Absolute threat.(In Defense of Internment: The Case for "Racial Profiling" in World War II and the War on Terror)(Book Review)

In Defense of Internment: The Case for "Racial Profiling" in World War II and the War on Terror By Michelle Malkin Regnery, 376 pages, $27.95

No, despite what the title of her new book might lead you to believe, Michelle Malkin does not want to round up Muslims and ship them off to fenced-in camps in the desert. She does want to infuse the debate over national security and civil rights with a much-needed dose of reality--always guaranteed to offend members of the Left. When it comes to World War II, In Defense of Internment means exactly what you think: Malkin defends the evacuation from the West Coast, and the relocation or internment, of tens of thousands of ethnic Japanese.

How could she possibly do so? By digging through mountains of primary documents at the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and research facilities in Seattle and Berkeley, and unearthing what few children are taught in school and what few adults know: complete history.

Much of In Defense is a straightforward narration of historical events. For many readers, including this reviewer, the book provides first-time insight into the towering scale and immediacy of the threat posed by the Japanese.

Meticulously, she presents the contents of intercepted top-secret Japanese diplomatic "MAGIC" cables, Japanese-language newspapers in the U.S., transcripts of interviews with Japanese spies, and U.S. government memos to reveal the success of the Japanese in building a spy network in the United States, and of their extensive monitoring of American ships, planes, soldiers, and facilities.

The evidence not only of widespread Issei (native Japanese living in the U.S.) but also Nisei (American-born ethnic Japanese) collaboration with the enemy is shocking, and the number of Japanese military successes based on such collusion, staggering. The Pearl Harbor bombing itself was facilitated by a Honolulu spy cell that "monitored ship movements, water currents, and available support systems.... [The cell] also provided Japan with detailed maps, copies of which were found in the cockpits of downed Japanese fighter planes following the attack."

The evidence is there for the viewing: Nearly half the book is a collection of appendices and notes containing copies of deciphered Japanese code messages, internal U.S. government correspondence, tables, and photos of key war figures and life in the camps ("neither luxury resorts nor barbaric prisons"). Part of a MAGIC cable from Los Angeles to Tokyo, dated May 9, 1941, reads: "We shall ... maintain close connections with the Japanese Association, the Chamber of Commerce, and the newspapers.... We have already established contacts with the absolutely reliable Japanese in the San Pedro and San Diego area ..." (There were 117,000 ethnic Japanese living on the West Coast, within close reach of 88 vital U.S. military installations.)