Infamy: Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath

Due to his impressive body of work including "The Last Hundred Days" and "Adolph Hitler," John Toland will always demarcate the gold standard in history writing. Thorough going in his research, dogged in pursuing surviving sources for their versions of meetings and moments and recollections, Toland's work shows what really good history writing can be. In this way, it should probably be equal parts troubling for Roosevelt supporters and detractors that Toland has taken up the gauntlet that Roosevelt knew and allowed the Pearl Harbor diasaster and that even with his considerable talents he still makes a case that in the end amounts to such thin soup. Spoiler alert! Those wishing to let Toland makes his own case should pick up his book so that this author does not make it for him. For those still reading, Toland's case essentially boils down to his assertions that US code readers had received and deduced the significance of a one line message from Japan being "East wind, rain." Apparently code for "war with US is on," the message -- according to Toland -- boded additional significance based on prior intelligence reports indicating the likelihood of an attack on the US. However, and this where the devil gets into the details, one of those prior intelligence reports reportedly went to J Edgar Hoover, then FBI Director, who according to Toland, sat on the message without forwarding it to Roosevelt. Such a state of affairs would have been believable because, at least in one other World War II case, Hoover's FBI sat on potential evidence of Axis wrongdoing. Certainly, to be complicit, it would have been better for Toland's thesis if there was some assertion that Roosevelt himself had gotten word. Toland's thesis also stops at the level of indictment and not conviction because even if his evidence is taken at face value and given the weight intended it by Toland, it still fails to make any other argument than that because Roosevelt should have known that he did in fact know and that because it seems like Roosevelt intended and intentional loss of US forces that he was in fact complicit in the purposeful loss of US forces. Still the same, Toland seems incapable of bad writing and like his other works he manages to produce a story complete with almost novel like nuances and character development. The only problem is that in this book he may have finally succeeded -- albeit inadvertantly -- in writing fiction.

John Toland has done an excellent job in punching holes in the U.S. cover-up about Pearl Harbor. While it is still unproven that FDR positively knew, it is becoming harder to believe he did not. The Japanese did not maintain radio silence as Toland proves, and Robert Stinnett's "Day of Deceit" leaves no more doubt on this subject. Why people here appeal to the "authority" of Gordon Prange is beyond me. His stonewalling is simply unconvincing and written before much of the Pearl Harbor material was de-classified. Not to mention the fact that Gordon Prange was dead before his books were published! Or even finished! Ghost writers helped that project out. We'll know more when the government finished de-classifying. And if they have nothing to hide, WHY is so much material about Pearl Harbor still classified? The mere fact that Roosevelt moved the Pacific fleet from its normal anchorage on the west coast to Hawaii in 1940 (over the objections of some admirals) has got to make you wonder too.

Toland is an excellent historian. He's put together a lot of different lines of evidence to insinuate that the United States was indeed aware of the Pearl Harbor attack before it happened. That's the gist of this book.Does he prove it? No. There is no absolute evidence that proves FDR and the State and War Departments knew that Pearl Harbor was about to be hit. Toland's circumstantial evidence IS very strong, though, and if what he writes here is true (and he documents it all), then it is very difficult not to reach the same conclusions he does. I've always found it difficult to believe that, with the threat of war obviously hanging over the United States and Japan, we had no idea where the Japanese Navy was. But, again, there is no absolute proof, no documents that say "FDR knew." But no other historian, not even Prange, brings up the evidence that Toland does.FDR apologists will hate this book. FDR haters will believe Toland has proven his case. Fair readers will wonder. Historians (and that's the way I make my living) will conclude Toland hasn't proven his point. Not absolutely. But he does do very good investigative work. We'll probably never know for sure what FDR knew or when he knew it.

When Mr. Toland's book Infamy was first published it caused a stir, and it still leaves a sting! Sometimes truth hurts. Mr. Toland's earlier book, The Rising Sun ( a Pulitzer prize winner ), presents a different picture from that in Infamy and perhaps more in line with textbook thinking. But deeper research into the subject forced him to the conclusions he drew in Infamy. If it is shocking that's good, because that is how one can learn from history.