Indeed there is NO mention about the close friendship of Hitler with Japan’s ambassador to Germany— one Hiroshi Oshima. He became a font of intel for the US through the Jap codebreaking.
This writer neglects to remember the fact that the Japanese signed a major agreement with the Soviet Union in April 1941— the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Act. But once Germany invaded the soviets in June 41, the Germans tried to get Japan to do the same. Japan said no, they would not.
So a lot of this “credit” to Harry Dexter White who WAS Stalin’s man in FDRs sphere (shown later at Yalta and Tehran meetings esp as regards the A bomb)comes from his former control agent- the Pavlov dude, who was obviously tooting his horn.
A far more cogent historical basis is through the famous soviet agent Richard Sorge in Japan. Sorge transmitted information toward the end of September 1941 that Japan was not going to attack the Soviet Union in the East. And THIS information resulted in the soviets transferring many divisions to the German front— though not a majority of them because the Jap Kwantung army in Manchuria was still at their borders.
This book is a nice read, but Dexter White did not accomplish getting us into the war for the Soviets— the issue was the oil fields in Dutch East Indies. We embargoed the Japs from oil from any source— and that is why they attacked us— that and the British not keeping us in the loop on a lot of things, so we’d be dragged yet again into their stupid empire crumbling. Like today, picking up pieces of their idiotic management (Afghanistan, Iraq etc.)
Actually, most of our more serious problems in those parts of the world arose during the reign of Alexander the Great, and things have been running downhill ever since!
The synopsis fails to acknowledge the strategic significance of the Japanese(Nipponese) empire at the end of Dec’41.
Pearl Harbor was only one of a seven pronged attack by the Japanese. It is arguable that their attacks on the British Empire, Dutch, and other colonials exceeded their attacks upon the US at Pearl Harbor.
Prior to WWII, the British ruled the seas and Japan seized control of over 1/2 of the Earth’s surface when she launched her offensive, which gave her an unopposed domain from India to the Western coast of the US.
There wasn’t any certainty that the US would succeed in defending our shores immediately after Pearl Harbor, which is partly why the American public became fully dedicated to Total War.