From the Foreword
to The Colonel and the Pacifist: Karl Bendetsen, Perry
Saito and the Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War
II
The result [of de Nevers’ research] is a gripping
and sometimes surprising story that links Saito and Bendetsen in
what was a national tragedy. Much of the book’s power comes
from the fact that it focuses on a few American lives. It
is particularly appropriate to reconsider this aspect of the Japanese
American experience at a time when another group of American ethnics,
the Muslim community with foreign roots, is under suspicion of disloyalty.
- – Roger Daniels,
- Charles Phelps Taft,
- Professor Emeritus of History
-
University of Cincinnati
KLANCY CLARK DE NEVERS’S
PORTRAIT of Karl R Bendetsen, “the U.S. Army colonel who was intimately
responsible for incarcerating some 110,000 Japanese Americans during
World War II” is a chilling tale of mendacity and crass ambition.
de Nevers’s insightful history of this dark story is a painful reminder
of how ignorance and war hysteria made it possible for one man to
trample on the Constitution of these United States. In the
post-9/11 era, this story should serve as a cautionary tale for
all Americans.
-
– Kai Bird
- Author
of The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy & William Bundy,
Brothers in Arms and The Chairman:
- John
J. McCloy & the Making of the American Establishment
{Top}
THE COLONEL AND
THE PACIFIST is a fascinating and engaging account of divergent
lives marked by a singular event–World War II–and their choices
exercised in shaping the course and writing of history. Highly
recommended.
- – Gary Y. Okihiro
- Professor of International
and Public Affairs, Director,
-
Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race,
- Columbia University
-
-
- Author of
The Columbia Guide to Asian American
History
{Top}
THIS BOOK IS
A SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION to American history and Japanese American
studies. . . [Its] importance lies in its subject matter: Bendetsen’s
life has not been the subject of scholarly investigation.
The stories of the Japanese Americans bring to life the very
real people who [bore] the brunt of the racism
[which was a] legacy of the history of Nikkei in the US as well
as the impact of Pearl Harbor. The fact that there were no
incidents of sabotage by the Japanese Americans is important, because
many people on the West Coast . . . still believe that many were
traitors. . . [The Colonel and the Pacifist] covers an important
period of American history, from the thirties and forties to the
present and it does so in a lively and provocative fashion.
-
– Sandra C. Taylor
- Author of
Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment
at Topaz and Vietnamese
Women at War
{Top}
THIS WORK MAKES
ONE REALIZE that even people who were not in highest positions of
power exerted considerable influence in the process – even when
they denied it. Ultimately, one of the author’s key concerns
is the question of taking responsibility as the first step to reconciliation.
-
– Wes Sasaki-Uemura
-
Professor of History,
University of Utah
-
-
{Top}
DE NEVERS HAS
DONE A REMARKABLE JOB of tying [the lives of Karl Bendetsen and
Perry Saito] together and presenting a picture as horrific as the
times they lived through. That Saito did so with grace and Bendetsen
with duplicity and denial speaks to their individual characters.
– BH, Inkslinger, King’s English
Bookshop
{
Top}
[DE
NEVERS is] a painstaking researcher and talented storyteller. [She]
pulls no punches, but anyone who accuses her of exercising politically
correct hindsight will have ignored the facts she has documented
so well. . . .
The Colonel and The Pacifist . . . . has special relevance
to the present in light of the ongoing debate over civil liberties,
domestic and foreign, in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks
and the war in Iraq.
The Colonel and The Pacifist
is a breakthrough in World War II scholarship — a tale of two star-crossed
lives rooted on the Harbor, told with the added advantage of someone
who grew up in Aberdeen during World War II.
- – John Hughes,
- Editor & Publisher,
The Daily World, Aberdeen,
WA
Click here
to read the Full review published the the Aberdeen Daily World
Klancy
Clark de Nevers has broken new ground by using new sources and new
perspectives to contrast the vastly different wartime experiences
of two men caught up in a truly national tragedy. . . . [the book
is an] astute, revealing, and valuable contribution to Japanese
relocation history.
- – Richard Melzer,
- University of New Mexico, Valencia
Campus,
- In The Journal of American History
{
Top}
The Colonel and the Pacifist is a valuable resource. . . . Karl
R. Bendetsen is fleshed out. . . . [regarding Perry Saito] the matter
becomes a little more personal since our paths crossed in Chicago.
[de Nevers] provides a rich background tapestry against which Karl
Robin Bendetsen and Perry Hitoshi Saito played out the dramas of
their lives.
- – Momoko Murakami,
- Kamai Forum,
- Los Angeles
{Top}
Paralleling
the lives of two men on opposing sides of one of the most perplexing
and complicated episodes in American history is an effective means
of reopening the debate over causes and casualties of Japanese internment.
De Nevers’s provocative and insightful book will aid in that process.
- – Erika Kuhlman,
- Idaho State University
- Pacific Northwest Quarterly
{Top}
A
dense volume, carefully researched and well-supported. . . . The
reader will be rewarded for his patience.
- – Dennis Lythgoe,
- Deseret News,
- Salt Lake City
{Top}
The
well-researched book . . . . deserves credit for its historical
details and findings that attract an academic audience while at
the same time providing touching human stories for general readers.
- – Masumi Izumi,
- Doshisha University,
- Kyoto, Japan
{Top}
To many
Japanese Americans . . . the name Bendetsen casts a dark shadow,
for it is this man who had so much to do with the incarceration
during World War II.... de Nevers’ fact-filled book is a great read,
one of value to anybody who is interested in the internment. Too
bad Japanese Americans fell into the clutches of men like General
John DeWitt and Karl Bendetsen.
- ––Chizu Omori,
- International Examiner,
{Top}
SEE ALSO a Klancy de Nevers's critique of In Defense of Internment,
a book by Michele Malkin, that is published on the web page of the
Japanese American Citizens League:
