SEATTLE/ Conservative Monitor -- Who was to blame for the bombing of Pearl Harbor? Did Roosevelt withhold information so that his commanders there were not prepared to defend themselves? Were the officers in charge there incompetent and to blame for an inadequate defense? What did the Chief of Naval Operations know? How about the Army Chief of Staff?

Questions swirl in a titanic controversy as large as the event itself, the largest naval defeat in American History. Michael Gannon takes the issues head-on in his new book "Pearl Harbor Betrayed". He presents a gripping story based on the documented evidence available. The book begins with an American perspective of the battle. A peaceful Sunday morning explodes as ships sink and planes are shot out of the sky. It is a familiar story to anyone who was alive at the time or anyone who has any knowledge of American history.

Yet this is not the whole story, nor even the most interesting part of the story. Gannon moves back in time and traces the actions of Admiral Kimmel and General Short, the Navy and Army commanders at Pearl Harbor. He tells the story of the intelligence coup of Americans breaking the Japanese diplomatic code. We find out what such noteworthies as Secretary Knox, CNO Admiral Stark did with the information. We are even told the Japanese side of the story from the Emperor and the admirals down to a pilots eye view of the damage as it occurred.

In the course of the book we are treated to much information that was secret or private at the time of the attack. The book, as the title suggests, specifically addresses the accusations leveled at Admiral Kimmel in the aftermath of December 7. The leaders in Washington closed ranks and attempted to lay blame for the complete surprise upon the Admiral. Ostensibly this was a political move; it was thought that the American People needed to remain confident in Washington. So the commanders at Pearl had to be depicted as incompetent boobs.

There are some historians who have accused Roosevelt of knowing that the attack would be made, but did not inform his commanders because he wanted to enter the war. There is no hard evidence to support this assumption. However, there is plenty of evidence to support incompetence of the military staff in Washington. Roosevelt may have been a pompous, arrogant aristocrat who thought he knew how to run other people's lives better than they could run their own, but he was not a man to idly sacrifice the lives of his countrymen as well as a powerful military force. For, surely, even had the commanders at Pearl Harbor been warned and the battle had been less of a surprise, the nation would still have thrown itself into the war with a will and what is more the President would have had a few more capital ships.

Besides treating the big issues, Mr. Gannon tells the stories of individual participants, for example he quotes the radarmen would saw the huge blips coming down their screen, but were unable to convince their superior to inform the appropriate authorities. He tells the little known story of the Japanese midget subs that almost forewarned the Americans. We see the attack from several poignant perspectives so that our view of events is very much three dimensional.

Mr. Gannon is a good narrative and analytical historian. He ushers in the salient facts and surrounds them with enough explanation to make them interesting. He purports to be unbiased in his telling of the story. In the end, he refrains from making conclusions, yet the evidence is presented in such a way that we can see he is an advocate of Admiral Kimmel. Yet, it would be difficult not to be. Kimmel was a very competent officer who did his best to prepare his ships and sailors for war. When it came, they responded as well as could have been expected considering the circumstances. He took the blame, though not willingly, for what happened so that the country could effectively prosecute the war.

"Pearl Harbor Betrayed" ends with a Japanese eye view of the attack. It is a fascinating perspective and, for anyone interested in the Pacific War, worth the price of the book. This is a new and refreshing history of the battle that precipitated America's entry into world war. It was truly a day that would live in infamy, it would also be a day of controversy, controversy that continues to rage today.