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Podcast: New Books in American Studies
Episode: Ronald Drabkin, "Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor" (William Morrow, 2024)
Description: Frederick RutlandââRutland of Jutlandââwas a war hero, renowned World War I aviatorâŚand a Japanese spy. In the years leading up to Pearl Harbor, Rutland shared information on U.S. aviation and naval developments to the Japanese, desperate for knowledge of U.S. capability.The funny thing was, as Ron Drabkin notes in his book Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor (William Morrow, 2024), that most people were pretty sure that the boisterous Rutland was spying for someone. But for a variety of reasonsâmisplaced priorities, bureaucratic infighting, embarrassment over a British na...