James Bradley's Investigative Skills Are On Display In His Latest Book "The Imperial Cruise"

Author James Bradley has a knack for revealing closely guarded information, as he did in 2003's Flyboys, which focused on events subsequent to the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. In his latest book, The Imperial Cruise, Bradley uncovered what he called "the original spark" that dragged the United States into the Pacific theater of war in the 1940s.

"I was shocked by what I found," said Bradley, whose father John was one of the men who raised a tattered U.S. flag at Iwo Jima.

In the summer of 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt dispatched the largest delegation in U.S. history to Asia, packing Congressmen, Senators, and administration officials onto a ship bound for Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, China, and Korea. What happened on that ship, Bradley said, "swept my father from the snowy hills of Northern Wisconsin out to a volcano on a tiny island off the coast of Japan."

On that cruise, Roosevelt secretly agreed to a treaty with the Japanese, in which he gave them Korea, and therefore greater influence on the Asian continent.

"The sneak attack of Pearl Harbor was not an invasion of the United States," said Bradley. "It was Japanese expansionism that was the problem."

Pearl Harbor, he insisted, was the second time Japan started a major war with a Western power; the first was when they hit the Russian Navy at Port Arthur, after which Bradley said Roosevelt wrote he was "thoroughly well pleased with the Japanese victory because the Japs are playing our game."

That "game" was Roosevelt's desire for America to expand into Asia. "But Congress wouldn't fund the troops," said Bradley. "So Roosevelt looked at the Japanese Army as a doorstop, as a placeholder for American power."

Bradley traveled around Asia researching this book, following the path of The Imperial Cruise. "I didn't set out with any preconceptions," he said, though he had his suspicions.

Of great interest to Bradley was that Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering peace between the Japanese and the Russians on this cruise, but that he was basically acting at the behest of the Japanese, to whom he had already promised Korea.

"They needed Korea, they wanted it, Roosevelt gave it to them," said Bradley.

Bradley believes this decision was "the match that lit the fuse on this dynamite" that became the war in the Pacific and Asia during World War II. Roosevelt kept this agreement with Japan a secret by being an "excellent" manager of public relations. "He was the first modern media president," said Bradley.

As with his first book Flags Of Our Fathers and later with Flyboys, Bradley was shocked that he uncovered information for The Imperial Cruise that was heretofore undisclosed. He's not sure if he'll be challenged on any of it, but he anticipates a lively discussion.

Said Bradley, "I'm looking forward to finding out why we did not know these incendiary events for a century."

-Julie Kanfer