Infamy [antikvár]

Foreword In But Not in Shame I concluded that every American would have to accept a share of the blame for the disastrous attack on Pearl Harbor, and that it had been a largely unprovoked act of Japanese aggression. Nine years later, after considerable research in Japan, I came to the startling conclusion in The Rising Sun that Pearl Harbor had been the result of American as well as Japanese miscalculations and mistakes. "A war that need not have been fought was about to be fought because of mutual misunderstanding, language difficulties, and mistranslations as well as Japanese opportunism, gekokujo, irrationality, honor, pride and fear—and American racial prejudice, distrust, ignorance of the Orient, rigidity, self-righteousness, honor, national pride and fear." At that time I saw no villains or heroes on either side and could not, above all, believe that President Roosevelt knew ahead of time that a Japanese striking force was approaching Pearl Harbor. Even so, many aspects of Pearl Harbor had troubled me. The various investigations left too many crucial questions in doubt and in limbo. Was it possible that Roosevelt had engineered a conspiracy to get America into the war with Hitler by the back door? Had some of our military and civilian leaders lied under oath? Had some good men been persuaded or threatened into perjuring themselves? Had there truly been a "winds" execute message in early December 1941? Had the nine investigations, in short, been an elaborate cover-up to place the blame primarily on Ad- XV