DAY OF DECEIT

An explosive, well-written look at the events leading up to the Japanese raid on Pearl harbor, including FDR’s provocation of the attack, by a WWII veteran and longtime journalist. Though rumors have long circulated about American prior knowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Stinnett has gone far beyond his models in substantiating the state of American intelligence, diplomacy, and readiness in the year preceding December 7, 1941. Though Stinnett easily makes his case that the Unites States knew an attack was coming and did not prepare for it, even more shocking is his discovery that the North Pacific area, where an attack was believed likely to originate, was declared a “vacant sea” just weeks prior to the attack and any patrols were forbidden in this area. The real heart of the book is the argument that the attack on Pearl Harbor was deliberately instigated by the Roosevelt Administration as a way of quickly bringing a unified America into the war. Stinnett begins his case by quoting a policy memo written by Lt. Cdr. Arthur McCullum listing eight actions designed to incite a military action by Japan, including such actions as the blocking of the sale of oil to the Japanese, maintaining a heavy US naval presence in the Pacific, and supporting Chiang Kai-shek in China. After showing how this plan was carried out, he then goes on to show how this effort systematically led up to Pearl Harbor. Although too little is made of the context in which Roosevelt apparently made the decision to allow the attack to go unchecked (it is only in the closing sections that this issue is even discussed), Stinnett has left no stone unturned in this account, which should rewrite the historical record of WWII.