It alleges that Franklin Roosevelt and his administration deliberately provoked and allowed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to bring the United States into World War II.

[2] Stinnett's starting point is a memorandum written by Lieutenant Commander Arthur H. McCollum in October 1940, which was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

McCollum, then head of the Far East desk of the Office of Naval Intelligence,[3] discussed the strategic situation in the Pacific and ended with a list of eight actions directed at the Japanese threat.

Stinnett characterizes the actions as "provocations" and states his belief in McCollum's point F ("Keep the main strength of the U.S. fleet now in the Pacific in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands") was intended to lure the Japanese into attacking it.

Stinnett asserts that the overall intent was to provoke an act of war that would allow Roosevelt to enter into active conflict with Germany in support of the United Kingdom.

There is an offhand remark that an overt Japanese act of war would make it easier to garner public support for actions against Japan, but the document's intent was not to ensure that event happened.

Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association website addresses the intelligence issues in greater detail and disputes claims that the fleet was detected through direction finding; the author also criticizes Stinnett's use of testimony from Robert Ogg,[8] originally identified as "Seaman Z" by John Toland in his 1986 book.

[11] Stinnett's claims of "intercepts" are contradicted by Japanese testimony, which unequivocally state there were none, and even transmitter keys were removed from radios of ships in the task force.

Stinnett also mistakenly believed that provoking Japan into an act of war against another nation would trigger the mutual assistance provision of the Axis Tripartite Pact.