Description:

First published in 1947, Pearl Harbor: The Story of the Secret War is widely regarded as the first Revisionist book about the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the complex history which preceded and followed it. Although it drew both criticism and praise on its initial release, this book covers many aspects of that war, its antecedents and its consequences, and ranks among the best of the numerous volumes published on the subject. “Those who object to historical skepticism may complain that my book is no contribution to the political canonization of its central figure. That is no concern of mine. As to the purpose my book is intended to serve, some observations from the minority report of the Joint Congressional Committee which investigated the Pearl Harbor attack are pertinent: ‘In the future the people and their Congress must know how close American diplomacy is moving to war so that they may check in advance if imprudent and support its position if sound ... How to avoid war and how to turn war -- if it finally comes -- to serve the cause of human progress is the challenge to diplomacy today as yesterday.’“—George Morgenstern

Review

George Morgenstern's Pearl Harbor: The Story of the Secret War (1947) is one of the earliest and most forceful revisionist accounts of the Pearl Harbor disaster. A Chicago Tribune editorial writer, Morgenstern drew primarily upon the records of the Joint Congressional Committee investigation of 1945-46 to construct a detailed indictment of the Roosevelt administration's role in the events leading to December 7, 1941. The book was published barely a year after those hearings concluded, and it bears all the marks of an author writing with urgency and conviction.

The book's great strength lies in its meticulous assembly of the documentary record. Morgenstern walks through the chain of events with prosecutorial precision: the decision to base the fleet at Pearl Harbor over the objections of Admiral Richardson; the secret ABC staff agreements committing the United States to fight alongside Britain and the Netherlands without congressional approval; the progressive economic sanctions that, as even Admiral Stark admitted, would drive Japan to "go down and take" the oil it needed; the interception and decoding of Japanese diplomatic messages ("Magic") revealing Tokyo's war preparations in exacting detail; and the failure to transmit this vital intelligence to the Hawaiian commanders.

The chapters documenting the treatment of Admiral Kimmel and General Short are particularly compelling. Morgenstern shows how Roosevelt and Knox decided to make them scapegoats before any investigation had even begun, how the Roberts Commission conducted proceedings that denied the commanders basic procedural protections, and how subsequent Army and Navy investigations that pointed blame toward Washington were suppressed or undermined through irregular inquiries like Major Clausen's globe-trotting mission to persuade witnesses to alter their testimony. The testimony of the commanders themselves, quoted extensively, constitutes a powerful record of men who were denied the intelligence they needed and then blamed for failing to act on information they never received.

The book is also effective in documenting Roosevelt's increasingly belligerent posture in the Atlantic throughout 1941 — the convoy escorts, the shoot-on-sight orders, the plans to seize the Azores — and the administration's use of the Tripartite Pact as a "back door to war," provoking Japan as a means of entering the European conflict. Morgenstern draws on Admiral Stark's candid admission that "whether the country knows it or not, we are at war," and Secretary Stimson's diary entry recording Roosevelt's question of "how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves."

Where the book falters is in its relentless adversarial posture. Morgenstern presents almost every decision by the Roosevelt administration in the worst possible light while extending considerable charity to the Japanese moderates and the Hawaiian commanders. The genuine threat posed by the Axis powers, the legitimate strategic calculations behind lend-lease and Atlantic convoy operations, and the real constraints facing policymakers receive short shrift. The book implicitly treats Japanese aggression in China as a peripheral concern and frames American opposition to it largely as meddling in the affairs of foreign empires — a position that may have had some currency in noninterventionist circles of 1947 but that flattens the moral complexity of the situation.

Morgenstern is also more certain of conspiracy than the evidence warrants. While Washington's failure to share Magic intelligence with Hawaii was inexcusable, and the scapegoating of Kimmel and Short was manifestly unjust, the leap from institutional dysfunction and political self-protection to a deliberate plot to allow the attack to succeed is not fully supported. The administration wanted an incident, as Stimson's diary makes clear, but the evidence suggests they expected a minor clash in Southeast Asia, not the crippling of the Pacific fleet.

Nevertheless, the book remains an essential document in the Pearl Harbor historiographic debate. Many of its core contentions — that Washington bore far greater responsibility than initially acknowledged, that the Hawaiian commanders were treated unjustly, that the Magic intelligence should have produced adequate warning — have been substantially vindicated by subsequent scholarship. The posthumous restoration of Kimmel and Short's reputations, and the long campaign for their exoneration, owes much to the factual foundation laid in works like this one.

As a primary source for understanding the early revisionist response to Pearl Harbor, and as a carefully documented compendium of congressional testimony and declassified intelligence, Morgenstern's book retains real value. Readers should approach it as an advocate's brief rather than a dispassionate history, but it is a brief built on substantial evidence that demands engagement.

Reviewed 2026-03-26

Notable Quotes

Pearl Harbor was the terminal result of a complex of events moving in many parallel courses. National ambition and international intrigue, diplomacy, espionage, politics, personalities, and the personal responses of men to crisis-all of these were of equal or greater importance than purely military considerations.

Morgenstern's foreword, framing the scope of the book beyond purely military analysis — war origins, systemic failure, complexity

The administration has done its utmost to discourage examination of the acts and intentions of the men who were in the vanguard of the march toward war. It has suppressed relevant documents and permitted important papers to 'disappear' or be destroyed.

Foreword, on the Roosevelt administration's efforts to control the Pearl Harbor narrative — government secrecy, suppression of evidence, accountability

Long before December 7 the United States was in fact at war. That decision had come at the policy-making level of the government and of the Army and Navy high command, and it had been put into execution without anybody asking a vote from Congress or bothering to let the people in on the secret.

Opening chapter, on the undeclared war in the Atlantic before Pearl Harbor — executive power, constitutional crisis, democratic accountability

I said, 'Mr. President, I still do not believe it and I know that our fleet is disadvantageously disposed for preparing for or initiating war operations.'

Admiral Richardson confronting Roosevelt over basing the fleet at Pearl Harbor, October 1940 — military dissent, civilian-military relations, fleet vulnerability

The President said in effect, 'Despite what you believe, I know that the presence of the fleet in the Hawaiian area has had and is now having a restraining influence on the actions of Japan.'

Roosevelt overruling Richardson's professional military judgment on fleet disposition — presidential power, deterrence theory, strategic miscalculation

He told me, 'The last time you were here you hurt the President's feelings.'

Secretary Knox explaining to Admiral Richardson why he was relieved of command after opposing Roosevelt's fleet policy — presidential authority, military dissent, consequences of candor

Whether the country knows it or not, we are at war.

Admiral Stark writing to Admiral Kimmel on November 7, 1941, about the undeclared Atlantic war — undeclared war, executive war-making, constitutional violation

I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.

Roosevelt's campaign pledge at Boston, October 30, 1940, contrasted with his private war preparations — political deception, campaign promises, democratic trust

The question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.

Secretary Stimson's diary entry for November 25, 1941, recording Roosevelt's remarks at the war cabinet meeting — war provocation, executive decision-making, casus belli

When I read the findings of the Roberts Commission, I was dumbfounded. To be accused of dereliction of duty after almost 40 years of loyal and competent service was beyond my comprehension.

General Short's testimony before the Joint Congressional Committee on being scapegoated — injustice, scapegoating, institutional betrayal

I do not feel that I have been treated fairly or with justice by the War Department. I was singled out as an example, as the scapegoat for the disaster.

General Short's statement to the congressional committee on Washington's treatment of him — accountability, scapegoating, moral injury

I surely was entitled to know of the hour fixed by Japan for the probable outbreak of war against the United States. I cannot understand now-I have never understood-I may never understand-why I was deprived of the information available in the Navy Department in Washington on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Admiral Kimmel's testimony about being denied the Magic intelligence that could have saved the fleet — intelligence failure, command responsibility, institutional failure

There was entirely too much secrecy before Pearl Harbor in all branches of government connected with national defense. I can see no reason for breaking ciphers in Washington unless some use is going to be made of the contents.

Admiral Smith, Kimmel's chief of staff, on the absurdity of decoding intelligence and not acting on it — intelligence failure, bureaucratic dysfunction, secrecy

Had a full war message, unadulterated, been dispatched or had direct orders for a full, all-out alert been sent, Hawaii could have been ready to have met the attack with what it had.

The Army Pearl Harbor Board's assessment of the confused 'do-don't' warnings sent to Hawaii — communication failure, command responsibility, preventable disaster

The Japanese knew everything. The War and Navy departments transmitted to Short only so much of what they knew as they judged necessary.

Army Board observation on the asymmetry of information between Japan and the Hawaiian commanders — intelligence failure, information asymmetry, institutional dysfunction

I felt that if the chief of staff wanted an all-out alert in Hawaii, he would have ordered it himself and not expected me to make the decision, knowing as he did how relatively limited was my information as compared to that available to him.

General Short on why Washington should have issued direct orders rather than vague warnings — command responsibility, chain of command, intelligence sharing

America provoked Japan to such an extent that the Japanese were forced to attack Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty on history ever to say that America was forced into war.

Captain Oliver Lyttelton, British production minister, speaking in London in June 1944 — war provocation, Allied perspective, historical truth

This is what I have dreamed of, aimed at, and worked for, and now it has come to pass.

Churchill in Commons, February 15, 1942, on American entry into the war — Anglo-American alliance, war aims, British strategy

When the news first came that Japan had attacked us my first feeling was of relief that the indecision was over and that a crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people.

Secretary Stimson's diary entry on learning of the Pearl Harbor attack — war psychology, political calculation, moral reckoning

If Japan hesitates at this time, and Germany goes ahead and establishes her European new order, all the military might of Britain and the United States will be concentrated against Japan.

Ribbentrop urging Japan toward war on November 29, 1941, in a decoded intercept available to Washington — Axis diplomacy, intelligence, geopolitics

Our ultimatum put Japan in a box. She had to knuckle under or else fight us.

Dr. E. Stanley Jones, missionary and mediator, on the effect of Hull's November 26 demands — diplomacy, ultimatum, war inevitability

Even if they had not sunk a ship, the Japs might have crippled the base and destroyed all the fleet's fuel supplies, which were in the open. The result might have been worse than it actually was, because this would have forced the fleet to return to the West Coast.

Admiral Kimmel on the Japanese strategic error of targeting battleships instead of fuel and infrastructure — military strategy, Japanese errors, Pearl Harbor aftermath

It has been said, and it is a popular belief, that Hawaii is the strongest outlying naval base in the world and could, therefore, withstand indefinitely attacks and attempted invasions. Plans based on such convictions are inherently weak and tend to create a false sense of security.

The Martin-Bellinger report of April 1941, which prophetically predicted the form of the Japanese attack — complacency, military planning, false security

The high civilian and military officials in Washington who had skillfully maneuvered Kimmel and Short into the position of exclusive blame knew at the time all the hidden facts about Pearl Harbor, at least as much and probably more than this investigation has been able to uncover.

Representative Keefe's additional views appended to the majority report of the Joint Congressional Committee — cover-up, institutional dishonesty, accountability