Description:

From a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and bestselling author, a revealing account of the events surrounding the day that the Japanese military launched a sneak attack on U.S. forces stationed in Pearl Harbor. Includes evidence that top U.S. officials knew about the attack but remained silent for political reasons and the conspiracy afterward to hide the facts. Photographs.

Review

John Toland's Infamy (1982) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian's unflinching prosecution of the Pearl Harbor cover-up. Toland, who had previously written about the disaster in two earlier books with increasingly critical conclusions, here presents his most explosive thesis: that Franklin Roosevelt and a small circle of advisers knew the Japanese carrier force Kido Butai was approaching Hawaii, and deliberately withheld this intelligence from the commanders at Pearl Harbor to ensure the attack would galvanize a reluctant America into war against Hitler.

The book is structured as a procedural thriller across four parts, tracing the tangled web of nine investigations between 1941 and 1946 that attempted, and largely failed, to establish the truth. Toland meticulously reconstructs how Admiral Husband Kimmel and General Walter Short were denied the decoded Japanese intercepts (Magic) that Washington officials were reading daily; how the Roberts Commission was constituted to place blame on the Hawaiian commanders while exonerating Washington; and how subsequent Army and Navy boards that reversed these findings were suppressed by Roosevelt, Stimson, and Forrestal through carefully crafted endorsements and press releases timed to minimize their impact.

The most gripping narrative thread follows Captain Laurance Safford, the Navy cryptanalyst who risked his career to prove that a "winds execute" message -- the coded Japanese broadcast signaling war with America -- had been intercepted on December 4, 1941, and subsequently destroyed. Toland portrays Safford as a modern Don Quixote, standing alone against the combined weight of the military and political establishment, refusing to recant despite relentless pressure from investigators, lawyers, and congressional Democrats. The scenes of Safford's interrogation by Representative Murphy, where spectators spontaneously applauded the embattled witness, are among the most dramatic courtroom sequences in American historical writing.

Toland builds his case through newly declassified Freedom of Information Act materials, taped interviews with key witnesses including Ralph Briggs (the radio operator who intercepted the "winds" message), Dutch intelligence sources who tracked Kido Butai, and testimony from figures like Colonel Bratton who produced photostatic evidence that General Marshall personally deleted damaging passages from intelligence summaries prepared for the President. The Postscript, added for the paperback edition, introduces further corroboration including Japanese naval officers who confirmed the "winds execute" was broadcast on December 4.

The book is at its strongest when dramatizing the human costs of the cover-up: Kimmel demoting himself from four stars to two as bombs fell around him; his son Manning going down with a submarine during the war; General Short weeping as he recounted Marshall's betrayal of their thirty-nine-year friendship; the Safford family's disintegration under the strain of years of Pearl Harbor controversy. These are rendered with the novelistic skill that distinguished Toland's earlier works on Hitler and the Pacific war.

Critics have challenged Toland's most provocative conclusions, particularly the claim that Roosevelt deliberately allowed the attack to proceed. The evidence remains circumstantial on this central point, resting on patterns of behavior rather than a smoking-gun document. The book's revisionist framework also underweights the genuine confusion and institutional failures that characterize intelligence work under pressure. Yet even skeptics must contend with Toland's meticulous documentation of what is beyond dispute: that vital intelligence was withheld from Pearl Harbor's defenders, that witnesses were pressured to change testimony, that documents were destroyed, and that the subsequent investigations were shaped by political considerations at every turn.

Infamy remains essential reading not merely as a Pearl Harbor study but as a case study in how democratic governments manage inconvenient truths, how institutional loyalty corrupts individual conscience, and how the imperative of wartime unity can be weaponized to silence legitimate dissent. Toland's concluding observation that the war with Japan "need never have been fought" places the Pearl Harbor tragedy within the larger catastrophe of a conflict that produced Hiroshima, Korea, and Vietnam.

Reviewed 2026-04-08

Notable Quotes

This means war.

Roosevelt's reaction upon reading the thirteen parts of the Japanese message on the evening of December 6, 1941, as witnessed by Harry Hopkins and later confirmed by Commander Schulz's testimony. — foreknowledge, Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt, war

I wish it had killed me.

Admiral Kimmel's response after a spent .50-caliber bullet struck the left breast of his white uniform during the attack, smacking into his glasses case. He picked it up, put it in his pocket, and said these words, knowing his career was over. — honor, responsibility, Pearl Harbor, military leadership

But they knew, they knew, they knew.

Army cryptanalyst William F. Friedman, whose team had solved the Purple code, pacing back and forth after hearing of the Pearl Harbor attack, muttering to himself repeatedly. — foreknowledge, intelligence, cover-up, cryptanalysis

Admiral Kimmel is the victim of the dirtiest frame-up in the history of the Navy. And I have the proof of it.

Captain Safford's declaration to Admiral Harris when requesting to see Kimmel in February 1944, after two years of research into the withheld intelligence. — scapegoating, cover-up, justice, military honor

Words don't alter facts. In the eyes of the American people I am on trial and nothing you can say will alter that.

Kimmel's reply to Justice Roberts when told 'Admiral, you are not on trial' during the Roberts Commission hearings in Hawaii, January 1942. — justice, accountability, public opinion, scapegoating

I have no personal interest, except I started it and I have got to see it through.

Captain Safford's response when asked by Congressman Keefe what personal interest he had in the Pearl Harbor controversy, prompting a third round of spontaneous applause from spectators. — integrity, courage, whistleblowing, conscience

There is an appearance of it.

Safford's nervous reply when asked by Chief Counsel Richardson whether he believed there was a conspiracy between the Navy and War Departments to destroy copies of the winds execute message. — cover-up, conspiracy, document destruction, intelligence

Darling, the fleet's at the bottom of the sea. Nobody must know that here, but I've got to tell you.

Admiral Nimitz to his wife upon learning he was to replace Kimmel as commander of the Pacific Fleet, after she congratulated him on achieving his dream posting. — Pearl Harbor aftermath, military command, secrecy

How did they catch us with our pants down, Mr. President?

Senator Tom Connally's furious question to Roosevelt at the emergency White House meeting the night of December 7, 1941, banging the desk as he sprang to his feet. — accountability, Pearl Harbor, Congress, surprise attack

If I had known the true situation, I could have babied the Japanese along quite a while longer.

Roosevelt's words to Admiral Hart, quoting what he told Hart about being assured by Marshall that forces in the Philippines were ready for war in November 1941. — foreknowledge, Roosevelt, diplomacy, deception

The committee report, I feel, does not with exactitude apply the same yardstick in measuring responsibilities at Washington as had been applied to the Hawaiian commanders. I cannot suppress the feeling that the committee report endeavors to throw as soft a light as possible on the Washington scene.

Congressman Keefe's 'Additional Views' statement, condemning the bias of the majority report of the Joint Congressional Committee investigation. — cover-up, accountability, investigation, political bias

No, we can't do that. We are a democracy and a peaceful people. But we have a good record.

Roosevelt's response to Hopkins on the night of December 6, 1941, after Hopkins suggested it was too bad they could not strike first, as testified by Commander Schulz. — Roosevelt, democracy, war, Pearl Harbor eve

Gentlemen, this goes to the grave with us.

Marshall's alleged instruction to half a dozen officers shortly after Pearl Harbor, ordering a lid put on the affair, as reported by an unnamed officer who attended the meeting. — cover-up, military secrecy, accountability, Marshall

It is the oldest trick in the book, to try to put the chief witness for the prosecution on the defensive or to try to make the victim responsible for his own murder.

Safford's written observation about Representative Murphy's aggressive cross-examination tactic of blaming Safford for being in pajamas on the morning of December 7. — cross-examination, blame-shifting, investigation tactics, justice

A more disgraceful spectacle has never been presented to this country during my lifetime than the failure of the civilian officials of the Government to show any willingness to take their share of responsibility for the Japanese success at Pearl Harbor.

Admiral J. O. Richardson, Kimmel's predecessor as Pacific Fleet commander, condemning the government's refusal to accept blame. — accountability, leadership, scapegoating, institutional failure

The greater tragedy is that the war with Japan was one that need never have been fought.

Toland's concluding assessment, placing Pearl Harbor within the larger tragedy of a Pacific war he considers avoidable. — war, tragedy, diplomacy, historical judgment

Why, this is wicked! This is wicked.

Roosevelt's reaction upon reading the Army Pearl Harbor Board's conclusions criticizing Marshall, before ordering the findings suppressed and sealed. — cover-up, Roosevelt, Marshall, investigation

I was standing almost alone at that time.

Safford's explanation for why he could not name who would make trouble for him if he told the truth, during Murphy's relentless cross-examination at the congressional hearings. — whistleblowing, isolation, courage, institutional pressure

That son of a bitch has now killed my son!

Kimmel's private reaction upon learning his son Manning's submarine had been lost in the Philippines, referring to Roosevelt, whom he held responsible for the war. — personal cost, war, grief, responsibility

Poor George Marshall, he will be the only high ranking officer who will never be able to write his own memoirs.

General Short's observation to his son after the congressional Pearl Harbor hearings, reflecting on how Marshall's lies about Pearl Harbor would prevent him from ever writing candidly about his wartime service. — cover-up, Marshall, historical truth, conscience