My Favorite Book

The Imperial Cruise By James Bradley In my last two years in high school we had weekly class for an hour in current events and I was able to follow Hitler in every step he took in Europe. Added to this was the fact that as a family, at supper time my folks discussed the news in newspapers. We also listened to Lowell Thomas, the news commentator. Yet, throughout all of these events I seldom heard anything that was happening in the Pacific area. I had no knowledge as to why Japan made this sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, which killed and wounded over 3600 of us. Only six years ago I read a book entitled The Imperial Cruise by James Bradley, whose marine father was one of the men pictured raising the flag on Iwo Jima. Finally, finally, I got a full isight as to why we were attacked at Pearl Harbor. Historically, the Japanese were war mongers. They had a war with Russia, then fought the Koreans and invaded China. Teddy Roosevelt detested yellow skin and looked upon all Asians as uncivilized, just as he viewed the American Indians. He felt very strongly that we should rule the Asian nations on the Pacific Rim. He went about this in arranging the Imperial Cruise to the following places: Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, China and Korea. During this trip, Taft, on Roosevelt’s behalf, would negotiate a series of secret — and wholly unconstitutional — agreements that would lay the groundwork for America’s Pacific engagement. These invisible treaties would lead to World War II in the Pacific, the triumph of communism in China, the Korean War, and, within decades, tens of millions dead. The full details and implications of Roosevelt’s illicit pacts would remain largely unknown until his own death, and then be effectively erased from the textbooks. A century later, James Bradley traveled in the wake of Roosevelt’s Imperial Cruise, finally rediscovering what had actually transpired in Honolulu, Tokyo, Manila, Beijing, and Seoul. It is a shocking story.