I did a lot of research on Pearl Harbor in school. You couldn't make most of that shit up, people would scoff.
And the revisionists...jeebus. I hold no brief for FDR, but those guys are like ravening wolves. They spend all of their time twisting the truth into knots just to make FDR look bad, when a simple application of Occam's Razor is all you need to debunk them. Yet their books still sell and conspiracy theories still play well among the great unwashed.
In case you are wondering, I think John Toland let himself be seduced by the Dark Side. But then there are the "Back Door to War" people like Charles Beard and Charlie "Three-Dot" Tansill. There was also an Admiral whose name escapes me who was sent with a task force to the Aleutian Islands around that time who wrote a book claiming that he was sent out as bait for the Japanese or some such BS. Why can't I remember his name? In our own time, isolationist political nitwits like Patrick Buchanan have embraced the "Back Door to War" theory, too. Sad.
Orange et al. Debunks most of the conspiracy nuts. Common sense tells us they new something was up, but not where. There was little reason to think Pearl Harbor was at risk for more than sabatoge attacks.
I just latched onto a used copy of Roberta Wohlstetter's Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision Haven't read it in years. She does an excellent job explaining why just breaking codes wasn't sufficient to figure out what the Japs were up to.
Checked all the major online news, the only one to even mention Pearl Harbor is Fox. When we lose our history we lose our future.
ReplyDeleteJames Old Guy
I did a lot of research on Pearl Harbor in school. You couldn't make most of that shit up, people would scoff.
ReplyDeleteAnd the revisionists...jeebus. I hold no brief for FDR, but those guys are like ravening wolves. They spend all of their time twisting the truth into knots just to make FDR look bad, when a simple application of Occam's Razor is all you need to debunk them. Yet their books still sell and conspiracy theories still play well among the great unwashed.
In case you are wondering, I think John Toland let himself be seduced by the Dark Side. But then there are the "Back Door to War" people like Charles Beard and Charlie "Three-Dot" Tansill. There was also an Admiral whose name escapes me who was sent with a task force to the Aleutian Islands around that time who wrote a book claiming that he was sent out as bait for the Japanese or some such BS. Why can't I remember his name? In our own time, isolationist political nitwits like Patrick Buchanan have embraced the "Back Door to War" theory, too. Sad.
ReplyDeleteThe Final Secret of Pearl Harbor by Rear Admiral Robert Theobald (1954). He was nicknamed "Fuzzy" for a reason.
ReplyDeleteOrange et al. Debunks most of the conspiracy nuts. Common sense tells us they new something was up, but not where. There was little reason to think Pearl Harbor was at risk for more than sabatoge attacks.
ReplyDeleteHistorical hindsight is a plague.
I just latched onto a used copy of Roberta Wohlstetter's Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision Haven't read it in years. She does an excellent job explaining why just breaking codes wasn't sufficient to figure out what the Japs were up to.
ReplyDelete