In 1941 our code breakers were concentrating on the diplomatic codes, which we were reading.
Stinnet was right in one respect, we may have had enough intercepts to possibly point at Pearl Harbor, but December 1941 but they might as well have been written in Klingon for all that we could not read them. Most of that traffic did not get fully decoded until well after the start of the war. They may not have been decoded until 1943 or later, due to the need to decode newer, more pressing, messages.
First of all, I appreciate your humorous reference to Klingon -- in concert with my previous suggestion of a Romulan cloaking device to hide the Japanese fleet. ;-)
For those who don't quite get it, you'll remember the "star-ship" Enterprise, under command of Admiral "Bull" H. Kirk, will soon boldly launch into seas where no carrier has gone before, on an officially peace-time mission, but with "Bull" fully alerted and searching everywhere for the enemy -- which unfortunately he only finds on the day of his return to "star-base" home port, Pearl Harbor. ;-)
What, now you'll say I can't keep real history and myth separate?
iowamark: "Very few sober people place any credence in Stinnett’s “Day of Deceit." "
CougarGA7: "I would recommend you find some corroborating data that backs up the individual claims you have listed."
I know of three other authors who make pretty much the same case that Stinnett did: John Toland, George Victor and John Coleman.
Of those, Toland is otherwise considered a reputable historian.
Other, more restrained authors included Gordon Prange (frequently quoted by Homer), Henry Clausen (Democrat) and Percy Grieves (Republican).
All these folks tell basically the same story: Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
The differences among them have to do with evidence introduced (or merely asserted to exist) showing how much Washington knew, and when did they know, about the coming attack.
Authors like Clausen spread the blame among some well known names -- Short, Kimmel, Layton, Rochefort, Bratton and of course, President Roosevelt -- plus a number of lesser knowns: Dusenbury, Fielder, Bicknell, Turner, Safford, Mayfield, Gerrow, and Kramer.
But to Clausen, their errors amount to basically bureaucratic bungling, not some intentional conspiracy.
And it's most notable the names which Clausen does not blame: Marshall, Stark, Stimson, Knox, McArthur or McCollum.
And those are just the people that -- along with blaming FDR, Rochefort and Layton -- authors like Stinnett take direct aim on.
I think it's very important that genuine scholars like FR's own CougarGA7 and LS consistently and strongly blast Stinnett and other "conspiracy nuts" as just that: nuts.
The nuts' evidence does not stand scrutiny, their charges are ridiculous, and their "theories" are beyond the pale of reasonableness, according to FR's best experts.
So they demand a mere "history buff" such as yours truly must produce documents to support claims by any such "nuts".
Well, I have no more access to original documents than I do to the far side of the moon.
And I marvel at how enthusiastically such normally conservative and skeptical FReepers defend the godfather of modern Liberalism, that most wily of leftist American politicians, Franklin Roosevelt.
So I would ask you to consider this: of all the Pearl Harbor books I know of, none were written by actual working scholars doing what scholars are supposed to do: review and evaluate all the evidence, give proper weight to what's real, reject unfounded claims based on substantial reasons, and arrive at conclusions fair-and- balanced warranted by the data.
I'd be interested in such a fair-and-balanced book.