Diplomats & Admirals: From Failed Negotiations and Tragic Misjudgments to Powerful Leaders and Heroic Deeds, the Untold Story of the Pacific War from Pearl Harbor to Midway

Description

WAS THE JAPANESE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR INEVITABLE?

It's November 1941. Japan and the US are teetering on a knife-edge as leaders on both sides of the Pacific strive to prevent war between them. But failed diplomacy, foiled negotiations, and possible duplicity in the Roosevelt administration thwart their attempts.

Drawing on now-declassified original documents, Diplomats & Admirals reveals the inside story of one fateful year, including:

- How the hidden agendas of powerful civilian and military leaders pushed the two nations toward war

- The miscommunications, misjudgments, and blunders that doomed efforts at peace

- China's role in the US ultimatum that triggered the attack on Pearl Harbor

- Why the carrier-to-carrier showdown at Coral Sea proved a fatal mistake for Japan

- How courageous US navy pilots snatched victory from defeat at the Battle of Midway

Sometimes history paints events as inevitable. Dale Jenkins, a former U.S. naval officer and staff director of the Council on Foreign Relations, has made an insightful study of the economic and foreign policies of the United States and Japan during the six months leading up to December 7, 1941. Jenkins deftly demonstrates that better communication and planning between civilian and military leaders in both countries might well have avoided the attack on Pearl Harbor—literally at the last second—but for diplomats who allowed Great Britain and China to influence the course.
—Walter R. Borneman, Author of The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King

402 pages - Hardcover