pearl Harbor.
Author debunks popular view that US Pacific Fleet was taken by surprise when Japanese raided Pearl Harbor.MR.Stinnet has pooh-pooed the following arguments.1 The approach of Japanese fleet toward Pearl Harbor could not be detected as it maintained radio silence.2 IJN masked its movements by practising radio deception.3 Nagumo fleet approached Hawaii from the north this was an area not much used by shipping.4 Though American code breakers broke Japanese diplomatic codes IJN naval codes JN 25 B defied penetration.Hence US naval command virtually blind regarding the precise location and movement of Japanese naval units.
Now we know -thanks to author's meticulous research-the movements of IJN were known to US naval intelligence.As early as Aug 1940the codebreakers at station Cast in the Phillipines managed to break into Japanese naval cipher Kaigun Ango.So Adm Osami Nagano's orders to Adm Yamamoto to destroy US Pacific fleet at Pearl harbor were known in advance which goes on to prove FDR had foreknowledge of Japanese attack.However the crucial intercepts were not brought to the notice of Adm Kimmel nor were they placed at the disposal of Joint Congressional Committe probing pearl harbor tragedy Why? Stinnett has pieced togeher the testimonies of key American cryptanalysts to support this contention.
US naval intelligence was able to track the assembly of Nagumo's task force at Hittokapu bay near Kurile islands.Author says that Japanese fleet for reasons beyond its control was unable to maintain radio silence during its descent on Pearl Harbor.American RDF stations along the Pacific rim intercepted these signals.Thus US intellig was able accurately plot the movement of Nagumo's task force.But again crucial intelligence was denied to Kimmel.Author's revelations exonerate Kimmel and Short of any gross dereliction of duty.Perhaps explosive of all revelations being McCollum memorandum. Keeping in line with this document FDR deliberately courted disaster to bring US into war against the Axis.Arthur H.McCollum served in the Far Eastern section of ONI.Series of measeaures proposed by him provoked Japan into opening hostilities.The memorandum hitherto top-secret document but author has used previleges conferred by FOIA to dig it out.Poor Adm Kimmel and Gen Short , little did they know they were used as pawns in diabolical plot hatched by MCCollum with FDR'ws connivance to draw Japan into war.And it shows how wily and cruel a politician could be.Adm Kimmel was disgraced ,demoted and left the navy as a shattered man. The Japanese militarists by expanding war in China , Indo-china played into the hands of FDR and his men.In my view the talk about Japanese imperialism is tinged with hypocrisy.What not European powers do to China starting with first opium war which culminated in Boxer rebellion.I feel Japanese expansionism in China seriosly jeopardised the interests of corporate America.Remember long time ago Soviet revolutionary V.I. Lenin predicted clash between Japanese and american imperialisms. Finally author having exposed FDR's deceit pivots his book on as false premise.I cannot agree with Stinnett's conclusion that Roosevelt dragged America into war to save western world from Nazi tyranny.Because for a long time western democracies were courting Fascist dictators.There was a possiblity Hitler having finished with Russia can turn around and attack western interests.So democracies went to war against Axis.Be that may,the book has vindicated my view on Pearl Harbor.I have been always of the opinion that FDR and his team had foreknowledge of Japanese attack.
Rating:
Summary: The more things change, the more they stay the same...
Review: Most Americans alive today will view this book as ancient history. They were not alive then, and so what Franklin Roosevelt knew, did, and the devious measures he employed to drag the United States kicking and screaming into a foreign war, against its will, and despite his promises to avoid such an entanglement, will evoke mostly indifference, yawns, and "so what?"
But, for those of us who were alive then and, even then, suspected the President's motives and his statements and assurances, this is a fascinating document. And, for many of us, it vindicates our suspicions that President Roosevelt purposely pushed the Japanese into attacking us at Pearl Harbor in order to draw us into the war against the Axis powers, who then dominated the continent of Europe, including the Balkans, much of North Africa, and were threatening to overrun Asia.
The majority of the American people were dead-set against being drawn into Europe's war, and were little concerned with the fate of China. Our cities were not directly threatened. despite the fact that the Nazis had friends in Argentina, and if England fell, would no doubt end up with clout in Canada and Mexico, the former being, after all, part of the Commonwealth of the British Empire.
The world was in flames, and Roosevelt knew that to get America off its collective duff and help put out the fire, it would be necessary to get in the war.
So, he drove Japan over the brink with a bellicose policy that deprived them of oil, raw materials, and scrap iron, and sailed our submarines and cruisers into their home waters. He denied them fishing rights in waters historically available to them. He drove them to the edge, and then pushed them over it.
This book, through documents formerly classified and now available through the Freedom of Information Act, six decades after the fact, irrefutably demonstrates that FDR knew, through access to broken Japanese codes and other sources, that the Japanese were going to strike us in a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, knew their fleet was underway to do so, and denied the commanders on the scene, General Short and Admiral Kimmel, the intelligence resources to protect themselves. Then, he fired them for their failure. He expected the attack. It was part of his plan to achieve a Cause Celebre that would motivate the American people to get in the war.
It took this author 17 years to document this book: to access all of the documents and interview the multi-thousands of people involved. It represents no small effort, in the interest of historical truth.
We lost much of our Pacific Fleet at Learl Harbor on December 7, 1941. We lost upward of 2,500 American Lives. The goal of the American President, achieved at such a high cost, was the motivation of the American people. Monstrous? Perhaps, but in his defense, one must remember the stakes. Almost inevitably, without our active entry into the war, Britain would have fallen to Hitler. China would have fallen to Japan, and a Greater East-Asia Co-Proserity Sphere would have resulted, allied with a Europe completely dominated by the Nazis, and allied with Japan and Italy.
Already inroads were being made into South America, and the Nazis shortly would have dominated Canadian politics as well.
We would have been a country isolated, and doomed.
Those were the stakes. So, perhaps Roosevelt does not look quite so much the monster, after all. For, we DID survive, didn't we?
Joseph (Joe) Pierre, USN (Ret)
(...)
Rating:
Summary: A dissapointment
Review: Mr. Stinnett set out to prove his thesis, and did so only by sacrificing any claim to being a legitimate historian. The two techniques that discredit the work are Stinnett's consistent ignoring of facts contrary to his thesis; and his intrepeting all evidence to support his cause, when often there were other possible intrepetations. The reason I have rated the book as highly as I have is because it does offer some valuable research. The failure of the book is forcing that research into the author's preconceived mold - even when it clearly did not fit.
Mr. Stinnett has failed to offer any credible evidence to prove his thesis. He has thus hurt the very cause that he proposes to support.
Rating: 
Summary: Facts provided by Stinnett refute his hypothesis.
Review: Mr. Stinnett states that the messages he reproduces (pages 291 and 292 if I remember correctly) prove that the Japanese were transmitting. He provides the source for those messages as Homer Wallin's book on Pearl Harbor salvage. Adm. Wallin, in his book, provides the sources for these messages as the Pearl Harbor Attack Hearings. The Hearings show that these messages were reconstructed by the Japanese in response to questionaires completed AFTER the war. Those messages were NEVER intercepted and decoded by the US or any other ally. Stinnett provides proof that he lied about the means used to obtain those messages and the importance of the same. Throughout Mr. Stinnett's book he gives examples of "proof" of the conspiracy, and in every case when the reader traces the material back to the source they find that he has misconstrued, misinterpreted or just plain lied about the material. If you bought this book, demand a refund. If you got it as a gift, demand an apology.
Rating:
Summary: Opponents of this book make weak arguments
Review: Mr. Stinnett's book contains valuable documentation showing that the U.S. had decrypted both diplomatic and military codes of Japan. As a result, Stinnett shows that FDR not only knew of the coming attack on Pearl, but he ensured its success by clearing the northern Pacific of U.S. Navy reconnaissance vessels. Further, he arranged communications so that Admiral Kimmel would not be informed of the approaching Japanese fleet -- thus setting him up to "take the fall" for the attack. That FDR would adopt such a course of action is not surprising when one considers his betrayal of his closest associates -- not least of whom was his own Vice President Wallace (in the 1944 election) in favor of Truman. Remember that he kept assuring Wallace even as he solicited Truman. Further, his attempts to ignore information about Stalin's actions in the Ukraine (starvation of 10 million) and to suppress information about the Katyn massacre of Polish soldiers by Stalin -- this time so that he would not alienate Polish-American voters -- bear further witness to his lack of character if a course of action would help him obtain a goal. Stinnett claims that FDR sought war against Germany and that he could do this by provoking war with Japan. This claim is supported in two ways: First, FDR was aware of an intercepted diplomatic message between the Japanese ambassador and Von Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister. In the message, Von Ribbentrop states that Germany would join Japan immediately if Japan went to war with the U.S. Furthermore, FDR's cabinet member, Harold Ickes has stated: "For a long time I've believed our best entrance into the war would be [via] Japan...which will inevitably lead to war against Germany." This clearly answers the objection of many -- and a correct one if one does not consider the agreement just described -- that Germany did not otherwise seek war with the U.S.
Furthermore and not surprisingly, many critics of this book who post at this site prefer to use illogical and emotional attacks instead of reason. For example, simply to call something a "conspiracy theory" is not enough to damn Mr. Stinnett's book. In children's circles, this is simply called "name-calling." In adult circles and in debate, this kind of thinking is usually dismissed for what it is -- as an example of either: (1) card stacking since it seeks to prevent consideration of "inconvenient" information or (2) an appeal to the gallery, which seeks to capitalize on the prejudices, ignorance, or preconceptions of the hearers without addressing Stinnett's content at all. This type of statement should immediately remove from serious consideration the opinion of those who offer it because a sneer is not an argument. It is the very same type of behavior used by the pope when he instructed Galileo Galilei to deny what he saw when he looked through his telescope and observed a number of celestial phenomena that did not correspond to the "approved" facts of the time. Critics of this book would -- at another time -- have insisted upon a flat earth.
Rating:
Summary: Revisionist dreck
Review: Not worthy of serious consideration. I subscribe to the Midway Roundtable, an email circular group that includes a number of WW2 veterans, several of whom are "cryppies" (cryptanalysts) who were involved in pre-WW2 and WW2 cryptanalysis activities. One of them, Phil Jacobsen, wrote a scathing review of the book for the Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association's CRYPTOLOG. He wrote the following for the Roundtable regarding Stinnet's claim about Japanese radio signals from the Kido Butai being caught by intelligence: I have confirmed that the few actual bearings from Corregidor (no other station reported bearings) and intercepts on 26 and 30 November by Station H on callsigns of Kido Butai units from 14 Nov through 4 December were all radio deception transmissions. The Corregidor bearings were from the main Japanese naval bases at Sasebo (027 degrees) [ranged from 026 to 028 degrees], Kure (030 degrees) and Yokosuka (039 degrees) [actually 040 degrees] from Corregidor's old Model DT Adcock Type "walkaround" HFDF
located at Monkey Point, Corregidor. No bearings were obtained on Kido Butai callsigns by Station H's CXK HFDF probably due to the stupid 14th ND civilian engineer who insisted on putting the CXK at the transmitter site at Lualualei where weak signals could not be heard through all the interference and birdies of Lualualei's 500,000 watt VLF transmitter on 16 kHz. and the large number of powerful HF transmitters located in the same area. No other official bearing reports were ever made on Kido Butai callsigns in late November-early December by other Pacific HFDF stations. The "remembrances" from Dutch Harbor reported by Stinnett were contradicted by Tom Gilmore and other DF operators there at the time. Another quote, from his review, regarding code-reading: Although Stinnett obtained definite information from Captain Whitlock that no significant JN-25B decrypts were made by
Station Cast on Corregidor during the period in question, he disputes this fact and misinterprets other documents and
sources as proof that Whitlock is wrong. Some navy cryptologic veterans involved in this book have complained Stinnett
gained their confidence by agreeing to tell their stories but ignored their version of events in favor of the monstrous
conspiracy theory finalized in the book. Admiral Layton terminated his interview with the author, most likely when he
learned where the book was going. It should be noted that it took OP-20-G some 14 months to read the much simpler
JN-25A system that was used from 1 June 1939 to 1 December 1940.
The book misleads its readers by not revealing there were two distinct codes, the earlier JN-25A and its much more
complicated successor JN-25B used during the period in question and refers to them collectively as "Code Book D" or
"5-Num code." Thus, the final successes of JN-25A are improperly imputed to JN-25B which was not read to any
significant extent until March 1942 when the first published decrypt is found. The ever-increasing requirements to provide
Japanese diplomatic decrypts and translations during 1941 took most of the time of navy cryptographers so that few
people at both Washington and Station Cast were assigned to work on the new version of the Fleet Code, JN-25B. In
addition, JN-25B used about eight additive cipher books up through 4 December 1941 further delaying the effort to read
any significant amount of this new and far more complicated code and cipher combination. Jacobsen continues on in this vein (the review was 3200 words+ and wouldn't fit in here). ...
Rating: 
Summary: 60 Years of Hindsight
Review: Robert Stinnett makes two broad claims in "Day of Deceit". The first claim is that President Roosevelt undertook a policy initiative in 1940 to goad Japan into making war on the United States. The second claim is that FDR and his closet civilian and military colleagues knew in advance that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor, and when, and did nothing to to assure the defense of Hawaiian military bases. The first claim is neither new nor controversial. The second claim is not new either, but it is highly controversial and, on the evidence of Stinnett's book, unproven. That FDR strongly felt that U.S. entry into World War II was an urgent necessity is settled history. He believed (and history confirmed his wisdom) that the longer it took the U.S. to enter the war, the longer and more costly victory would be. He also clearly felt (Stinnett agrees) that the Nazis were far the more dangerous foe. From the Lend-Lease program to convoy escorts, U.S. efforts to tempt Hitler into overt aggression against American forces were transparent. Likewise, the cutoff of oil and scrap iron to Japan, the freezing of her financial assets and other steps were aimed at drawing an aggressive response. In the case of Japan, they succeeded. The assertion that the Pearl Harbor attack was known in advance by FDR rests on Stinneett's exhaustive research into the records of the U.S. military's monitoring of Japanese military broadcasts. Stinnett says that, contrary to accepted historical judgment, the U.S. had broken almost every important Japanese code. He amasses an impressive amount of circumstantial evidence to support his claim--including a troublesome refusal by the NSA, the Navy and others to release the full record even now. The problem with the proof, though, is that Stinnett works backward from the event. Knowing what happened on December 7th, it's easy to see a pattern in the thousands of bits of data collected over many months before the attack. If senior government officials meant to deceive Admiral Kimmel and General Short, why was a "war warning" issued to all Pacific commands 10 days before the attack? Stinnett makes much of the fact that this warning explicitly said that American policy was that Japan should make the first move. So what? It also clearly said that that policy should not be construed by commanders in such a way as to jeopardize the defense of American bases. General Short later claimed that next to nothing was done to avoid giving alarm to the civilian population---an excuse that is as weak now when Stinnett offers it to exculpate Short and Kimmel as it was when Short made it after the attack. It seems far more credible that the failure of U.S. intelligence to anticipate Pearl Harbor was just that--a failure, borne of poor coordination, inter-service rivalry and military/civilian mistrust. If, as Stinnett says, FDR wanted to go to war against Germany, why would he provoke an attack in the Pacific by Japan? At the time it seemed likely that the whole weight of U.S. power would be thrown against Japan. It was only Hitler's stupid decision to declare war against the U.S. 3 days after Pearl Harbor--something FDR could not possibly have expected--that permitted the U.S. to focus on Europe first. Nowhere does Stinnett claim FDR was clairvoyant.
Rating:
Summary: Slow boat to Hawaii
Review: Robert Stinnett's book was published in 1999 but is especially relevant today at a time when the whys and wherefores of America's entry into war and specifically the veracity of the representations made to us by our leaders to induce us to go to war are a front-and-center issue. If there is one conspiracy theory with "legs", it might be "Pearl Harbor", as Stinnett seems to have found a large number of memoranda, logs, and coded messages (supplemented by interviews with still-living cryptographers) evidencing a far-reaching effort on the part of the Roosevelt administration to antagonize Japan into making precisely the sort of attack on U.S. naval bases in Hawaii that it would end up making on December 7, 1941. More disturbing is the implication that naval personnel at Pearl Harbor were deliberately kept ignorant of the pending Japanese attack. If there were a plot to provoke an attack that would bring America into the war, would not the attack itself have served the interests of the plotters without need for the loss of life that resulted from unpreparedness on December 7? Were Roosevelt and his commanders really so indifferent to human life as to allow naval personnel to die needlessly in order to "gild the lily" that the attack itself otherwise would have provided? It looks as though the Left needs to clean its own house. It looks like they have their own "911" because Stinnett's evidence in the form of broken Japanese codes, tracking of warships, and government warnings that somehow never quite made it to the "intended" recipients at Pearl Harbor suggests that the Roosevelt administration was indeed so indifferent. But the "smoking gun" drama that Stinnett's revelations should invoke is muted in a hodge-podge of footnotes and appendices that make this book very difficult to read or evaluate. A number of characters strut and fret their way upon the historical stage that Stinnett lights without making a firm impression as to either their identities or to the role that they play on this stage. There is certainly enough information here, however, for others to examine and perhaps to present in more readable format. Actually, it really isn't even necessary to discuss Pearl Harbor when considering the issue of FDR's indifference to human life. The internment of thousands of American citizens of Japanese descent in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, pursuant to Roosevelt's executive order, is not a disputed factual issue at all and itself illustrates this indifference. Although there are yet living survivors of Pearl Harbor and of the internment, the incidents that took place over sixty years ago almost themselves fade before the issue of why Roosevelt's historical reputation is scarcely affected by what has always been known about the internment and by ongoing revelations about Pearl Harbor, just as JFK's historical reputation scarcely suffers in the eyes of historians or the general public from what is now KNOWN about his connections with the Mob. Orwell once wrote that he who controls the past controls the future, and our past seems to be controlled by liberal/Left academics that censor and rewrite history in order to maintain a liberal/Left consensus. Orwell also wrote that the prospect that the ruling classes might convince their subjects that two plus two equals something other than four frightened him more than bombs. The fact that liberal leaders with deeply-ingrained, sometimes criminal flaws, are STILL being portrayed by "history" as examples of moral uplift is an example of liberal/Left academics and weak sisters among the general public decreeing that two plus two equals five whenever it's necessary. Perhaps after 60 years, our emphasis should shift away somewhat from the possibility of government conspiracies from bygone days and should focus on the active conspiracies to control the past that are actively and openly taking place in the halls of academia.
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