Magic: The Untold Story of U. S. Intelligence & the Evacuation Of...

This work simultaneously makes an important contribution to the history of the WWII imprisonment of Japanese-Americans and highlights publishing's editing problems, especially for small presses. Lowman, who died in 1999, was a former National Security Agency officer involved in declassifying intelligence records, including sources from MAGIC, the decrypted Japanese diplomatic traffic. That material, much of it from late 1941 and early 1942 and reproduced here, describes systematic recruitment of Japanese residents, citizens and noncitizens into networks designed to provide information to Japan both before and after the outbreak of war. Without ascribing Executive Order 9066 for Japanese-American internment entirely to this information, Lowman makes a solid case that the intelligence community's faith in its credibility contributed significantly to the government's decision. But instead of directly rebutting charges that sheer racist hysteria contributed as well, Lowman digresses on one hand into a general history of the MAGIC decryptions, and on the other into a bitter critique of the 1988 decision to compensate the former prisoners. And too often Lowman's documents are left to speak for themselves, without a supporting analytical structure. Such problems were probably exacerbated by posthumous publication, but more disciplined editing might have produced a more persuasive line of argument. (Feb.) Forecast: Anyone interested in primary sources related to Japanese-American internment will find them more easily here than under the Freedom of Information Act, but low production values will keep this book out of many libraries.