Martin and Percy Greaves in the 1960s and 1970s and more recently John Toland and Robert B. Prominent figures in the revisionist camp include: Charles Beard, Harry Elmer Barnes, George Morgenstern and Charles C. Revisionism began before the end of World War II and reflected the views of the non-interventionists who had opposed American entry into the war. These revisionists see the effort as part of Roosevelt’s effort to bring the United States into war with Germany-the so-called “back-door-to-war” thesis. Finally, some revisionists go so far as to claim that Roosevelt had foreknowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor but refused to alert the military commanders in order to have a casus belli to galvanize the American people for war. And instead of seeing the United States simply reacting to Japanese aggression, as the orthodox version would have it, the revisionists see the United States goading the Japanese-by aiding China (with whom Japan was at war), military expansion, quasi-secret alliances, and economic warfare-to take belligerent actions. Revisionists argue that, instead of following an aggressive plan of conquest, Japanese moves were fundamentally defensive efforts to protect vital Japanese interests. There was nothing the United States could do to avert war short of sacrificing vital security interests and the essence of international morality.Ī small group of revisionist investigators have disputed this orthodox interpretation at almost every turn. Dillon, Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1986), p. Dillon put it: “nothing in the available evidence… indicates that they ever planned to move one inch out of their appointed path, whatever the United States did about it.” Gordon Prange with Donald M. A basic assumption of the mainstream position is that given the Japanese bent to conquest, war with the United States was inevitable. To the extent that any Americans were responsible for the debacle at Pearl Harbor, establishment historians, echoing the Roosevelt administration, blamed the military commanders in Hawaii for being unprepared. Although the Roosevelt administration had been aware of Japanese aggressive goals, the attack on Pearl Harbor caught it completely by surprise. Since American territory stood in the way of Japanese territorial designs, the Japanese launched their sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan’s imperialistic quest was clearly immoral and severely threatened vital American interests, requiring American opposition. According to this view, the cause of the war stemmed from the malign effort by Japan, run by aggressive militarists, to conquer the Far East and the Western Pacific, which was part of the overall Axis goal of global conquest. And a fundamental part of the “good war” thesis has to do with the entrance of the United States into the war as a result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The prevalent view of World War II is that of the “good war”-a Manichaean conflict between good and evil.
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