Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor (Hardcover)

by Robert Stinnett (Author) "Earlier in the week, the Murrows had accepted a personal dinner invitation from the Roosevelts..." (more)
Key Phrases: naval broadcasts, kana code, radio cryptographers, Pearl Harbor, United States, White House (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
It was not long after the first Japanese bombs fell on the American naval ships at Pearl Harbor that conspiracy theories began to circulate, charging that Franklin Roosevelt and his chief military advisors knew of the impending attack well in advance. Robert Stinnett, who served in the U.S. Navy with distinction during World War II, examines recently declassified American documents and concludes that, far more than merely knowing of the Japanese plan to bomb Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt deliberately steered Japan into war with America.

Stinnett's argument draws on both circumstantial evidence--the fact, for example, that in September 1940 Roosevelt signed into law a measure providing for a two-ocean navy that would number 100 aircraft carriers--and, more importantly, on American governmental documents that offer apparently incontrovertible proof that Roosevelt knowingly sacrificed American lives in order to enter the war on the side of England. Although obviously troubled by his discovery of a systematic plan of deception on the part of the American government, Stinnett does not take deep issue with its outcome. Roosevelt, he writes, faced powerful opposition from isolationist forces, and, against them, the Pearl Harbor attack was "something that had to be endured in order to stop a greater evil--the Nazi invaders in Europe who had begun the Holocaust and were poised to invade England." Sure to excite discussion, Stinnett's book offers what may be the final word on the terrible matter of Pearl Harbor. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly
Historians have long debated whether President Roosevelt had advance knowledge of Japan's December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. Using documents pried loose through the Freedom of Information Act during 17 years of research, Stinnett provides overwhelming evidence that FDR and his top advisers knew that Japanese warships were heading toward Hawaii. The heart of his argument is even more inflammatory: Stinnett argues that FDR, who desired to sway public opinion in support of U.S. entry into WWII, instigated a policy intended to provoke a Japanese attack. The plan was outlined in a U.S. Naval Intelligence secret strategy memo of October 1940; Roosevelt immediately began implementing its eight steps (which included deploying U.S. warships in Japanese territorial waters and imposing a total embargo intended to strangle Japan's economy), all of which, according to Stinnett, climaxed in the Japanese attack. Stinnett, a decorated naval veteran of WWII who served under then Lt. George Bush, substantiates his charges with a wealth of persuasive documents, including many government and military memos and transcripts. Demolishing the myth that the Japanese fleet maintained strict radio silence, he shows that several Japanese naval broadcasts, intercepted by American cryptographers in the 10 days before December 7, confirmed that Japan intended to start the war at Pearl Harbor. Stinnett convincingly demonstrates that the U.S. top brass in Hawaii--Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Husband Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Walter Short--were kept out of the intelligence loop on orders from Washington and were then scapegoated for allegedly failing to anticipate the Japanese attack (in May 1999, the U.S. Senate cleared their names). Kimmel moved his fleet into the North Pacific, actively searching for the suspected Japanese staging area, but naval headquarters ordered him to turn back. Stinnett's meticulously researched book raises deeply troubling ethical issues. While he believes the deceit built into FDR's strategy was heinous, he nevertheless writes: "I sympathize with the agonizing dilemma faced by President Roosevelt. He was forced to find circuitous means to persuade an isolationist America to join in a fight for freedom." This, however, is an expression of understanding, not of absolution. If Stinnett is right, FDR has a lot to answer for--namely, the lives of those Americans who perished at Pearl Harbor. Stinnett establishes almost beyond question that the U.S. Navy could have at least anticipated the attack. The evidence that FDR himself deliberately provoked the attack is circumstantial, but convincing enough to make Stinnett's bombshell of a book the subject of impassioned debate in the months to come. (Dec.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (December 7, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684853396
• ISBN-13: 978-0684853390
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (131 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #245,354 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #21 in	Books > History > Military > World War II > Intelligence Operations
  #36 in	Books > History > Military > World War II > Pearl Harbor
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent but not for the uninitiated, January 21, 2000

By	E. J. Heresniak (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Most books about Pearl Harbor, from the many volumes of the Congressional Pearl Harbor Hearings to the two-volume study by the late Gordon Prange detail all kinds of intelligence available to the United States that forewarned of the Japanese attack. If you have some background in that history, Stinnett's well-documented book adds new material to the story and discloses a set of Japanese Navy communications intercepts that complement more publicized decoded exchanges among the Japanses diplomatic corps.

The notion that high minded government leaders might conspire to manipulate American public opinion in support of a cause they think important and worth American lives is not as evocative in the post-Vietnam politics than it would have been in 1941.

Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson both managed to entice "enemy" attacks on U.S. forces to rally American public opinion Congressional support. They aren't alone. While damage to the U.S. fleet and personnel at Pearl Harbor far exceeded the couple of bullet holes inflicted on the USS Turner Joy and Maddox in the Tonkin Gulf in 1964, the pre-event manipulation was not all that different. That people in government might conspire to keep their machinations hidden from the press and public, sadly, isn't novel either anymore. Radiation experiments, commandos known to be captured, but written off as killed and all the rest have taught us almost too much about human nature.

While Stinnett writes bitterly about the impact on lives and careers of competent officers and men caught up in concealing vital intelligence information from Hawaiian-based officers and subsequently threatened and besmirched to maintain secrecy long after the event, even now, when records are still held secret by the DOD in some bizarre interpretation of protecting the National Defense. At the same time, however, Sinnett and any person with a memory and conscience is hard put to accept the possible outcome of world events in the 1940s had the United States stayed outof the European War.

If this is your first Pearl Harbor book you may get lost in the detail and obscurity needed to substantiate the book's argument. Read something else first, but read this one too.

53 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Explosive!, June 30, 2000

By A Customer

Heartily recommended, though following all the notes will make it tough going at times.

Robert Stinnett has written an important book on American preparations leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor 7 Dec 1941. His massive evidence, though circumstantial in large part, suggests an intentional effort to hamstring Adm Kimmell and Gen Short and then to punish them after the fact.

Nowadays, it's almost beyond dispute that FDR had a secret policy to provoke Japan into war, but with Japan committing the first over act. Adm Kemp Tolley has described his own experience in executing one element of this unacknowledged policy at a tactical level. Mr. Stinnett provides evidence of this policy in Washington (ONI, CNO, and presumably FDR.) This book challenges much conventional wisdom about the attack. For example, the Japanese attack fleet did not maintain radio silence. The U.S. authorities (but not Kimmell and Short) were quite aware of the Japanese navy's spy in the Honolulu consulate. The British probably supplied to Americans decrypted messages warning Japanese commanders of the date and place of attack.

It suggests that Adm Kimmell was ordered not to patrol north of Oahu, and that Gen Short was given misleading orders to focus on sabotage when his superiors in Washington had reason to expect an air raid. It implicates Gen Marshall in the post-war coverup.

One wonders why the federal government continues to withhold documents on this subject nearly sixty years later. It feeds conspiracy theorists.

After the first reading, it was still unclear to me whether Cdr Rochefort deliberately withheld radio intelligence from Adm Kimmell.

One hopes that the author will clean up the many small but annoying typographical errors in this book for readers of the next printing. E.g.: a footnote is missing; another note has a nonsensical equivalence of mph to meters; and misspelled words. These undermine the credibility of this important book.

55 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hero or Traitor?, January 3, 2000

By	John F. McKeown "canandai" (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews

I am not suprised by the negative treatment that this book has received. If the author had treated any other topic, or any other President, the comments would be different. This historian has attacked one very, very, sacred cow.

Some say that this book will only persuade those who are not familiar with the subject. This is untrue. It was endorsed by John Toland, the author of the Infamy, an impressive tome on this very subject.

"Step by step, Stinnett goes through the prelude to war, using new documents to reveal the terrible secrets that have never before been disclosed to the public. It is disturbing that eleven presidents, including those I admired, kept the truth from the public until Stinnett's Freedom of Information Act requests finally persuaded the Navy to release the evidence."

I personally doubt that FDR imagined that the losses would be so severe. Battleships were presumed to be tough, harbors protected, and Pearl did have radar. A battle yes, a massacre,no. To think otherwise contemplates an unimaginable crime.

Some justify FDR on the grounds of the horrors of the enemy. However, this presumes that what did take place - and the Holocaust took place long after Dec. 7, 1941 - was predestined, and in no way influenced by the US entry into the war (and in no way possibly prevented by our neutrality). Remember, the demand for Unconditional Surrender and the Morgenthau Plan also came out of FDR's administration.

There are some who still possess a Little Red Riding Hood view of America's role in the Second World War. This book helps end such childishness.