cover image Pearl Harbor - Final Judgement

Pearl Harbor - Final Judgement

Henry C. Clausen. Crown Publishers, $25 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-517-58644-0

This book goes a long way toward ending the 50-year-old debate as to how the Japanese managed to surprise U.S. forces when they bombed Hawaii on December 7, 1941. In 1944, Secretary of War Henry Stimson selected co-author Clausen, then a lawyer in the U.S. Judge Advocate's office, to conduct an independent investigation into the Pearl Harbor attack; Clausen submitted a top-secret report on the matter, the substance of which is published here for the first time. Assisted by New York-based editor Lee, Clausen details his discovery of egregious errors of omission and commission, as well as criminal neglect of duty by the Army and Navy high command in Washington and Honolulu. He concludes that the top officers in Hawaii, General Walter Short and Admiral Husband Kimmel, were simply asleep at the switch and ignored repeated warnings. Probably the most telling factor in this failure of communication, he argues, was the Navy's arrogant hoarding of secret intelligence that should have been shared with its Army counterparts. This thoroughly engrossing narrative, as compelling as a detective novel, answers two major questions: What did Washington and Honolulu know about Japanese actions before the attack and what did they do about it? A significant historical breakthrough that should attract a wide readership. Photos. 60,000 first printing; BOMC, QPB and History Book Club alternate. ( Sept. )