Infamy: Pearl Harbor and its Aftermath

John Toland

Berkley books, New York 1983, 397 pages

Let me say at the outset that John Toland is one of those historians who have opened my eyes, and my mind to new possibilities. I would love to listen to him teach a history class, ands really be able to "mix it up" with him. There are times I agree whole heartily with his evaluations and research, and other times, I find it hard to agree with him. In his book Rising sun, I found myself immersed for the first time with a look at the pacific war from something other than the standard occidental viewpoint, and I am thankful for it. It has brought to myself a greater understanding of the how's and why of what the Japanese did.

Infamy is such a book. I found myself captured by it from the very beginning. At the outset, I viewed this as just some more revisionist history in the making. If you are looking for a good book on the attack of Pearl Harbor, don't get this one. If you want to know INDEPTH the aftershocks Pearl Harbor created in the halls of the United States Congress, the White House, and the War Department, then buy this book, read it, tab it, and reference it often when you talk to others about the attack. It is a well-researched book, and in my mind, I am no longer certain that the United States did not know of the attack in advance. I would subscribe to his findings that if the US did NOT know, it should have, and in any case the findings of gross negligence that were heaped upon General Short, and Adm. Kimmel should not necessarily been. I was convinced by this book that General Marshall, and his staff should also be found wanting, and perhaps even admonished for their lack of foresight to adequately warn and prepare our forward bases for attacks upon them.

This book really reminded me that everything old is still new again. I read Infamy while the Clinton Scandal investigations were going on. Change a few of the names, the arguments by the parties were essentially the same, just different issues. It was quite striking. Author John Toland goes through and introduces you to all the major players of the events surrounding December 7^th 1941, the evidence compiled in his investigation, what the "winds" messages were about, the witnesses to the task force, the warnings, and hints that something was going on. That the president FDR did not act is surprising, and Toland stops short of saying that FDR knew, but one is left wondering how he could not have known.

Read this book, and read Rising Sun. Between the two histories you as the reader will have a larger view of the world, and perhaps as I did, a deep felt ache in your heart that perhaps it should not have happened at all.