Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely Essential to the WW2 Historian
Review: With all the activist Japanese-American reparations demagoguery that has been thrust on the American people in the last 15 years, this book is a courageous and refreshing accomplishment written by a man who was a part of the history.National Security Agency Executive Daniel Lowman was given the responsibility by the United States Government to sort and declassify the "MAGIC" intercepts that revealed widespread espionage among the Japanese-American West Coast population before Pearl Harbor. It should be noted ethnic Japanese residing in every country had been engaged in the same type of total espionage as early as the Russo-Japanese War. Lowman provides a book, two-thirds of which is declassified intelligence material - information that was conveniently ignored by the Commission on Wartime Internment and Relocation of Civilians. The CWIRC, a politically motivated congressional commission, unfortunately bamboozled the United States Government into accepting its report (legal brief). This in turn provided for millions of taxpayers dollars to be provided annually to support the commission's flawed and one-sided study. It's a perfect example of why the government has no place writing the history of the United States - but at least you now know where all the money is coming from that keeps the "poor Japanese-Americans as victims" stories in the papers, libraries, schools..etc. Lowman brings the whole sordid business to the surface. If you're old enough to have been there, you'll be glad someone is finally standing up for truth. If you're young and have been indoctrinated with the reparations version of "poor Japanese-Americans/racist U.S. Government", you're in for a big surprise....
Rating:
Summary: This is a phenominal book!
Review: You'll find my response to the lack of credibility given to John and Aiko Hersig, below. I'll provide a few comments on Curtis Munson however, as he is an excellent example of a nobody who has been made out to be a "somebody" by the reparations movement. Munson was the friend of a congressman in Washington D.C. Roosevelt never had a "personal intelligence apparatus" and to say so is nonsense. Curtis Munson was an L.A. businessman who enjoyed playing intelligence agent before the war. He has absolutely no qualifications or credibility in intelligence. That the "Personal Justice Denied" Commission used that guy as the only source of intelligence over the Office of Naval Intelligence or MAGIC transcripts, doesn't say a lot for their credibility either. By the way, here's another famous quote from Munson that the Commission didn't print: "In the first place there are not so many people of Japanese descent in the U.S. that in an emergency they could not all be thrown into a concentration camp in 48 hours. Of course you might get a few Chinamen too because they all look alike. But the looks are a great aid to rounding them up and in keeping them away from sabotage and truoblesome pastimes." -Extract from a Munson report to Carter
October 22, 1941 That's real professionalism. After Pearl Harbor, Munson faded away never to be heard from again. Now a few comments on Wong's assertions, one-by-one..... "* Some information in MAGIC messages was also reported in newspapers such as the LOS ANGELES TIMES, so anyone could JUST read the newspapers and send the information back to the German or Japanese governments." Nonsense! MAGIC intelligence in its raw form was available to just ten men, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, Director of Naval Intelligence Admiral Theodore Wilkinson, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Harold Stark, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, Army Director of Military Intelligence General Sherman Miles, Chief of Army War Plans General Leonard T. Gerow, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. From here it was "sanitized" and provided to military intelligence agencies such as the ONI and MIS. "* Statement before CWRIC by former government officials, who in 1942 were responsible for creating and implementing the Japanese-American exclusion and incarceration program, indicate that the MAGIC intercepts did NOT play a role in the government's decision to take the drastic action that it did against this minority group." They were never given the chance. John J. McCloy, the Assistant Secretary of War in 1942, who monitored the evacuation and relocation, said the proceedings were "a horrendous affront to our tradition for fair and objective hearings .... Whenever I sought in the slightest degree to justify the action ... ordered by President Roosevelt, my testimony was met with hisses and boos such as I have never, over an experience extending back to World War I, been heretofore subjected to. Others had similar experiences ... it became clear from the outset of my testimony that the Commission was not at all disposed to conduct an objective investigation." The officer in charge of the evacuation, Karl R. Bendesten, was subjected to similar treatment and simply stopped in the middle of his testimony. "I knew it would be fruitless," said Bendesten. "Every commissioner had made up his mind before he was appointed." "* Testimony by representatives of the Department of Army, Navy, State, and Justice shows that there was NO evidence of espionage, sabotage, sedition, fifth column activities, other subversive acts on the part of Japanese Americans, and that NO such information appeared in MAGIC intercepts, in finished intelligence or counterintelligence reports." See above. They were not given the opportunity to testify and if the commission had been liegitmate, they would have discovered the information in the course of their "research". "* Mr. Lowman claims the FBI Director Edgar Hoover was NEVER informed about the MAGIC evidence even though President Roosevelt in 1939 AUTHORIZED the FBI with the responsibility of investigating espionage and sabotage by U.S. civilians. Was there a good reason for the FBI Director to be NOT informed about MAGIC?" Lowman never said this. Hoover received "sanatized" reports that originated with MAGIC. "* It is true that between February-May 1942 the FBI raided homes and businesses of Japanese-Americans and found guns, ammunition, dynamite, cameras, etc." The Los Angeles Field Division arrested 17 enemy-aliens in the Palos Verdes Hills. Seized contraband included: seven radio sets capable of receiving short-wave, one radio oscillator, four boxes of assorted radio equipment, two cameras, twenty-three flashlights, four large searchlights, three telegraphers' keys, one small radio transmitting set, one microphone, one .38 caliber revolver, fifty cartridges, one .22 caliber rifle, four blasting caps, three pounds of black powder, three feet of fuse, and two reels of 8 millimeter film containing photographs of battleships and fortifications. "However it is NOT mentioned that Francis Biddle, U.S. Attorney General during World War II, states in his autobiography In Brief Authority (pages 215-221) that he sent a memorandum, May 1942, about the FBI raids to President Roosevelt: "We have not uncovered through these searches any dangerous persons that we could not otherwise have known about.. We have not found among all the sticks of dynamite and gunpowder any evidence that any of it was to be used in a manner helpful to our enemies. We have not found a camera which we have reason to believe was for use in espionage."" Wrong! See above.... "They also served in the Pacific front as translators, reconnaissance, etc. and General Charles Willoughby, chief of intelligence in the Pacific, estimated that Japanese-American intelligence work help shorten the Pacific war by 2 years." Nonsense! Willoughby was talking about all those who aided in intelligence including the codebreakers of "Ultra" and "MAGIC". He was not talking about just Japanese-American translators in the field.... "So if the MAGIC information is suppose to show that Japanese-Americans were involved with espionage, then why were they allowed to join the U.S. Armed Forces?" It was never a matter of ALL Japanese-Americans, just a number to cause great concern to the security of the country. As Lt. Ringle stated 75% of Japanese-Amerians to be loyal. That's 25% who are disloyal. Of Japanese-American males of fighting age only 4% enlisted.
| 
