John Costello, a Britishnwriter, has written a new historynof the war that avoids both of thenideological traps sprung bynMessrs. Toland and Bergamini.nUnfortunately, it falls into somenothers. Though Costello suppliesnsome new information andngives the reader a fairly soundnoverview of the war, he is regrettablynclumsy and careless in hisntreatment of many small details.nThere are almost endless mistakesnin numbers and descriptionsnof military equipment andnunits. For example, the Japanesendid not think it would take anhundred divisions to conquernAustralia; they thought it wouldntake ten or twelve. Military unitsnare mislabeled: the 39th AustraliannBattalion in New Guineanand the U.S. Army’s I6lst Regimentnon Guadalcanal are bothncalled “divisions.” “PistolnPete,” which tormented thenAmericans on Guadalcanal, wasna conventional artillery piece,nnot a “mortar.” Contrary tonCostello’s implication, our mainnfleet did covet MacArthur’snlanding at HoUandia. AndnAmerican P-40 fighters couldnnot have escorted MacArthur’snbombers to Taiwan in 1941.nThere ate also questionable ornmistaken interpretations. Thenmost significant Japanese loss innthe Coral Sea batde was not thensinking of one light carrier, butnthe fact that damaged andndowned aircraft kept two bigncarriers out of the Midway batde.nIt is rather doubtful whethernAdmiral Yamamoto’s death wasna great blow to Japan, thoughnmany other writers agree withnCostello that it was.nThe new information in Costello’snbook concerns the originsnof the war. Unfortunately, thisnaspect has been misunderstoodnin some quarters, and Costellonhimself has made rather exaggeratednclaims of its originality.nSome reviewers have misinterpretednCostello’s book as an effortnto revive the charges made inn44inChronicles of Culturenthe 1940’s and 1950’s that PresidentnRoosevelt deliberatelyn”provoked” the Pacific War,nand, knowing in advance of thenPearl Harbor attack, sacrificednthe Pacific Fleet as a pawn to getnus into the European war. ButnCostello explicidy disassociatesnhimself from this notion. Henargues instead that in Novembern1941 the Roosevelt administrationnwas more certain that warnwas coming than has beennthought, and that it probablyneven had access to elements ofnJapan’s war plan, which the Britishnallegedly obtained. However,nit did not know of the PearlnHarbor attack—which was ansuper-secret component of thenoverall plan, known only to anvery few insiders. Costello doesnsay, as have many others, thatnthere were clues to the Pearl Harbornattack, which, if properly assembledncould have tipped usnoff to the Japanese plan. Costellonstrongly suggests that thesenhints were more evident thannhas been previously realized,nand that responsible personsnlater concealed some of the cluesnto protect themselves againstnaiticism for not passing them onnto the naval command at PearlnHarbor.nDespite interesting revelations,nhowever, Costello’s interpretationsnare not always reliable,nand he sometimes exaggeratesntheir freshness. Contrarynto what Costello implies, it hasnlong been known that the Americansnwere bent on rapidlynbuilding a force of strategicnbombers in the Philippines tonhalt Japan’s drive to the southnand to bomb Japan eventually.nThis was certainly a key elementnof prewar strategy in the Pacific,nbut it is doubtful that it formednpart of any coherent Anglo-nAmerican “deterrent” strategynin the Pacific during 1941. Actuallynthere was no real Allied coordinationnor overall plan in thenPacific, despite years of staffntalks. Both Britain and the U.S.nmerely strengthened existingnbases in the futile hope that thisnwould be sufficient. The UnitednStates was unwilling to makenfurther concessions to Japan or tonabandon China, stands thatnwere allowed to overrule considerationsnof military strategy. It isnimprobable that the Americannabandonment of a modus Vivendinproposal on Novembern26, 1941, made war “inevitable.”nAs Herbert Fcis andnothers have pointed out, thenproposal fell short of the Japanesenleaders’ minimum aimsnand would probably have collapsednin a short time even if itnhad been accepted. Moreover,nthough a tough line in late 1941nmay have been ill-timed, it didnnot represent the culmination ofna quarter of a century of “uncompromisingnpolicy,” asnCostello characterizes our stancenin the Far East. Our policy in thenface of Japanese agression fromn1931 to 1940 was not tough andnuncompromising unless tonguecluckingncan be called tough. DnnnDeplorablenImbalancesnFrancis A. Schaeffer: A ChristiannManifesto; Crossway Books;nWestchester, Illinois.nby Allan C. CarlsonnFrancis A. Schaeffer, the conservativenEvangelical theologian,nhas seen the bloody face ofnour age. A gentle man, he recoilsnwith horror at the million-plusncorpses of unborn Americannbabies annually flushed away asna human sacrifice to “choice.” Anmoral man, he shudders at thenspectacle of a nation indulgingnin an orgy of self-gratification.nAn honorable man, he despairsnover the clever linguistic tricks ofnMartin E. Marty and other progressiventheologians who “brilliantlynconfuse” Christian truthnfor ideological ends. (“Whyndoes he do this?” Dr. Schaeffernasks with a childlike sense of betrayal.)nA patriotic man, he lamentsnthe disintegration of thenJudeo-Christian cultural consensusnon which this country wasnbuilt and its replacement in thenschools, media, “mainline”nchurches and couns by an antireligious,nmorally bankruptnworld view.nDr. Schaeffer variously labelsnthis alien Weltanschauung corruptingnthe American experimentnas “humanistic,” “liberal”nor “materialistic.” It isnbased, he insists, on the idean”that the final reality is impersonalnmatter or energy shapedninto its present form by impersonalnchance.” Because of thisnideology’s cultural victory, hencontinues, the “form-freedomnbalance” on which our demo-nDr. Carlson is editor o/PersuasionnAt Work.n