War hero, bon viveur, Japanese spy: Frederick Rutland wore many masks
It is early in the morning on the “day of infamy,” Sunday, December 7, 1941. Two hundred and fifty miles north of Hawaii, six Japanese aircraft carriers are preparing to launch more than 350 aircraft in a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. The fleet’s commander-in-chief, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, had told a reporter the day before that the Japanese would be “damned fools” to attack the United States, ignoring the warnings that war was imminent. Around 7:30 a.m., the lead Japanese pilot fires a single flare, giving the pilots the “final go” signal. “Within an hour... the US Pacific Fleet was in ruins.” The American public, writes espionage historian Ronald Drabkin in Beverly Hills Spy, quite rightly demanded: “Whose fault was it?
