Seems to me there should be a huge customer demand for an absolutely honest and accurate book on Pearl Harbor, one which addresses all the myths, issues and questions with facts and reason -- and showing a bit more scholarly respect than simply saying: Oh that Author "X", he was such a fricken idiot we have to ignore him.
The fact is, on Pearl Harbor there are several "Authors X" and their books are selling every day.
So, whatever falsehoods they contain can only be effectively countered by better explanations of the truth.
LS: "What the cryptanalists will tell you is that you don't just "intercept" something like you see on TV then run to the commander and say, "oh, Admiral, they're coming." "
No kidding, as a result of previous discussions going back many months ago, I've read up considerably on this subject, but don't claim to be in any sense an expert.
What I do understand is that at best code-breaking was difficult and time consuming, requiring many steps to produce an actual message translated into English for our top-brass to read.
Often, the best they could do was figure out the source and general subject of a message.
Sometimes all they could do was estimate the direction and distance of a coded radio transmission.
So no author says that code-breaking was easy, especially the more complex Japanese Naval Codes.
The question is whether, regarding the attack on Pearl Harbor, it was done at all, and did any messages suggest that those Japanese carriers, which had disappeared from "sight" were actually headed towards Hawaii?
Prange never says they did, although there is an interesting discussion (page 459 in the paperback) about Commander Rocheford's success decrypting diplomatic messages in the week before 12/7, which logically suggests he might have.
LS: "And, yes, Stinett badly "tangled up" the codes and decrypts.
I wrote a review of his book in Continuity; Jacobsen has written several article-length reviews.
Not ONE of his "is" statements has a matching note---the only statements he supports with citations are the "could be/should be/could have/would have." "
I've said all along, there is no legal "proof" -- no "smoking gun" -- that "Roosevelt knew and let it happen."
Had there been such proof, the debate would have ended many decades ago.
But there is a lot of evidence suggesting what "could be" or "could have" happened, of which Stinnett produces some.
I'd say Stinnett draws reasonable conclusions from that data, but if someone can use it to make a different case, why not write a book about it?
LS: "Now, I don't care if it's Homer Simpson or you, whoever relies on Prange for certain information is going to get bad information...."
Again, here's what you need to keep in mind:
Prange's book At Dawn We Slept is copyright 1981.
Toland's book Infamy is copyright 1982.
Stinnett's book Day of Deceit is copyright 2000.
Victor's book The Pearl Harbor Myth is copyright 2007.
My question is: what more recent book explains all the events, addresses all the issues and answers all those questions in a scholarly and reasonably respectful way -- dealing with actual facts as opposed to unbridled character assassination?
http://intellit.muskingum.edu/alpha_folder/J_folder/jacobsen_p.html
It lists a bunch his articles, which you can then find, download the notes, and do the damn research yourself. You seem to think that plucking a book off Amazon makes it an authority. Well, Cougar and I have tried to explain to you how SCHOLARSHIP works and you have a tin ear.
What are the author's credentials? Does the author have experience in cryptanalysis? Was the person in the War Department? If not, is the person a historian? (Stinnett is NOT. He's a former Navy radio guy. I don't have a clue who some of these others are. Their names never surface in the historical scholarship about PH, so that should tell you something.) Prange is to Pearl Harbor what Bruce Catton was to the Civil War---good in his time, thorough, but long eclipsed by more recent evidence.
Now, as we all have tried to tell you, you do "scholarship" by not just throwing out citations, but getting into the endnotes, and finding out if a citation that says it deals with "x" actually deals with "x" and was written on the day it claims to be, and so on. Stinnett's junk does not do this. He cites things that don't actually support what he says.
Of course, if you had read my review on Continuity, the reference which I supplied you, you would know that. Instead, you go to the discount pile at the bookstore to find yet another hack writing another book on Pearl Harbor without the slightest semblance of scholarship.
I'm done. Enjoy your ignorance.