It would be reassuring to believe that Pearl Harbor was just a colossal and extraordinary blunder. What is disquieting is that it was a supremely ordinary blunder. It was a dramatic failure of a remarkably well-informed government to call the next enemy move in a cold war crisis. The results, at Pearl Harbor, were sudden, concentrated, and dramatic. The failure, however, was cumulative, widespread, and rather drearily familiar. This why surprise, when it happens to a government, cannot be described just in terms of ...
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It would be reassuring to believe that Pearl Harbor was just a colossal and extraordinary blunder. What is disquieting is that it was a supremely ordinary blunder. It was a dramatic failure of a remarkably well-informed government to call the next enemy move in a cold war crisis. The results, at Pearl Harbor, were sudden, concentrated, and dramatic. The failure, however, was cumulative, widespread, and rather drearily familiar. This why surprise, when it happens to a government, cannot be described just in terms of startled people. Whether at Pearl Harbor or at the Berlin Wall, surprise is everything involved in a government's (or in an alliance's) failure to anticipate effectively. Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision is a unique physiology of a great national failure to anticipate. Wohlstetter is at pains to show how easy it was to slip into the rut in which the Japanese found us, it can only remind u how likely it is that we are in the same kind of rut right now. The danger is not that we shall read the signals and indicators with too little skill; the danger is in a poverty of expectations-a routine obsessing with a few dangers that may be familiar rather than likely. Alliance diplomacy, interservice bargaining, appropriations hearings, and public discussion all seem to need to focus on a few vivid and oversimplified dangers. The planner should think in subtler and more variegated terms and all for a wider range of contingencies. But, as Wohlstetter shows, the "planners" who count are also responsible for alliance diplomacy, interservice bargaining, appropriations hearings, and public discussion; they are also very busy. This is a genuine dilemma of government. Some of its consequences are mercilessly displayed in this book.
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Add this copy of Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision to cart. $198.50, very good condition, Sold by Kisselburg Military Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Potomac, MD, UNITED STATES, published 1968 by Stanford U..
Add this copy of Pearl Harbor; Warning and Decision to cart. $65.00, good condition, Sold by Ground Zero Books, Ltd. rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Silver Spring, MD, UNITED STATES, published 1965 by Stanford University Press.
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Good. 25 cm. xvi, [4], 426, [2] pages. Name in ink, obscured, on half-title page. Cover has some wear and soiling. Some edge soiling. Foreword by Thomas C. Schelling Note on Rank. Maps and Charts. Footnotes. Appendix, Abbreviations and Special Names. Bibliography. Index. Was the Pearl Harbor disaster a result of criminal negligence in the Pacific theater? It seems unlikely that a country could have so many warnings pointing to the danger, and yet be so unprepared for the event itself. American intelligence could read top-secret Japanese codes and the U.S. was therefore in a position to transmit vital information to American commanders throughout the world. As this carefully documented book shows, the outlines of danger look sharp today because the disaster has occurred, and an entirely different image emerges upon reconstructing in detail the intelligence picture as it looked to the participants before the event. In 1941 the pieces of the puzzle were dispersed in a number of government agencies. Some were lost in the noise of signals pointing in other directions, some were slowed by bureaucracy; and some were silenced by security requirements. No one had a complete picture. Roberta Mary Morgan, better known by her married name of Roberta Wohlstetter (August 22, 1912-January 6, 2007), was one of America's most important historians of military intelligence. Her most influential work is Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision. Donald Rumsfeld, is said to have required that his aides read it. Wohlstetter worked for the RAND Corporation from 1948 to 1965 and consulted with them through 2002. For decades the controversy has raged: Was the Pearl Harbor disaster a result of criminal negligence by military officers in the Pacific theater? Was it, as some have claimed, a deliberate plot by the President in Washington? It seems unlikely that a country could have so many warnings pointing to the danger, and yet be so unprepared for the event itself. American intelligence could read top-secret Japanese codes and the U.S. was therefore in a position to transmit vital information to American commanders throughout the world. Most of the time Washington was able to predict both Japan's diplomatic moves and its military deployments. But, as this carefully documented book shows, the outlines of danger look sharp today because the disaster has occurred, and an entirely different image emerges upon reconstructing in detail the intelligence picture as it looked to the participants before the event. In 1941 the pieces of the puzzle were dispersed in a number of government agencies. Some were lost in the noise of signals pointing in other directions toward a Japanese advance southward or into Siberia; some were slowed by the normal barriers of bureaucracy; and some were silenced by security requirements. At the center of the decision no one had completed the puzzle. Above all, this book reminds us sharply that detecting a surprise attack will be more difficult in the era of the H-bomb. As the Foreword states: "The danger is not that we shall read the signals and indicators with too little skill; the danger is in a poverty of expectations a routine obsession with a few dangers that may be familiar rather than likely."
Add this copy of Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision-Wohlstetter, Roberta to cart. $13.48, fair condition, Sold by Big Star Books & Music rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from santa Fe, NM, UNITED STATES, published 1962 by Stanford University Press.
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Fair. Size: 6x1x9; First edition. Hardcover, no jacket. A library discard. Binding broken. Text unmarked, though: a fine reading copy. Heavy exterior wear, staining. Photos available. We ship daily. Expedited shipping available!
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A great work of a great scholar.
This book of Roberta Wohlstteter digs in the events that drive to the Pearl Harbor fiasco of December 7, 1941.
It analizes carefully the informations that American intelligence agencies bring to the top U.S. military chiefs during 1941 and the warnings send to the top military at Hawai and Philippines in the last months an the last days before December 7.
Very interesting to military intelligence and military strategy scholars, and enthusiasts of these themes too.
A great reserach work.
